Republicans

NBC News reports: The Marine Corps has issued a cease and desist letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., for using the official Marine Corps emblem and phrase on campaign mailers that link his likely 2020 opponent and two Democratic congresswomen to terror. In a letter to Hunter obtained by NBC News, the Marine Corps Trademark Licensing Office tells the congressman, …

The New York Daily News reports: Sen. Rand Paul is balking at the $10 billion price tag for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. The Kentucky Republican derailed a request on Wednesday by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) to fast track the bill that would permanently fund compensation for sick and dying 9/11 responders and victims because the cost was too high. …

“They condemned this president with a smear, calling him racist, when actually it is the other side who has trafficked in anti-Semitism and anti-American rhetoric. She [Omar] proceeds in an interview to distort history, distort the Holocaust, and say that her ancestors gave the Jewish people a safe passage to what she calls Palestine. “Well, the fact of the matter …

The Hill reports: The GOP escalated its feud with four progressive congresswomen known as the “Squad,” releasing a new ad this week accusing the group of wanting “anarchy.” The more than minute-long ad splices together clips of the women likening immigrant detention facilities to concentration camps and declining to comment on a man’s attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement …

Vice News reports: Most rank-and-file Republicans showed little interest in taking on Trump, accusing “The Squad” — freshman congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — of being anti-Semitic as justification for his remarks or shrugging them off as no big deal. “You know, they talk about people of color. I’m a person of color. I’m white. …

Fox News reports: Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz is questioning whether federal prosecutors are applying a double standard by not bringing charges in connection with a graphic threat against him — and suggesting his criticism of the Russia probe might even be a factor. The conservative Florida congressman told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday that he received a threatening voicemail …

Sky News reports: President Donald Trump has made yet another attack on “The Squad”, quoting senator John Kennedy, calling them the “four horsewomen of the apocalypse”. Using Twitter, he quotes the Louisiana senator who appeared on Fox News, saying: “‘In America, if you hate our Country, you are free to leave. The simple fact of the matter is, the four …

“There are no more good TV shows on like Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy. We don’t have those shows anymore. We’re too interested in homosexual activities. We’re too interested in seeing how this family’s finding a way to mess on this family or to see how people are trying to date on TV, or having wife-swapping …

South Carolina’s Post & Courier reports: Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina congressman ousted from office after President Donald Trump urged voters to reject him, is considering a run for president. Sanford, in an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Post and Courier, confirmed he will take the next month to formulate whether he will mount a potential run against Trump …

The Hill reports: Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) on Monday became the first GOP lawmaker to publicly condemn recent tweets from President Trump as “racist.” Speaking to CNN host Christiane Amanpour, Hurd not only said Trump’s tweets were “racist” and “xenophobic,” but also labeled them “inaccurate.” “The four women he is referring to are actually citizens of the United States, three …

“I think the president believes that the more he can get the country to look at the so-called squad, the more he can get them to realize how radical they are and how fundamentally anti-American their views are, in the long run the better off he is. I think he would like to see them as sort of the front …

Mediaite reports: Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) cranked up the Donald Trump sycophancy by blasting the president’s Democratic enemies during his appearance on Fox & Friends Monday morning. “We all know AOC and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel, they hate our own country. They’re calling the guards along our border, Border Patrol agents concentration camp guards. …

The Washington Post reports: A day has passed without prominent Republicans stepping forward to disagree with President Trump’s notion that four minority congresswomen who have been critical of his approach to immigration enforcement should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Insinuating that people of color are foreigners, the president used …

From reporter Yashar Ali’s newsletter: In 2014, then-Speaker of the House John Boehner tried to bait Fox News Chief Roger Ailes into pulling certain conservative lawmakers off the Fox airwaves by revealing non-public information about a forthcoming House investigation into the Benghazi attack, according to a new book set to be released next week. The book, “American Carnage” by Politico …

The Washington Post reports: William E. Dannemeyer, a seven-term congressman from California who exemplified the archconservative politics of Orange County, calling for a balanced federal budget while making national headlines for his attacks on “militant homosexuality” in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, died July 9 at his wife’s home in Thousand Palms, Calif. He was 89. He had …

Politico reports: Indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter is sending Islamophobic mail pieces to voters in his Southern California district, attacking his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, for his deceased grandfather alleged ties to a 1972 terrorist attack. The mailers show a photo of one of the terrorists involved in an attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics wearing a ski mask …

The Tennessean reports: Gov. Bill Lee has proclaimed Saturday as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in Tennessee, a day of observation to honor the former Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader whose bust is on display in the state Capitol. Per state law, the Tennessee governor is tasked with issuing proclamations for six separate days of special observation, three …

NBC News reports: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is ready to just do it: Change his mind and welcome Nike with open arms. Ducey initially tweeted last week that he was ordering the state’s commerce authority to “withdraw all financial incentive dollars” for Nike to build a plant in the city of Goodyear. His decision followed the sneaker company’s announcement that …

From a poll released today by YouGov: Shortly after his election in 2016, President Donald Trump suggested that people who burn the American flag should lose their citizenship or spend a year in jail. More than one-third of adults agree: 36% would support stripping US citizenship from Americans that burn or desecrate the flag. Roughly two-thirds (67%) of Republicans support …

The Washington Post reports: Now out of office and trading in his power suits for a blue vest, Paul Ryan is back to critiquing Trump in unflattering terms in conversations with Alberta, who writes the former speaker could not stand the idea of another two years with the president and saw retirement as the “escape hatch.” “We’ve gotten so numbed …