Political News

The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a memo Tuesday suggesting that, if incumbent Republican Ohio Sen. Jon Husted loses his upcoming election against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the Republican Party’s position on data centers is to blame.

The memo, as Axios reported, says that “the data center brand is the anchor” of Brown’s campaign. “He has made them his de facto opponent, and no one is correcting the record,” the NRSC wrote, arguing that if “voters’ perceptions of data centers are not fixed quickly, the campaign against them will expand far beyond Ohio.” They go on to suggest that Republican candidates support some restrictions on data center development, such as only allowing their construction in communities that approve it by popular vote—while still opposing a total pause on data center construction, which they say would cause the US to “lose the AI race to China.”

While the NRSC urges caution, Donald Trump is still positioning himself as an unequivocal ally to data center developers. Speaking at a White House cryptocurrency event Wednesday, he insisted that “we’re building the biggest plants anywhere in the world.”

“If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state and I had a chance to get an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it,” Trump said. “The jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous. And if you don’t take it, you’re going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it.”

Data centers generate far fewer jobs than other industries, such as manufacturing and warehousing; while they do generate tax revenue, they also tend to be built with generous tax abatements.

“If I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community,” Trump repeated. But, he added, “maybe [the industry] can use a little public relations help.”

North Korea launched several ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Thursday, according to South Korea’s military—just a day after the North dismissed Donald Trump’s seeming attempt at appeasement by cutting back on joint military training with South Korea. 

“The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced,” Kim Yo Jong, a top figure in North Korea’s ruling party and supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, said on Wednesday, pointing to other military drills the US and South Korea carried out earlier this year and to South Korea accelerating its development of nuclear-powered submarines.

Before the drills began this week, North Korea said it would retaliate with “a new level of a deterrent.” North Korea had already fired at least two ballistic missiles into the sea earlier this month before the barrage on Thursday.

While Kim Yo Jong said relations between her brother and Trump are “still excellent”, she said she was “completely unaware” of any communications between the pair following Trump’s decision to scale back the joint drills this month by about half—a claim the US president made earlier this week. 

The back-and-forth between Kim Jong Un and Trump goes back to Trump’s first term, where peace negotiations between the pair collapsed in 2019 amid disputes over how much sanctions relief North Korea would receive for partial denuclearization. Kim has since sought to further militarize and cooperate with Russia, but he said last September that he would be open to resuming talks if the US dropped its “obsession” with eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

But Trump’s decision to cut military training with South Korea looks to have had only negative consequences, angering that country to the point of President Lee Jae Myung calling to retake full control of its military operations from the US—despite Trump both claiming that the move would keep countries like South Korea and Japan safe and pushing other countries in Asia to ramp up their own defense spending and look for new allies.

Darline Graham, the appointed Republican senator from South Carolina, crawled to Fox News on Wednesday night to try to cauterize the wound that her cringeworthy primary debate performance inflicted on her Donald Trump-backed campaign for a full term in the U.S. Senate. But her performance on Sean Hannity’s show—in which the sycophantic Fox News host lobbed softballs at Graham to help defend…

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tried in vain to spin the country’s astronomical $40 trillion debt on CNBC Thursday.

Speaking to the network’s Sara Eisen, Bessent admitted that he didn’t know when the Iran war would end, but that things were otherwise going well with the economy despite the soaring national debt and increasing deficit.

“This Iran conflict, we will get on the other side of this. We don’t know when,” Bessent said, failing to inspire much confidence.

Bessent was even less inspirational when it came to the national debt, telling Eisen, “There’s nothing magic about the 40 trillion number, and we can grow our way out of that,” before blaming tariff refunds for the poor GDP and rising deficit.

“One of things that’s temporary here that’s influencing the deficit has been these tariff refunds, and we won’t have to do that again,” Bessent said, adding that the administration was reinstituting tariffs. “I would expect that our 2026 tariff income is going to be roughly what it was in 2025.”

Bessent downplays the national debt: "There's nothing magic about the $40 trillion number. We can grow our way out of that." pic.twitter.com/ATQv5pMwid

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 20, 2026

When Eisen asked if “we have seen peak deficit during this administration,” Bessent replied, “I think there’s a very good chance we have.”

“We are going to be laser-focused, as I said. [Office of Management and Budget] Director Vought, myself, the president; that combined with the vice president’s fraud task force, where I think we could save several hundred billion dollars,” Bessent said.

Suggesting that the deficit isn’t going to increase beyond current levels doesn’t make sense with how President Trump is spending money on everything from the Iran war to his pet construction projects. There’s no guarantee that Trump’s new tariff approach will survive court challenges either. And Bessent couldn’t help but admit that the Iran war shows no sign of ending anytime soon, meaning that his positive forecast is just a lot of wishful thinking.

President Trump’s Justice Department is teaming up with Elon Musk’s xAI to fight Minnesota’s ban on AI that lets users create sexual images of people without their consent. 

The DOJ filed a statement of interest this week arguing that the law goes too far, and is broader than federal law. 

Minnesota’s ban states that “a person who owns or controls a website, application, software, program, or other service must not: (1) allow a user to access, download, or use the website, application, software, program, or other service to nudify an image or video; or (2) nudify an image or video on behalf of a user.” Breaking the law carries a fine of up to $500,000.

The law defines “nudify” as “the process by which an image or video is altered or generated to depict an intimate part not depicted in an original unaltered image or video of an identifiable individual.” It also applies when “the altered or generated image or video is so realistic that a reasonable person would believe that the intimate part belongs to the identifiable individual.” 

The DOJ argued that the law “sweeps up constitutional and productive conduct not prohibited under federal law because of the way Minnesota drafted (and apparently will enforce) the statute.”

Musk’s xAi filed its lawsuit last month on First Amendment grounds after a temporary restraining order request was denied.

xAI’s attorneys argue that the law would hold the company unfairly liable for users nudifying images. They also argue that xAI has adequate moderation tactics in place to stop it from happening in the first place. 

“The state would punish xAI for allowing a user to nudify themselves,” attorney Robert Dunn said to Courthouse News. Minnesota disagrees.

“It’s certainly not surprising that xAI is not coming into federal court and saying, ‘We support these images,’” Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Janine Kimble said to Courthouse News. “They say, ‘Look at our terms of service; we tell people not to do this.’ … And yet, they still are reporting tens of thousands of users creating images.”

In January, Musk himself admitted that his Grok AI chatbot was posting nude images of children at the behest of some of his platform’s most perverted users. He blamed  “lapses in safeguards.” The chatbot also posted nude deepfake images of adult women without their consent—making Minnesota’s law seem all the more reasonable. 

Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff isn’t backing down against the full weight of President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the right’s outrage machine. Republicans have spent the last few days angrily denouncing Ossoff after he called out Donald Trump’s corruption and laziness in a campaign speech over the weekend. The right has especially taken offense to Ossoff mentioning Trump aide Natalie…

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A cartoon by Pedro Molina. Related | Trump says struggling sailors haven’t been at sea ‘nearly long enough’…

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Ecto World, a Buffalo, New York–based company that distributes vape products and faces legal troubles, believed it needed an influential friend in Washington, DC.

Over the past three years, officials in New York state and New York City have accused the firm of illegal business practices. In March, police in New York state seized more than 28,000 pounds of illicit vape products linked to the firm, which operates under the name Demand Vape, and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that an investigation had found that the company had been “illegally shipping massive quantities of vape products” across the state and that “criminal charges against Ecto World and its owner will be pursued” by local district attorneys. A year earlier, New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Ecto World and other vape companies for illegally distributing, marketing, and selling addictive candy- and fruit-flavored disposable nicotine products, many produced in China, targeting sales to children and “fueling the youth vaping epidemic.”

New York City filed a similar lawsuit in 2023, claiming that Ecto World; an affiliate named Magellan Technology; Matthew Glauser, president of Ecto and Magellan; and two other Magellan executives violated “nearly every federal, New York State and New York City law applicable to the marketing, distribution, and sale of flavored e-cigarettes, the sales of which are prohibited under laws enacted by all three jurisdictions.”

“Roger has good relationships with people in the administration,” Glauser said, noting that Stone was “making sure they hear…our message.”

But as it has come under fire in New York, Ecto World has found a champion in the nation’s capital, one it has paid well for: Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, conspiracy theorist, and political provocateur who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Trump–Russia investigation, sentenced to 40 months in prison, and subsequently pardoned by Trump. Earlier this year, it retained Stone as a lobbyist and, as of the end of June, had compensated him at least $300,000 for his efforts, according to lobbying disclosure reports filed with Congress. The reports note that Stone would focus on the “Executive Office of the President” regarding the “regulation of e-cigarettes and related products.”

In an interview with Mother Jones, Glauser said, “Contrary to popular belief, we’re actually a responsible company,” and insisted that its goal is to “fix the broken regulatory system” governing e-cigarettes and vaping products. “The reason we brought Roger Stone on is to accomplish that,” added Glauser, a board member of the Vapor Technology Association, a trade group that has been criticized in right-wing media for not doing enough to stop the flow of illicit vaping products from China into the United States.

Trump’s return to the White House has been a tremendous boon to Stone, who not long ago was claiming he had been nearly bankrupted by legal fees and who, with his wife, was accused by the IRS of not paying nearly $2 million in taxes in a case he settled by agreeing to cover that amount plus interest and penalties.

Since Trump’s restoration, Stone’s lobbying firm, Drake Ventures, has signed up a variety of clients, including two Native American tribes, a rare-earth mineral company, a biotech firm developing vaccines, and Roger Ver, a cryptocurrency investor known as “Bitcoin Jesus” who was indicted on federal fraud and tax charges. Ver paid Stone $600,000 for his services. (In October, months after Stone was hired by Ver, the Justice Department settled the case; Ver paid nearly $50 million in back taxes, penalties, and interest, and the Trump administration dropped the charges against him.) Stone has pulled in over $4 million in fees for his lobbying efforts, according to congressional records.

Working with the DCI Group, a Washington, DC–based lobbying powerhouse, Stone has also been hired to peddle his influence by foreign states, including the governments of the Bahamas and Nigeria, as well as the military junta of Myanmar, which has been paying him $50,000 a month, according to Justice Department filings. Since mounting a violent coup in 2021 that overthrew a democratically elected government, the junta has been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

During Trump’s second stint as president, vaping regulation has been a contentious issue—and a cause ripe for lobbyists. Vaping and tobacco companies have pushed for easing restrictions on e-cigarettes and vaping products. In his first administration, Trump imposed limits on flavored e-cigarettes that are widely seen as designed to target children. But in his 2024 campaign, he vowed to “save” vaping and has become an ally of the industry.

Nevertheless, in September, federal agents conducted nationwide raids to seize Chinese-made vape products—illicit Chinese imports comprise much of the vaping market in the United States—and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this marked the beginning of a broader crackdown. “The Chinese are getting richer while our children get sicker, and we’re putting an end to that,” he proclaimed at a press conference.

In March, 71 GOP House members called on the Trump administration “to take decisive action to curb the influx of illegal, youth-oriented e-cigarettes that openly flout U.S. and Chinese law.” One of those congressmen, Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC), claimed the Vapor Technology Association has been “wrapped up” in a “scheme” mounted by China to flood the US market with vape products.

This year, though, Trump took action to help the domestic vaping industry and tobacco firms. He pressured Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary to approve flavored vapes.

Makary opposed doing so, fearing such products increase vaping among minors. But in May, the agency gave an okay to several flavors. A week later, Makary resigned. (Soon after the FDA decision, the New York Times reported that on April 30, tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million to a super PAC supporting Trump, and two days later, executives for Reynolds and another tobacco company had a lunch meeting with Trump and griped about the FDA. During the meal, Trump called Kennedy and Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and complained about the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes.)

Stone began lobbying for Ecto World at the start of this year. Was he involved in the decision to approve some flavored products? Glauser declined to say whom Stone was talking to or provide details on his lobbying for the vaping firm. “Roger has good relationships with people in the administration,” Glauser said, noting that Stone was “making sure they hear…our message.” A business associate of Stone, who asked not to be identified, said that Stone had advised Glauser to move away from “bubblegum” flavors and that Glauser was annoyed by that suggestion.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Stone was a prominent lobbyist in Washington, DC, working for the Republican-dominated firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. (The Manafort was Paul Manafort, who in 2016 chaired Trump’s campaign and was subsequently convicted of a bundle of financial crimes and other offenses, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, and eventually pardoned by Trump.) In 1992, Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly, as well as several other DC influence-selling outfits, earned the nickname “the torturers’ lobby” for representing authoritarian regimes, dictators, and militant groups accused of human rights abuses. “After his sex scandal”—the National Enquirer in 1996 reported that Stone and his wife had placed ads in swingers magazines seeking sexual partners—“he couldn’t get corporate work,” the Stone business associate said. “Now his sex scandal seems tame, and he’s back to the stuff he did in the Black, Manafort, Stone days.”

Stone did not reply to a request for comment about his lobbying for Ecto World and a list of questions sent to him and to Grant Smith, an attorney listed on Stone’s lobby disclosure report as the contact for Stone’s firm. When a Mother Jones reporter called Smith’s phone number, identified himself, and asked to speak to Smith, the man who answered said, “He’s not available” and hung up. When Smith was later reached, he said: “I’m not talking. I have nothing to say.”

The legal actions filed against Ecto World and its associated companies, as well as other official investigations, have raised questions about the firm’s conduct and ethics.

When the 14 tons of products linked to Ecto World were seized by police in March, Hochul said the seizure was a “major” blow against “illegal operations that put our communities at risk.” In announcing her lawsuit against Ecto World and other vape companies, James blasted these firms for exploiting children: “They’re making nicotine seem cool, getting kids hooked, and creating a massive public health crisis in the process.” (Glauser said in a statement at the time that this lawsuit was “wasting New York taxpayers’ money and federal court time.”)

That lawsuit noted that Magellan Technology, the Ecto affiliate, “contracts with Chinese companies to manufacture certain e-cigarette brands in China, import them into the U.S., and then transfers the products” to Demand Vape, “who then sells and ships the products to other distributors.” Demand Vape, the filing charges, sold banned flavored e-cigarettes to New York distributors and retailers and “profited immensely from their illegal sales,” bringing in $389 million in revenue from its sales in New York from 2018 to 2024.

The suit alleged that Demand Vape “routinely accepted import shipments falsely labeled as ‘battery chargers,’ even though they were aware that the contents were flavored e-cigarettes” and had “long been aware that their commercial conduct is illegal.” It contended that Demand Vape has “targeted adolescents” for its flavored vape products.

The New York City lawsuit against Ecto World, Magellan Technology, Glauser, and others, which was filed in federal court, claimed, “So flagrant is Defendants’ law-breaking that Magellan-Demand Vape’s owner publicly admits…‘[to] ensur[ing] that retailers across New York can offer’ flavored e-cigarettes—despite the plain prohibition against sales enacted under federal, State and New York City law.”

“I don’t comment on active litigation, but we will have our day in court and we will be fine,” Glauser told Mother Jones. He did not respond to a list of detailed questions subsequently sent to him about Ecto World’s activities, the lawsuits it faces, and Stone’s lobbying on its behalf.

Ecto World and its affiliates have been subject to other government investigations. Earlier this year, the US International Trade Commission launched an investigation into Ecto World, Magellan Technology, and 14 other vape companies based in the United States or China for unfair trading practices. Ecto World and Magellan subsequently sought an order from a federal appeals court to terminate or stay the investigation; in June, their petition was rejected.

In December 2024, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, then the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, sent a letter to Glauser, noting, “The United States is currently experiencing an unacceptably high level of youth e-cigarette use, fueled in significant part by illegal tobacco products illicitly imported from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” He pointed out that “it appears that your company openly distributes flavored disposable vapes made in the PRC which are marketed and sold in the U.S. without FDA authorization. These devices put millions of young Americans at risk for developing a lifelong nicotine addiction. During adolescence, exposure to nicotine through products like e-cigarettes can also harm brain development, particularly the parts of the brain related to attention, learning, mood, and impulse control. Sales of these unauthorized tobacco products are not only clearly prohibited, but also immensely harmful.”

Krishnamoorthi requested that Ecto World provide information on its business operations and its dealings with China. Glauser never responded, according to Krishnamoorthi’s office.

In 2021, the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into Magellan Technology for “suspected conspiracy to defraud the United States Government of revenue,” according to internal DHS documents obtained by Mother Jones. These investigative reports noted the agency “received information that Magellan Technology is undervaluing vape pens imported from China to evade 2.6% duty and 25% tariff.” Homeland Security Investigations conducted surveillance of the company’s office and a search of the office and a warehouse used by the firm.

The investigation, according to a DHS memo, “determined that Magellan Technology Inc. failed to pay millions of dollars in import duties.” The case concluded with Magellan cutting a check for $23 million in unpaid duties and penalties.

The lobbying disclosure form that Stone had to file regarding his representation of Ecto World included a question that asks, “Have any of the lobbyists listed on this report been convicted in a Federal or State Court of an offense involving bribery, extortion, embezzlement, an illegal kickback, tax evasion, fraud, a conflict of interest, making a false statement, perjury, or money laundering?”

Stone checked the yes box and added: “Obstruction of Proceeding, False Statements, Witness Tampering. Mr. Stone received a Presidential Pardon for all of these offenses in 2020.”

Asked whether Stone’s convictions for these crimes caused him any concern, Glauser said, “I don’t judge people by their past.”

Check out David Corn’s forthcoming book, How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America, at HowRussiaWon.com.

South Carolina Senator Darline Graham has a baffling excuse for her humiliating debate performance—spoiler alert: It involves transgender athletes!

Speaking on Fox News’s Sean Hannity Show Wednesday, Graham explained the shocking moment she admitted she was “not informed on national security,” when asked whether Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States.

“You know, I tripped up on one question last night regarding Taiwan. But you know I’ve said many times, I’m not a politician, certainly not a career politician, I don’t speak politician,” she said. “You know I was just honest, and I think that’s kind of a foreign concept.”

It’s true that a wise woman knows herself to be a fool—but Graham’s foolishness wasn’t finished.

“Of course Taiwan is our friend, but I think people in South Carolina are more worried about making ends meet, they’re concerned about boys in girls’ sports,” she added.

It would be surprising if people in South Carolina really felt that way—considering the state passed a law banning transgender students from playing on girls’ or women’s sports teams four years ago. The conservative-majority Supreme Court recently upheld similar rules in two other states, cementing the status of South Carolina’s transgender athlete ban.

She added that South Carolinians were more concerned about the second amendment, the SAVE America Act, and illegal immigration, “so they’re concerned about a lot of things other than Taiwan.”

Crucially, if Graham can’t answer simple questions about national security, she has no business being on that debate stage. She also has no business representing South Carolina, for in the same debate, Graham also claimed that there were 50 million people living in South Carolina. There are only 5.6 million.

The Trump administration on Wednesday appears to have leaked a story to its favorite Iran war stenographer at Axios that the military has created a secret shipping corridor out of the Strait of Hormuz, helping to escort 15 to 20 oil tankers through the narrow passageway per day. Axios’ Barack Ravid reported: “The U.S.-led operation is mitigating one of the most painful aspects of the war: the…

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Senator Jon Ossoff, a 2028 presidential contender, has struck gold with his jab at President Trump’s aide Natalie Harp.

The White House quickly lashed out after Ossoff mentioned Harp during an Atlanta rally on Sunday, and ever since then, Harp has been all over the news, with new details about her unusually close relationship with the president being revealed nearly every day. On Wednesday, Ossoff reveled in how he successfully rattled the Trump administration.

“It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week. And about Natalie Harp, these White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer, with immense power in positions of public trust,” Ossoff told MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out Donald Trump’s daily dose of delusion and flattery, or Peter Navarro steering taxpayer-funded loans to Trump family investments, or Pete Hegseth deluding the president daily into deepening this quagmire in the Middle East, no one cares about their feelings.”

Ossoff: It’s been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week. And about Natalie Harp, these White House staffers are adults, public officials paid by the taxpayer, with immense power in positions of public trust. And whether it’s Natalie Harp printing out… pic.twitter.com/gxNNqlz2IL

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 20, 2026

Ossoff went on to attack Trump for being obsessed with building the White House ballroom and flying in a luxury jet gifted to him by Qatar while neglecting military personnel fighting his war, such as the sailors experiencing poor conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, accusing him of retreating “into this circle of sycophantic aides who tell him every day what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear.”

On Sunday, Ossoff called out Trump, saying that “he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” That touched a nerve, with Trump calling him a “Pee-Wee Herman lookalike” and White House communications director Steven Cheung calling him “Jon Jackoff” and “the biggest cuck loser in politics.”

Since then, details have emerged about Harp’s obsession with the president, from insisting on riding in the trunk of Trump’s SUV in 2023 to stay close to him to writing gushing letters where she says she forgets to eat and sleep. Her brother told CNN Tuesday that she has written letters to other presidents and has “an unhealthy obsession.”

Other longtime Trump staffers have been perfectly willing to (anonymously) dish about Harp and her unusually close relationship with the president for years now, with aides calling her the “human printer” for printing out drafts of suggested social media posts for him to review and articles for him to read. She’s seen as the source of his bizarre social media posting habits, too. The more she is seen at his side, the more the news stories driving Trump’s inner circle wild will continue.

Michael Cohen won’t confirm or deny whether he’ll use President Trump’s Thursday appearance on his podcast to ask for a pardon.

“We’ll see,” he said to Politico regarding the potential pardon request. “Will I make that request down the road? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.” He noted that “people may be interested to hear two individuals that were friends for a decade and a half who have not publicly spoken in eight years” discuss their history together. “What could they talk about?” he mused.

Trump will call into Cohen’s weekly talk radio program and podcast When You Know You Know Thursday evening.

“Beyond ridiculous. Cohen conned so many liberals,” commentator Medhi Hasan wrote on X. “I am glad I was one of the few cable hosts, when I was at MSNBC/Peacock, to have actually grilled him on air and not just uncritically accept his BS and fake conversion.”

It’s unclear what exactly brought Cohen back to Trump. Cohen worked as an attorney for Trump from 2006 to 2018, when he was sentenced to three years in federal prison on charges related to his role as the middleman in Trump’s hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He wrote a book titled Disloyal in 2020 in which he called Trump “a cheat, a mobster, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man.” He testified against him in 2024 regarding the hush money as well. Now Trump and Cohen are apparently chummy again.

Cohen wrote in a Substack article titled “The Impossible Reunion” on Thursday that “forgiveness doesn’t have amnesia.”

“Sometimes the most extraordinary act of courage isn’t winning the fight. It’s deciding the fight doesn’t have to last forever. And sometimes, after everything has burned down, forgiveness is the only thing capable of building something again,” he wrote. “This evening, you’ll hear whether we can.”

6 minutes agoWalter EinenkelScott Bessent says keep digging to get out of hole Copy linkShare on FacebookShare on XShare via email 27 minutes agoWalter EinenkelThe Duffy’s road trip show looks … like a waste of taxpayer money Copy linkShare on FacebookShare on XShare via email 47 minutes agoWalter EinenkelEverybody rides in the trunk!“I’ve done it many times myself.

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Donald Trump’s closest aide, Natalie Harp, refused to seek security clearance for more than a year while working in the White House.

Two people familiar with the matter told MS NOW that it was unclear why Harp had failed to obtain the proper security clearance received by all staff when they began working at the White House. Maybe she was too busy writing the president gushing love letters to finish filling out her SF-86 forms?

After concerns around Trump’s seemingly obsessed personal aide mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president was forced to personally intervene, one of the people told MS NOW. In recent months, Harp filled out the forms to receive a background check and has since received her security clearance.

Harp’s missing security clearance is just one of several red flags raised by staff during Trump’s second administration that has spurred frustrations among West Wing staffers, four people told MS NOW.

Since joining the president’s posse ahead of the 2024 election, Harp has become a central gatekeeper to the president, allowing certain voices to be heard over others. Harp “plays into the less productive and more troublesome parts of his nature, putting things in front of him that aren’t vetted,” one of the four people told MS NOW.

One national security official voiced concerns that Harp’s unusually close proximity to Trump provided her access to more sensitive information than anyone else in the president’s orbit.

There had been “subtle moves,” to create space between Harp and Trump, another of the four people told MS NOW. “She is just persistent and not realizing that’s what they were trying to do,” they said.

Harp does seem persistent—she once reportedly rode in the trunk of Trump’s SUV when there weren’t enough seats for her up front.

The security clearance issue stems back to the early days ahead of Trump’s second term, when the president-elect’s team reportedly failed to submit security clearance requests for members of his second administration, in violation of the Presidential Transition Act, a federal law that coordinates and funds the transition of power from one administration to the next.

Harp’s security status is part of a broader trend of carelessness in Trump’s second administration. FBI Director Kash Patel also reportedly granted former deputy director Dan Bongino a waiver to bypass getting a key security clearance, but the deputy director was still given access to highly classified information, such as the president’s daily brief, which collates essential information from the intelligence community.

You gotta hand it to this Department of Justice. Officials at the compromised government agency genuinely break new ground all the time. The trouble is that the new ground is things like “lying so hard to grand juries that judges have to intervene,” which is not so great. In the latest humiliation for the Trump administration, U.S. District Judge Laura Provinzino, who is overseeing the cases…

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A Florida school board—known for its book bans, anti-mask mandates, and anti-LGBTQ stance—has lost its conservative majority.

The Sarasota County School Board election, which was led by a co-founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, saw two Democrat-endorsed candidates, Megan Tennimon and Beth Mayberry, cruise to victory. A third Democratic candidate, Jimmy Glover, will face a run-off vote in November. If he is victorious, he will be the first person of color to ever sit on the five-person Sarasota County School Board.

“I really think at the end of the day, regardless of political affiliation, our community was just tired of the culture wars, the political theater and being the center of national attention for all the wrong reasons,” Tennimon, a former teacher, said.

“I think that they realized how destructive those divisive policies really were,” Mayberry, also a retired educator, added. “What they’ve seen in the last four years, with basically the tabloid happenings on the school board and a lot of the policies and resolutions that were being made, our general community did not agree with.”

Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis have very much led the charge against “woke” in schools. In 2023, the state banned Advanced Placement Psychology in all public schools because its teachings on sexual orientation and gender identity violated the state’s draconian “Don’t Say Gay” law. The state was responsible for 40 percent of all book bans across the country in the 2022–23 school year, banning 1,406 books like The Kite Runner, Little Rock Nine, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. In the last year, the Sarasota School Board specifically removed race, sexuality, and disability from its anti-bullying rules and declared its loyalty to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Maybe people seem to be getting anti-woke fatigue at both the state and local level. But Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich doesn’t seem to think so.

“Every couple of years someone in the media writes our obituary, and every couple of years parents show up and prove them wrong,” Descovich told The Washington Post. “School boards are ground zero in the fight for parental rights, and last night Florida parents made that clear.”

Regardless, it’s clear that anti-wokeness isn’t a winning message anymore in Sarasota County, or even Florida at large—as Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist, also recently won the Democratic nomination for Senate.

A Missouri judge has allowed Republicans in the state to gerrymander their congressional map in time for November’s elections.

Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ruled Wednesday that the state could use the new map backed by President Trump without a statewide voter referendum. It’s a big boost to Republican efforts to hold on to the House, although the ruling will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court of Missouri.

The new districts were already used in the state’s congressional primaries earlier this month and on the same day, Missouri Secretary of State Deny Hoskins, a Republican, rejected a petition to put the map on the ballot this November, claiming such a move violated the Missouri Constitution.

Green agreed with Hoskins Wednesday, writing in his ruling that “The Missouri Constitution does not supply any statement—let alone a clear one—reallocating authority over congressional redistricting away from the General Assembly to a referendum process.”

Opponents in the state are already appealing.

“Everyone knows that Cole County is not the final decision here,” said Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians and one of the people who sued to put the map to a vote. “After months of delay, we are pleased to be moving forward to the Missouri Supreme Court to enforce our constitutional rights.”

The new map seeks to get rid of Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City, one of Missouri’s two Democrats in Congress. Under the new map, the city would be chopped up and absorbed into two nearby Republican districts, and Republicans hope this would increase their House delegation from six to seven members of Congress.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have sought to hastily redraw congressional maps across the country in order to prevent losing the House. They’ve taken advantage of a Supreme Court ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act and removing legal provisions for majority-Black districts. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to overcome the president’s record-low unpopularity.

Presler didn’t disclose his spending in Pennsylvania’s 2025 judicial retention races, the complaint says. By Carter Walker for Votebeat A watchdog group has filed a complaint alleging conservative activist Scott Presler and his political action committee may have violated state campaign finance law in Pennsylvania. Presler is based in Pennsylvania and has gained a national profile…

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Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this hostile Trumpverse! JOIN US IN THE INNER HIVE, and be the first kid on your block to get each week’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic – before it’s published anywhere. * Sign up for the free weekly newsletter, The Tom the Dancing Bug Review! Not nearly as good as joining the…

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This story was originally published by Capital B and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Dominika Parry never stopped fighting for Jackson, Mississippi, residents even after the Trump administration terminated a multibillion-dollar program last year meant to help the Black city still reeling from a water crisis. 

For years, if water did flow out of Black households’ faucets in Jackson at all, it was often brown. It left elders and babies with rashes and caused a slew of health problems across the city.

Parry and other community leaders and organizations got some semblance of hope in 2023 with a federal grant. Yet, two years later—before any funds could be distributed—President Donald Trump entered office and terminated a $2.8 billion program meant to help mitigate the harm from climate change and environmental issues in Black, low-income, and disadvantaged communities. 

More than a year later, federal courts stepped in and rebuked the administration’s effort to dismantle climate funding. The case centers on the administration’s effort to roll back climate investments authorized by Congress under the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s cornerstone economic policy.

The administration, which shed a quarter of its EPA workers, now says the agency lacks the money and staff to implement the grant program.

Last month, a South Carolina federal judge ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to resume distributing funds designed to address environmental and health challenges in underserved communities.

The July ruling came just before the DC Circuit Court blocked the EPA from rescinding nearly $20 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awards. That program is different from the environmental justice grants promised to Jackson and other overburdened communities. 

That means that over $22 billion meant for climate and environmental projects in disadvantaged communities may soon be distributed. 

Parry did not respond to requests for comment after the ruling, but Matt Sedlar, climate analyst at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said the outcomes of these lawsuits are “sending a message to the administration that the separation of powers exists and that it must follow the law.”

In 2023, a $20 million federal grant offered a life-saving chance for the Jackson’s poorest. The money was for a resilience hub that would offer year-round access to housing where the lights would stay on with clean drinking water in the time of disaster by funding a micro electric grid. It would also include backup generators, an independent water well, showers, and overnight shelter for up to 150 people at a time facing water issues in their home.

The goal was building “a place where people can come, stay overnight, have access to energy, be in healthy conditions,” Parry said last year. Parry founded the recipient group 2C Mississippi, a Ridgeland-based nonprofit focused on climate resilience in Mississippi.

Since February 2025, the billions made available through the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program have languished as the Trump administration has moved to gut a historic number of environmental rules and protections. The Associated Press estimates that the EPA programs and rules cut were projected to prevent roughly 30,000 deaths per year, particularly in Black and disadvantaged communities. 

The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was designed as a $27 billion national clean-energy financing program. Its goal was also to make clean-energy investments like home-energy upgrades, solar installations, and electric vehicles more accessible in low-income and disadvantaged communities that have historically been shut out of affordable green financing.

The Trump administration has already moved to appeal the judge’s ruling regarding the environmental and climate justice grant program, claiming that the EPA now lacks the money and staff to implement the program. (The Trump administration has fired 25 percent of EPA workers since 2024, bringing the agency to its lowest staff total ever.) 

Already, some of the programs that received the initial approval for funding in 2024 have ceased to exist, including a solar installation program for formerly incarcerated people in Houston. 

Last year, Leon Dillard, a formerly incarcerated man who was a part of the program before it was cut, said the climate-friendly work gave him a “sense of purpose.” 

“I really just needed to be a part of [the program], be a part of something,” he said. “You have to make a choice to take a chance, or your life will never change. But you need other people with you on that journey.”

It is likely that the administration will attempt to appeal the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund ruling as well. 

After prison, Leon Dillard participated in a solar installation program for formerly incarcerated people in Houston. The program no longer exists. Adam Mahoney/Capital B

Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program projects include: 

• More than $14 million to install wastewater systems in Alabama’s Blackbelt communities where failing septic systems and untreated sewage have long sickened Black residents.
• A $500,000 micro electric grid project in Gentilly, a historically Black New Orleans neighborhood that has faced chronic flooding, heat, and power-outage risk, particularly during hurricane season.
• A $20 million grant for four connected disaster hubs in Florida’s historically Black areas of Lee County. The hubs would include cooling centers and, during disasters, sites for electricity, communications, water and food distribution, and emergency health support. The project also included money for stormwater treatment, new shade trees, and workforce training.
• $500,000 for solar-workforce training for formerly incarcerated Texans, illegal-dumping cleanup, and environmental education in a Black community in Houston overburdened by pollution. 
• $20 million to weatherize, electrify, repair, and improve air quality in 500 homes in East Alabama and West Georgia. The plan also included 10 solar-and-battery resilience hubs for residents during outages and extreme weather. 

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund projects include:

• Mississippi Solar for All: Hope Enterprise Corporation received $62 million to expand residential solar access for low-income and disadvantaged Mississippians.
• Arkansas Solar for All: Hope Enterprise Corporation received $94 million for a companion program bringing solar benefits to low-income households across Arkansas.
• Georgia BRIGHT Communities Coalition: Capital Good Fund received $156 million to expand access to clean energy and related jobs in Georgia.
• EnergizeNC: The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality received $156 million for its statewide low-income solar initiative.
• Industrial Heartland Solar Coalition: Growth Opportunity Partners received $156 million for a multistate solar effort serving Midwestern industrial communities.