While presidential elections tend to galvanize people and focus attention, I have come to believe that too much attention is placed on them at the expense of other important political activity. The best hope for progressive politics in the long term is to organize at the state and local levels, and elect progressive people to school boards and municipal and state governments where often the issues are far more concrete and immediate than at the national level. Those lower level elected officials form the backbone of the party structure.
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The search for the next prime minister of the UK ended abruptly when one of the two remaining contestants Andrea Leadsom withdrew from the race leaving Theresa May. May will take over from David Cameron on Wednesday, showing how quickly these transitions take place in the UK when compared to the US.
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You can be sure that the Republican convention that will take place July 18-22 is going to find the city crawling with police, Secret Service, and other security personnel armed to the teeth and supported by an array of military-style vehicles and equipment. This was due to fears of unrest and violence because of the strong emotions generated even within the Republican party by those factions supporting and opposing Trump, in addition to those who are opposed to Republican policies in general.
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In order to save time for everyone, here is a graphic that all media outlets can use pretty much every day. (Via Crooks & Liars)

Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz, died earlier this week at the age of 87 and is being widely eulogized. But Max Blumenthal writes that while there were many good things about Wiesel, what is being overlooked is the fact that his humanitarian impulses did not extend to everyone and his blind allegiance to Israel led him to excuse any action they took, however deplorable, and treat Palestinians as if they did not matter, that led the late Israeli politician Yossi Sarid to call Wiesel an “ethnic cleanser in a prayer shawl”.
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This week has seen one awful event after another, so quick in succession that one barely has time to recoil, register, and digest one before the next one hit. The death of Alton Sterling on Tuesday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was followed on Wednesday by the death of Philando Castile in a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. Both were black men killed by the police. Their deaths were caught on camera and caused widespread outrage. I have not watched the videos since I do not have the stomach to watch people die.
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Michael Segalov writes that both finalists to replace David Cameron for the leadership of the Conservative Party, Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom, have a record of opposing equal rights for gays.
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I will be volunteering with the Ohio ACLU during the Republican convention that begins on the 18th, monitoring the media coverage though I have not yet been told exactly what I will be doing. At a meeting some months ago to prepare, concerns were raised that the police might try to stop the public from recording their actions using their mobile phones. These citizen produced videos have altered the dynamic in police-public relations in that in the past, the statements of the police as to what happened were largely taken at face value but now we often have video and audio of the events as they unfold, sometimes even livestreamed, and this has often exposed the use of extreme and unnecessary and even deadly force, especially targeting people of color.
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To no one’s surprise Ted Cruz says that he has accepted Donald Trump’s invitation to speak at the Republican National Convention that begins on July 18, thus signaling that too has caved in to the Trump juggernaut.
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