Source: Seattle Times
“Barred from appearing on Sunday’s ballot, former leftist president Evo Morales has launched a scrappy campaign for a presidential contender with no name, no face and no formal platform. The contender’s known as ‘Nulo’ — Spanish for the null-and-void vote. Nulo has a reliable base in Bolivia, where voting is compulsory. For many years, voters disillusioned with Morales’[s] increasingly high-handed attempts to prolong his presidency over three consecutive terms defaced their ballots or left them blank. But with the coca-farming union leader disqualified from the race and seeking to distance himself from the unpopular President Luis Arce and other leftists associated with Bolivia’s worst economic crisis in four decades, Morales has emerged as Nulo’s greatest champion.” (08/13/25)
https://archive.is/UJjIB
Source: Politico
“Buttigieg sets the record straight.” (08/14/25)
https://traffic.megaphone.fm/POLL1164688009.mp3?updated=1755146137
Source: Washington Monthly
by James D Zirin
“The classic definition of an invasion is the incursion of an armed force into a country, the paradigm example being the Allied landing at Normandy in 1944. Normally, it means an army arriving to conquer or plunder. By this definition, the entry of an immigrant into the United States — whether seeking asylum or even illegally [sic] seeking employment — could never reasonably be considered an invasion. Legal dictionaries, however, sometimes define ‘invasion’ more broadly as ‘the act or occurrence of entering a place or domain in an unauthorized manner.’ This might apply to a home invasion by a burglar or a computer hack, neither of which definitions require armed force. In the Orwellian world of Donald Trump, however, the lie ‘passes into history and becomes the truth.'” (08/14/25)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/14/have-we-been-invaded/
Source: Tenth Amendment Center
by Michael Boldin
“Rights are not gifts from government. They don’t come from documents – not a constitution, not even a bill of rights. You have rights because you exist. But government has never been a big fan of that view. The ruling class prefers a population that thinks liberty is a privilege to be granted and withdrawn. Far too many people today play along – talking about their rights like they’re favors written into law.” (08/13/25)
https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/08/13/not-a-gift-from-government-our-natural-rights-foundation/
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen
“I have documented how President Trump has been Big Tech’s greatest supporter abroad, shaking down other countries to remove taxes and regulations on U.S. technology firms. He has also delivered for the industry at home. A new report from Public Citizen looks at 142 federal investigations against tech corporations that were handed over to Trump from the Biden administration, for a host of securities, labor, consumer protection, anti-discrimination, and other violations. According to the analysis, 47 of the 142 investigations, nearly 1 in 3, have been either halted or withdrawn, including examinations of Activision, eBay, Hewlett Packard, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, Rocket Mortgage, SpaceX, Telsa, and more. While investigations do not connote definitive misconduct, the scale of the effort suggests alternative motivations, including the over $1 billion in political spending tech firms have made over the past two years.” (08/14/25)
https://prospect.org/power/2025-08-14-1-in-3-big-tech-enforcement-cases-dropped-by-trump-administration/
Source: KFOR 4 News
“A federal judge ordered the nation’s health department to stop giving deportation officials access to the personal information — including home addresses — of all 79 million Medicaid enrollees. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services first handed over the personal data on millions of Medicaid enrollees in a handful of states in June. After an Associated Press report identified the new policy, 20 states filed a lawsuit to stop its implementation. In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services entered into a new agreement that gave the Department of Homeland Security daily access to view the personal data — including Social Security numbers and home address — of all the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees. Neither agreement was announced publicly.” (08/14/25)
https://kfor.com/ap-politics/ap-judge-orders-rfk-jr-s-health-department-to-stop-sharing-medicaid-data-with-deportation-officials/
Source: US News & World Report
“Israeli forces demolished houses in eastern areas of Gaza City overnight, killing at least 11 people in aerial and tank fire, local health authorities said, as the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas told mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks. Residents and medics said eight people were killed when Israeli tank shelling hit a house in Zeitoun neighbourhood, while a man was killed in an airstrike on a building in the nearby Shejaia suburb. Two other people were killed in tank shelling in Tuffah, a third Gaza City suburb. Local health authorities said they had received desperate calls from families trapped in the Zeitoun area, including from people saying they were wounded, and that ambulance vehicles could not reach them.” (08/14/25)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-08-14/israeli-forces-step-up-gaza-city-bombardment-as-egypt-hosts-hamas
Source: Antiwar.com
“IDF Approves Plans for the ‘Conquest of Gaza,’ Germany To Buy US Weapons for Ukraine, and More.” (08/14/25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjn4VCTKHhg
Source: National Public Radio [US state media]
“Democrats lean on messages about Medicaid cuts.” (08/13/25)
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/13/nx-s1-5501163/democrats-lean-on-messages-about-medicaid-cuts
Source: The Hill
“The Trump administration’s religious and moral carve-outs to an ObamaCare requirement that all employer health plans cover contraception at no cost were blocked on Wednesday by a federal judge. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia issued a summary judgment that the rules were arbitrary, capricious and an overreach of the authority of the agencies that wrote them in 2017. Under the rules, essentially any for-profit or nonprofit employer or insurer was allowed to exempt themselves from following the birth control mandate on moral and religious grounds. The rules also let publicly traded companies obtain a religious exemption, but not a moral one.” (08/14/25)
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5452415-trump-contraception-exemption-blocked/