July 16—The shameful spectacle of Democracy for Sale goes on: billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he will commit $45 million per month—for a total of $180 million through the election—to a pro-Trump super PAC. TSD advocates publicly funded political campaigns and the reigning in of large fortunes which exercise undue influence on the political process.

July 15—Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon has ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice did not have the authority to appoint a special prosecutor to pursue criminal charges against former president Donald Trump for retaining official U.S. documents and attempting to conceal them from federal authorities, ignoring a long history of such appointments. The Justice Department will appeal.

July 9—Britain's newly installed Labour government has wasted no time honoring one of its campaign pledges: the creation of a National Wealth Fund. Aiming to spur investment in key sectors and the transition to a green economy, the British government will put up one pound from the 7.3 billion pound fund for every pound of private investment in ports, green manufacturing (to include electric vehicles), clean steel, carbon capture and hydrogen production.

July 8—The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $1.7 billion in new grants under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act aimed at spurring the transition to electric vehicles. Auto-related manufacturers in eight states will receive funds to kickstart or expand operations, resulting in thousands of new union jobs.

July 8—French voters completed a second round of balloting over the weekend for a new French Parliament, after President Emmanuel Macron called new elections following his party's defeat in last month's balloting for European Union delegates. The hastily organized Popular National Front, an amalgam of Left parties, cooperated with Macron's Renaissance Party to form a "barrage" against Marine Le Pen's nationalist, Trump-like party, "National Union," abstaining from competing against one another in districts where Le Pen's group might win. The Left front party led in the voting, but without an absolute majority, promising a difficult path forward for President Macron to form a functioning government (Reuters article). Nonethless relief was general throughout not only France but among liberal democrats everywhere that Le Pen's group, which is philosophically opposed to the grand European Union project and has criticized support for Ukraine, was sidelined. Washington Post's Max Boot, in his column, wonders what lessons the French vote, along with Labour's stunning win last week in Britain, might hold for Democrats in the U.S.

July 8—Amid momentous elections in social democracy's European heartland, the forces of progress ticked off a minor win in Iran, where reformist Masoud Pezeshkian was elected to replace hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May. Though promising to ease Iran's draconian headscarf requirements, Pezeshkian is far from a paragon of democratic virtues, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the "Supreme Leader," will maintain ultimate control over matters of state.

July 8—The Republican National Committee for the first time in 40 years is omitting a call for a national abortion ban from its election-year platform, trimming its sails to fall in line with Party fuhrer Donald Trump's current line: leave it to the states.

July 5—Despite high interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation, the nation continues to expand employment opportunities, adding 206,000 new jobs in June.

July 5—For the first time since 2011 Britain's social democratic party, Labour, will manage the island nation's affairs after a landslide victory installing Keir Starmer, Labour's head, as prime minister (first Guardian article). With 412 seats in Britain's 650-seat parliament, Starmer and his Labour associates have an opportunity to stamp Britain with social democratic priorities for years to come. But a few caveats are in order. First, due to the fracturing of Right parties and Britain's first-past-the-post voting system, Labour's "landslide" win was achieved with only 34 percent of the vote. Labour will need to deliver real results to win over a larger share of the public, many of whom are attracted to the populist (so-called) Reform party, to their social democratic vision (second Guardian link). Second, the country's finances are in a perilous state, and Karmer & Company will need to walk a fine line between encouraging growth and creating more opportunity for the average worker. What will Labour's priorities be (Telegraph article), and could Karmer's successful campaign serve as a model for the American Left (Washington Post)?

July 4—Outgunned and outmanned, Ukaine's military is being forced to cede ground in the face of Putin & Company's scorched earth tactics in Donetsk province.

July 2—Trump's right-wing Supreme Court ideologues are having their way with the "administrative state." This Reuters article looks at how the Court's recent rulings will open the door to countless suits from mining and agricultural interests seeking to bring back the bad old days of Wild West mentality, ecology destroying and society-be-damned unregulated activity. (See also June 27 and June 30 in this feed.)

July 2—Amid a political campaign where the lies and outrages of one candidate, and the declining fitness of the other suck all serious discussion of policy out of the atmosphere, there is little awareness of a crisis unfolding in the housing market. With home prices up 50 percent nationally in just the last five years, and rents up 35 percent, working Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to find a place to live. Rents in six of the seven swing states are up an average of 44 percent in the last five years. Reuters examines the crisis and its impact on swing-state voters.

July 2—Amid the turmoil of controversial Supreme Court rulings and the fraught post-debate election landscape, the Biden administration carries on the steady work of making life better for the average American worker, with the Biden Labor Department proposing a first-of-its-kind rule requiring employers to take protective measures for workers operating in conditions of extreme heat.

July 2—The Biden administration expanded its effort to spread the economic benefits of technological innovation around the nation with $504 million in new grants to spur the development of a dozen tech hubs in Ohio, Montana, Neveada, Florida and other states.

July 2—The Supreme Court has ruled that U.S. presidents enjoy a broad immunity regarding actions taken in their "official" capacity, sending Trump's election-interference case back to the lower court to, in the words of this AP News article, "determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith's indictment."