1. Satire from The Borowitz Report: Man Wins “Why Trump Shouldn’t Go to Prison” Essay Contest

A Washington, D.C., man has won a nationwide essay contest on the topic “Why Donald J. Trump Shouldn’t Go to Prison.”

The man, Brett Kavanaugh, received his award for the winning essay at a ceremony at the White House on Monday night.

Kavanaugh’s essay, which was distributed to the press shortly after he was announced as the winner, reads as follows: “Donald J. Trump should never go to prison because he is the President of the United States and the President of the United States is a very important person in the country. It would look bad if visitors from foreign countries came to the United States and asked, ‘Where is your President?’ and we had to say, ‘He is in prison,’ which in my opinion is another reason Donald J. Trump should not go to prison. For these reasons, if I am ever in a position to keep Donald J. Trump from going to prison, I will do that (keep him from going to prison).”

Shaking Kavanaugh’s hand, Trump heaped praise on him for his “very, very beautiful” essay, calling it “maybe the best essay that has ever been written.”

“I did not personally read it, but Ivanka read it aloud to me, and I thought it was fantastic,” Trump said. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/

2. Donald Trump makes 100 false claims for second consecutive week

Until this month, U.S. President Donald Trump had not made more than 60 false claims in any single week of his presidency.

He has now made 100 false claims in each of the last two weeks.

After shattering his old record by uttering an astonishing 103 false claims two weeks ago, an average of 14.7 per day, Trump delivered precisely 100 false claims last week, an average of 14.3 per day. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/analysis/2018/07/06/donald-trump-makes-100-false-claims-for-second-consecutive-week.html

3. July House Overview: Democrats Remain Slight Favorites for Majority

Based on the Republicans' structural advantages from redistricting and residential patterns, Democrats likely need to win seven to eight percent more votes than the GOP to win the barest possible majority of 218 seats. By that measure, it's close: today, the RealClearPolitics average of congressional generic ballot polls gives Democrats a seven-point lead, while FiveThirtyEight's gives Democrats an eight-point advantage.

These fundamentals suggest a photo finish in the House. But in our view, the intensity gap between the parties' voters is what gives Democrats a slight edge. In the most recent NBC/WSJ poll, 63 percent of Democrats rated their interest level in the midterms as a "9" or "10," compared to 47 percent of Republicans. And by 25 points, voters said they were more likely to support a candidate who runs as a "check" on Trump.

If the 24 Toss Ups were to split evenly between the parties, Democrats would gain 18 seats, five short of a majority. But that doesn't take into account that there are 26 GOP-held seats in Lean Republican with strong potential to become Toss Ups, and an additional 28 GOP-held seats in Likely Republican with the potential to become more competitive. In other words, there's still a lot of upside for Democrats. https://www.cookpolitical.com/node/2711

4. Trump and women: The big disconnect in American politics

The disconnect between President Trump and female voters is serious and not getting better. That’s a potentially big problem for Republicans in the November elections — but only if the women opposed to the president turn out to vote.

Trump’s election divided an already fractured country, deepening the red-blue chasm that has become the defining feature of today’s politics. But the revulsion among many women toward the president adds another layer to the politics of discontent.

Trump is doing nothing to mitigate the problem. Just the opposite. A man accused by multiple women of sexual misbehavior, he seems to take special delight in denigrating women, especially House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton. In one comment at a rally in Montana last Thursday, he mocked Warren and the #MeToo movement, and he also went after Waters. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-women-the-big-disconnect-in-american-politics/2018/07/07/9469bdca-8145-11e8-b9a5-7e1c013f8c33_story.html

5. Judge Rejects Long Detentions of Migrant Families, Dealing Trump Another Setback

The Trump administration on Monday lost a bid to persuade a federal court to allow long-term detention of migrant families, a significant legal setback to the president’s immigration agenda.

In a ruling that countered nearly every argument posed by the Justice Department, Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Federal District Court in Los Angeles held that there was no basis to amend a longstanding consent decree that requires children to be released to licensed care programs within 20 days. The government said that long-term confinement was the only way to avoid separating families when parents were detained on criminal charges. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/us/migrants-family-separation-reunification.html

6. Washington Post Fact checker: Anatomy of a Trump rally: 76 percent of claims are false, misleading or lacking evidence

We’re doing something new today: Analyzing every factual claim from President Trump’s campaign rally in Montana on July 5.

According to our analysis, the truth took a beating in Montana. From a grand total of 98 factual statements we identified, 76 percent were false, misleading or unsupported by evidence.

Here’s a breakdown: 45 false or mostly false statements, 25 misleading statements and four unsupported claims. We also counted 24 accurate or mostly accurate statements. False or mostly false statements alone accounted for 46 percent of all claims. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/10/anatomy-of-a-trump-rally-76-percent-of-claims-are-false-misleading-or-lacking-evidence/

7. Trump aide Stephen Miller, meet your great-grandfather, who flunked his naturalization test

A photo of Nison (aka Max) Miller stares out from the screen, sullen and stern, in faded black and white. “Order of Court Denying Petition” is the title of the government form dated “14th November 1932,” to which it is attached, the one in which Miller is applying for naturalization as an American citizen.

And beneath the photo, the reason given for his denial: Ignorance.

Nison Miller is the great-grandfather of White House adviser Stephen Miller, who has taken credit for being one of the chief architects of the administration’s family separation policy. And this 85-year-old document is just one bit of ammunition in a campaign being waged by the unofficial band that goes by the hashtag #Resistance Genealogy.

Believing that the past is prologue, they search online archives for nuggets about the ancestors of public figures and politicians who disparage today’s immigrants. They use tools they developed as a personal hobby to make the point that people like Miller are holding newcomers to a standard that their own forebears could not meet. https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-aide-stephen-miller-meet-great-grandfather-flunked-naturalization-test-203424658.html

8. The Trump administration made trade threats to Ecuador over … feeding

The United States threatened to hit Ecuador with retaliatory trade measures and to pull military aid over the South American country proposing an international resolution that encouraged breastfeeding. The US eventually agreed to the resolution — when Russia backed it.

American officials surprised international delegates at the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly in May when they opposed a widely popular resolution to promote breastfeeding, according to a report from Andrew Jacobs at the New York Times on Sunday. Specifically, they pushed to remove language asking governments to “protect, promote, and support breast-feeding.” They also took issue with a passage that called for policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that may harm children.

It appears the Trump administration sided with corporate interests — in this case, the $70-billion infant formula industry — over the health and well-being of kids around the globe. The baby food industry is primarily based in the US and Europe. https://www.vox.com/2018/7/8/17546142/trump-breastfeeding-new-york-times-ecuador

9. Trump’s delusions are about to blow up in his own voters’ faces

Nearly two-thirds of the jobs in industries targeted by China’s tariffs — a total of more than 1 million jobs — are in more than 2,100 counties that voted for Trump. By contrast, barely more than one-third of the jobs in China-targeted industries — just over half a million — are in the counties that voted for Clinton. (This is based on 2017 county/employment data.) This doesn’t mean those jobs will definitely be lost; it means that they are in industries that are getting caught up in Trump’s trade war, making them vulnerable, depending on what happens.

China’s retaliatory tariffs are mainly aimed at U.S. exports of agricultural and food products such as soybeans, cereal, seafood, meats, fruits and nuts, and dairy, as well as intermediate goods and transport equipment, including vehicles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/07/09/trumps-delusions-are-about-to-blow-up-in-his-own-voters-faces/

10. Most Americans oppose key parts of Trump immigration plans, including wall, limits on citizens bringing family to U.S., poll says

Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Trump administration’s now-rescinded policy of separating immigrant children from their parents, and smaller majorities also disagree with the president’s call to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and to restrict legal immigration by limiting citizens from bringing parents and siblings to this country, according to a new Washington Post-Schar School poll.

Democrats appear more energized than Republicans about the fall elections, especially in battleground districts. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters in those districts, 59 percent say the midterms are extremely important, compared with 46 percent of ­Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Overall, registered voters say they prefer to vote for a Democrat over a Republican for the House, 47 percent to 37 percent. The margin on that question is not statistically larger in battleground districts, standing at 12 percentage points. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-oppose-key-elements-of-trump-immigration-policy/2018/07/05/36124360-7e3d-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html

11. Republicans Fear Trade War Will Cost Them the House

Republicans have privately warned us they think that a trade war with China is enough to cost them their majority in the House. The everyday economic impact — higher prices, businesses laying off employees — would blunt any positive impact of tax reform. Well, the trade war is here. Combine that with rising gas prices four months before Election Day.” https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/07/06/pompeo-north-korea-kim-jong-un-rocket-man-283743

12. Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week

Large areas of heat pressure or heat domes scattered around the hemisphere led to the sweltering temperatures. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports the heat is to blame for at least 54 deaths in southern Quebec, mostly in and near Montreal, which endured record high temperatures.

In Northern Siberia, along the coast of the Arctic Ocean – where weather observations are scarce – model analyses showed temperatures soaring 40 degrees above normal on July 5, to over 90 degrees. “It is absolutely incredible and really one of the most intense heat events I’ve ever seen for so far north,” wrote meteorologist Nick Humphrey, who offers more detail on this extraordinary high-latitude hot spell on his blog.

On Thursday, Africa likely witnessed its hottest temperature ever reliably measured. Ouargla, Algeria soared to 124.3 degrees.

No single record, in isolation, can be attributed to global warming. But collectively, these heat records are consistent with the kind of extremes we expect to see increase in a warming world. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2018/07/03/hot-planet-all-time-heat-records-have-been-set-all-over-the-world-in-last-week/

 

13. The DAILY GRILL

“We will take that little kit and say — but we have to do it gently, because we’re in the #MeToo generation, so have to be very gentle And we will very gently take that kit and we will slowly toss it — hoping it doesn’t hit her and injure her arm — even though it only weighs probably 2 ounces. We will say, ‘I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.’”-- Donald Trump mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and the #MeToo movement during his campaign rally in Great Falls, Montana

VERSUS

Hey, @realDonaldTrump: While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying. -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) responding on twitter.

 

"Jesus did live in Egypt for three-and-a-half years. But it was not illegal. If He had broken the law then He would have been sinful and He would not have been our Messiah. -- Pastor Paula White, chair of Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board

VERSUS

Why did Jesus "break the laws"? Because he understood that there are higher laws. Jesus always followed the Father's laws, even when it brought him into conflict with the authorities. And what is God's law? Jesus told us plainly: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." -- James Martin, SJ, a Jesuit priest.

14. From MEDIA MATTERS (They watch Fox News so you don't have to)

Fox & Friends hosts attack July Fourth protests under Trump. They promoted them under Obama. https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/05/fox-friends-hosts-attack-july-fourth-protests-under-trump-they-promoted-them-under-obama/220592

Scott Pruitt’s EPA blacklists reporters from summit on toxic water contaminants, forcibly removes reporter from the building. Journalists from AP, CNN, E&E News, and Politico were all prevented from attending. https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/05/22/scott-pruitt-s-epa-blacklists-reporters-summit-toxic-water-contaminants-forcibly-removes-reporter/220276

Fox News has now given Trump over $15 million in free advertising by airing his rallies. https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/06/fox-news-has-now-given-trump-over-15-million-free-advertising-airing-his-rallies/220609

Pruitt's EPA replacement, Andrew Wheeler, is a former coal lobbyist who promoted an Infowars video defending Milo Yiannopoulos. Now Wheeler is trying to sound like a defender of environmental justice. https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/07/05/Pruitts-EPA-replacement-Andrew-Wheeler-is-a-former-coal-lobbyist-who-promoted-an-InfoWars-/220601

15. Late Night Jokes for Dems

Mitt Romney won last night’s Utah Republican Senate primary. Romney celebrated by going to a victory party and turning the music down. -- Seth Meyers

Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring is a seismic political event, because Kennedy has been the decisive vote in many cases, and his retirement gives Trump the opportunity to fundamentally change the course of the Supreme Court, and I would not trust Trump to fundamentally change the dessert course. Oh, we are supremely screwed. I look forward to Wolf Blitzer in 2021: "In the end, this Supreme Court case will be decided by the swing vote, Justice Meat Loaf." -- Stephen Colbert

This could have huge repercussions. Think about it: The court that just this week crippled unions, and upheld Trump's Muslim ban and race-based gerrymandering, might turn conservative -- Stephen Colbert

Reportedly, the White House will push for a nomination and confirmation before the midterms. Well, of course before the midterms! Just like you want to eat all the weed before the cop walks up to the driver's side window. -- Stephen Colbert

Trump is in a Twitter feud with Harley-Davidson since they announced that they're moving some jobs overseas. When people first heard Trump was feuding with Harley-Davidson, they just assumed it was another porn star. -- Jimmy Fallon

16. How Trump’s Policy Decisions Undermine the Industries He Pledged to Help

If nothing else, experts say, the unpredictability of many of Mr. Trump’s proposals — the lack of clarity on when or how Nafta might be renegotiated; the risk of potential litigation over his rollback of auto-pollution rules; the ways in which other countries might retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs — seeds confusion across the American economy, making it tough for businesses to plan effectively for the future.

“That just wreaks havoc with American farmers and businesses with the investments they have to make,” said Matthew Slaughter, a professor of international business at Dartmouth College. “It creates massive uncertainty for these industries.”

Automakers, for instance, had sought looser emissions rules. However, Mr. Trump’s proposed rollback goes further than expected, and now automakers say it could ultimately spawn years of legal battles and perhaps even subject the industry to more regulations, not fewer, if individual states start enforcing their own, separate rules. They also fear that Mr. Trump’s recent threats to impose tariffs on imports of European autos could trigger a trade war, raising prices for all vehicles. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/climate/trump-industry-policy-consequences.html

17. Mueller Taps More Prosecutors to Help With Growing Trump Probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is tapping additional Justice Department resources for help with new legal battles as his year-old investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 election continues to expand.

As Mueller pursues his probe, he’s making more use of career prosecutors from the offices of U.S. attorneys and from Justice Department headquarters, as well as FBI agents -- a sign that he may be laying the groundwork to hand off parts of his investigation eventually, several current and former U.S. officials said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-05/mueller-said-to-tap-more-career-prosecutors-as-trump-probe-grows

18. The Best Responses to Alex Jones’ Prediction Of Civil War

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones declared on July 1  that Democrats were planning to launch a second Civil War on Independence Day, a claim no more ridiculous than many he’s spewed, but one which, thankfully, spurred the #SecondCivilWarLetters hashtag.

Twitter users mocked Jones’ prediction with some alternative history of their own, including dispatches from Fort Red Pill, the 42nd Bisexual Brigade and elsewhere along the potential battlefield.

The best of the “letters” are at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/after-alex-jones-prediction-of-civil-war-here-are-the-best-secondcivilwarletters

19. Donald Renews Call for Deporting Refugees Without Due Process

On Thursday, the president reiterated his desire to deport asylum seekers without providing them access to the American legal system — a proposal that would violate American law, multiple binding international treaties, and the U.S. Constitution. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-renews-call-for-deporting-immigrants-without-due-process-aslyum.html

20. Scott Pruitt Wasn’t Corrupt Enough for Trumpistan

Pruitt was a handmaiden of state and crony capitalism, which actual conservatives—we’re still here—revile. It wasn’t just rolling back Obama-era regulations; it was doing so to help specific companies profit and prosper. He was a man who conflated lobbyist wish lists with getting government’s heavy hand out of broad market sectors, particularly coal.

Like much of Trump’s energy policy, their fetishization of coal seems to contain a weird, Rule 34-ish desire to see hearty men headed down-pit with pickaxes and wearing helmets with sputtering carbide lamps. It’s not happening. It’s never happening. It’s a dead industry—dirty, inefficient, and outdated. Obama didn’t kill coal; natural gas and solar killed coal, and nothing Pruitt could do is going to bring it back.

Pruitt didn’t get fired because he was an utterly corrupt grifter. Pruitt got fired because he was clumsy enough to give away the game and embarrass a different utterly corrupt grifter. To the detriment of the country, Pruitt is just one of Trump’s many minions who model their low behavior, raving contempt for the law, and disregard for even the sparest ethical standards and shamelessly follow the lead of the Grifter in Chief. https://www.thedailybeast.com/scott-pruitt-wasnt-corrupt-enough-for-trumpistan

21. The Epic Turnover of the Trump Administration

 It might seem self-evident, but it bears repeating: Trump, whatever else he accomplishes, will certainly go down in the record books as the worst manager of the White House in modern times. And not only is this state of affairs not normal, it’s no way to run even a small organization, never mind a country. A senior European official recently told me that every time he shows up at the White House there is a new aide to meet with him, because the last one he sat down with has since been cashiered or fled. As each successive wave of aides comes and goes, what little institutional knowledge remains in the White House is further diminished.

In such circumstances, of course, nobody knows who’s in charge or what the policy is. Staffers come in every day not knowing if they—or their bosses, for that matter—might lose their jobs by the end of the day. Everyone is looking for a way out. Gallows humor seems to rule the day, and aides from the top down are utterly consumed by their own fate and that of those around them. In that sense, Trump may well have created a West Wing in his own image, one more self-absorbed and beset by gnawing doubts than perhaps any that came before it. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/john-kelly-scott-pruitt-and-the-epic-turnover-of-the-trump-administration

22. Republicans on Russia trip face scorn and ridicule from critics at home

Republican lawmakers who went to Russia seeking a thaw in relations received an icy reception from Democrats and Kremlin watchers for spending the Fourth of July in a country that interfered in the U.S. presidential election and continues to deny it.

“Cannot believe GOP, once the party that stood strong against Soviets & only a decade ago sought to democratize the Middle East, is now surrendering so foolishly to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Kremlin’s kleptocracy — only two years ­after Russia interfered in U.S. election,” tweeted Clint Watts, an information warfare specialist at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and frequent featured expert before congressional panels examining Russian influence operations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republicans-on-russia-trip-face-scorn-and-ridicule-from-critics-at-home/2018/07/05/68f0f810-807e-11e8-b0ef-fffcabeff946_story.html

23. U.S. Army Quietly Discharging Immigrant Recruits

 Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned.
The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches. https://apnews.com/38334c4d061e493fb108bd975b5a1a5d/AP-NewsBreak:-US-Army-quietly-discharging-immigrant-recruits

24. Trump Videos

Donald Trump Can't Stop Congratulating Donald Trump: https://youtu.be/7XERwP5YE6w

Trump's Anti-Immigrant Catchphrases: https://youtu.be/nXYXaUJ4ROk

25. Obama Tops Public’s List of Best President in Their Lifetime, Followed by Clinton, Reagan

When asked which president has done the best job in their lifetimes, more Americans name Barack Obama than any other president. More than four-in-ten (44%) say Obama is the best or second best president of their lifetimes, compared with about a third who mention Bill Clinton (33%) or Ronald Reagan (32%). http://www.people-press.org/2018/07/11/obama-tops-publics-list-of-best-president-in-their-lifetime-followed-by-clinton-reagan/