Todd Blanche to lobby John Cornyn as outgoing senator holds up confirmation

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is reportedly slated to lobby outgoing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) on Wednesday morning, after the Texas Republican held up his confirmation to take the mantle fully. Cornyn lost his primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after the decisive intervention of President Donald Trump, ensuring the embittered Republican would be […]

Trump's own party's tactics have boxed him in — and the spoiled brat is livid

We are now under 100 days until the midterms, and Republican strategists and GOP leaders have all come to the same conclusion for their caucus: keep Donald Trump's name out of your mouth, and ostensibly keep him off the campaign trail.Operatives close to the White House are reportedly telling incumbents and challengers alike — privately, one assumes, so the boss doesn't find out — to stop echoing his line on the Iran war, stop defending his economic numbers, and build their own case to voters instead.They'd be fools to attach themselves to him, even in some red districts where inflation has really come home to roost. Trump's almost “worst ever” approval rating is in the mid-30s and sinking. The war is closing in on half a year old, with no clean end in sight.Gas prices are up, "affordability" is the word Democrats have successfully claimed as their own, and every additional minute Trump spends talking is, by the party's own admission, a minute of bad news for candidates trying to get their messages through and survive in November.It all sounds reasonable and doable, except for the fact that one variable in this equation is petulant and predictable. When you tell Donald Trump no, or that he needs to be managed, nothing in the man's history suggests he knows how to do that.What's actually coming down the pike for Republicans isn't pretty and will make their plans look like chop suey. Does anyone say that anymore? Well, we can say it literally, because if Trump’s economic chaos continues, the only thing Americans will be able to afford to eat are cheap cans of chop suey.Trump is heading into the fall with a wish list that has absolutely nothing to do with food prices, reality or what's on voters' minds. He's obsessed with the SAVE Act, which is a loser in the Senate. He is still gunning for funding for his anti-weaponization fund, eager to provide updates about his gilded ballroom, and determined to sell the Iran war as successful when everyone, except he and Hegseth, knows it's a catastrophic failure.Standing between Trump and all of it is a small but real bloc of his own party. Jilted Sens. John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy have shown they're willing to buck him now that the chains are off after Trump sank their re-election hopes.Sen. Thom Tillis has already called parts of Trump's agenda "theater" and made clear he isn't interested in absorbing the blowback from ramming through election-law changes months before voters go to the polls.In the House, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie is making it his life's mission to buck his party when it counts and say no. Individually, none of them can stop Trump, but together they can make his life miserable by blocking the SAVE Act, trying to rid the bill, once and for all, of the anti-weaponization funding, and denying him the permission and funds to keep the Iran war going.And that is exactly the problem, because a boxed-in Trump doesn't respond well to being told "no." Instead, he has a long history of reacting by getting louder, angrier, and, in his current demented state, more demented.In 1990, he opened the Trump Taj Mahal on a mountain of junk-bond debt after financial advisers warned him the numbers didn't work for the economy at the time. When an analyst went public predicting the casino would fail, Trump's answer was to fire the analyst. The Taj Mahal missed its debt payments within months and was in bankruptcy court within the year.And who could forget Trump's insistence on promoting his favorite drug, hydroxychloroquine, from the White House podium? After federal scientists told him, repeatedly and on the record, that there was no evidence it did anything for COVID-19, he took it upon himself to play doctor and tout the drug's nonexistent benefits.He kept pressuring regulators to protect its emergency authorization right up until the clinical trials came back and the FDA had to reverse course in public.And more recently, when military and intelligence officials warned that an open-ended bombing campaign in Iran risked a war with no exit, he launched it anyway, relying on his "gut instincts" and, most assuredly, his spoiled brat persona to try to prove he knew more than military generals.Being told "no" has never once made Trump smaller. It has always made him bigger, louder, and more determined to prove the people telling him no were wrong. And what's wild about the whole thing is that Trump has always been wrong, even though he thinks he's always been right, which is yet another reason why he will ignore the word "no."Each of the examples above shows that Trump takes the word "no" as a personal insult, and hearing "no" from his own party, which he built and claims to have rescued, is going to be too much for him to handle.He is going to hit back publicly, make it all about him, loyalty to him, and betrayal of him, and remind everyone watching that he is the one being wronged.While the GOP insists on message discipline on the campaign trail, off the trail it will be...

'Have you lost your mind?' MAGA melts down at Trump over late-night endorsement

President Donald Trump sparked a firestorm late Tuesday night with an endorsement of a House candidate in Michigan — and his shocked fans on Truth Social let him have it.“It is my Great Honor to endorse Amir Hassan, who is running to represent the fantastic people of Michigan’s 8th Congressional District!” Trump wrote. “Amir Hassan has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Representative from Michigan’s 8th Congressional District — HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”His MAGA followers were not happy — Despite campaign literature in which Hassan says “Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior," followers raged at Trump for endorsing a Muslim. “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul," one Trump supporter wrote. "No political gain is worth insulting our Christian faith. No Muslims in America. No Muslims in office.”That was a common theme in the comments under Trump’s post.Trump supporter Conita Drew wrote a 542-word reply.“Have you lost your mind, endorsing Muslim candidates," Drew wrote. "What has happened to you? You are not the man that I voted for three times, you have no wisdom whatsoever where Islam is concerned.”“Honestly??? Why????" ranted “Proud conservative” Kimberlee. "Do you think there are already too many foreigners in congress??? Don’t you think enough is enough at this point????” “THATS A HARD NO FOR ME. NO MUSLIMS IN OFFICE PERIOD!” stated JeffV4JC, who claims in his profile, “Jesus Christ is my God and, Donald J Trump is my President.”JoniMarieForLiberty warned, “YOU ARE BEING MISLED, President Trump! This guy is a snake in the grass. Muslim and never voted for a republican in his whole life. Moved to Michigan last summer and immediately filed to run for office. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!”“His name gives me pause. Call me racist 🤷🏼♀️ but I am merely being cautious. Obama comes to mind,” advised “Loyal Trump supporter” Billie.Mad1Macs was short and to the point, writing: “NOPE.”

'Devastating' probe finds 47 alleged abusers at Epstein-linked arts center: report

A two-year investigation identified 47 adults accused of sexual misconduct against students at a Michigan arts institution with deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein, drawing on more than 70 firsthand accounts of abuse dating back to the 1950s, MLive reported Tuesday night.Epstein has a well-documented history with Interlochen Center of the Arts, having attended the institution in 1967 when he was around 14 years old. In the 1990s, Epstein became a major donor to the institution, and previous reporting has revealed how he and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell used the center to target young girls. Recent reports also revealed that Epstein had set up his own lodge at the institution, and was accused by the mother of soap opera actress Nadia Bjorlin of trying to groom her daughter when she was 13.Carried out by Sanghavi Law Office at the behest of the institution, the new investigation revealed that the scope of abuse was far greater than previously known, including new allegations of abuse by Epstein himself.“The information gathered during this investigation is, simply, devastating,” reads Sanghavi Law Office’s report. “Despite the deep and positive connections that many individuals expressed to the investigative team regarding Interlochen, some of these same individuals detailed the significant negative impact of the conduct that they reported.”The law office’s investigative team forwarded the names of the alleged abuser to the Grand Traverse County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, though a significant number of accused adults are now deceased, per the report. Having conducted around 180 interviews, the law office also uncovered a previously unreported allegation against Epstein.“One alum said that when she met Epstein and Maxwell at Interlochen, they offered to pay for her tuition, which they did. She noted that they withdrew financial support for subsequent schooling after she did not engage in requested conduct,” the law office’s report reads. “This alum said that during the time she interacted with Epstein and Maxwell at Interlochen, they asked her to Epstein’s lodge on campus, and that while there, Epstein engaged in sexual conduct with her, brushing against her body over her clothes, in a manner in which he indicated was accidental.”The same alum told investigators that she visited Epstein at his home in New York on three occasions while a student at Interlochen, during which Epstein would make unwanted sexual physical contact, and that she “did not tell anyone about Epstein’s conduct towards her until decades later.”In another new revelation, investigators discovered that a male faculty member at the institution had allegedly made unwanted physical advances and contact with a female student. That student told investigators that she confronted the faculty member and read aloud a letter to him: “Can you promise me that you won’t do this to anyone else?”The faculty member, according to the student, “told her that this was part of how he expressed love, and that he could not promise he would not do it again with anyone else,” the law office’s report reads.Per the report, the student informed leadership at the institution of the alleged unwanted physical contact. Within days of informing leadership, the male faculty member accused of abuse received a letter of recommendation from an institution administrator, and a second letter of recommendation from another administrator a month later.

Trump Truth Social premium service gives Democrats investigation target

President Donald Trump’s social media network’s plan to sell faster access to Truth Social posts hands Democrats another high-profile target as they prep congressional investigations into the Trump administration in case they win in the November midterm elections. Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform, recently announced the plan. Trump’s posts […]

WATCH LIVE: Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate

Anthony Fauci is set to testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. FAUCI TESTIFIES BEFORE THE SENATE: WHAT TO KNOW The hearing sets up a face-to-face between the former White House Coronavirus Task Force lead and his longtime skeptic, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who chairs the […]

Guess What Happened to the WI Brewery That Vowed Free Beer If Trump Died

Trump pardons megadonor 'fraudster' who cut 'massive' campaign check: report

President Donald Trump pardoned a Republican megadonor linked to a massive fraud scandal after he contributed to a high-stakes swing state campaign, according to a new report.Adam Kidan — who pleaded guilty in the lobbyist Jack Abramoff conspiracy case —received a pardon from Trump just days after making a $2,600 to Rep. Ryan MacKenzie's (R-PA) leadership PAC on June 30, NOTUS reported Wednesday."Trump traveled to Mackenzie’s eastern Pennsylvania district on June 23 to campaign with him," the report stated. "The president pardoned Kidan on July 3."Mackenzie’s office denied communication with Trump regarding the pardon but did not respond to question about whether the campaign would keep the cash, NOTUS reported. Neither the White House nor Kidan replied to requests for comment.But his Democratic challenger Bob Brooks's campaign told NOTUS they are livid as it fights to win a “toss-up” race, according to the report.“Three days after a convicted fraudster cut Ryan Mackenzie a massive campaign check, that same fraudster walked away with a presidential pardon," Brooks campaign manager Jenna Kaufman told NOTUS. "That is corruption in plain sight.”Kidan donated about $270,000 to Trump-affiliated committees during the 2024 election cycle and hosted fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, according to the report.He pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy and mail fraud in 2005."As part of his sentencing, Kidan and Abramoff were ordered to pay a total of $217 million in restitution," the report stated. "It’s unclear whether Kidan paid the full amount, and Trump’s pardon is likely to erase any remaining financial obligations."