Politics

According to a worker at a Kremlin-backed troll factory, last year they put together a fake sex tape starring a black man and a Hillary lookalike. The tape was apparently never posted because the trolls decided that even the craziest far-right Americans wouldn’t believe it. The Daily Beast reports: Alan Baskaev worked for the troll factory, also known as the …

The Hill reports: A deal reached between the government and a small Montana energy company located in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown prohibits the government from reviewing labor costs or profits related to the company’s relief efforts in Puerto Rico, according to a leaked copy of the contract. A copy of the deal obtained by reporter Ken Klippenstein reveals that …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump blasted Tom Steyer on Friday, calling the Democratic megadonor “wacky” and “totally unhinged.” Steyer, a California billionaire activist, is launching a $10 million national ad campaign calling for the president’s impeachment. The 60-second TV spot began running last week, according to Forbes. The ad played Friday morning on “Fox & Friends,” likely catching the president’s …

The Independent reports: Russia has preemptively denied ties to any plot to assassinate late President John F Kennedy ahead of the expected release of thousands of archived records. The National Archives was due to release a trove of documents related to the 22 November 1963 assassination on Thursday. One of several conspiracy theories about Mr Kennedy’s killer Lee Harvey Oswald …

The Daily Caller reports: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio denied Thursday that he was the anonymous Republican who paid Fusion GPS for opposition research on Donald Trump during the presidential primary race. Reporting has revealed that a GOP donor was paying Fusion GPS for opposition research before the firm ended up contracting with former British agent Christopher Steele and producing the …

The New York Times reports: President Trump on Thursday will announce he is directing his Department of Health and Human Services to declare the opioid crisis a public health emergency, senior administration officials said, taking long-anticipated action to address a rapidly escalating epidemic of drug use in the United States. The move falls short of Mr. Trump’s sweeping promise to …

Politico reports: Twitter said Thursday it’s dropping all ads from Kremlin-funded English-language media outlets RT and Sputnik, as the company prepares to face lawmakers next week over Russian use of social media to interfere with the 2016 election. “This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion …

The Associated Press reports: A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed, The Associated Press has learned. The server’s data was destroyed July 7 by technicians at the Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, which runs the state’s election system. The data …

CNBC reports: The House on Thursday narrowly approved a Senate version of the 2018 federal budget, clearing the way for the GOP-controlled Senate to pass a massive set of tax cuts later this year. By passing the Senate version of the budget, House Republicans kick-started the reconciliation process, a window during which the Senate can pass legislation with only a …

NBC News reports: The Donald Trump administration is spending $1.75 million on furniture for the executive office, according to government procurement records. That includes $17,000 for custom rugs, $7,000 for “furniture pedestals,” and $5,000 for wallpaper. There’s also $12,800 for a custom conference table from a company that made one for former President Richard Nixon in 1969 (“Nixon paid for …

The Hill reports: President Trump on Thursday again weighed into the Virginia governor’s race, arguing Republican nominee Ed Gillespie “will be a great governor” and slamming Gillespie’s Democratic opponent. Trump has previously tweeted support for Gillespie, who is running against Lt. Gov. Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in the Nov. 7 election. Northam quickly fired back, pointing to service in …

Bloomberg reports: The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said an increase in his security detail is the result of an escalation in threats to him and his family. While environmental groups have pilloried the potential $1.9 million annual cost of round-the-clock security that comes as the agency moves to cut staff, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said security officials deemed …

Business Insider reports: President Donald Trump’s approval rating sank to a new low in a Fox News poll, with only 38% of respondents telling pollsters they approved of Trump’s job performance. The poll, released Wednesday, comes after a turbulent month marked by a series of destructive hurricanes, the resulting crisis in Puerto Rico, and Trump’s ongoing controversy with several Gold …

The Miami Herald reports: Congressional Democrats celebrated Rep. Frederica Wilson on Wednesday by wearing stickers adorned with a red cowboy hat and posing for a group picture on the steps of the Capitol. But one notable person was missing: Wilson herself. A source close to Wilson confirmed that the Miami Democrat was not in Washington this week due to ongoing …

Courthouse News Service reports: A nonpartisan group of election law experts on Wednesday accused the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 president campaign of violating federal financial disclosure laws to hide payments for a dossier that alleged connections between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russia. In a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission, the Campaign Legal Center says the …

Raw Story reports: President Donald Trump was reportedly on the verge of deporting billionaire Chinese fugitive Guo Wengui, but changed his mind after aides informed him that Guo is a fellow billionaire and a member in good standing at the president’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago. According to Vanity Fair‘s Isobel Thompson, Guo is wanted on charges of rape, bribery and kidnapping …

The Washington Post reports: In recent years, the private prison company GEO Group has held its annual leadership conference at venues near its Boca Raton headquarters. But this year, the company moved its gathering to a Miami-area golf resort owned by President Trump. The event last week, during which executives and wardens gathered for four days of meetings, dinner receptions …

Gallup reports: Americans continue to warm to legalizing marijuana, with 64% now saying its use should be made legal. This is the highest level of public support Gallup has found for the proposal in nearly a half-century of measurement. The trajectory of Americans’ views on marijuana is similar to that of their views on same-sex marriage over the past couple …

NPR reports: A majority of whites say discrimination against them exists in America today, according to a poll released Tuesday from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. More than half of whites — 55 percent — surveyed say that, generally speaking, they believe there is discrimination against white people in America …

The Guardian reports: Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul and former mayor of New York, has said Brexit is the “single stupidest thing any country has ever done” apart from the election of Donald Trump as US president. Bloomberg argued that “it is really hard to understand why a country that was doing so well wanted to ruin it” with …