Category: Latest News

‘We Build the Wall’ co-founder faces another indictment on tax charge

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The Florida man who served as the co-founder of the “We Build The Wall” project has been indicted on another charge for tax fraud, according to a report from the Associated Press. The latest charges are in addition to his previous tax and fraud charges. 

On Tuesday, July 6, Brian Kolfage of Miramar Beach, Fla. was indicted by a grand jury for filing a false tax return. This new charge expands on allegations first brought against Kolfage two months ago. In May, the prosecutors offered details about Kolfage’s involvement in a previous scheme “to defraud the government in relation to his 2019 federal income tax returns.” The leaders of the “We Build the Wall” project were first indicted for allegedly defrauding donors in August 2020.

Per the AP:

“Kolfage received hundreds of thousands of dollars from multiple organizations during 2019, including We Build the Wall Inc., which were deposited into his personal bank account, prosecutors said. Kolfage failed to report this income to the IRS, officials said. The new charge is related to Kolfage filing a false amended tax return in December 2020, investigators said.”

Non-competes, banks and farms: Five key elements of Biden’s executive order

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President Biden’s sweeping executive order on competition targets industries from banking and airlines to technology and health care, declaring war on corporations over anti-competitive practices. 

It aims to encourage innovation and competition, and boost the U.S. economy, through dozens of consumer-focused and worker-focused provisions.

Here are five key elements of the president’s massive executive order. Continue reading.

The Justice Department sounds the alarm about Trump’s insinuations that he’ll be ‘reinstalled’

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The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is raising concerns about the possible violence that could erupt as a result of the dangerous falsehoods currently being perpetuated about former President Donald Trump and his allies

According to CNN, Trump and a number of his allies are spreading a conspiracy theory about the possibility of him being reinstated next month. Since there is no constitutional mechanism that would allow for such action to be taken, the claim is nothing more than a misguided falsehood. The DOJ believes it will only lead to an angry, violent response from Trump’s loyal base.

During a court hearing, Marine Corps veteran Alex Harkrider, who is facing charges for his alleged participation in the Capitol riots requested that the judge allow for his ankle monitor to be removed. The DOJ expressed concern about doing so amid possible backlash from Trump’s base in the wake of the latest claims.  Continue reading.

Biden orders agencies to look at hospital consolidation, costs of drugs and hearing aids

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Order supports Trump mandate on price transparency

The wide-ranging executive order President Joe Biden signed Friday includes plans to boost market competition in health care and other industries.

The order, which White House officials have promoted throughout the week, touches on issues ranging from prescription drug prices to hospital and insurance consolidation, in a combination of policy directives that also incorporates priorities shared with the Trump administration.

“What we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back. We see it in big agriculture and big tech and big pharma and the list goes on,” Biden said before signing the executive order at the White House Friday. Continue reading.

Ex-Trump campaign aide pleads guilty in disturbing child pornography case — fantasized online about killing babies

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A former Donald Trump campaign aide faces 12 years or more in prison after pleading guilty to a child pornography charge in a case as luridly disturbing as any QAnon conspiracy theory.

Ruben Verastigui admitted possession of 152 videos and 50 images of child pornography and to receiving and distributing sexual depictions of children as part of a plea agreement in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., reported Politico.

Prosecutors said the 27-year-old Verastigui, who had been president of the Northwest Vista College Students for Life before going to work on Republican campaigns, sought out images of the rape of infants during an online chat last year and fantasized online about killing children and babies while abusing them. Continue reading.

Trump’s Oval Office was nicknamed ‘the Star Wars bar’ because so many bizarre characters would hang out there, Wolff says

White House staffers got so used to seeing a vast retinue of unlikely figures in President Donald Trump’s Oval Office that they nicknamed it the ‘Star Wars bar,’ according to Michael Wolff, author of a new exposé on the Trump administration. 

In an interview with The Times of London published Wednesday,Wolff discussed his new book, “Landslide,” which the newspaper has been publishing excerpts of.

In the interview, Wolff claims that he travelled to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort despite the unflattering portrayal of the former president in his two previous books on his time as president.  Continue reading.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy secretly assigned an aide to clean up Marjorie Taylor Greene’s messes: CNN

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According to a report from CNN’s Melanie Zanona, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) still fears publicly criticizing some of the extremist members of his caucus and, behind the scenes, has assigned a staff member to advise Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on how to dig herself out after she goes too far with her inflammatory comments.

According to CNN’s “New Day” host Brianna Keilar, “A top adviser to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was involved in a behind the scenes effort to rehabilitate the reputation of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. This adviser facilitated Taylor Greene’s visit to the Holocaust Memorial from last month after which she publicly apologized for her anti-semitic remarks.”

“Here is the thing though,” the CNN host added. “That remorse didn’t stick. She invoked Nazi-era imagery again this week to mock Covid safety practices.” Continue reading.

GOP lawmakers who oppose background checks now very concerned about shootings

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Republicans continue to block efforts in Congress to pass gun control legislation.

House Republicans, nearly all of whom voted against legislation to require a background check prior to all gun purchases, are now blaming President Joe Biden and other Democratic officials for a rise in the number of shootings and homicides.

In a series of tweets from their official caucus Twitter account on Tuesday, Republicans in the House noted a recent Fox News story about an increase in the number of shootings in major cities in 2021 so far compared to the first half of last year. “Welcome to Joe Biden’s America,” they tweeted, and paraphrased Fox contributor Joe Concha: “The common thread these are all cities run by Democrat Mayors.”

Several members of the caucus shared the tweets or offered their own similar assessments. Continue reading.

Weisselberg out in Scotland: First indication that indictment affects Trump Organization operations

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Allen Weisselberg, the indicted Trump Organization executive, was removed today as a director of Donald Trump’s golf resort in Aberdeen, Scotland, public records show. The move is the first to indicate how the indictment is affecting operations of the Trump Organization.

His removal comes as Scottish lawmakers and Avaaz, a global do-gooder organization, are pushing for an “unexplained wealth” inquiry into how Trump got the money to buy and refurbish both of his money-losing Scottish golf courses.

A 2018 British law lets investigators examine company and personal financial records to determine sources of money and riches that they deem suspicious. It’s been called the McMafia law. Continue reading.

Here’s how extremism not only goes unpunished in today’s GOP — it is encouraged

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Joe Scarborough, the Never Trump conservative and former Republican congressman who co-hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC with his liberal wife, Mika Brzezinski — and who rooted for now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — recently described his former party as consisting of ultra-conservative politicians like Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and QAnon extremists who think Cheney is too far to the left. Journalist Molly Jong-Fast, in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on July 8, discusses extremism with the 2021 GOP and argues that extremism is difficult to resist among modern Republicans.

“This is the Republican brand now: death before decency,” Jong-Fast writes. “What Roy’s colleague Paul Gosar learned from Trumpism is that working with terrifying far-right extremists is totally cool. Gosar is now even more far-right than Steve King, who was censured for his white nationalist statements back when Republicans at least pretended to give a shit. Now, Gosar is being praised by White nationalist Nick Fuentes — and minority ‘Leader’ Kevin McCarthy is fine with that, just like he’s fine with Marjorie Taylor Greene raving about the Jews and Matt Gaetz (R-Sex Creep) staying on the House Ethics Committee so that he could question the head of the FBI while continuing to be investigated by the FBI.”

Jong-Fast continues, “Meanwhile, Stop the Steal speaker Mo Brooks is now running for Senate in Alabama. Brooks, who was a planner of the January 6 rally, according to a deleted video from Ali Alexander, claims in a new civil filing that he only spoke at the rally-turned-riot because the White House told him to. That was in the same legal filing in which he said he believes that Trump still won the election. Trump did not.” Continue reading.