THE AGENDA: Vice President Kamala Harris rolled out her progressive economic agenda yesterday casting herself as looking to the future while former President Donald Trump seeks a return to the past. 

  “This election, I do strongly believe, is about two very different visions for our nation,” Harris said. “We see that contrast clearly in many ways, including when it comes to how we think about the economy.”

  Like almost all candidates running for president, she said she would seek to make life better for the middle class. “As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity,” she said as she ticked through an economic policy plan released by her campaign. 

  Of course, everything would have to be approved by Congress, which might require the Democrats to win both houses. Harris proposed a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers, a $6,000 tax credit for new parents, cheaper prescription drugs, and maybe even cheaper groceries with a crackdown on price gouging.

  She tried to connect with the working class talking about working at McDonald’s for spending money in college. And she spoke about the importance of owning a home. “Homeownership and what that means, it’s a symbol of the pride that comes with hard work. It’s financial security,” Harris said. “It represents what you will be able to do for your children.”

THE WAR ROOM: President Joe Biden said he is “optimistic” that a Gaza ceasefire deal can be reached. “We are closer than we’ve ever been,” Biden said following the lates round of talks. He said he is sending his Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Israel to continue the “intensive efforts to conclude this agreement”.

  With Israel on guard for a major attack in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Biden said “no-one in the region should take actions to undermine this process”.

FOR SALE: New rules go into effect today for how real estate agents get paid for the sale of a home. Traditionally the seller pays five or six percent that is then split between buying and selling agents and brokerages.

  It’s complicated, but as of today buyers’ agents can no longer steer customers to homes for which the agent would get a bigger commission. Buyers must sign a binding representation agreement with their agent before they can begin touring homes. And in some cases, the buyer would be on the hook for part of the agent commission.

THE OBIT PAGE: Maurice Williams, the singer and songwriter whose 1960 single “Stay” recorded with the Zodiacs was a No. 1 hit covered for years afterwards by artists including the Four Seasons, the Hollies, and Jackson Browne, died on August 6th in Charlotte, NC at age 86.

  Williams also wrote and recorded “Little Darlin’” and later said both songs were inspired by a girl he dated when he was 15. He later told an interviewer, “This young lady I was going with, she was over to my house, and this particular night, her brother was supposed to pick her up at 10,” he said. “So he came, and I said, ‘Well, you can stay a little longer.’ And she said, ‘No, I gotta go.’”

  The timeless lyrics:

Ahhh, just a little bit longer
 (Please) please, please, please, please
Tell me that you’re going to

Now your daddy don’t mind
And your mommy don’t mind
If we have another dance, yeah
Just one more, one more time

Oh, won’t you stay-ay, just a little bit longer
Please let me hear
You say that you will, say you will

THE SPIN RACK: The Supreme Court temporarily extended a block on Education Department rules intended to protect transgender students from discrimination in 10 Republican states. The court said protections for transgender students should not go into effect until legal challenges are resolved. — A white Florida woman who shot and killed an unarmed Black neighbor pounding on the door of her apartment was convicted of manslaughter and faces decades in prison. In a dispute over noisy children last June, Susan Lorincz, now 60, shot through her door, killing Ajike Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four in Ocala, about 80 miles northwest of Orlando. — A 53-year-old Missouri woman has been arrested and accused of a plot in which she attempted to auction off Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion. The charges say that Lisa Findley, 53, falsely claimed that Elvis’s late daughter Lisa Marie had pledged Graceland to her as collateral for a $3.8 million loan she hadn’t repaid prior to her death in January of 2023. — A bicycle riding mob ransacked three separate 7-Eleven stores in Hollywood just hours after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws to crack down on organized retail thefts.

BELOW THE FOLD: Donald Trump during an event yesterday at his New Jersey golf club said that receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which honors civilians, is “much better” than the Medal of Honor.

  While recalling having given the Medal of Freedom to big Republican donor Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Trump said, “It’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, that’s soldiers, they’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead.” 

  A Trump campaign spokesman swept up afterwards saying Trump’s comments referred to “how it can be an emotionally difficult experience to give the Congressional Medal of Honor to veterans who have been wounded or tragically killed defending our country, as he proudly did when he was commander in chief.”

  In other words, you didn’t hear what you just heard.

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