@crgibs
Louis DeJoy

Biden Takes A Big Step Toward Replacing DeJoy At Postal Service

Ever since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy — a major Republican donor — was selected to head the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 2020, he's been enacting massively unpopular policies criticized by postal workers and Democrats alike. Now, President Joe Biden may soon be able to replace him.

On Thursday, Politico congressional correspondent Anthony Adragna reported that Biden was nominating former Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) to fill the last remaining vacancy on the USPS Board of Governors. She, along with former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, are now awaiting confirmation by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI).

Should both Demings and Walsh be confirmed, that would give Biden seven appointees on the nine-member board overseeing USPS. And because the Postmaster General's hiring and firing is up to the board and not Biden, that could mean that DeJoy could be removed from his post by the time Biden leaves office in January of 2025.

Biden appointees have held a majority on the USPS board since 2022, when three of his appointees were confirmed by Peters' committee. However, his appointees have been slow to fire DeJoy given his close partnership with the Biden administration on clean energy policy. Politico reported last year that DeJoy is rolling out a plan to add roughly 106,000 new electric vehicles to the USPS' fleet of mail delivery trucks, with 66,000 of those trucks on the road by 2028. Biden's landmark Inflation Reduction Act allocated $3 billion to the initiative, and DeJoy has partnered with veteran Democratic strategist John Podesta to implement his plan.

However, DeJoy is still reviled for his efforts to consolidate USPS sorting facilities, which has severely impacted the speed of mail delivery — particularly in populated metropolitan areas in battleground states like Atlanta, Georgia and Richmond, Virginia. In one heated exchange earlier this year, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) confronted Ossoff about complaints from his constituents that they weren't getting important mail until after weeks of delays.

“You don't have months to fix 36 percent of the mail being delivered on time," Ossoff said. "I've got constituents with prescriptions that aren't being delivered. I've got constituents who can't pay their rent and their mortgages. I've got businesses who aren't able to ship products or receive supplies.”

During that committee hearing, Ossoff gave DeJoy a two-week deadline to address his concerns. When that deadline came and went with no action, Ossoff again pressed him for solutions. The two finally met earlier this month to talk about how to streamline mail delivery in Atlanta, and the Georgia Democrat asserted that he was still not confident in DeJoy's leadership after their conversation.

"For months I have sustained relentless pressure on USPS management to fully resolve disastrous performance failures impacting my constituents in Georgia. I’m still hearing from Georgia families and businesses about the difficulty they continue to face sending and receiving their mail, which is why I met today with Postmaster General DeJoy to again reiterate the need for further improvements and greater transparency," Ossoff stated. "I will not rest until my constituents are well and fully served by the U.S. Postal Service."

After pressure from numerous senators urging DeJoy to reconsider his consolidation plans that would harm the speed of mail service in rural communities, DeJoy finally relented and announced he would be postponing the initiative. However, questions still remain about whether voters relying on voting by mail in the November election will be able to receive their ballots in time to vote, and whether the USPS will deliver their ballots to be counted on time.

“We’re approaching a major November election,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), who represents parts of Houston, said in March. “We need to make sure that we iron out any difficulties, any obstacles, any barriers, any issues now, so that we don’t end up in a situation much like we were in with the November ballots.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Democrats To 'Pull The Guts Out' Of GOP Effort To Deny Harris Ballot Access

Democrats To 'Pull The Guts Out' Of GOP Effort To Deny Harris Ballot Access

Republicans – with the assistance of the far-right Heritage Foundation (architects of Project 2025) — are planning a last-ditch effort to stop Vice President Kamala Harris from getting ballot access. But Democratic-aligned attorneys are already waiting to shut it down.

Heritage has been planning for the possibility of President Joe Biden exiting the race since late June. Mike Howell, who is the director of Heritage's Oversight Project, laid out how Republicans could exploit laws in several swing states to challenge a non-Biden nominee's efforts to qualify for the ballot. But in a Tuesday report for Rolling Stone, reporters Andrew Perez and Asawin Suebsaeng wrote that the GOP's goal of preventing Harris from getting on the ballot is likely to fail.

"I am going to bet that if [Republicans] try to do this, it’ll be something that we can pull the guts out of in the time it takes to have lunch," an unnamed Democratic lawyer said.

The attorney, who called the effort "some of the dumbest bulls— I’ve ever had to read," went on to compare the effort to deny ballot access to Harris to one by former President Donald Trump's disgraced ex-attorney, John Eastman. He argued in 2020 that Harris didn't meet the presidency's natural-born citizen requirements despite being born on U.S. soil, due to her parents being immigrants. Eastman simultaneously believed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was an eligible candidate in 2016 despite being born in Canada.

Perez and Suebsaeng previously reported that an unnamed "senior source" within the Trump campaign, as well as an individual involved with Project 2025 confided that they knew the effort to keep Harris off of ballots would fall apart. However, those sources said the goal was more to distract Democrats from the campaign trial with complex litigation in the final months of the election cycle.

“Such litigation is extremely unlikely to be successful,” Rick Hasen, director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project At UCLA’s Law School, told the outlet. “I fully expect the Democrats’ nominee to be on the ballot in every state and Washington, D.C."

Before he dropped out of the race, Biden and his campaign reportedly had calls with attorneys and legal experts who pored over how to respond if Heritage tried to argue in court that Harris wasn't able to replace Biden on the ballot. Democratic lawyers tended to agree that their arguments to the court would be "as condescending as possible" in the event Heritage followed through on their legal threats. According to Rolling Stone, one idea kicked around on the call was "scolding these Republicans for supposedly not understanding how basic terms like 'presumptive nominee' work."

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) hinted that Democrats would run into "legal impediments" if they tried to replace Biden on the top ballot line. But Democratic election attorney Marc Elias dismissed that as "frivolous threats of frivolous litigation by an election denier." He also stated that no Democratic nominee would be official anyway until after delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month officially select their party's general election candidate.

“There is currently no nominee of the Democratic Party, and so the notion that the Democratic Party is somehow precluded from choosing its nominee, pursuant to its bylaws and its rules, is preposterous,” Elias said.

“I am here to say that with 100 percent certainty that when the Democratic National Committee nominates its candidate and transmits that to the states, that person will be on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia," he added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

GOP Member Urges House To 'Impeach The  Vice President'

GOP Member Urges House To 'Impeach The Vice President'

Vice President Kamala Harris is continuing to rapidly consolidate support for her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, with President Joe Biden's blessing. Now, Republicans in Congress are hoping to throw a wrench in the works.

Politico reporter Olivia Beavers tweeted that Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) has already introduced articles of impeachment against Harris for "high crimes and misdemeanors." One article is for alleged "willful refusal to uphold the immigration laws," and another is for "breach of public trust."

When Beavers asked Ogles about the impending August recess when lawmakers are scheduled to be out of town for the next month, the Tennessee Republican pushed back, saying: "I have a problem with that. I think we have Appropriations bills to address and we need to impeach the vice president."

"If our work isn't done, why would we leave?" Ogles added.

Ogles' first article of impeachment appears to be in response to President Joe Biden putting Harris in charge of leading diplomatic efforts to determine the root causes of mass migration from Central America to the United States. Republicans misinterpreted this as Biden making Harris his administration's "border czar," which was never a title she held. However, if the GOP is attempting to suggest that the Southern border is Harris' responsibility, then Harris would have an opening to run on illegal border crossings dropping by roughly 40% since Biden issued an executive order clamping down on asylum applications.

The second article of impeachment for "breach of public trust," which blames Harris for allegedly concealing Biden's cognitive health from the public and not invoking the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in order to usurp her boss. While Biden's performance in the June debate with former President Donald Trump was lackluster, he sought to distance himself from that with an hour-long solo press conference at the most recent NATO summit in which he answered complex questions on domestic and foreign policy.

It's unlikely that Ogles' impeachment effort will pick up steam, as impeachments of high-ranking members of an administration are typically preceded by public hearings and supported by a significant swath of lawmakers. And with the August recess less than two weeks away it's not likely that any hearings in the House Judiciary Committee to discuss Ogles' articles of impeachment will be scheduled.

Ogles' effort to impeach Harris over the Southern border is similar to Republicans' impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this year. However, even top Republican lawyer Jonathan Turley admitted his party had no standing to impeach a cabinet secretary over what amounted to a policy dispute. He instead encouraged Republicans to take their disagreements with Mayorkas and the Biden administration to the polls in November.

"There is no jurisdictional question for Mayorkas, but there is also no current evidence that he is corrupt or committed an impeachable offense," Turley wrote in January. "He can be legitimately accused of effectuating an open border policy, but that is a disagreement on policy that is traced to the President."

Republicans were unable to impeach Biden despite House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer's (R-Kentucky) best efforts. Even after multiple public hearings, Comer failed to gin up enough support for his crusade against Biden, and the committee effectively scuttled its inquiry this spring.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

JD Vance

Vance's Contacts Include Prominent Anti-Semite Who Boasts Of Influencing Him

2024 Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) reportedly keeps close company with far-right activists according to a new report, and they may soon find themselves embedded high up in the federal government if former President Donald Trump returns to power this fall.

On Thursday, tech publication Wired reported on the details of Vance's Venmo account, which is a popular platform used for online payments. Because Venmo automatically sets accounts to be publicly viewable, Wired was able to comb through the profiles of the several hundred people listed as "friends" on the Ohio senator's Venmo.

Many of those are controversial figures tied to the same academic and political establishment Vance has constantly railed against in his public speeches. But others are major figures in extremist political circles.

According to Wired, names in the 2024 VP hopeful's contacts include Stop The Steal organizer Ali Alexander, conservative provocateur James O'Keefe and pro-Trump social media personality Laura Loomer. His profile also lists former Michael Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis, who also represents international mafioso Dmitry Firtash — a high-ranking member of the Russian mob.

"This appears to be his actual personal contacts," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington vice president Jordan Libowitz told Wired. "[T]he more personal data that is public about someone the more points of pressure or influence there are on that person."

Earlier this week, Andrew Torba — the CEO of far-right social media app Gab — tweeted that Vance was "influenceable" given the people he's surrounded himself with. Gab was thrust into the national spotlight after reports confirmed that the perpetrator of the 2017 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting was active on the platform and frequently posted anti-Semitic content.

"We have plenty of people in his orbit. Plenty of our guys can be put into positions of power because he’s there," Torba wrote. "Our focus should be on pulling him as far right as possible by 2028. Long game. Honey, not vinegar."

Torba's comments are particularly revealing, even though he didn't mention any particular names. After his nomination was announced, screenshots emerged of Vance in a Twitter group chat with several teenage "groypers" (the name associated with followers of white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes).

"Yo Akron Caleb is thirsty," Vance wrote in response to a former George Santos staffer asking for Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt to follow him back. "Just practicing my cool kid lingo with the simps chat."

Vance's Venmo also shows other "friends" in his contacts including a lobbyist for the Heritage Foundation (the chief organization pushing Project 2025), billionaire Todd Ricketts and Michael Flynn Jr.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bannon Reportedly Has Taped Interviews With Jeffrey Epstein -- On Subjects Including Trump

Bannon Reportedly Has Taped Interviews With Jeffrey Epstein -- On Subjects Including Trump

Steve Bannon, who was former President Donald Trump's chief White House strategist in 2017, reportedly has over a dozen hours of interview footage with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein that has yet to see the light of day.

Business Insider reported Wednesday that questions are still lingering about when Bannon's footage with the Trump-adjacent multimillionaire financier — who pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008 — will ever be seen by the public. Mark Epstein, who is Jeffrey's brother, told the outlet that Bannon's documentary was meant to "rehabilitate [Jeffrey's] reputation" after the Miami Herald published accounts from Epstein's alleged victims in 2018. The Herald's coverage ultimately resulted in Epstein getting indicted for sex trafficking of minors in Manhattan.

"[Bannon] told me he had like 16 hours of videotaping with Jeffrey in his vault," Mark Epstein said. "And he told me it was protected because it was witness preparation and it was protected under attorney-client privilege. But the thing is, Bannon's not an attorney."

The documentary is entitled "The Monsters: Epstein's Life Among the Global Elite," and was filmed in Epstein's homes in both Manhattan and Paris, France. Mark Epstein said Bannon asked him for $6 million to complete the documentary, but he turned him down. None of the footage has been seen by anyone — not even by prosecutors or witnesses in the trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for helping Epstein procure young girls for sex.

Jeffrey Epstein was a longtime friend of Trump in the 1980s and 1990s when he was a Manhattan real estate mogul. However, Mark Epstein said his brother relayed to him that he "stopped hanging out with Trump when he realized Trump was a crook."

In September of 2021, Bannon told the Daily Mail tabloid that his interviews with Epstein were part of "a planned 50 hours of open ended no holds barred interviews with Epstein for a 8 to 10 hour expose on his deep relationships with the global elites in finance, science, education, medicine, politics and culture."

That December, Bannon spokeswoman Alexandra Preate said the documentary would likely be released by Labor Day of 2022, though that day came and went with no additional word about when "The Monsters" would be released. Preate has reportedly been unresponsive to inquiries about the footage.

Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial. A New York medical examiner's report found that Epstein died by suicide from hanging. The facts surrounding Epstein's death are the subject of numerous conspiracy theories, given that his cellmate was transferred out the day before his death, the two men tasked with guarding him left him alone and that there was no video available of Epstein's hanging despite multiple surveillance cameras in the vicinity.

The DOJ's Office of the Inspector General released a lengthy report detailing the multiple breakdowns in security that took place the night of Epstein's death. His brother told Business Insider that he felt the report was "blatant bulls—."

Epstein's 2008 plea deal, which was regarded as unusually light given the severity of the crime, was arranged by then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Labor in the early days of his administration. Acosta resigned after the Herald's article series about Epstein and the additional allegations against him — including that he had as many as 200 victims.

Bannon is currently serving a federal prison sentence for refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena. He is due to be released in November.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Kinzinger: Moscow Is Celebrating Nomination Of Its Stooge Vance

Kinzinger: Moscow Is Celebrating Nomination Of Its Stooge Vance

One former Republican member of the House of Representatives is warning that Russia is rooting for Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who is former President Donald Trump's 2024 running mate, to become vice president.

The Hill reported that during a Monday night interview with The Late Show's Stephen Colbert, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) cautioned viewers that it isn't just Americans who are paying attention to Vance's pending nomination as the GOP's pick for vice president. He suggested Vance's ascension to become Trump's right hand was welcome news to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"They are celebrating that choice, both in Milwaukee tonight and in Moscow," Kinzinger said.

“JD Vance is the one that has … very loudly talked about how he doesn’t care what happens in Ukraine. He has opposed aid to Ukraine,” he continued. “At a time where, since World War II, the biggest defense of a country, of freedom, that is happening right now.”

Kinzinger, who served in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Vance's past opposition to supporting Ukraine in its ongoing war to defend its territory from occupying Russian forces could mean that the U.S. abandons the eastern European democracy should Trump win a second term. He accused the Ohio Republican of "aggressively parrot[ing] actual Russian talking points" in railing against funds for Ukraine.

"I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other," Vance told former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon — who is now serving a federal prison sentence — in a 2022 episode of his podcast.

Vance has already taken the position that disputed territories like Donbas in the east along with Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and resulted in Russia getting kicked out of the G8 (now G7), should be officially ceded to Putin to end the war.

"[The Russia-Ukraine war] ends the way nearly every single war has ever ended: when people negotiate and each side gives up something that it doesn’t want to give up,” Vance said in December. “No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries.”

A foreign policy expert told the Ohio Capital Journal last month that making territorial concessions to Putin would likely embolden him and that Russia is on the verge of relenting due to staggering losses.

“We need to flip the script,” said Charles A. Kupchan, who is an international affairs professor at Georgetown University . “We need to make it clear to the Russian leadership and the Russian people that we have more staying power than they do. Ultimately, the Russians are going to tire of this. They’ve lost somewhere around 350,000 people dead and wounded. This is a war that is imposing very considerable costs on Russia. The key here is to make sure that we convince Putin that we’re going to stay the course. It’s only then that I think you’ll see him cease and desist.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

JD Vance

JD Vance Attempts To Delete His Past Anti-Abortion Extremism

Abortion is one of the defining issues of the 2024 election. Now, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the GOP's presumptive vice presidential nominee, is trying to conceal his past opposition for the procedure in all cases.

On Tuesday, JJ Abbott —former Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Tom Wolf's press secretary – combed through Vance's website and found that a page explaining his stalwart opposition to abortion is no longer publicly viewable. As of Tuesday evening, Vance's website, jdvance.com, now redirects to former President Donald Trump's campaign website.

Vance's now deleted statement reads:

I am 100 percent pro-life, and believe that abortion has turned our society into a place where we see children as an inconvenience to be thrown away rather than a blessing to be nurtured. Eliminating abortion is first and foremost about protecting the unborn, but it's also about making our society more pro-child and pro-family. The historic Dobbs decision puts this new era of society intomotion, one that prioritizes family and the sanctity of all life.

Shortly after the right-wing senator was selected, Politico noted that "it was on abortion where the Biden campaign and its aides and allies have focused much of their immediate attention — an issue that Democrats believe is a key vulnerability for Trump and that would be a critical element in a potential debate between Vance and Harris."

The news outlet also emphasized, "Trump has sought to neutralize abortion as a winning avenue for Democrats by saying he supports letting states decide the issue, even if it was his Supreme Court justices who enabled the fall of Roe v. Wade and saddled the Republican Party with a lightning-rod issue that became a major factor in the GOP’s underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms."

Although Vance has since toned down his far-right abortion views "to more closely align with Trump’s," Politico adds that "past remarks on abortion and women — and his subsequent attempts to modify them — are providing Democrats running against Trump with rocket fuel for their strategy on abortion rights."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rudy Giuliani

Federal Judge Revokes Rudy Giuliani's Bankruptcy Protection

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani no longer has bankruptcy protection, which means the Georgia election workers he defamed can now move to enforce the nine-figure judgment against him.

On Friday. United States bankruptcy judge Sean Lane officially handed down his ruling rescinding Giuliani's bankruptcy protection, which means Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss can now levy any and all of Giuliani's assets to satisfy the defamation judgment they won in December.

"When confronted with complaints about a failure to satisfy the Bankruptcy Code’s obligations as to financial transparency, most debtors will respond by curing at least some—if not all—of the defects," Lane wrote in the ruling posted to Bluesky by legal journalist Joshua Friedman. "By contrast, Mr. Giuliani has done nothing."

"The lack of financial transparency is particularly troubling given concerns that Mr. Giuliani has engaged in self-dealing and that he has potential conflicts of interest that would hamper the administration of his bankruptcy case," he added. "

After news of Lane's decision became public, various journalists, commentators and legal experts celebrated Freeman and Moss getting justice, and their pro bono (meaning "for the public good") attorneys working on their behalf. Anti-Trump Republican group the Lincoln Project called the ruling "well deserved."

"Congrats to patriots Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss," the group tweeted.

Mediaite contributing editor Sarah Rumpf also lauded the decision, posting to her X/Twitter account: "[H]ope America’s Mayor enjoys the “finding out” part of FAFO [f— around, find out]."

"Sometimes the good guys win," tweetedVanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast.

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli shed additional light on the attorneys representing Freeman and Moss, who are from the international law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

"I guarantee you that they will leave no stone unturned in order to strip indicted criminal Giuliani of almost everything he owns & earns," he tweeted.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Stephen Miller

Why Trump Advisers Like Stephen Miller Are Fleeing Project 2025 At Top Speed

The more Americans learn about the Heritage Foundation's authoritarian Project 2025 initiative, the more they dislike it. That may be why both former President Donald Trump and groups allied with him are now trying to keep it at arm's length.

According to ABC News, America First Legal — which is led by Trump's top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller — has reached out to Project 2025 and asked to be removed from its list of advisory board members. The network reported that the group was listed among the other groups collaborating with Heritage on Project 2025 as recently as Thursday.

"I have zero involvement with Project 2025. Zero. None. I made an advice video a long while back for students. I have no involvement with the project whatsoever," Miller told ABC.


Miller's gesture may prove fruitless, given that his fingerprints have long been on Project 2025 well before it got its official name. Axios reported in 2022 that several Trump administration veterans like Miller were closely involved with efforts to craft a blueprint for a second Trump administration to radically transform the federal civil service into an army of political loyalists — a key plank of Project 2025.

In addition to Miller, former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, former Presidential Personnel Office Director John McEntee, former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and former National Security Council official Kash Patel, among others, were named as accomplices in the report describing the plan. CNN reported this week that these Trump White House veterans, along with roughly 140 other ex-Trump advisors and staffers, are involved with Project 2025.

That plan to pack federal agencies with Trump loyalists relies on an executive order known as "Schedule F," which Trump issued just before he left office and which President Joe Biden promptly rescinded not long after taking office. That executive order removes long-standing employment protections for career federal employees, thus allowing a president's direct appointees to drastically go up from roughly 5,000 to more than 54,000.

These appointees, thousands of whom have already been pre-vetted by Heritage, would then be placed in key positions of influence throughout federal agencies, effectively allowing a president to implement draconian policies largely free from congressional interference. Project 2025's criteria for screening potential Trump administration employees aren't based on applicants' knowledge of federal policy, but whether they're dutifully loyal to the MAGA movement.

Miller's move to distance himself from Project 2025 comes after Trump's second post claiming he had no knowledge of the initiative or of who was behind it. On Thursday, Trump posted to his Truth Social account that any effort trying to tie him to the controversial plan was "pure disinformation."

However, Trump claiming ignorance of Heritage's blueprint and its architects falls apart upon closer scrutiny, given that he was recorded speaking to Heritage in 2022 and shaking hands with Heritage president and Project 2025 leader Kevin Roberts.

"This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do," Trump said two years ago.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Biden Praised For 'Deft' Press Conference, But Gaffes Provoke Doubt

Biden Praised For 'Deft' Press Conference, But Gaffes Provoke Doubt

Various journalists, commentators and experts are praising President Joe Biden's most recent live press conference, and his command of complex domestic and international issues.

The president spoke extemporaneously at the 75th North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit for more than an hour, and gave detailed answers to questions on various topics ranging from taxes and tariffs to inflation, the Israel-Hamas ceasefire negotiations, the Russia-Ukraine war and even Indo-Pacific trade policy. Still, Biden seems to have done little to taper Congressional Democrats' calls for him to step down.

"I still think it’s probably in the Democratic Party’s best interest for Biden to step down," tweeted MSNBC and Daily Beast columnist Michael Cohen (whose bio on X reads "NOT Trump's lawyer). "[B]ut any doubts I had that Biden can still do the job of president have been quashed by this press conference."

Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake observed that Biden "has spent more than 8 minutes responding to a foreign-policy question and 2 follow-ups from NYT's David Sanger." When calling on Sanger, Biden wryly referenced his icy relationship with the national newspaper of record, playfully telling Sanger to "be nice."

Those reacting to the press conference also compared Biden's deft knowledge of the ins and outs of policy to former President Donald Trump's rambling tirades. Tim Tagaris, who was a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vermont) 2016 presidential campaign, tweeted: "Donald Trump couldn't come within 1,000 miles of having this kind of substantive policy conversation on any topic, period. And everyone knows that to be true."

"Trump didn't even know what NATO was and still doesn't, whereas Biden knows so much about foreign policy that he can bore us with it," former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega tweeted. "That is what we need in a president, even if it doesn't make for exciting TV."

While Biden's press conference was mostly cogent and substantive, he did have one notable gaffe. When answering one reporter's question about whether he felt Vice President Kamala Harris was capable of being president, Biden noted that she was, though he mistakenly referred to her as "Vice President Trump." This came after another gaffe on Thursday in which Biden wrongly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as "President Putin," before quickly correcting himself.

Bluesky user GoneBabyGone opined that, given the president's demonstration of expert knowledge on various major policy topics, his gaffe was not a significant error.

"I think you can question Biden’s electability and mental acuity and acknowledge he probably does not actually think Donald Trump is the vice president," they wrote.

University of Texas-Austin journalism professor John Schwartz echoed that sentiment, writing: "Whatever the verbal flubs, Biden's command of the issues is sharp here."

Mother Jones D.C. bureau chief David Corn gave his summation of the press conference by tweeting: "Biden: Made a gaffe about Putin. Trump: Told Putin he could do what he wants."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump's Former ICE Chief Says He'll Begin Mass Deportations In 2025

Trump's Former ICE Chief Says He'll Begin Mass Deportations In 2025

One senior-level official from former President Donald Trump's administration just made an ominous threat to the immigrant community during a recent gathering of far-right political activists.

On Tuesday, Semafor reporter Dave Weigel reported that during the National Conservatism conference (also known as "NatCon") in Washington, D.C., several of the speakers eagerly expressed how they would help the former president accomplish his goal of pursuing vengeance against his political opponents if elected to a second term. During one panel, Tom Homan – who was director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump's Department of Homeland Security – suggested he was already working behind the scenes to make Trump's promise to deport millions of immigrants as draconian as possible.

"Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said. “They ain’t seen s— yet. Wait until 2025.”


As the New York Times reported last year, one key plank of Trump's second-term policy agenda is the rounding up and detainment of undocumented immigrants on an unprecedented scale. Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller — an outed white nationalist — previously suggested Trump would deport approximately 10 million immigrants during a second term. Earlier this year, Ronald Brownstein — a senior editor for the Atlantic — tweeted excerpts from a speech Miller gave to National Rifle Association activists about how Trump would create “standing facilities” to detain immigrants by the thousands “where planes are moving off the runway constantly.”

Deporting millions of immigrants in a short number of years would likely be a major blow to the economy and result in significant price hikes for Americans. New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan reported last month that it's likely "production falls and labor costs go up" in the event of mass deportations.

"For example, if farmers could not find enough workers to pick all their crops, there would be a smaller supply of produce and it would get more expensive," they wrote. "And businesses would be forced to offer higher wages to attract or retain workers — passing on some of their higher costs to consumers."

According to Weigel, the NatCon audience that met at the Capital Hilton in D.C. consisted of "Trump administration veterans mingled with conservative writers and think tankers who had conquered the old 'Bush-Romney' Republican Party." Attendees reportedly viewed Trump as "a conquering hero who’d have a confident, well-trained movement behind him next year," and NatCon speakers often echoed Trump's promises to use the force of the federal government to punish Trump's enemies.

In a segment featuring former Trump attorney John Eastman (author of the so-called "Eastman Memo" that outlined the plot to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count), the now-disbarred lawyer proposed punishing federal judges who ruled against Trump in his unsuccessful election litigation.

"We’ve got to start impeaching these judges for acting in such an unbelievably partisan way from the bench," Eastman said, just a week after the six conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are free to break the law as long as it's deemed an official act.

John Yoo, who was a top DOJ official in former George W. Bush's administration, also encouraged political reprisal under a second Trump administration. He specifically called on Republican prosecutors to be Trump's political foot soldiers should he win in November.

"People who have used this tool against people like John [Eastman] or President Trump have to be prosecuted by Republican or conservative DAs in exactly the same way, for exactly the same kinds of things, until they stop," Yoo said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

More Google Searches For Project 2025 Than Taylor Swift Or NFL

More Google Searches For Project 2025 Than Taylor Swift Or NFL

With four months to go before Election Day, Google search results are showing one major political topic currently attracting Americans' interest more than even professional sports and pop culture: Project 2025.

On Wednesday, MSNBC host Ari Melber showed a graphic of trending Google search results in the week following President Joe Biden's first televised general election debate with former President Donald Trump. Google showed that searches for the far-right authoritarian Project 2025 playbook describing the GOP's policy agenda for a second Trump term outpaced searches for pop star Taylor Swift, and the National Football League (NFL).

"More people are looking into this controversial project than even the woman you see on your screen, who is of documented fascination to so many people around the world," Melber said, as he showed images of Swift and her sold-out Eras Tour on the screen. "Shout out to Taylor. I don't mean to bring her too deep into politics."

"I'm not talking about just news watchers or political junkies or even just, say, Trump foes," he continued. "You don't get past those Taylor [Swift] and NFL levels without a heck of a lot of people searching Project 2025... But as Trump walks away from it, a heck of a lot more people are now reading up about something Donald Trump himself wants to disown."

"People are looking into this," he added.

As Melber noted, the former president has been trying to distance himself from Project 2025 in the last week with little success. On July 5, Trump posted to his Truth Social platform that he found some of its proposals "absolutely ridiculous and abysmal," though he didn't specify which ones. He also insisted he had "no idea" who was behind it, but that he "wish[ed] them luck."

On the same day of Trump's post, Google Trends showed that "Project 2025" was the fifth-most popular search in the United States ("Supreme Court" was the first). And CNN reporter Alayna Treene tweeted: "Many people involved in Project 2025 are close to Trump world & have served in his previous [administration]."

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich also blasted Trump over his Project 2025 denial in a column for the Guardian, pointing out the numerous former Trump White House staffers who are now closely tied to Project 2025. Russ Vought — his former Office of Management and Budget director – is the head of the Center for Renewing America, which is one of the main partner organizations supporting Project 2025. Former White House Presidential Personnel Office director John McEntee is also a senior advisor to Project 2025.

One of the primary objectives of Project 2025 is to pre-screen tens of thousands of potential appointees to a second Trump administration, and then place them strategically throughout federal agencies after Trump signs an executive order dubbed "Schedule F." As comedian John Oliver discussed in detail on his HBO show "Last Week Tonight," numerous employment protections for federal workers would be eliminated under Schedule F, allowing the number of presidential appointees to drastically increase from roughly 5,000 to more than 54,000.

After placing pre-vetted appointees throughout federal agencies (who are screened primarily based on their loyalty to Trump and the MAGA agenda), Trump — or any Republican president — would be able to implement policies with little interference from Congress and the courts. Some of the more controversial policies include ending no-fault divorce, banning abortion nationwide with no exceptions for rape and incest, banning books about slavery in schools and defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice, among others.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Joe Biden

'Choose Someone Different': Swing-State Voters Restless After Biden's Bad Week

Residents of the small handful of states that will decide which candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes are speaking out about which way they’re leaning after President Joe Biden's rocky post-debate week.

The Wall Street Journalrecently interviewed several residents of battleground states like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to gauge their voting preferences in the November election, given the wave of scrutiny Biden is facing from both the media and his own party about the 81 year-old's continued viability. These interviews took place after Biden's Friday evening rally in Madison, Wisconsin and his nationally televised interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

51 year-old Pennsylvania voter Johanny Manning told the Journal she voted for Biden in 2020 and plans to vote for him in 2024. However, she said Biden's interview didn't assuage concerns she had about his candidacy after the debate.

“I will still vote for Biden,” Manning said. “But I don’t know if there will be enough of us.”

The registered Democrat indicated she hoped that there would be a different Democratic nominee come November, and that she was worried about the president digging in and refusing to even acknowledge the numerous calls from other Democrats to step aside.

"We still have an ability to choose someone different to run,” she continued. “But he’s saying it’s not going to happen. Like, nope, I’m not stepping down, and that’s a problem. You’re not listening to what we’re saying.”

North Carolina voter Gloria Ashe — a 71 year-old registered Democrat — told the Journal she's voted for Democrats in every presidential election going back 20 years. But in 2024, she's leaning toward voting for former President Donald Trump after seeing Biden's "scary" showing on the debate stage.

"I’m sad more than anything," Ashe said. "It feels like elder abuse... Like him or not, Trump does have that zest, he has that vinegar."

Independent voter Mak Kielselah of Milwaukee, Wisconsin voted for Biden in 2020. But he told the paper he's frustrated with a lack of action on issues pertaining to racial justice and homelessness. He said right now, he's likely going to vote for independent candidate Cornel West. Kielselah noted that his worries about the president being too old for the job were not alleviated when watching Biden talk to Stephanopoulos.

"If the object of this interview was to prove to me that you’re not old, it didn’t work,” Kielselah said. “Everybody knows you’re old. You know you’re old. So if you’re trying to prove that you’re not old, you just did a [bad] job.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Mike Lee

Mike Lee Ripped For Spreading Lie About Biden 'Medical Emergency'

On Friday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) amplified a baseless, debunked claim that President Joe Biden was experiencing a medical episode on board Air Force One. Now, the senator is getting roasted for his tweet by both journalists and commentators.

At 7:41 PM Eastern Time Saturday, far-right activist Laura Loomer tweeted: "Joe Biden is reportedly having a medical emergency on Air Force One right now" and that "press access has been removed." However, this was quickly debunked by X/Twitter's Community Notes function, which read that Biden "did NOT have a medical emergency on Air Force One following the Wisconsin rally and was perfectly fine throughout...and exited on his own after touching down in Delaware."

In response, Lee tweeted: "If Biden is having a medical emergency at this moment — on board Air Force One or otherwise — that raises ... a lot of questions." That tweet, which was posted at 8:09 PM Eastern Time last night, is still currently up on his official account.

White House pool reporter Sophie Hills of the Christian Science Monitorshed additional light on the president's health at the time of Loomer's initial tweet, writing that he stepped off of Air Force One at 7:34 PM and left with his motorcade afterward, before stopping at his home in Wilmington, Delaware at 7:50. This means Biden was already at home roughly 20 minutes before Lee sent his tweetl

Former Trump administration official Monica Crowley also tweeted Loomer's lie, only to backtrack and later tweet that there were "conflicting reports about Biden on AF1 but appears to be untrue."

Lee's amplification of Loomer's fictitious "medical emergency" resulted in harsh pushback on social media. Civil rights lawyer Leslie Proll called the Utah Republican's tweet "unconscionable." Biden campaign advisor James Singer accused him of "s—posting lies." And Joe Perticone – a contributor to never-Trump conservative website the Bulwark, noted the absurdity of a sitting U.S. senator relying on disinformation artists for news.

"The most concerning thing about a US senator’s judgment and intelligence is that he believes he’d first be hearing something as important as this from… Monica Crowley and Laura Loomer," Perticone wrote.

Former WGN reporter Jennifer Schulze also sharply criticized Lee and urged news outlets to "take a moment to cover this story about a sitting US Senator spreading malicious lies about the President."

"I know it's business as usual for republicans but it's still newsworthy," she tweeted.

Journalist Jamie Dupree noted the time difference between Lee's tweet and the time in the pool report when Biden was picked up by the presidential motorcade and driven home.

"Sen. Mike Lee R-UT tweeting out baseless medical rumors about Biden tonight. In fact, Biden was already back home (lid at 7:56 pm) by the time Lee was pressing the send button," Dupree posted.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Kamala Harris

Document Promoting Kamala Harris Candidacy Going Viral Among Party Donors

A Googledoc calling on President Joe Biden to step aside from his reelection campaign and anoint Vice President Kamala Harris is being shared en masse by Democratic donors and other supporters as concern over Biden's continued viability as a general election candidate grows.

CNN first reported on the existence of the document called "The case for Kamala," which was written by an anonymous author or authors. That document plainly states that if Democrats hope to defeat former President Donald Trump in November, they can no longer count on Biden to be the party's standard-bearer in the final stretch of the election cycle given his worrying performance in the recent televised debate.

“We are currently losing. We need to do something different to win," the 11-page document reads. “Like it or not, there’s one realistic path out of this mess: Kamala.”

"The debate was President Biden’s chance to disrupt the narrative that he’s too old and reset the terms of the race. This failed miserably. It validated years of rightwing attacks on Biden and made clear he is incapable of prosecuting the case," the document continued. "His debate performance, the campaign’s defensive response, and the total lack of plan to reassure his base and the voters about his capability should shake everyone’s confidence that he can win this election. Failure will have devastating results for our democracy."

The memo, which is freely available to view online, notes that it is "intended for Democratic party stakeholders - activists, donors, electeds, commentators, etc - who are concerned about our current trajectory but unclear about what should happen or what to do." It lays out three scenarios: Either Biden can take steps to alleviate concerns about his cognitive health with regular public appearances, Harris or another Democrat instead becomes the nominee, or Trump wins the election.

"Ultimately only Joe Biden has the power to drop out and to choose to head off chaos by anointing Harris, but he listens to people, and they listen to people, and you might know those people," the authors wrote. "If so, and if you find this convincing, you should make this case."

The identity of the authors remains unknown, but the memo states that those behind the document are "senior operatives within Democratic political institutions that will not be taking a position regarding this crisis" with "no professional or personal ties to Harris" who "simply want to defeat Trump."

"Right now, the most important thing to do is to make noise in support of this basic premise: Kamala is the only viable option to succeed Biden, and if she gets the nomination, she can win," the document read.

The document's popularity among Democratic donors suggests that Biden has done little since the debate to assuage fears that the candidate they're financially supporting is up to the task of defeating Trump and holding the White House for another four years. Even though Biden has vowed repeatedly to stay in the race — including as recently as Friday during a rally in the battleground state of Wisconsin — he's lost faith among elected Democrats both in Congress and in statehouses.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey (D) stated Friday that Biden should "listen to the American people," urging him to reconsider his promise to stay on the ticket through November. And a group of Senate Democrats led by Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) are planning to formally ask Biden to step aside from his campaign next week.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Major Democratic Donors Reported Backing Away From Biden Campaign

Major Democratic Donors Reported Backing Away From Biden Campaign

A growing number of high-level donors to the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden's campaign now say they're in the dark about whether previously scheduled campaign fundraisers will happen.

The New York Times reported Friday that, since Biden's flat performance on the debate stage with former President Donald Trump late last month, several fundraising events Democrats were counting on have since fallen through after donors backed out. One fundraiser in Wisconsin was cancelled entirely — this was despite organizers adjusting their goal from raising $1 million to $500,000, and still not finding a way to reach that number given the number of donors who said they would not be attending.

Florida-based lawyer John Morgan — of the firm Morgan & Morgan — told the Times that a fundraiser he planned was still in flux, and that he's struggled to get concrete answers from the Biden team about whether the event would be held in August or September.


"I don’t think they know the answer," Morgan said.

The megadonor observed that the more Democratic-aligned donors speak out about their concerns over Biden's continued candidacy, the more other donors would feel emboldened to withhold their money until a candidate they felt was better equipped to win this fall emerged.

"It can become an avalanche," he said.

Later this month, Biden was scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Austin, Texas hosted by Luci Baines Johnson — the daughter of President Lyndon Baines Johnson — to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the late president's signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, the Times reported that "people briefed on the planning" said the event may no longer be happening.

The paper reported earlier this week that several major Democratic donors were becoming bearish on Biden's chances of winning in November. And an online document calling for Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee is making its rounds among other donors, who prefer the 59 year-old second-in-command to the 81 year-old president.

"In the last week the president has proven he has a strong message and a strong agenda to run on," Biden campaign finance director Rufus Gifford said. "We know our supporters will see the determination he has and ensure we have the resources to win in November."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Despite Public Support, Democratic Governors Said To Privately Urge Biden Exit

Despite Public Support, Democratic Governors Said To Privately Urge Biden Exit

Despite the public show of support for President Joe Biden's 2024 candidacy from 20 Democratic governors who visited the White House this week, some are privately communicating that they would prefer to see him step aside.

According to Politico columnist Jonathan Martin, one unnamed Democratic governor confided that several of their colleagues are growing increasingly unsure of the president's ability to win the November election. This marks a stark departure from the optimistic tone several governors — like Kathy Hochul of New York, Wes Moore of Maryland and Tim Walz of Minnesota — struck when speaking with reporters outside of the White House.

“Trust me,” the Democratic governor told Martin. “The governors I know are not supportive and want a change.”

That governor's remark adds fuel to the fire of growing calls from Democrats in Congress who are hoping Biden will allow Vice President Kamala Harris, who is 59 years old, to finish the campaign at the top of the ticket with a running mate of her own. This week, two longtime House Democrats — Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) — publicly called for Biden to exit the race given the drumbeat of worry over his mental fitness.

"If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere," Grijalva told the New York Times on Wednesday. "What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race."

But those two public calls for Biden to end his reelection campaign could be the first of many. Martin wrote in his column that, according to unnamed "lawmakers and operatives close to them," that "the majority of congressional Democrats... want the president to drop out." He added that a "connected House Democrat" told him: "Polling will get a little worse and people are going to lose their minds even more."

According to Martin, the rift between congressional Democrats and Democratic governors could be widening. House Democrats in competitive districts who have to share a ballot with Biden are more keen to have him name Harris as a successor, in order to prevent a beleaguered Biden from dragging down Democrats' chances in down-ballot races. And some of the more ambitious governors potentially contemplating a run for the White House in 2028 are catching criticism for not doing more to push Harris to be the nominee, as a President Kamala Harris running for reelection four years from now would dash their hopes of occupying the White House.

"One example: A group of Democrats woke up Thursday to a new internal poll from must-win Wisconsin, which had Biden down seven points and only running in the 30s on a ballot with third-party candidates," Martin wrote. "As the old saying with tough votes goes, though, right now they are voting yes while hoping no."

If Biden does step down, he would have to do it relatively soon, as the Democratic National Convention will kick off in Chicago between August 19 and 22. After a nominee is designated, it will be much more difficult — if not outright impossible — for another Democrat to assemble a competitive nationwide campaign before ballots are cast.

Biden maintains that he is healthy and well and plans to continue his campaign through the November election.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.