On the second night of the convention, which featured former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as the headliners, fact-based claims took a back seat to hopeful pronouncements about the future. We still found some political spin: Obama claimed that former President Donald Trump “wants the middle class to pay the price for another huge tax cut that would mostly help him and his rich friends.” But most of the tax cuts Trump has proposed would benefit taxpayers at all income levels...

For the first time in a long time, Democrats have a presidential nominee in Kamala Harris they are excited about. But they can’t quit Donald Trump. The party’s muscle memory and strategic imperative for bashing him are too strong. And so, in the opening days of the Democratic National Convention here, this celebration of Harris has turned into a bludgeoning of the former president. “Until we defeat Trumpism there’s nothing else that really, really matters,” Rep. Ro Khanna of...

]The last time the Democratic Party gathered for a convention at the United Center, Bill Clinton accepted the nomination in 1996 for his reelection bid.  Nearly 30 years later, the former president, 78, will take the stage in the same arena on Wednesday night to make the case for Vice President Kamala Harris.  Sources familiar with the speech— his 12th consecutive address to a Democratic convention — say it will be hopeful and aspirational, on the heels of...

“Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?” former first lady Michelle Obama said in her speech at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday. “A familiar feeling that’s been buried too deep for too long.” “You know what I’m talking about? It’s the contagious power of hope!” she said, adding: “America, hope is making a comeback.” The rhetoric harkened back to Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign in 2008 — when Democrats ran on hope and change. But when you...

Seizing on a Biden administration report issued Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lost track of tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, House Republicans tore into border czar Kamala Harris over the "humanitarian catastrophe" and said she "cannot be trusted to fix it." Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other GOP leaders quickly responded to Tuesday's report by the internal watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security that said in the past five...

Democratic turnout in Tuesday's Florida primary elections could represent a reality check for those hoping that Vice President Kamala Harris will achieve a surprise victory in the red-leaning state in November. Harris has been surging in the polls since entering the presidential race after President Joe Biden dropped out on July 21. Most recent national polls now show the vice president leading former President Donald Trump by a small but significant margin,...

The second night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago featured former president Barack Obama, former first lady Michelle Obama and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, among others, who made thematic speeches that required little fact-checking. Here’s a roundup of three claims that caught our attention, in the order in which they were made. As is our practice, we do not award Pinocchios for a roundup of statements made during convention events. “Under Project 2025, a family...

The tax credit for children has long had wide bipartisan support, reflecting its popularity with the public. There are multiple reasons for having some such government policy. We have long sought to exempt the basic cost of living from the income tax, and that cost rises with the number of children in a household. Our entitlement programs do not account for their financial dependence on parental investments in children. Many Americans also worry about our below-replacement birth rates, and...

The Russians and the Ukrainians seem to be fighting in two parallel dimensions: both contending armies claim military success in two different regions. While the Ukrainian incursion in the western Russian territory of Kursk seems to be steadily gaining ground, the Russians are close to achieving a goal of their own in the Donbas after they took the town of Niu-York and advance on a key transport junction of Pokrovsk. In the Kursk area, the Ukrainian forces are trying to seize Korenovo....

I enough to understand what is motivating Kamala Harris’s economic strategy. Poll after poll demonstrates that many Americans consider the cost of living to be their main concern heading into the election in November, and Ms Harris starts on the back foot, having served as vice-president during a time when inflation soared to a four-decade high. Rather than gloss over this ugly reality, she is trying to confront it. “Lower costs for American families” is the centrepiece of her economic agenda,...