It’s a very big week in American politics

It’s a big week for American politics. Summer break is over, and after five weeks back home, Congress is filtering back into town. Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to have their first (and only) debate Tuesday night, and actual voting is beginning to kick off in the earliest-voting states.

That’s a lot, and there is more to come. We could see a shutdown fight, depending on how hard House Republicans stick to their guns in their battle against the 82-year-old Senate Republican leader, who remains obstinate in his opposition to including a law to safeguard elections against noncitizens voting in the next round of short-term government funding.

The title fight of the week is, no doubt, Trump vs. Harris. There’s no main-ticket example in modern American history comparable to the Harris-Walz campaign. Since assuming the nomination despite zero debates, primaries, or votes, or even a campaign, Harris has given one single reporter 18 minutes of question time and committed virtually no policies to paper. As the venerable Mark Hemingway writes in the Federalist, “Explaining yourself is the bare minimum of what stewarding democracy, nuclear weapons, and trillions of dollars demands, but Harris’ handlers have decided that even doing that much is too risky.”

Former Hillary Clinton adviser Mark Penn agrees, painting the problem in the stark terms it demands: “No three debates. No two years of primaries, coalition building, no detailed policy development, and no daily press briefings. Or tests of leadership.”

Harris’ protective cocoon of silence is so absolute that it has enveloped her running mate, who we’re promised is America’s assistant coach but who by every standard and metric is a viciously hard-left politician more at home locking down his citizens than he is with his Trump-supporting extended family. He’s given nearly zero interviews as well, since 1) doing interviews might draw attention to his boss’ silence, and 2) he can’t articulate a policy that doesn’t exist. It’s a tough jam.

So Tuesday it is. And we the voters will have to decide whether we’re comfortable electing a president who will not reveal herself based on the promise that she will be a good progressive. There’s reason to worry that the state of American politics says we are.

Meanwhile, just off the main stage, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is preparing for what could be the fight of his career. He’s charted a course to attach Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy's and Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s SAVE Act to a short-term spending bill that extends government funding two and a half months into the next administration.

Johnson has plenty of time to tell donors and members he really tried hard, then move on to doing what the liberals and spenders used to running DC would rather be doing.

The move is a surprise. It puts the speaker in line with his House Republican colleagues, the party’s nominee for president, and, surprisingly, the donor class. It puts him at odds, however, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who despite plans to finally relinquish his historically long, white-knuckle grip on leadership this fall, is a stubborn man used to getting his way.

Republican senators, for their part, are largely used to doing what McConnell tells them to do. And if you cross him, he’s not shy about hurting you.

Will Johnson successfully pressure the Senate to take up his spending bill? The pressure from Democrats and the corporate media will be relentless, and if House Republicans start the fight this week (as they’ve signaled they will) that leaves him plenty of time to get a “no” from the Senate, tell donors and members he really tried hard, then move on to doing what the liberals and spenders used to running D.C. would rather be doing.

As Sen. Mike Lee told Blaze News earlier this week, “If progressives really want so badly to have noncitizens voting, then they’re going to have to say so.”

And immigration is not a problem that’s going away, even if Washington wants to put its head in the sand. Shocking statistics reported Friday showed 1.3 million native-born Americans lost jobs in August while 635,000 jobs went to foreign-born workers.

As a ZeroHedge analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data points out: “Since July 2018, native-born Americans have lost 350K jobs. That means zero job creation for native-born workers in the past six years. They have been replaced with 4.7 million non-native workers over this period.”

"September is the funding fight,” one conservative House staffer told Blaze News, “and that along with the election results are going to determine what November and December hold.”

“Only thing I am sure of for the end of the year is that it will be a s**t show."

NY Times: Trump and Harris Neck and Neck After Summer Upheaval, Times/Siena Poll Finds

Blaze News: Are illegal immigrants really voting in our elections?

Blaze News: Millions of Americans lost jobs last month while the 'foreign born' saw massive gains

Blaze News: NYT publisher concern-mongers about Trump, priming pump on renewed press victimhood narrative

Blaze News investigates: Dems' election shenanigans facing death by 1,000 cuts

Blaze News: Judge sets date for Trump sentencing after the election to avoid appearance of tampering

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The fire rises: The New York Times: Smartphones in schools

Smartphones are blocking out nature, dulling our attention spans, stifling literature, and ruling the bedrooms we share with our spouses. And that’s just adults. Our kids have it worse, and what was sold as a great spreader of knowledge is turning out vapid and commercialized children who don’t know a thing and couldn’t care less about that. Parents and schools are finally beginning to wise up. David Leonhardt reports:

School officials and policymakers have begun to fight back. It’s probably the most significant development of the 2024-25 school year.

At least eight states, including California, Indiana and Louisiana, have restricted phone use or taken steps toward doing so. They are following the lead of Florida, which last year banned phones in K-12 classrooms. Other states, including Arizona and New York, may act soon. (My colleague Natasha Singer, who’s been covering this story, discussed these policies on an episode of “The Daily.”)

At the schools that have restricted phones, many people say they already see benefits. In a Florida school district that Natasha visited — and that went even further than the state law requires, banning phones all day — students now have more conversations at lunch and play games like Twister and pickleball. Before, children mostly looked at their phones, one principal said.