“A home run in the bottom of the ninth!” “A very good speech!” “Enormously effective!” “The best he’s been!” And that’s just how a bunch of Fox News Republicans thought Joe Biden did last night.
 

• The 2020 DNC convention came to a close Thursday after Biden accepted the Democratic presidential nomination and delivered a speech about why the country needs new political leadership (had you noticed?) and how he’d bring the country back from this despairing moment. Some of us only found out he’d be delivering the speech live a few minutes before it began and had a minor panic attack, but as you can see from the Fox News roundtable response, even people who are normally reliable Trump propagandists thought he did a great job. 
   
• Biden began his address by acknowledging the terrible crises the country faces, which fed into an airtight case that President Trump (who went unnamed) had failed and should be denied a second term, followed by an explanation of how he’d lead in Trump’s wake: First, do what Trump has failed to do by arresting the spread of coronavirus, and rescuing the economy from collapse, then set about implementing a post-coronavirus agenda. “I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness,” he said, which seems like it’d be a nice change of pace. You can watch the whole thing here. 
   
• Prior to Biden’s speech, the event featured a reunion of a bunch of the people that Biden beat in the primary, talking about how Biden will make a great president and about how they’re not mad and, actually, they’re laughing. Tammys Baldwin and Duckworth delivered back-to-back speeches where they spoke to Biden’s strength on healthcare and capacity to not ignore Russian bounties on U.S. troops, and in the most moving segment of the evening, a 13 year old boy named Brayden Harrington recounted how Biden had helped him gain confidence despite speaking with a stutter. Michael Bloomberg was also there.

Having watched Democrats produce a widely hailed, politically effective, and technically smooth virtual convention (thank you Glenn), Trump graciously offered a preview of the paranoid, racist, lie-drenched festival Republicans have planned for next week!
 

• Trump counter-programmed the Dem convention on Sean Hannity’s show, where he announced his plan to turn the entire U.S. law enforcement community into partisan “poll watchers” (many of whom happen to be armed) to menace people who look like they might vote for Democrats. “We’re going to have sheriffs and we’re going to have law enforcement and we’re going to have hopefully U.S. Attorneys and we’re going to have everybody, and attorney generals,” he said. Inspiring words from a confident incumbent. 
   
• A familiar cast of Trump dead-enders will deliver speeches in some capacity ahead of Trump’s renomination. What remains unclear is whether the Republican convention will also provide a platform for QAnon cultists, or whether it will simply pander to them with allusions to their deranged conspiracy theories. On Thursday the New York Times published this alarming report on how the Republican Party has begun to fuse with QAnon, and not just by nominating QAnon adherents to run for elected office. Trump routinely retweets QAnon theorists and has given their cult his hearty thanks for supporting him, and the Texas GOP has adopted a QAnon slogan as its own.
   

Apart from his promises to fix the crises Trump has created, Biden’s most basic appeal this week was that Trump has made America a crueler place, and he would make it better simply by being a kind, empathic, generous person. That shows just how low Trump has set the bar for American leadership. But it’s also a step the country needs to take on its road to recovery, or it’ll never recover. Ready to do your part?

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before a GOP-led Senate committee today, insisting that the USPS is “fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time.” That commitment does not, apparently, extend to reinstalling mailboxes and sorting machines ahead of the election. Kamala Harris was on the panel, but opted to submit questions to DeJoy in writing rather than participate in the hearing—a surprising choice, given that flaying Republican hacks is one of Harris’s top strengths. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin denied having anything to do with Trump’s selection of DeJoy for the job, while the former USPS inspector general told the Congressional Progressive Caucus that Mnuchin had politicized the agency, and specifically wanted mailboxes removed. The House is set to vote on a bill that would provide $25 billion to the post office on Saturday, and DeJoy will appear before the House oversight committee on Monday.

• The Trump administration will put coronavirus-data collection back in the hands of the CDC, after the abrupt shift to a new HHS reporting system caused delays and data inconsistencies, just like public health experts warned it would. Good—now to find out exactly why it happened in the first place. 
   
• In the meantime, it’s on to the next: The White House has barred the FDA from regulating coronavirus tests. Approved labs will be able to make and sell tests without having to provide data on their reliability, and just speaking for ourselves here, accuracy is one of our favorite coronavirus-test features.
   
• President Trump casually suggested withholding federal aid for California amid raging wildfires, because California didn’t take his suggestion to rake forest floors. Trump’s own former DHS chief of staff said Trump tried to withhold emergency funding for California because Californians didn’t vote for him. 
   
• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made clear he’s open to abolishing the filibuster if Joe Biden wins with a Democratic Senate majority. Let’s get it done → 
   
• Progressives were pretty pissed when Nancy Pelosi endorsed Joe Kennedy over Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) on Thursday, but maybe she had a good reason? “I wasn’t too happy with some of the assault that I saw made on the Kennedy family, and I thought, Joe didn’t ask me to endorse him, but I felt an imperative to do so.” Oh.
   
• Facebook has reportedly begun laying out contingency plans in case Trump tries to delegitimize the election results, including a “kill switch” to shut down political ads after election day. Whether any of those plans will remain in place after Trump calls Mark Zuckerberg and screams at him, we cannot say. 
   
• A California judge sentenced Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders and dozens of rapes. 
   
• In significantly less horrific California crimes, a federal judge sentenced Lori Loughlin to two months in prison for her role in the Varsity Blues college admissions scheme. Loughlin’s husband was sentenced to five months. 
   
• In medium-horrific California crimes, Megan Thee Stallion has accused rapper Tory Lanez of shooting her in the feet following an argument last month.
   
• Fox News staffers are rattled by how fully the network has become a Trump mouthpiece, and even Sean Hannity has reportedly been having a terrible time: “Hannity would tell you, off-off-off the record, that Trump is a batshit crazy person.” God bless them for putting aside those personal feelings to press on with the important work of radicalizing everyone’s parents.

Doctors have cleared opposition leader Alexey Navalny to be transported to Germany for treatment, after initially blocking his family’s attempts to move him. Navalny is in a coma after falling ill on a return flight to Moscow from Siberia in a suspected poisoning. The deputy head physician at the Siberian hospital where Navalny was initially treated said that no poisons were found in his system, contradicting reports from police, who said they’d identified an “industrial chemical substance.” The hospital’s chief doctor suggested that Navalny fell into a coma because of low blood sugar, a very reasonable diagnosis in a land where doctors are known to mysteriously fall out of windows.

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This is a great piece on the political power of Joe Biden’s kindness.

Relatedly, if you’ve got a minute for a cry, here’s a video of the first time Biden met Brayden Harrington. 

The New York chapter of the ACLU won an appeals court's consent to publish records of NYPD complaints dating back to the '80's, leading a federal judge to lift a restraining order on the release of NYPD disciplinary records. 

Taylor Swift donated signed Folklore CDs to support indie record stores across the U.S., and also has been very cool about encouraging her fans to vote early. (Go on the pod, Taylor.)