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- Big tech must deal with scam ads under Ofcom proposals
Ofcom says more than half of UK adults have encountered potentially fraudulent ads online. [TheTopNews] Read More.20 mins ago - Trump Fires Members of Bipartisan Election Commission
AP Photo/Alex Brandon President Donald Trump ousted the three remaining commissioners on a bipartisan federal elections board that assists states and municipalities in holding their elections, VoteBeat reported on Thursday night. Two of the commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission were Democrats, whom Trump fired. The third official, a Republican, was allowed to resign. VoteBeat cited three officials familiar with the matter. The EAC trains election officials in new voting technology, manages the national mail voter registration form, and oversees a testing and certification program for voting machines, some of which Trump falsely claimed took votes away from him and gave to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Trump falsely maintains the election was rigged against him. The two Democratic commissioners, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland were terminated via an email, which was obtained by VoteBeat. “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” it read. Republican Christy McCormick resigned. VoteBeat stated: The firings leave the four-member commission with no commissioners, meaning it cannot take official action until new members are installed. They also come days after the Supreme Court granted the president power to fire leaders of independent agencies, weakening a legal framework that for decades had insulated bipartisan federal commissions from direct White House control. The EAC was created by Congress after the 2000 election to help states improve election administration without federalizing elections.Its role is mostly supportive: distributing federal election funds, maintaining the national mail voter registration form, testing and certifying voting systems, and offering best practices and guidance to state and local election officials. Any new commissioners must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The commission cannot have more than two members of the same party. The ousters came the week after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 91-year-old case that had limited the president’s ability to remove members of independent federal boards. Trump has urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote and present photo identification when voting. “We do that, we’re not gonna lose an election for a hundred years,” Trump said during an Independence Day speech.The post Trump Fires Members of Bipartisan Election Commission first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.6 hours ago - Raskin Vows to ‘Do Everything I Can’ to Help Olympian Accused of Reflecting ...
Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) issued a sharply-worded statement Thursday vowing to “do everything I can” to help defend David Hearn, the former Olympian who was arrested and accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool — and he took some not-so-subtle digs at President Donald Trump as well. The president has been infuriated by the troubles plaguing the work he has directed for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, including bright green algae and peeling paint. Trump and others in his administration have claimed the problems have been caused by vandals; these claims have been met with much skepticism by the media and local D.C. residents, but several arrests have been made nonetheless. One of these arrests was Hearn, who was hit with a charge for destruction of government property when he stopped at the Reflecting Pool to check it out after a bicycle ride. Hearn has maintained his innocence, telling The Washington Post, “I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.” “I didn’t vandalize anything,” he insisted. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.” Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has publicly accused Hearn of having “willfully destroyed property” at the Reflecting Pool, claiming he “forcefully and violently” pulled up the bottom liner, and was able to secure a grand jury indictment for a felony charge of damage to government property. Hearn pleaded not guilty Thursday. His attorney, Norm Eisen, made a statement to reporters warning that the case set a dangerous precedent: If Mr. Hearn can be charged with a felony for touching the reflecting pool, every American is at risk, and every American should be alarmed about this prosecution. This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures. We will litigate these issues vigorously. We have confidence in our justice system to see through this misuse of government power against an ordinary American based on a false and politicized narrative. Raskin, a Harvard Law School alumnus who taught constitutional law for over 25 years, has spoken out about Hearn’s case, noting that he is a constituent of his as a Maryland resident. In a statement sent to Mediaite by… [TheTopNews] Read More.7 hours ago - Congressman Suggests Israel Ginned Up Alleged Iranian Trump Assassination Plot t...
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) pumped the brakes on an Israeli intelligence assessment that concluded Iran was “considering” a new plot to assassinate President Donald Trump. On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli officials shared the assessment with their U.S. counterparts. Multiple news outlets relayed the scoop uncritically, even after it was reported in April that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had successfully lobbied Trump to bomb Iran by sharing intel with him, indicating that Iran’s regime could be toppled relatively easily. That assessment turned out to be erroneous. Shortly after the Journal published its report, Smith appeared on The Source, where CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked, What’s your sense about these new reports that Israel told the U.S. there is a new Iranian plot to try to kill the president?” Smith replied: Well, it’s very hard to tell. I mean, certainly Iran has made the statement… since the killing of Soleimani over six years ago now. It’s also easy to see that Israel would want to sort of buck up Trump, make him more willing to take on Iran more strongly. Netanyahu has been pushing for that tougher stance, more hawkish approach to Iran for quite some time now, crucially, without any clear plan for how that’s going to turn into some sort of success in terms of fundamentally breaking the Iranian regime. But Israel certainly has that interest. So it’s hard to know. It’s hard to know exactly what that intel is. The New York Times reported that in February, Netanyahu gave a presentation in the White House Situation Room, where he said the Islamic Republic was ripe for regime change. “Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks,” the Times reported. “The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.” Despite Israeli insistence that the Iranians could not close the strait, they severely restricted travel through the vital passageway, where ships are still taking fire from Iranian drones. Moreover, Iran has managed to hit targets across the Middle East. After Netanyahu concluded his presentation and left the Situation Room, Secretary Marco Rubio reportedly told Trump and others present, “It’s bullsh*t.” According to former Secretary of… [TheTopNews] Read More.7 hours ago - Ex-Trump Spox Claims JD Vance Was ‘Set Up’ as ‘Fall Guy’ for Failed Iran...Caroline Sunshine, a former staffer to President Donald Trump, claimed that Vice President JD Vance was “set up” as the “fall guy” for the broken memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran in a Thursday appearance on CNN. On June 17, the U.S. released a copy of the memorandum of understanding (MOU), thought to be a tentative end to the war with Iran. Trump later signed the agreement in Versailles. In the days and weeks that followed, Vance made a notable number of public appearances — The View, a New York Times podcast, Real Time with Bill Maher, and more. The MOU has since failed, with the U.S. bombing Iran on Thursday, along with airstrikes on Wednesday night, in retaliation for Iran’s ongoing targeting of vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Speaking on CNN NewsNight, Sunshine said, “I think we know now why JD Vance was sent out to go sell the MOU, and at the time, [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio was nowhere to be found. Like, if you remember, JD Vance was doing interview after interview after interview, going out and selling this deal, and Marco Rubio was, like, what? DJing a wedding, or something? Like, he was nowhere to be found, because as we’ve now seen, Vance, I think, was set up to be, you know, the fall guy for this.” She continued, “[Iran] has figured out what we have not figured out, which is that this is an economic war. Okay? This war does not have a military solution. We’ve exhausted all the good military options. What Iran has figured out is that war is about studying your opponent, and they’ve studied President Trump very well.” Sunshine mentioned multiple comments by Trump in late June, in which he said he feared emulating former President Herbert Hoover economically, who is frequently blamed for the Great Depression. “Iran has studied that,” she told CNN’s Abby Phillip, “and what they’ve learned is the playbook is, ‘That’s a really nice stock market you’ve got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.'” Watch the full clip above via CNN.The post Ex-Trump Spox Claims JD Vance Was ‘Set Up’ as ‘Fall Guy’ for Failed Iran Agreement first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.7 hours ago
- Kevin McCarthy Calls Out Speaker Johnson for Sending Lawmakers Home: ‘Stop Rec...Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy called out his immediate successor on Thursday, advising him to “stop recessing” the House of Representatives. On June 30, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) canceled votes and sent House members home early for a two-week holiday recess after a handful of Republicans revolted, preventing votes on key pieces of legislation because the bills had not undergone committee or floor action. McCarthy appeared on Thursday’s Hannity, where guest host Kellyanne Conway said Republicans are not doing enough ahead of November’s midterm elections. “It’s not enough to say, ‘They’re socialists. We’re not,'” she said. “We have to finish our sentences, and I’m worried that if we’re just pointing at the Democrats and saying, ‘You are socialists,’ we’re not taking advantage of saying who we are. So who are we?” McCarthy responded by saying Johnson should keep House members at the Capitol and Republicans should explain their policies to the public. “The thing that you have to have, you have the majority in the House right now,” McCarthy said. “Stop recessing. Show the American public what you are by passing the legislation that you believe in. You can’t sit back and say, ‘The Democrats are socialists, and they can’t do it.’ You’ve got to show them what you’re able to achieve. Lay out that agenda that you’re able to do. Yes, you secured the border. Take that, but make sure you’re lowering the prices, you’re lowering the fuel costs, and also that you’re making our streets safe again. Pass the legislation day in and day out between now and the election, and show them what you believe in.” Johnson ascended to the speakership after McCarthy was ousted from the position in 2023. Watch above via Fox News.The post Kevin McCarthy Calls Out Speaker Johnson for Sending Lawmakers Home: ‘Stop Recessing’ first appeared on Mediaite. [TheTopNews] Read More.9 hours ago
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