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US Monthly Headline News July 2023 - Page 2
Story by Tommy Christopher

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team revealed the existence of “additional CCTV footage” in a new filing detailing evidence produced for ex-President Donald Trump’s defense team.

News broke last Thursday afternoon that Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed three additional charges against Trump: one additional count of unlawful retention of National Defense Information and two new obstruction counts based on allegations that Trump and co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira attempted to delete surveillance video footage at The Mar-a-Lago Club in the summer of 2022.

But a new filing posted on Monday reveals that Smith’s team has produced “additional” footage that Trump’s team didn’t have before:
Story by Tom Murray

A 1989 title in the Arthur book series is facing a potential ban in Florida after a conservative activist filed a complaint to his child’s school district.  The children’s books, written and illustrated by Marc Brown, famously spawned the popular Arthur cartoon series based on an anthropomorphic aardvark and his friends.

In a filing published by The Daily Beast, it has been revealed that Bruce Friedman, a member of the Clay County School District community, filed a challenge to Brown’s book Arthur’s Birthday on 12 July due to its inclusion of the game, “Spin the Bottle.”
Story by Brad Reed

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has made his fight against the left-wing "indoctrination" of children one of his major rallying cries. However, the Tampa Bay Times reports that PragerU, a right-wing institution whose learning materials are now being allowed for use in Florida schools, openly boasts that its goals are to indoctrinate young people.

In fact, PragerU's founder, right-wing talk show host Dennis Prager, openly admits in a promotional video that it's "fair" to say that his organization's goal is that indoctrination. Prager also copped to indoctrinating students during a talk with the right-wing Moms for Liberty group earlier this year.
Opinion by Jeet Heer

Even as his bid to become Republican presidential nominee circles the drain, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis can take pride in the fact that he is almost keeping pace with his chief rival in having embarrassing Nazi scandals. Earlier this week, in response to continuing lackluster polling, DeSantis fired 38 staffers. Axios noted that one of those staffers was Nate Hochman, a speechwriter who “secretly created and shared a pro-DeSantis video  that featured the candidate at the center of a Sonnenrad, an ancient symbol appropriated by the Nazis and still used by some white supremacists.” Earlier, Hochman and other staffers stirred controversy by sharing a bizarre homophobic and transphobic pro-DeSantis ad (presented as a fan creation even though evidence points to it being another in-house production). This follows hot on the heels of a June scandal when it turned out that Pedro Gonzalez, a pro-DeSantis influencer whose social media voice was being promoted by the Florida governor’s staff, had record of antisemitic, racist and fascist private direct messages.
Story by Wilfred Chan

In the small town of Freedom, Wisconsin, Buzz’s Pub and Grill – a local sports bar whose logo features frothing beer mugs in the colors of the American flag – has been short-staffed since the pandemic. Jeff Baker, the owner, says he “could use one more bartender, and probably two more cooks”. He hasn’t found takers in over a year of running “help wanted” ads, so he’s made do by working extra shifts in the kitchen and paring back the menu.

Baker could soon get more job applicants thanks to a new proposal that would lower Wisconsin’s minimum age for alcohol service to just 14 years old. It would “absolutely” be a welcome change if children applied, he says. “Not as many kids work as much as they used to. Back in our day, more kids were needed, and more parents made their kids work.”

Baker could soon get more job applicants thanks to a new proposal that would lower Wisconsin’s minimum age for alcohol service to just 14 years old. It would “absolutely” be a welcome change if children applied, he says. “Not as many kids work as much as they used to. Back in our day, more kids were needed, and more parents made their kids work.”
Story by Milla

A majority of the members of the Florida work group that worked on Florida’s new standards for Black history, including three Black members, did not agree with the sections that drew criticism, claiming they were “purposefully kept in the dark.”

A majority of the members of the Florida work group that worked on Florida’s new standards for Black history, including three Black members, did not agree with the sections that drew criticism, claiming they were “purposefully kept in the dark.”

Dr. Austin continued, “I thought that that was very disrespectful, extremely demeaning, and it supports what people want others to believe about African and African American people.” She added, “It’s the same divide techniques that they used on the plantation. It’s the same, identical thing. They always use methods of dividing the African and African American people. That’s what they do.”
Story by John Bowden

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley says she’s concerned about the new allegations levied at Donald Trump by the Justice Department, a sign that the Republican field may be growing more comfortable with openly criticising the former commander-in-chief.

Ms Haley was speaking in an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’s Face The Nation when she was asked about new charges filed by the Department of Justice in a superceding indictment this past week accusing Mr Trump of showing classified information to guests at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club — as well as a new charge of obstructing justice.

The former UN ambassador, appointed under Mr Trump, responded that she was very concerned “if these accusations are true”. The most recent accusations, notably, are supported by an audio recording of the Bedminster meeting in question in which Mr Trump can be heard exclaiming that documents he was holding (or gesturing to) were classified.
Story by Axios

Former President Donald Trump's legal fees continue to mount up as he's potentially facing a historic third indictment, putting further strain on his 2024 campaign, according to multiple reports.

Driving the news: Trump's PAC, Save America, has reportedly paid over $40 million in legal fees so far in 2023; more than the campaign raised during the second quarter of the year.

According to reports from several outlets, an FEC filing that's due tomorrow will list around $40.2 million in legal fees for Trump and some others involved in ongoing cases, including valet Waltine “Walt” Nauta, and his property manager Carlos De Oliveira. The expenses are the largest incurred so far in Trump's 2024 presidential bid, sources told The Washington Post, the first to report the news.

By the numbers: Earlier this month, the Trump campaign reported $35 million in donations received during the second quarter. That number was almost double what the former president had raked in during 2023's first quarter -- $18.8 million. At the time, the fundraising boost was thought to be a result of his indictment for his role in the ongoing classified documents case in mid-June.
MSN

Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday. U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.

A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged. The judge also rejected a motion by the defendants, which include prosecuting attorneys for the state, seeking to dismiss the case.
Story by Ken Tran, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie likened former President Donald Trump and his allies to the fictional Corleone crime family from "The Godfather” series, albeit “with no experience.”

Christie took aim at the new charges special counsel Jack Smith filed against Trump last week in his classified documents case, alleging Trump ordered to have surveillance footage destroyed at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“It’s pretty brazen,” Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “These guys were acting like the Corleones with no experience.” Prosecutors allege Trump, along with his valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago employee Carlos De Oliveira, attempted to delete surveillance video after investigators issued a subpoena for the footage.
Story by Ray Hartmann

California Republicans overhauled their delegate selection process today in a manner expected to help Donald Trump in 2024, the Los Angeles Times reported.

But the most interesting part of the story was what happened between two separate groups of pro-Trump protesters outside the event. Apparently confused by social media posts, they were denouncing the very action that the Trump campaign wanted.

And the best part is that they ended up trying to physically attack one another – outside a California Republican Party meeting at an Irvine hotel – until police intervened to cool them off. Here’s how the Times reported the protest piece of the story.

“Tensions flared…with pro-Trump protesters denouncing the move (to change the delegate-selection process), police getting called and two factions nearly coming to fisticuffs,” the report said.

“Protesters wearing red 'Make America Great Again' caps and carrying American, Trump and 'Don’t Tread on Me' Gadsden flags gathered outside of the committee meeting, chanting Trump’s name and 'America First!' After they tried to enter the meeting and were blocked by security guards, Irvine police officers showed up and tried to cool emotions."
Story by Brandon Gage

Indicted ex-President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen warned on MSNBC on Sunday that Republican presidential candidates' dalliances with neofascism indicate that there is little daylight between themselves and Trump, whose brand of grievance politics has swept through the GOP's primary voting bloc. The segment began with host Ali Velshi recalling Trump's credo of, "'They're indicting me to — you know I'm protecting you. I'm the only one between you and them,'" which Cohen compared to the writings of Adolf Hitler.

"It's right out of Mein Kampf, which allegedly Donald used to keep on the side of his table. This is not a joke," Cohen said. "And to anybody who thinks for a quick second that, 'Listen, there's no way he's going to win,' that was a pretty packed audience last night in Erie, Pennsylvania. And shame on each and every one of them for going there after you start hearing, even like the stupidity from the DeSantis who's trying to be a Donald Trump 2.0 about slavery and then the Holocaust. I mean, they are all out of control. And if guys like Donald Trump or Donald Trump 2.0 retake the White House, the America — and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here — the America that we know is going to be more like The Handmaid's Tale than the United States of America. That my daughter should have less rights than my mother is appalling. We are going backwards as a country and it's why — look Ali, in all fairness — why your show and so many others are so important in order to explain, explain to the people who don't want to be explained to what's really going on here."
Story by Julia Shapero

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok claimed on Saturday that the new charges brought against former President Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case highlight “the danger that he poses to national security.” “This indictment just gets much worse for Trump,” Strzok said on MSNBC. “It highlights the danger that he poses to national security, and it really shows what he was doing to try and undermine the judicial process.”

The Justice Department (DOJ) filed a superseding indictment against the former president on Thursday, accusing him of attempting to delete surveillance footage at Mar-a-Lago and adding another Espionage Act count over a military document that he boasted of having at a 2021 meeting. Strzok pointed to the document, which was marked as top secret and not releasable to foreign nationals, in arguing that the former president poses a threat to national security.

To the editor: I was wrong. I thought the Republicans were trying to take us back to the 1950s. But Gov. Ron DeSantis’ remarks about the possible benefits of slavery hark back to antebellum apologists who used “scientific” racism to justify slavery. Indeed, what Republicans really want to do is take us back to the early 19th Century. - Margaret Hamilton, Portland, Ore.

To the editor: When the Florida Board of Education put forth examples (in a list masterfully debunked by Michael Hiltzik) of how certain African Americans benefited from the skills they learned as slaves, they missed one of the most brilliant examples ever: Robert Smalls. As a slave he learned how to navigate a sizable ship into and out of Confederate Charleston Harbor… so that he could later dupe his owner in 1862 and navigate the ship (along with its supply of heavy artillery) quietly out of the harbor as a gift to Union forces. Oh, after stopping to pick up his family along the way. - Russ Woody, Studio City
Opinion by Joe Berkowitz

One day during last month’s Pride festivities, the White House flew a trans-inclusive flag and conservatives predictably lost their minds about it. The very idea of the government telling trans people they are welcome in America rubbed some in the media and in the U.S. Senate the wrong way. Trump’s former top adviser Stephen Miller called it “a warning about how civilizations unravel from within.”

“Where does it end?” critics of trans visibility often ask, as though each act of tolerance only hastens the hand basket ferrying us all to hell. If something as egregious as a flag is possible, where does it end? Meanwhile, back in reality, the only real progress made with regards to the LGBT community this past June was in the existential war against it. Toward the end of an already-brutal Pride Month, the Supreme Court ruled that businesses may discriminate against LGBT customers, but only in circumstances that go against their religious beliefs, like a same-sex wedding.
Opinion by Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman, opinion contributors

Florida’s Board of Education recently released new Black history standards. They require that middle school students learn “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied to their personal benefit.” The board also mandated that the high school curriculum for the 1920 Ocoee, Florida Election Day Massacre include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” The new standards, the director of communications for the Board declared, incorporated “all components of African American history: the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Apparently, Board members don’t know anything about — or want to erase — the actual history of slavery and racism in their state. Here are some facts that should be included in the Florida ­public school curriculum: Between the 16th and 19th centuries, about 12.5 million Africans were transported against their will to the Americas. About 1.8 million of them did not survive the journey, or have an opportunity to become “unpaid interns” and develop skills that could be applied to their personal benefit.
Story by Alex Seitz-Wald

Donald Trump’s primary rivals have had a hard time convincing GOP voters that they’d be more electable than the indicted former president — but they may, at least in part, have themselves to blame for it. Most of the 2024 candidate field has spent the past two and half years validating or turning a blind eye to Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, priming the Republican base to believe that Trump is a proven winner against President Joe Biden. Now they have only a few months to try to undo that perception but appear reluctant to press the case.

“A lot of these GOP primary contenders are paying the price of enabling Trump throughout the course of the last three years,” said former Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Trump critic. “The best way to beat him is by ... showing that Trump and his movement have been rejected in general elections three times in a row. But you don’t hear [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis or the other candidates speaking to voters in this way. It’s impossible to defeat someone by following them.”
John Wright

Brianna Keilar, co-host of CNN's "New Day," on Thursday morning detailed former president Donald Trump's long history of frivolous lawsuits. Keilar's segment came in the wake of Trump's lawsuit against Facebook, Google and Twitter accusing them of violating his First Amendment rights — by banning him for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection — even though the tech companies aren't government actors.

"This lawsuit strategy is same old, same old for Trump," Keilar began. "The art of the frivolous lawsuit has been his MO for decades. He does it for publicity. He does it to delay legitimate legal challenges. He does it to bury workers on his building projects — who just want to get paid for their manual labor — in legal bills. And in this case, he's doing it to raise money. One hour later, he sent fundraising emails."
Story by Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter

As overlapping criminal investigations bear down on former President Donald Trump, one potential — and prominent — co-conspirator could face particularly pitched legal jeopardy as a key participant in the multi-state, multi-stage effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Rudy Giuliani — the former mayor of New York City, former federal prosecutor, and one of the former president’s most loyal advocates — figures prominently in an alleged scheme to install fake Trump presidential electors, which appears to be the focal point of anticipated charges by both Special Counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

Giuliani’s promotion of a debunked conspiracy theory about two election workers falsely accused of mishandling Fulton County ballots also implicates him in an infamous phone call from Trump to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — also a focal point of Willis’ investigation. During the phone call, Trump tried to pressure the state’s chief election officer into flipping the election in the former president’s favor.
by Al Weaver

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) is in hot water after he cursed out a group of teenage Senate pages in the Capitol rotunda early Thursday morning. According to a transcript written by a page minutes after the incident and obtained by The Hill, Van Orden called the pages “jackasses” and “pieces of s‑‑‑,” and told them he didn’t “give a f‑‑‑ who you are.”

The pages are a group of 16- and 17-year-olds who assist Senate operations, and when the Senate works late — as it did Wednesday night on National Defense Authorization Act amendments — pages generally rest nearby in the rotunda. “Wake the f‑‑‑ up you little s‑‑‑‑. … What the f‑‑‑ are you all doing? Get the f‑‑‑ out of here. You are defiling the space you [pieces of s‑‑‑],” Van Orden said, according to the account provided by the page.
Story by bnolan@insider.com (Beatrice Nolan)

Tesla exaggerated the driving range of its EVs for years, an investigation from Reuters has found.

The report, which cited a source familiar with an early design of Tesla software, said the EV maker rigged the range-estimating software on the cars' dashboards. Instead of displaying the true driving range, the software provided a "rosy" projection of how far cars could drive before needing to be recharged, the report said.

The distance EVs can travel before needing to be recharged is one of the main disadvantages the cars face in comparison with gas vehicles. The order to inflate the driving range displayed on the cars was given by Tesla's CEO Elon Musk around 10 years ago, according to Reuters. The news agency said it couldn't determine if the algorithms were still in use.
Story by Tom Boggioni

ADonald Trump rally in the tiny town of Pickens, South Carolina, on July 1 left the community with $40,000 in expenses which community leaders are debating absorbing, reports WSPA/Fox8. The former president is headed to Erie, Pennsylvania, this Saturday still owing $35,000 for expenses incurred when the city hosted his Oct. 10, 2018, Make America Great Again rally at Erie Insurance Arena. City officials are still trying to have him settle that tab before he shows up for a new rally.

As for Pickens, local officials are pleased that the former president visited their small town with a population of under 4,000 and drew a crowd estimated to be over 50,000, although the former president claimed 75,000 showed up which was, in turn, disputed by the Secret Service.

That massive turnout caused the city to shell out about $30,000 to first responders who worked the event as well as an additional $10,000 for setup costs. According to the WSPA report, "While many said they wonder why Trump’s campaign didn’t pay those costs, the county said it would have been foolish to send the campaign a bill."
Story by Julia Shapero

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) mocked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) call for decorum at a House subcommittee hearing on Thursday, pointing to the congresswoman’s presentation of sexually explicit posters on a separate panel last week. “Marjorie needs to remember she showed us a d— pic last week,” Garcia tweeted on Thursday, after Greene interrupted his remarks at a hearing on COVID-19 vaccine mandates to call for decorum.

The California Democrat displayed a tweet from Greene at the hearing, in which she compared vaccine and mask mandates to the yellow Star of David that Jews were required to wear by the Nazis in the lead-up to the Holocaust. “We have seen this tweet behind us before,” Garcia said on Thursday, gesturing to a poster of the tweet. “And this person, of course, sits on this very committee, who just actually gave some very irresponsible facts to our witnesses and the committee as well.”
Story by AJ McDougall

The Houston Independent School District announced Tuesday that at least 28 local schools will be placed under the New Education System, a reform plan that involves firing those schools’ librarians. The library spaces at these schools—all of which have been deemed to be underperforming—will also be converted into so-called “Team centers,” where students who misbehave in the classroom will be sent to watch the lesson remotely.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Former President Donald Trump's supporters have developed a worldview that is essentially the polar opposite of reality, argued political scientist Brian Klaas in a new Substack article examining the results of a new survey. These results, argued Klaas, give insight into a "warped bizarro world reality" that supporters of the former president has created for himself, even as he is facing criminal prosecution on several fronts.

But even more than that, Klaas said, the survey shows how dangerous it is for journalists to simply act as stenographers, detachedly reporting on claims politicians make without offering value judgements about their veracity — something that some political pundits have insisted is the best way to go about covering Trump and the GOP. "The Brightline Watch survey compares answers across two waves, one from October 2022 and another from June/July 2023. That way, you can see how some attitudes have changed across time," wrote Klaas.
Story by By Nicole Chavez and Justin Gamble, CNN

The College Board said Thursday it “resolutely” disagrees with any notion that enslavement was beneficial for African Americans – a statement coming after some people compared the contents of its Advanced Placement course on African American Studies with Florida’s recently approved Black history curriculum.

“We resolutely disagree with the notion that enslavement was in any way a beneficial, productive, or useful experience for African Americans,” the College Board told CNN on Thursday. “Unequivocally, slavery was an atrocity that cannot be justified by examples of African Americans’ agency and resistance during their enslavement.”

The board’s comments come after Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, tweeted on Wednesday what appears to be a screenshot of a portion of the College Board’s AP African American Studies course framework that refers to slavery. The document in part says students should know enslaved people learned trades that they used, once free, to provide for themselves and others.
Story by Cheyanne M. Daniels

Black Americans are under attack, members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said Thursday, arguing that a slew of efforts from Republicans across the country are an assault on their rights. “Black people are under attack in America, but we are not victims and we are not powerless,” CBC Chairman and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) said at a Thursday press event from the Capitol.

“Our fundamental rights are under assault and our very history is being denied. But we will not stand by quietly as it happens. We will never give up when so many people are counting on us to fight for them.” In the last month, the GOP-led state Legislature in Alabama defied a Supreme Court order to create a second majority-Black district, as did the Legislature in Louisiana. In Florida, new education guidelines have been approved by the state Board of Education that require students be told of the benefits people earned because of skills learned as slaves.

As House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) spoke on the House floor, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) accused Republican lawmakers of passing bills that are “racist.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to defend curriculum changes to how Black history is taught in Florida schools, saying that enslaved Black people “parlayed” skills used in forced labor “into doing things later in life.” President and CEO of the National Urban League Marc Morial and John Kasich join Andrea Mitchell to react. “The idea that you got skills that you could use later in life — there was no later in life but being enslaved, except for maybe the last generations that were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment,” Morial says. “The very notion that you're going to engage in sort of a lost cause, revisionist history and try to indoctrinate the young people of Florida with this garbage is going to be resisted.
Story by Travis Gettys

Conservative broadcaster Steve Deace complained bitterly that Donald Trump's allies admitted to lies about the election that he helped spread.

The BlazeTV host initially opposed Trump in 2016 and then claimed to leave the Republican Party after his first choice, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), called for unity behind the reality TV star-turned GOP standard bearer, but by 2020 he was promoting Trump's election lies and raising money for the "Stop the Steal" movement -- much to his belated chagrin.

"We are going to the mattresses for these people, we are offering them more accommodations, more chances, than we'd offer our own family members, for goodness sake," Deace said, "and for what? For Rudy Giuliani to go down to Georgia and admit that he lied? Have Jason Miller tell the Jan. 6 commission, 'Yeah, we all knew it was BS?' What is this?

"Some of you don't like it when I use the cult word. When you like being treated like a schmuck, and ask for more, that is a cult. 'I'm the mark, I'm the sucker, I want to be such and I resent the person who tries to get me out of that.' Those are marks of groupthink, frankly."
Story by Nick Mordowanec

A Michigan lawyer accused of illegally accessing voting machines following the 2020 election said she has been indicted.

Stefanie Lambert is one of nine people who allegedly tampered with voting tabulators to prove that the results of the election were rigged and that then-President Donald Trump and his supporters did not embellish claims of election fraud.

"My attorney has been informed that I have been indicted by [Muskegon County Prosecutor D.J. Hilson], the special prosecutor in Michigan, working at the request of [Attorney General] Dana Nessel," Lambert said Wednesday on the Conservative Daily podcast.
By Robert Legare, Melissa Quinn, Kathryn Watson

Washington — Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith's office have added new charges against former President Donald Trump in the case involving documents with classified markings discovered at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago, according to court papers filed in federal court Thursday evening.

A superseding indictment unsealed by the Justice Department lists multiple new counts against Trump, including: altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing an object; and corruptly altering, destroying, mutilating or concealing a document, record or other object; and an additional charge of willful retention of national defense information.

Trump was previously charged with 37 felony counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of classified documents and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He has pleaded not guilty and claimed the prosecution is a politically motivated "witch hunt" against him. Speaking Thursday with Breitbart, Trump called the charges "harassment" and "election interference."
Opinion by Mike Freeman, USA TODAY

There are many reasons Elon Musk is a danger. The list is long.

In May, he posted a disgraceful conspiracy theory about a mass shooter in Allen, Texas. He tweeted that George Soros, often a target of right-wingers and white nationalists, wants to "erode the very fabric of civilization" and "hates humanity." He tweeted an anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi. In the first 24 hours after Musk purchased Twitter last year, the Anti-Defamation League said over 1,200 tweets and retweets spread antisemitism. The Washington Post reported use of the N-word increased 500 percent on Twitter after he took over the site. Can't say if Musk is racist but racists think he is.
Story by Danni Button

Since billionaire and pop culture wild-card Elon Musk has taken the reins at Twitter, it's been all but business as usual. Between massive layoffs and revenue struggles, it's hard to say that the company has been the better for his presence. His most recent rebranding, ditching the blue bird and simply dubbing the platform "X", has also been met with criticism.

Musk's latest move hasn't drawn as much ire as his current rebrand, but it could do more damage in the long run. The owner of X chose to reinstate a right-wing account that had previously been suspended for posting images of child sexual abuse -- an action Twitter's rules say it has a "zero-tolerance policy" against.
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., drew fire from inside his own party after floating the idea of launching an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

Former President Donald Trump and his right-wing allies have pushed an investigation into Hunter Biden and the president's family that has thus far yielded little evidence but a lot of hype from the right. But after the Hunter Biden case nearly imploded this week — with the younger Biden pleading not guilty on Wednesday to tax and gun charges as his initial plea deal fell apart — some Republicans contemplated whether it was effective to continue going after the president's son on the matter at all.

According to Politico, McCarthy himself dialed back his Tuesday comments that suggested an impeachment inquiry was on the horizon, clarifying instead that Republicans merely "could" move forward with the proceedings.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Former President Donald Trump has a documented count of falsehoods exceeding 30,000 just during his time in office, and even more are being pushed as he faces down potential indictment for the January 6 attack. And the Republicans who fail to expose his lies came under scathing criticism from Los Angeles Times columnist Mark Barabak Thursday.

"Birds fly. Fish swim. Politicians say things they hope will get them elected," wrote Barabak. This isn't necessarily evil, he noted. "There is, however, an important qualitative difference between telling voters what they’d like to hear or dialing an issue up or down depending on the audience and knowingly, calculatedly telling a flat-out lie."
Story by Isaac Schorr

Longtime fans of Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R) minced no words in their critiques of comments DeSantis made during a recent interview indicating he’d consider Democrat and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a job.

During an interview with OutKick’s Clay Travis, DeSantis said that while he wouldn’t choose Kennedy as his running mate, he might consider “siccing him” on the Food and Drug Administration or Centers for Disease Control.

“I’m aligned with him on Fauci and the corruption and the health bureaucracies 100%. And I think he’s probably done said some other things that I agree with, too. But the end of the day, you know, he’s more liberal,” explained DeSantis before concluding “and so on that regard, it’s like, okay, if you’re president, sic him on the FDA. If he’d be willing to serve, or sic him on CDC.”

“But in terms of being Veep, if there’s, you know, 70% of the issues that he may be averse to our base on, you know, that just creates an issue,” he said.
Story by Brad Reed

Gabriel Sterling, the Republican chief operating officer of the Georgia Secretary of State's office, made a fresh plea to Trump supporters in the wake of former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's admission that he made false statements about Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss.

Writing on Twitter, Sterling said that Giuliani's admission should make Trump supporters realize that they were fed nonstop falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump lost decisively to President Joe Biden.

"Rudy Giuliani admits that he lied about Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman," Sterling wrote. "We've known for years that he lied about them and the events at State Farm Arena. For those that still believe there was widespread voter fraud, these people are admitting they lied to you."
Story by Tom Boggioni

During an appearance on "CNN This Morning," the IRS whistleblower at the center of the Republican Party's obsession with the Department of Justice's investigation of Hunter Biden was repeatedly fact-checked by co-host Poppy Harlow and then had his central argument dismantled by legal expert Elie Honig.

According to Joseph Ziegler, who believes the DOJ hasn't done a thorough job investigating and charging President Joe Biden's son, a special counsel is needed to take over the case that has being headed by a Donald Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney David Weiss.

With Weiss writing in a letter this week that he is willing to testify at a congressional hearing this fall, Ziegler attempted to make the case that he had questions about Weiss' work and that a special; counsel is required to an unfettered job.

That led CNN's Harlow to stop him more than once and point out the limitations of a special counsel -- who must report to Attorney General Merrick Garland -- as opposed to Weiss that has free rein without any undue pressure from above.
Story by By STEVE PEOPLES, BRENDAN FARRINGTON and KAT STAFFORD, Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Civil rights activists cheered when Ron DeSantis pardoned four Black men wrongfully convicted of rape as one of his first actions as Florida's governor. But four years later, as DeSantis eyes the presidency, their hope that the Republican would be an ally on racial justice has long faded.

Instead, African American leaders decry what they call a pattern of “policy violence” against people of color executed by the DeSantis administration that reached a low point after the recent release of an “anti-woke” public school curriculum on Black history. Specifically, Florida's teachers are now required to instruct middle-school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

“DeSantis has perfected the art of using policy violence that we must stop," said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. His organization issued a travel advisory for Florida in May warning African Americans against DeSantis' “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”
Story by Travis Gettys

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' "war on woke" has cost the state another event that would have generated millions of dollars for the local economy. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the oldest Black fraternity in the country, is moving its 2025 conference from Orlando due to the 2024 Republican presidential hopeful's "harmful, racist, and insensitive policies against the Black community," reported the Tallahassee Democrat.

"Although we are moving our convention from Florida, Alpha Phi Alpha will continue to support the strong advocacy of Alpha Brothers and other advocates fighting against the continued assault on our communities in Florida by Governor Ron DeSantis," said general president Dr. Willis L. Lonzer III in a press release. The event was expected to generate $4.6 million, according to the intercollegiate fraternity whose membership historical figures such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall and Adam Clayton Powell.
Story by Alex Henderson

Far-right Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his allies have been drawing widespread criticism from historians and civil rights groups in response the state's new Black history curriculum for public schools, which teaches that slaves acquired valuable job skills during the 19th Century.

The curriculum states that that the "various duties and trades performed by slaves" — including "agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing" and "transportation" — gave them "skills" that "in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." During a late July appearance on CNN, director Spike Lee slammed the curriculum as "dangerous" revisionism.
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