July 29 2024
Olympics; Kamala’s liberal record; new US military command in Japan; starter homes out of reach; Venezuela; Ukraine update
Paris 2024 Medal Count
1 Harris’ limited national record is extremely liberal
2 US forms new military command in Japan targeting China
3 A starter home is over $1 million in 237 US cities
4 Venezuelan strongman claims victory in tainted election
5 Ukraine update: Russia advances in east
7/29/1958 NASA created
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Paris 2024 Medal Count
1 Harris’ limited national record is extremely liberal
there are signs quickly emerging that Trump and Republicans won’t be content to simply paint Harris as the flip side of the same coin but instead as a unique threat — a politician even more liberal and out of touch with mainstream values than her VP record would suggest. For a taste of that onslaught, check out the video Pennsylvania Senate candidate DAVID McCORMICK posted last night, using a laundry list of positions Harris adopted during her 2019 presidential campaign to slag incumbent BOB CASEY (D-Pa.). They include her support for the Green New Deal, a ban on fracking, the decriminalization of illegal entry by migrants, “starting from scratch” on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, restoring felon voting rights, adopting mandatory buybacks for some guns, eliminating private health insurance and more. These are the views, of course, of a Democrat who joined a rush to the left during a presidential primary that looks incredibly ill-advised in retrospect to many in the party — including Harris, we suspect. Some of her former aides admit she was struggling to find footing in a party that, at the time, appeared to be moving sharply left. But the comments are there, on tape, and she can expect to be pressed on whether she still subscribes to those views.
Article Source: Politico
2 US forms new military command in Japan targeting China
The U.S. will establish a new military command in Japan to bolster security ties here as Washington moves to strengthen its Asia allies in the face of China’s military buildup, top American and Japanese officials said Sunday. The new American command, which will initially be led by a three-star general, will coordinate military operations with the Japanese side, plan joint exercises and participate in the defense of the country if hostilities erupt. In so doing, it will put America’s warfighting capabilities under the command of a headquarters on Japanese territory for the first time and dispense with the need for U.S. forces in the country to wait for instructions from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which is located in Hawaii 3,500 miles away. The move is intended to keep pace with Japan’s efforts to build up its military capabilities, including a new joint military command that Japanese authorities are planning to stand up early next year. The push to establish the command is also part of a broader effort to buttress military relations between the two allies and will include Japanese efforts to shore up the West’s industrial base, including expanding production of Patriot antimissile systems in Japan and providing some to the U.S.
Article Source: WSJ
3 A starter home is over $1 million in 237 US cities
The number of cities with 'million-dollar' starter homes has nearly tripled since 2019. The number of cities where a starter home is worth $1 million or more has grown from 84 five years ago to 237 today. Nearly half of these cities with "million-dollar" starter homes are in California. The typical starter home nationwide is worth less than $200,000.
Article Source: Yahoo
4 Venezuelan strongman claims victory in tainted election
Strongman Nicolás Maduro claimed an unlikely victory in Venezuela’s presidential election Sunday, securing a third six-year term in a result that opposition leaders contested, saying the regime had likely falsified the vote count. Just after midnight Monday, six hours after polling stations were supposed to close, the regime-controlled National Electoral Council said that the 61-year-old leader would extend his 11-year rule into the next decade after garnering 5.1 million ballots, taking 51.2% of the vote, to 4.4 million, or 44.2% of the vote, for his opponent Edmundo González. The result of the election came after Maduro had trailed González for weeks by more than 25 percentage points in the polls. Almost immediately, residents around Caracas began banging on pots to protest the result, which was expected to be contested by the opposition with the help of its allies, including the U.S. At the same time, Maduro loyalists gathered outside the Miraflores presidential palace to celebrate the win with a concert.
WSJ
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Gonzalez had won 70% of the vote and that multiple independent exit polls and quick counts decisively showed his victory. "Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is Edmundo Gonzalez. We won and the whole world knows it," she said in a joint statement with Gonzalez.
Gonzalez said he was not calling for supporters to take to the streets or commit any acts of violence. A poll from Edison Research, known for its polling of U.S. elections, had predicted in an exit poll that Gonzalez would win 65% of the vote, while Maduro would win 31%. Local firm Meganalisis predicted a 65% vote for Gonzalez and just under 14% for Maduro.
Reuters
The result could have profound impacts on migrant flows out of Venezuela and potentially into the US over the coming weeks and months.
POLITICO Playbook
Article Source: WSJ, Reuters, Politico
5 Ukraine update: Russia advances in east
Russian forces have made rapid gains in the eastern Donetsk region over the past week or so, capturing a few villages and closing in on the city of Pokrovsk, one of the main Ukrainian defensive strongholds in the area. Russian forces are now only a dozen miles from Pokrovsk after Moscow’s troops pushed along a railway line and advanced about three miles toward the city, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite imagery. The Russian progress contrasts sharply with the slow but steady gains that Moscow had made so far this year in the Donetsk region, sometimes measured in only a few hundred yards a week. Military analysts say the swift gains reflect Moscow’s improved ability to exploit cracks in Ukrainian defensive lines, which have been thinned by manpower shortages and strained by relentless Russian attacks along a more than 600-mile front.
NYT
Ukrainian forces blunted one of the largest Russian mechanized assaults in Ukraine since October 2023 in western Donetsk Oblast on July 24. Geolocated footage published on July 24 shows that Ukrainian forces stopped a reinforced battalion size Russian mechanized assault near Kostyantynivka (southwest of Donetsk City) after Russian forces advanced up to the southeastern outskirts of the settlement. A Ukrainian brigade operating in the Kurakhove direction reported that Russian forces attacked simultaneously with 11 tanks, 45 armored combat vehicles, a rare "Terminator" armored fighting vehicle (of which Russia has reportedly manufactured only 23 as of December 2023), 12 motorcycles, and roughly 200 personnel from several tactical directions at dawn on July 24.
Russian forces have not conducted larger mechanized assaults in Ukraine since the first days of Russia's four-month long operation to seize Avdiivka in October 2023
ISW
Article Source: NYT, ISW
7/29/1958 NASA created
Sources
1. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2024/07/24/the-2-big-questions-harris-must-answer-00170822
2. https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/u-s-launches-military-command-in-tokyo-to-counter-china-83b2c6fd?st=awsljhhdreehdvi&reflink=article_copyURL_share
3. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-million-starter-home-norm-120300606.html
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/world/europe/ukraine-russia-battle-gains.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-july-25-2024
Thanks for reading!
