This Democrat Wants Sheila Jackson Lee’s Seat—and to Move Houston Left

On Thursday evening, at-large Houston City councilwoman Letitia Plummer announced that she’s seeking the nomination for the late Sheila Jackson Lee’s congressional seat. If elected, Plummer would become the first Muslim woman to represent Texas in Congress.

Jackson Lee held Texas’s gerrymandered-to-hell 18th district—contorted into the shape of a partially eaten donut to encompass Houston’s mostly Black and brown north—for the better part of 30 years, and was arguably one of Texas’s more progressive legislators. When she died of pancreatic cancer in mid-July, it didn’t take long for those waiting in the wings to announce intentions to replace her. In a statement, Plummer wrote that she plans on “continuing [Jackson Lee’s] tradition of robust and unapologetic advocacy.”

Plummer, a dentist by trade, touted her support from labor and her City Hall record focusing on “quality of life issues” for underserved communities—a common touchstone for Houston politicians, given the repeated and intensifying environmental crises plaguing the city. When asked, she also said she would support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and oppose all military funding to Israel, a major departure from her predecessor. “I do believe I would be the only one [in this race] that would take that level of hard stance,” she told The New Republic. “I obviously am against any level of terrorism, but we cannot continue to kill innocent people.” Two hours after this article was published, she backtracked, saying she didn’t hear the full question, and clarified that she believed Israel needed military support for defense and “release of the hostages and the establishment of a permanent ceasefire are both necessary.” *

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has yet to call for a special election for Jackson Lee’s seat, so instead, per Texas law, the race will be decided in a few weeks by just 88 Democratic Party precinct chairs representing parts of the 18th congressional district, a truncated process meant to fill the seat in a crunch. In seeking the party’s nomination, Plummer has chosen her words carefully so as not to jeopardize her current city hall position; local precedent says officeholders can technically “seek” the nomination to become the party’s candidate but can’t “announce his or her candidacy,” which would trigger the state constitution’s provision for automatic resignation. Adding Plummer to the list brings the total number of potential nominees up to five, with likely more to come.

Foremost among the potential nominees is Houston’s former mayor Sylvester Turner, a Bloomberg type, who on July 23 told a local TV station he was “seriously considering” throwing his hat in the ring before quickly backtracking—deeming it may be in bad taste to campaign before Jackson Lee’s funeral. Plummer, Turner’s erstwhile adversary in city hall, described her potential nomination in opposition to his: “Although his intentions may be good, I believe that this position not only needs someone that can carry on the legacy [of Jackson Lee] but also can create a new vision for CD-18, and I’m the only candidate, in comparison obviously, that has the record of doing the work in the overarching community,” she told The New Republic.

When Turner was mayor, it was not uncommon for him and Plummer to butt heads on environmental justice and housing issues. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Turner refused to pass an eviction grace period for tenants, which Plummer and other advocates said would have given people more time to scrap together the funds to remain housed. Where much of City Hall typically erred toward silence, lest they draw ire from the mayor who until recently completely controlled the council’s agenda, Plummer made a habit of publicly dissenting. By the time he finally brought a grace period ordinance to council in late February 2021, thousands had been evicted. (It apparently took bad press from Good Morning America about a Houston teenager using her college savings on keeping her mom housed to compel him to do so.)

Under Houston’s new mayor, the conservative Democrat John Whitmire, Plummer has maintained a similar role, but she asserted that, compared to Turner, she has a better relationship with Whitmire, who frequently blames his predecessor for the city’s longstanding problems. “We all are very clear on the relationship the previous mayor and the current mayor have, and I think that someone in the CD-18 seat really has to have a good working relationship at the municipal level.”

Jackson Lee was a Houston institution; her office served as a kind of incubator for a generation of local politicians. Amanda Edwards, Jackson Lee’s only competitive opponent in this spring’s primary, was once her intern; so, too, was Isaiah Martin, the flash-in-the-pan Gen Z candidate who entered the race for the 18th congressional district last year and, per The Intercept, “ignored his generation’s priorities” before soon after dropping out.

But Turner, age 69, is an institution in his own right. With deep pockets and powerful allies, he’s maintained a decades-long career in politics, jumping from the state house to mayorship and now, possibly, to Congress. At this point, given his long standing relationships with many of the district’s precinct chairs, it’s Turner’s race to lose. As the Houston Landing wrote, this process has long been, in essence, a coronation for powerful local leaders. But Plummer asserted it’s time to “look at things from a different perspective.” In less than a month, we’ll see if the Harris County Democratic Party agrees.

* This article has been updated with further information from Plummer on her views on military funding to Israel.

A female boxer who has competed as a woman her whole life is now accused of being transgender by the ultimate experts: right-wing U.S. politicians and influencers.

At the Paris Olympics on Thursday, Imane Khelif of Algeria defeated her opponent after only 46 seconds, when Italy’s Angela Carini stopped the fight and forfeited the match. Then the rumors started flying, as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator J.D. Vance wrongfully called Khelif a “man” and somehow made it about Democrats.

“A real women [sic], Angela Carini, who trained for years to box at the Olympics is ‘defeated’ by a real man pretending to be a woman. HE is a fraud, an imposter, and a liar,” wrote Greene. “Democrats support this.”

Vance, who is also the Republican vice presidential nominee, was quick to try to somehow blame the nonissue on the Democratic presidential candidate. “This is where Kamala Harris’s ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it,” he weighed in.

Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was quick to join the fray. “I WILL KEEP MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Khelif was born female and has always competed as a woman—including at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where she lost in the quarterfinals. Despite hearsay, there is no evidence that she identifies as transgender or intersex.

Other trans-exclusionary radical feminists and right-wingers also tried to pile on for their 15 minutes of fame, including author J.K. Rowling and YouTuber Logan Paul.

“So punching a woman in the face is apparently ok as long as the man doing it says he’s a woman and it’s at the Olympics,” wrote Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok.

The politicians and people elevating this conspiracy are quite literally putting Khelif’s life in danger. Her home country of Algeria does not recognize the rights of LGBTQ people, there is no legal recognition of transgender people, and some queer people are even jailed simply for their sexuality.

Right-wingers are citing an incident last year when the boxer was disqualified by the International Boxing Association after failing an unspecified gender-eligibility test. Some alleged that Khelif has heightened testosterone or XY chromosomes. Cisgender women can naturally have both of those things. Khelif has previously called her disqualification last year a “conspiracy.”

The International Olympic Committee tried (weakly) to come to Khelif’s defense. “I should make this absolutely clear for everyone; this isn’t a transgender issue. I think there has been some misreporting on this,” said IOC spokesperson Mark Adams. The IOC does not recognize the IBA as the governing body over Olympic boxing.

To be clear, there are no transgender women competing in any Olympic sports this year. However, there is actually a transgender male boxer: Hergie Bacyadan of the Philippines, who was forced to compete in the women’s division, his assigned gender at birth, and lost. However, you won’t hear about that, since it doesn’t fit the far right’s narrative.

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace demanded to know what President Joe Biden was up to on Thursday, only to be brutally reminded that he does, in fact, still have a job.

Shortly after Biden announced that he would no longer be running for president, MAGA Republicans immediately started pushing a conspiracy theory that he was dead or incapacitated, demanding he show “proof of life.” Despite the fact that Biden appeared on television within days of the announcement, it seems like Republicans just can’t get used to not seeing his face every day.

“Biden is MIA. Why is no one talking about it?” Mace wrote on X Thursday morning. A sentiment of heartwarming concern, to be sure.

Of course, on Thursday, the White House announced Biden had helped to organize the release of 16 hostages from Russia, including three American citizens and one American green card holder: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The Biden-Harris White House made sure to keep Mace updated on the president’s schedule.

“He’s been busy,” the White House wrote on X, quote-tweeting Mace. The account included a screenshot of a post from Biden, who met with the families of the released American hostages in the Oval Office.

“Today, I stood beside the families of Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir in the Oval Office as they spoke to their loved ones for the first time since they regained freedom. These families never lost hope. And today, they’ll each be reunited with the missing piece of their soul,” Biden tweeted.

In the end, the Case of the Missing Biden had a simple solution: He was in his office. Likely place for him to be.

Back in January 2021, then–House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer tried to convince Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove Donald Trump from presidential office.

The Democratic leaders made a call to Pence’s office shortly after the January 6 Capitol riot, according to revelations in Pelosi’s upcoming memoir, The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House. An advance copy of the book, due to be released next week, was obtained by The Guardian. But Pence’s office left the two on hold for 20 minutes and never responded to them.

“Following January 6, the Democratic leadership discussed asking the vice president to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows for the vice president and a majority of cabinet members to certify that a president is unable to discharge the duties of the office,” Pelosi wrote.

She and the then–Senate Minority Leader Schumer called Pence to talk about invoking the provision, but Pence didn’t reply.

“The vice president’s office kept us on hold for 20 minutes,” Pelosi wrote. She added that she was “thankfully” at home at the time and “could also empty the dishwasher and put in a load of laundry” while waiting for Pence to respond. But he didn’t.

“Ultimately, Vice President Pence never got on the phone with us or returned our call,” wrote Pelosi.

While it’s well known that Pelosi, Schumer, and several other members of Congress made public calls to have Trump removed from office during that time, this phone call wasn’t public knowledge until now. Pence went on to publicly reject calls to invoke the constitutional provision in a letter to Pelosi later that month, despite defying Trump and his supporters on January 6 and certifying his election loss.

The missed phone call is another reminder that Pence, while doing the bare minimum of certifying the 2020 presidential election, failed to step up and take action against the biggest danger to democracy when he had the chance.

New polling data out Thursday shows Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump neck and neck in several key swing states.

Surveys conducted by conservative market researcher Public Opinion Strategies for the Competitiveness Coalition showed Harris leading Trump in Pennsylvania (48 percent to 45 percent) and Wisconsin (48–46). The two are also tied 45–45 in the battleground state of Michigan.

Meanwhile, Trump squeezed ahead of Harris in Nevada and Arizona by one percentage point and three percentage points, respectively. The survey was conducted between July 23 and 29. Pollsters spoke to 400 people in each battleground state, resulting in a margin of error of plus or minus 2.19 percent.

Despite 57 percent of those polled saying they disapprove of the job Joe Biden has done as president, a number still said Harris would have their vote. Across the five states, Trump and Harris tied perfectly, each with 46 percent of the vote.

Voters chose inflation, border security, and threats to American democracy out of a list of options as their key issues, with abortion following close behind.

A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of registered voters published Tuesday showed Harris with a larger lead in Michigan, beating Trump by 11 percentage points. In Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada, she held a two percentage point advantage.

Political polling is not always the best indicator of public opinion, as polls tend to eliminate nuance or only capture opinions from the most politically active people. But the new data is still significant considering how far Biden was trailing behind Trump in the final days of his campaign.

Donald Trump doesn’t seem the least bit happy about the release of three American citizens who were wrongfully imprisoned in Russia. Why? Probably because he had nothing to do with it.

The White House announced Thursday that “three American citizens and one American green-card holder who were unjustly imprisoned in Russia are finally coming home: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-Murza.”

In total, the exchange freed 16 people imprisoned in Russia, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who had been political prisoners in their own country. The U.S. worked alongside Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey to secure the deal, according to the statement.

The Wall Street Journal, where Gershkovich works, has dubbed it “the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.” But rather than celebrate, Trump took to Truth Social Thursday to whine that he was not on the inside of brokering the gargantuan deal.

“So when are they going to release the details of the prisoner swap with Russia?” Trump wrote—the first of his many questions.

“How many people do we get versus them? Are we also paying them cash? Are they giving us cash (Please withdraw that question, because I’m sure the answer is NO)? Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs?”

“Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps. Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING—and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse. They are extorting the United States of America. They’re calling the trade ‘complex’—That’s so nobody can figure out how bad it is,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s anti-diplomacy pearl-clutching is not only inane, it is also hypocritical. His own administration facilitated several prisoner swaps during his time in office.

In 2019, the Trump administration oversaw the release of three senior Taliban leaders imprisoned in Afghanistan, in exchange for one American, Kevin King, and Timothy Weeks, an Australian. One month later, the U.S. freed Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist convicted of export violations, in exchange for the return of Xiyue Wang, a Princeton graduate student held in Iran.

In October 2020, one of Trump’s deputy assistants agreed to free 250 Houthi rebels being held in Oman, in exchange for two Americans, Sandra Loli and Mikael Gidada, who were held hostage by Iranian-backed militants in Yemen.

Two years later, Trump lied, bragging that, while in office, he’d secured the release of 58 hostages without giving anything in return.

It’s entirely likely that Trump is suffering from some kind of diplomatic FOMO. At CNN’s infamous presidential debate in June, Trump promised that he would free Gershkovich before he even took office.

“As soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out,” he said, not referring to Gershkovich by name, instead calling him a “good guy.”

Trump alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin had demanded “billions of dollars” for Gershkovich’s release but failed to produce any evidence to support that claim. Rather, Putin has repeatedly indicated that he wanted one person in particular: Vadim Krasikov, a former intelligence officer who had shot a rebel leader in Berlin in 2019.

Despite the fact that Trump never got the chance to follow through on his flimsy promise, that hasn’t stopped his sycophants from tossing him some credit anyway.

After President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a deal to free American hostages in Russia, J.D. Vance somehow tried to give Donald Trump the credit.

Vance’s initial reaction to the news began normally, in an interview with CNN’s Steve Contorno.

“Look, I think it’s great news, at least what little we know. We certainly want these Americans to come back home. It was ridiculous that they were in prison to begin with,” the Republican vice presidential nominee said, before going in a completely different direction.

“But we have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house,” Vance said. “That’s a good thing. And I think it’s a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.”

The Ohio senator isn’t making any sense here. He appears to be echoing Trump’s comments from May that only he could free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, claiming that “Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!”

But this was easily disproved Thursday after the release of the hostages, who also included Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. National security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked about Vance’s claim at a press conference Thursday, and he dismissed the idea.

“I don’t follow,” Sullivan replied.

The super PAC with the highest amount of money raised is likely one you’ve never heard of: “Fairshake PAC.”

According to their website, the group “supports candidates committed to securing the United States as the home to innovators building the next generation of the internet.” In simpler terms, they are an “independent” cryptocurrency and blockchain industry group. According to OpenSecrets, they’ve raised $202,939,294 to influence upcoming elections.

The PAC has spent only a handful of millions so far, almost entirely attacking progressive Democratic candidates. That includes an ad attack against Representative Katie Porter’s California Democratic primary back in February. The group has also spent $2 million to push out progressive New York Representative Jamaal Bowman and $1 million against fellow Squad member Cori Bush’s upcoming primary in Missouri.

Given the PAC’s spending (or lack thereof, relative to how much money it has), it’s no wonder that both major presidential candidates have begun to vie for the cryptocurrency industry’s favor. On July 27, Donald Trump spoke at the national Bitcoin conference.

“You’re going to be very happy with me,” he said as he addressed the conference in Nashville, Tennessee. In his speech, the Republican presidential nominee promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.”

At the same time, Kamala Harris reached out to the blockchain world, reportedly having aides meet with industry officials to “reset” relations and strengthen the Democratic Party’s ties with cryptocurrency business interests. Harris is not likely to sway big donors and PACs such as Fairshake, however.

Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and the venture capitalist firm Winklevoss Capital, already seems to have come out against her.

“Beware of the Big Bluff,” he wrote on X, speaking about Harris’s attempts to win over the industry.

The millions of dollars raised by Fairshake PAC come from Winklevoss and his twin brother Tyler, Coinbase, Ripple, and “techno-optimist” Marc Andreessen. This venture capitalist world has increasingly rallied around Trump following his pick of J.D. Vance for vice president, given Vance’s background in Silicon Valley and relationships with billionaires such as Peter Thiel.

As cryptocurrency researcher Molly White reported, Coinbase is alleged to have skirted campaign finance laws through its donations to Fairshake. If this is the case, this would be the “largest known illegal campaign contribution by a federal contractor,” according to White.

During the 2022 midterms, the crypto industry, led by Sam Bankman-Fried, had an outsize influence through massive campaign spending. At the time, Bankman-Fried spent millions collaborating with AIPAC and Trump to support billionaires and crush the electoral left in Democratic primaries.

As Bankman-Fried sits in prison, Fairshake PAC seems to be willing to take up the mantle in 2024.

J.D. Vance once compared abortion to slavery while gushing about the demise of Roe v. Wade, in new audio unearthed by Media Matters.

Less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to undo the 1973 decision that decriminalized abortion, Vance appeared in an episode of The Bruce Hooley Show, hosted by the eponymous right-wing radio host.

During the conversation, Hooley cited the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which found that “separate but equal” segregation was unconstitutional, although it had previously been allowed by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896.

“I don’t think they wanna be in the business of advocating that anything that’s been in law for 50 years remains in law forever,” Hooley said.

Vance agreed, and took it another step further.

“Yeah. Of course. You know, Dred Scott, one of the famous pro-slavery decisions by the Supreme Court, I don’t think anybody wants that to remain law,” Vance said, referring to the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford, which found that enslaved Black people were not American citizens and therefore not protected by the Constitution.

“So, I do think that we look at these decisions very often and we say, look, these things just don’t make any sense anymore. They haven’t held up very well. They haven’t solved the problem they were meant to solve. They don’t comport with the Constitution, obviously. That’s the most important thing that very few people talk about.”

“So, yeah, this is ultimately—this is a good thing,” said Vance, referring to Roe’s fall.

Media Matters found that this wasn’t the first time that Vance made that comparison.

In 2021, Vance had told The Catholic Current, an anti-abortion radio show, that “there’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society.”

Vance’s harsh view on abortion is a particularly bad look for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, which has attempted to present a more moderate approach on abortion in an attempt to capture a wider breadth of voters. The change in tone has inspired a huge shift in the Republican Party’s platform away from a federal abortion ban (and toward embracing the dozens of cruel state-level ones).

Vance previously advocated for a nationwide abortion ban, and called for a “federal response” to block women traveling out of state to get abortions.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was warned by doctors and mental health professionals about Donald Trump’s mental health in 2019, according to her upcoming book.

The Guardian obtained an advance copy of Pelosi’s book The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House, which will be released next week. In the book, Pelosi recounted what she was told by several “doctors and other mental health professionals” at a memorial service for a psychiatrist.

They told her that they were “deeply concerned that there was something seriously wrong” with Trump, “and that his mental and psychological health was in decline.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Pelosi wrote, “but I did find his behaviors difficult to understand.”

The 2019 memorial was a service for Dr. David Hamburg, whom Pelosi refers to as “a distinguished psychiatrist who … served as the president of the Carnegie Corporation, where he had been a great voice for international peace.”

Pelosi elaborated further on her opinions of Trump’s mental health.

Before the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, “I knew Donald Trump’s mental imbalance. I had seen it up close. His denial and then delays when the Covid pandemic struck, his penchant for repeatedly stomping out of meetings, his foul mouth, his pounding on tables, his temper tantrums, his disrespect for our nation’s patriots, and his total separation from reality and actual events. His repeated, ridiculous insistence that he was the greatest of all time,” Pelosi wrote.

Pelosi also described how Trump’s staff members, such as Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff, allowed Trump to listen in “surreptitiously” on private meetings with congressional leaders, causing Pelosi to ban cell phones from her meeting rooms on Capitol Hill.

She also wrote about Trump calling her on the phone, sometimes late at night, including one call where Trump told her that missile strikes he had just ordered against Syria were his predecessor Barack Obama’s fault. Pelosi told him “It’s midnight. I think you should go to sleep.”

On January 6, Pelosi said she was calm because she was “already deeply aware of how dangerous Donald Trump was.”

She wrote that she realized that she had “more respect for the office of president of the United States than Trump. “It was clear to me from the start that he was an imposter—and that on some level, he knew it.”

Pelosi’s remarks show that Trump’s ongoing cognitive decline isn’t something new and, in fact, was noticed by those around him years ago. In recent months, he’s confused members of Congress, fumbled during speeches, gone on incomprehensible rants, and made enough gaffes for critics to make brutal supercuts. Pelosi’s new revelations show just how much his mental state may have put the country in danger when he was president—and serve as a warning that another presidential term would likely be worse.