1.Nf3 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.g3 Bg7 5.Bg2 O-O 6.O-O d6 7.d4 Nc6 8.b3 Ne4 9.Bb2 Nxc3 10.Bxc3 Qe8 11.Qc2 e5 12.dxe5 dxe5 13.Qb2 Qe7 14.Rad1 a5 15.Ne1 e4 16.Bxg7 Qxg7 17.Qxg7+ Kxg7 18.f3 exf3 19.Bxf3 a4 20.Bxc6 bxc6 21.Nd3 axb3 22.axb3 Ra2 23.Rfe1 Re8 24.Kf2 g5 25.Ra1 Rd2 26.Ra7 Re7 27.Ra8 Bd7 28.Ra5 Kf6 29.Nc1 Be8 30.Ra2 Rd4 31.Nd3 Bh5 32.Ra6 Rd6 33.Nb4 Be8 34.Rea1 Kg7 35.R1a2 Rh6 36.Kg1 f4 37.R6a5 Kf6 38.Nd3 fxg3 39.hxg3 Re3 40.Kf2 Re6 41.Kg2 Bg6 42.Nf2 Be4+ 43.Kg1 Rg6 44.Ra7 Rg7 45.Nxe4+ Rxe4 46.R2a6 Re6 47.Kf2 Kf5 48.Kf3 g4+ 49.Kf2 Rge7 50.Ra2 Ke4 51.R7a5 Rf6+ 52.Ke1 Rh6 53.Rg5 Ke3 54.Kf1 Rf6+ 55.Kg1 h5 56.Rxh5 Ref7 57.Ra1 Kxe2 58.Rh2+ Kd3 59.Rh4 Rg7 60.c5 Ke2 61.Rh2+ Ke3 62.b4 Kd4 63.Rd1+ Kc4 64.Rc1+ Kb5 65.Rh8 Rf3 66.Rb8+ Ka4 67.Kg2 Rd7 68.Rc2 Rdd3 69.Rc4 Rxg3+ 70.Kh2 Rh3+ 71.Kg2 Rh7 72.Re4 g3 73.Rg4 0-1>

<[Event "Monadnock Grand Prix"] [Site "Peterborough NH"]
[Date "2000.10.28"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Bournival, Braden"]
[Black "Curdo, John"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B00"]
[WhiteElo "2024"]
[BlackElo "2267"]

<The war over President Donald Trump’s megabill is just beginning, with both parties saying it will define the midterm elections next year, when control of Congress is up for grabs.

Republicans start on the back foot, with recent surveys showing the bill is unpopular, even with pro-Trump cohorts. Still, GOP leaders say they have a plan to turn things around and make the legislation Trump signed into law last week part of an offensive push to protect their House and Senate majorities.

Meanwhile, Democrats are gearing up for a political onslaught aimed at unseating Republicans who voted for it. The House Democrats’ campaign arm has already launched a digital ad buy on Meta across 35 GOP-held competitive districts slamming lawmakers for voting to harm rural hospitals. Part of Democrats’ strategy is to highlight that many Republicans who threatened to vote down the bill because of steep Medicaid cuts ended up voting for it anyway.

“The so-called moderate House Republicans have shamelessly lied for months — hiding behind meaningless letters and performative tweets — claiming they’d protect Medicaid, food assistance and energy jobs,” said Justin Chermol, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “But their vote is the only thing that matters, and they’ll pay the price next year.”

Republicans say they have a strategy to avoid a repeat of the midterms in 2018, when Democrats attacked them for Trump’s original tax cuts, which they argued disproportionately benefited the wealthy, and for seeking to cut health care for the working class by unsuccessfully trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Democrats went on to take back the House majority.

This time around, Republicans say they will campaign on individual pieces of the bill that poll well and ignore the provisions that are less popular. GOP leaders and strategists are encouraging their candidates to lean into the “wins” of Trump’s agenda: tax cuts on overtime and tips, child care subsidies and work requirements for able-bodied adults.

“Last time, we ceded ground to Democrats,” a senior aide to Republican leadership told NBC News. “We won’t do that again.”

Republicans also argue that some working-class people will begin to feel savings from two particular provisions of the bill, tax cuts on tips and overtime pay, when they take effect next summer, just ahead of the midterm elections.

But most of the tax provisions are extensions of the current rates, meaning most voters will see little change in their tax bills — another challenge for Republicans in selling the bill.

Pressed about how candidates will defend cuts to Medicaid, a high-ranking GOP strategist who is close to Trump said they won’t focus on it, instead touting “the money in the pockets of working-class Americans and their increased safety” from other provisions in the bill.

Republicans see bill as the ‘defining issue of 2026’

Republican leaders are expected to hit the road, including in swing districts, in the coming months to sell the bill. In the meantime, they plan to flood local airwaves promoting the legislation, according to a senior GOP source familiar with the plans. And the National Republican Congressional Committee plans its own spate of attack ads accusing Democrats of supporting a tax hike for having voted against the bill, which extends tax cuts Trump enacted in 2017, the source added.

In a new memo obtained by NBC News, the NRCC encourages Republicans to accuse Democrats of voting to “block tax cuts” and “leave the border wide open,” referring to roughly $150 billion in the bill for immigration enforcement.

“House Republicans will be relentless in making this vote the defining issue of 2026, and we will use every tool to show voters that Republicans stood with them while House Democrats sold them out,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee recently circulated internal polling instructing candidates to message aggressively on tax cuts. The only mention of Medicaid in the three-page document touts the popularity of work requirements and frames the nearly $1 trillion in cuts as “reforms” to keep benefits from undocumented immigrants.

The calculation among many Republicans in battleground states and districts who voted for the bill is that the Democratic warnings about massive cuts to Medicaid will fall flat with voters — not only because the cuts were tailored to target “waste, fraud and abuse,” but also because the changes aren’t set to kick in until after the 2026 midterms.

Still, it’s a risky gamble, and many vulnerable Republicans are privately bracing for potential political blowback in their districts. The bill is projected to lead to 11.8 million fewer people having insurance by 2034, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office....>

<....Perhaps the biggest driving force behind their “yes” votes was not wanting to defy Trump. He had threatened to back primary challengers to two Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who opposed the bill. (Tillis ended up deciding not to seek re-election.)

“Seventy-seven million Americans voted to give Donald Trump a platform to make positive changes for the United States; 1.7 million Wisconsinites voted for Donald Trump,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., who is expected to face a competitive re-election race next year. “This is a mandate by the American people, and we’re fulfilling this mandate.”

When he was pressed about whether Republicans are just falling in line because of Trump, Van Orden pushed back: “The president of the United States didn’t give us an assignment. We’re not a bunch of little bitches around here, OK? I’m a member of Congress that represents almost 800,000 Wisconsinites.”

The Democratic group House Majority Forward is working on ads to attack vulnerable Republicans for the vote — including Van Orden, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Tom Barrett of Michigan, who all narrowly won their 2024 races.

Democrats plan to target wobbly Republicans

In the run-up to the vote, politically vulnerable Reps. David Valadao, R-Calif., and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., led sternly worded letters signed by more than a dozen of their colleagues slamming steep cuts to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits.

But when it came time to vote, nearly all of them folded under pressure from Trump and ended up supporting provisions that they loudly criticized — and that could have major impacts on their constituents. Most of those lawmakers are targets of the DCCC’s new ad campaign.

Two weeks ago, Valadao led a group of 16 Republicans in writing a letter vowing to oppose the Senate bill’s aggressive Medicaid cuts.

“Protecting Medicaid is essential for the vulnerable constituents we were elected to represent,” they wrote. “Therefore, we cannot support a final bill that threatens access to coverage or jeopardizes the stability of our hospitals and providers.”

All 16 of them voted for the bill Thursday.

Valadao, who represents a swing district with a large share of Medicaid recipients, warned five days before the final vote that Republicans must undo the Medicaid changes in the Senate bill — “otherwise, I will vote no.”

His office didn’t respond to messages seeking comment on his vote.

In a statement, Kiggans said that “no legislation of this size is perfect—but there’s no question that this bill includes major priorities I’ve been fighting for on behalf of Coastal Virginia.”

Valadao was among the group of lawmakers who visited the White House before the vote last week. During the meeting, Trump and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, walked them through how the bill’s changes to Medicaid will be implemented....>

<....Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, who had been one of the loudest Republicans calling to protect Medicaid, walked away from the meeting arguing they have time to change the law back if they later determine it will be too harmful, since the biggest changes don’t take effect for several years.

Asked by NBC News whether it was risky to bank on the prospect of Congress’ reversing key components of the bill, Van Drew said: “No, I think that it’s possible. The point being that it is being done slowly.”

Another moderate GOP lawmaker who had been on the fence, granted anonymity to discuss internal party deliberations, said what ultimately made them feel comfortable voting for it is that many of the Medicaid changes, like the provider tax, won’t take effect until after the midterm elections.

Under the bill, the new work requirements for Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will kick in latest by the start of 2027, while new restrictions on state provider taxes — which trigger federal payments that are a major source of revenue for rural hospitals — will start in 2028.

Last month, an overlapping group of 13 House Republicans, led by Kiggans, wrote a letter calling for saving clean energy funding and tax credits, saying they were “deeply concerned by several provisions” in the emerging package. They warned that “project cancellations will continue to snowball” without protecting the incentives that caused the investments.

Twelve of the 13 Republicans voted for the bill — every signer except Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

Along with Valadao and Kiggans, Republicans who signed both letters include Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, Mike Lawler and Andrew Garbarino of New York, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa, Young Kim of California and Don Bacon of Nebraska. (Bacon announced last week that he will retire.)

Meanwhile, some Republicans have already started to lean into parts of the bill.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who openly acknowledged the bill’s Medicaid changes will “take away health care from working people,” is holding an event Tuesday morning to celebrate the inclusion of his bipartisan effort to expand federal compensation for nuclear waste victims.>

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bf4 e5 8.Bg5 a6 9.Bxf6 gxf6 10.Na3 b5 11.Nd5 f5 12.Bd3 Be6 13.c3 Bg7 14.Qh5 h6 15.Nc2 f4 16.g3 Ne7 17.gxf4 Nxd5 18.exd5 Bxd5 19.Rg1 Qf6 20.Nb4 Bb7 21.O-O-O Qxf4+ 22.Kb1 Bf3 23.Qh3 Bxd1 24.Nd5 Qf3 25.Nc7+ Kf8 26.Qd7 Qxd3+ 27.Ka1 Kg8 28.Ne6 Bg4 29.Qb7 Bxe6 30.Qg2 Qg6 31.Qxa8+ Kh7 32.Qxa6 Qd3 0-1>

<<When Anderssen years ago was asked his opinion about Kolisch and Steinitz, he said: "Kolisch is a highwayman and points the pistol at your breast. Steinitz is a pickpocket, he steals a pawn and wins a game with it." And Anderssen was no mean judge.>

<Kristi Noem, also known as "Ice Barbie", made an interesting statement at Trump's sixth Cabinet meeting during this second term as President on Tuesday.

Noem said that the federal government is not responsible for managing disasters like the deadly flash floods in Texas, adding that it was the state's responsibility.

"We, as a federal government don't manage these disasters. The state does. We come in and support them," Noem said. "And that's exactly what we did here in this situation -FEMA went to an enhanced level, immediately, but as soon as you signed the major disaster declaration we were able to get them resources and dollars right away just like you envisioned through state block grants to help them with clean up," Noem added.

"FEMA has been deployed and we're cutting through the paper work of the old FEMA streamlining it much like your vision of how FEMA should operate and its been a much better response to help these families get through this terrible situation," she added.

Donald Trump hosted his sixth Cabinet meeting of his second term at the White House on Tuesday at 11 a.m.

President Trump, who was set to speak on multiple issues across the board, was surrounded by reporters while his administration discussed the flash foods in Texas.

The death toll from the devastating floods in Texas over the July Fourth weekend exceeded 100 on Monday, as search-and-rescue teams continued their efforts, wading through swollen rivers and using heavy machinery to clear debris in the extensive search for those missing.

Officials managing the search for flood victims stated they would address inquiries about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate before the lethal flooding that took at least 104 lives at a future date.>

<The US is reeling after catastrophic floods killed more than 100 people in Texas, including 27 children and counsellors from an all-girls Christian camp. On Monday, Democrats asked a government watchdog to investigate whether cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) affected the forecasting agency’s performance.

But Republicans’ default response has been to express fealty to Donald Trump. They lavished praise on the president for providing federal assistance while studiously avoiding questions around the effect of his “department of government efficiency” (Doge) or threats to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).

“It is a sign of the sickness and dysfunction of what was the Republican party that they have almost no thoughts about their constituents,” said Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “Their thoughts are, how do I avoid making sure that Donald Trump doesn’t look at me as an enemy or a critic?

“Despite the fact that the Doge cuts and the reductions in force and the early buyouts have savaged the workforce of the National Weather Service, they can’t even utter the slightest vague, elliptical critique of the administration that is now engaged in these cuts that have cost the lives of the people they supposedly represent.”

The raging flash floods – among the US’s worst in decades – slammed into riverside camps and homes in central Texas before daybreak on Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees. Authorities say the death toll is sure to rise as crews look for the many who are still missing.

Republicans have long been criticised for responding to mass shootings with “thoughts and prayers”, as if the tragedy transcends politics. Similarly, party leaders have sought to blame a freak act of nature rather than contemplating a potential association with Trump’s policies – or with the broader threat of the climate crisis, seemingly a taboo subject under the current administration.

Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, praised Trump for approving a major disaster declaration that ensured state and local government have more resources to deal with the emergency. “The swift and very robust action by President Trump is an extraordinary help to our response,” he said.

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, tweeted: “Thank you @POTUS Trump” for the declaration and told Fox News: “The National Weather Service under President Trump has been working to put in new technology and a new system because it’s been neglected for years. It’s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded and so President Trump recognised that right away and got to work on it when he came into office in January.”

Senator Ted Cruz wrote on the X social media platform that “President Trump committed ANYTHING Texas needs”, while telling a press conference: “There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time.”

Trump himself has struck a similar tone, deflecting questions about whether he is still planning to phase out Fema. He said he does not plan to re-hire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

The president told reporters on Sunday: “That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe.”

But scrutiny of whether more could have been done to avoid the tragedy is already under way. Texas officials criticised the NWS, arguing that it failed to warn the public about impending danger.

The NWS defended its forecasting and emergency management, stating that it assigned extra forecasters to the San Antonio and San Angelo offices over the holiday weekend. But a top leadership role at the NWS’s San Antonio office has been vacant since earlier this year after Paul Yura accepted an offer from the Trump administration to retire....>

<....Doge, formerly led by the billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has been pushing the NWS to cut jobs and gave hundreds of employees the option to retire early rather than face potential dismissal.

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, asked the commerce department’s acting inspector general to investigate whether staffing vacancies at the NWS’s San Antonio office contributed to “delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy” in forecasting the flooding. Republicans accused Democrats of seeking to politicise the tragedy.

Wilson, a political consultant who has worked on numerous campaigns, said: “It is an ongoing family psychodrama inside the Republican party, where everyone is desperately, deeply afraid that they will put a foot wrong with Donald Trump and that’s why there’s absolutely no candour with these folks about what has happened to the people they represent.”

Some commentators suggest that Republicans will ultimately pay a political price for their blind devotion and for last week passing Trump’s cost-cutting Big, Beautiful Act.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “It’s a vision of the future because every time there is something tragic that happens, not just a natural disaster but a mass shooting or you fill in the blank, somebody is going to find a connection to these deep cuts in government engineered by Trump and Musk.

“I think Trump and the Republicans need to get used to this. It may not hurt Trump, but it could potentially and should hurt some of the members of Congress from competitive states and districts that voted for the BBB.”>

<The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has sent administrative subpoenas to Harvard demanding information about foreign students, the latest move in the legal battle between the Trump administration and the Ivy League college.

Harvard called the subpoenas "unwarranted," but has said it would cooperate.

DHS said its hand was forced on the subpoenas because Harvard had not complied with noncoercive requests related to its Student Visitor and Exchange Program (SVEP) certification.

The first request, made in April, was for information about "criminality and misconduct" of foreign students on campus.

"If Harvard won't defend the interests of its students, then we will," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem posted to her X account.

"We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way. Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus."

Harvard Responds to DHS

A spokesperson for Harvard said in a statement sent to Newsweek that the college "is committed to following the law, and while the government's subpoenas are unwarranted, the University will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations."

"The administration's ongoing retaliatory actions come as Harvard continues to defend itself and its students, faculty, and staff against harmful government overreach aimed at dictating whom private universities can admit and hire, and what they can teach," they said.

"Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government."

Trump Takes on Elite Colleges

The administration is taking on Harvard and other elite colleges that it says are in the grip of a leftist ideology, which has led to antisemitism on campus, anti-meritocratic admissions policies that prioritize race above ability, and abuse of the immigration system.

Colleges have expressed willingness to engage with the Trump Administration on some of the reforms it has demanded of them, but also accused government officials of political meddling that undermines academic and First Amendment freedoms on campus.

Harvard SEVP Certification Under Threat

DHS has sought to terminate Harvard's SEVP certification, which enables it to enroll foreign students who can then secure visas.

It accused Harvard of "permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students".

In its latest release, DHS said there are "allegations of disciplinary disparity involving nonimmigrant students" and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is demanding documentation and other relevant records dating back to January 1, 2020.

But the college filed a suit against the SEVP revocation in a Massachusetts federal court and secured a preliminary injunction in June.

"This case is about core constitutional rights that must be safeguarded: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of speech, each of which is a pillar of a functioning democracy and an essential hedge against authoritarianism," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs in her preliminary injunction on June 23.

The Trump Administration has also suspended billions of dollars in federal grant money and other funding from Harvard after it refused to back down and make the various governance, disciplinary, and admissions changes it wanted.

Harvard has also challenged these moves to withhold funding in court and has a hearing set for July 21.>

<Former cable news commentators who lost their status after radically opposing President Donald Trump for the last decade are at it again. This time they're fearmongering about security issues related to the upcoming 2026 midterms.

Anti-Trump former MSNBC host Joy Reid spoke with Wajahat Ali on "The Left Hook" last week, claiming that people who believe future elections are going to be fair are “insane" for thinking so.

“Whenever Democrats say to me... 'We have to coalesce for 2026,’ I always add to the end of that sentence: ‘Yeah, assuming we actually have free and fair elections,’” she said. “I think it’s insane, honestly, to just assume we’re going to have normal elections next year. I don't assume that."

"The way Trump is behaving, he's not acting like somebody who worries that his party will lose power, or even if somehow we had normal elections and Democrats took control of either the House or the Senate, he's not acting like somebody who's worried about the consequences of that," Reid added.

She also accused Republicans of attempting to implement a "fascist manifesto" in the form of Project 2025, showing opposition to the "13th, 14th and 15th" constitutional amendments aimed at ending slavery, and not wanting "white women to have any rights."

Oh, and she thinks Trump will never leave office. Wow. That's a lot to unpack.

Reid is known for her Trump derangement issues, which contributed to her firing by MSNBC back in February due to poor ratings. During an interview following her firing, she broke down sobbing while insisting that "my show had value."

Apparently, it didn't have enough value. It turns out no one wants to hear progressive rabbit hole theories that have little evidence to back them up, with bitter anger and racial animosity looming over each talking point.

Another mainstream media fossil who's been put out to pasture is former CNN host and White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Acosta, who is also anti-Trump, quit CNN back in January after receiving a humbling demotion.

He had former Bill Clinton advisor James Carville on his podcast last week and brought up the idea of "vote tampering."

"Do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms?" he asked Carville. "Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms?"

Carville replied, "Yes," adding that he "wouldn't put anything past" the commander-in-chief.

Here we have three has-beens who've almost always attacked Trump, and who were left by the wayside, claiming Republicans are going to sabotage the integrity of the upcoming election.

My, oh my, how the tables have turned. There was a time not so long ago when woke pundits and Democratic lawmakers claimed voter fraud was a "myth" and preached that it was nearly impossible.

Even when the world was on lockdown, and relied on an entirely new -- and vulnerable -- voting system with mass mail-in ballots, it was considered treason to question any aspect of Joe Biden's 81 million votes.

Yet before a single vote has even been cast for the 2026 election, which is over a year away, these pundits are trying to convince the public it's fixed. This strategy has been financially profitable for them in the past, so they will continue their pandering to fringe elements of the far-left.

Ironically, they will likely never realize that this is also the main reason they've found themselves out in the cold.

Due to a lack of self-reflection -- and too much self-importance -- they are destined to sing this same old song until the music stops, or until they come to their senses. The public shouldn't hold its breath on either account.>