“Second booster shots of the coronavirus vaccine for people younger than 50 are on hold as the Biden administration tries to accelerate a fall vaccination campaign using reformulated shots that target the now-dominant omicron subvariants,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump’s Revenge
Axios: “Close aides believed Trump had crossed a psychological line during his Senate trial. He now wanted to get even; he wanted to fire every single last ‘snake’ inside his government. To activate the plan for revenge, Trump turned to a young take-no-prisoners loyalist with chutzpah: his former aide John McEntee.”
“By the end of that year, Trump also had a second tool in his armory, a secret weapon with the innocuous title, ‘Schedule F.’ The intention of this obscure legal instrument was to empower the president to wipe out employment protections for tens of thousands of civil servants across the federal government.”
“The mission for McEntee and the power of Schedule F dovetailed in the lead-up to the 2020 election as Trump planned (but lost) a second term and fumed over perceived foes.”
“If former President Trump runs again in 2024 and wins back the White House, people close to him say, he would turn to both levers again. It is Schedule F, combined with the willpower of top lieutenants like McEntee, that could bring Trump closer to his dream of gutting the federal bureaucracy and installing thousands devoted to him or his ‘America First’ platform.”
The Enigma of Peter Thiel
John Ganz: “Peter Thiel is a fascist. There’s really no better word for what he is. For some reason, people have a lot of trouble grasping this or just coming out and saying it.”
FBI Says Chinese Equipment Could Disrupt Nuclear Arsenal
CNN: “Since at least 2017, federal officials have investigated Chinese land purchases near critical infrastructure, shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies and stonewalled what they saw as clear efforts to plant listening devices near sensitive military and government facilities.”
“Among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest.”
“According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons.”
Supreme Court Silent on Leak Probe
“Less than 24 hours after the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the ‘egregious breach,’” the AP reports.
“Since then? Silence.”
“The Supreme Court won’t say whether it’s still investigating. The court also won’t say whether the leaker has been identified or whether anyone has been disciplined. Or whether an outside law firm or the FBI has been called in. Or whether the court will ever offer an accounting of what transpired. Or whether it has taken steps to try to prevent a repeat.”
Monkeypox Declared a Global Health Emergency
“The chief of the World Health Organization said the expanding monkeypox outbreak in more than 70 countries is an ‘extraordinary’ situation that now qualifies as a global emergency, a declaration Saturday that could spur further investment in treating the once-rare disease and worsen the scramble for scarce vaccines,” the AP reports.
Washington Post: “Infections in the ongoing outbreak are reported overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men, and experts believe close contact during sexual activity is a major driver of transmission. The virus transmits through other forms of skin-to-skin contact and in households through prolonged respiratory spread and the sharing of contaminated items. Authorities have also reported small numbers of women and children infected with monkeypox.”
Republicans Split on Same-Sex Marriage
“A bill to codify federal protections for same-sex marriage has passed the House, but Senate Republicans are agonizing over whether they should block it or allow it to pass,” NBC News reports.
“With Democrats seeking to portray Republicans as belonging to a retrograde and primitive party that wants to strip away modern rights, their decision could play a role in the midterm elections this fall.”
“Some GOP strategists want the party to move past the issue by codifying protections, but that risks upsetting the cultural conservatives, which make up a significant portion of the party’s base. A Gallup poll released last month found that most Americans — 71 percent — favor legal same-sex marriage.”
Nearly 18 Million Watched January 6 Hearing
“The January 6th Committee’s primetime hearing drew an estimated 17.7 million viewers, an 11% dropoff from the 20 million who watched the committee’s last nighttime event in June,” Deadline reports.
“Those are solid albeit not blockbuster numbers. The committee’s hearings, though, have commanded news cycles, and moments have gone viral on social media.”
Steve Bannon Warns January 6 Committee
Steve Bannon lashed out at the House January 6 committee hours after being found guilty of contempt of Congress, Insider reports.
Said Bannon: “I would tell the Jan. 6 staff right now: preserve your documents because there’s going to be a real committee, and this is going to be backed by Republican grassroots voters to say we want to get to the bottom of this for the good of the nation.”
He added: “We have to really govern, and I mean govern on offense. Every committee in the House needs to be an oversight committee. We have to go after the Biden administration, which is illegitimate.”
Moore Wins Democratic Nod for Maryland Governor
“Wes Moore (D), a first-time candidate for elected office who built an energetic campaign against a crowded and robust field, has won the Democratic nomination for Maryland governor,” the Baltimore Sun reports.
“A bestselling author and former nonprofit leader, Moore defeated former U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez as mail-in ballots were being tallied Friday, according to The Associated Press, but after Moore won significantly more in-person votes earlier in the week.”
Quote of the Day
“I want to wish Joe Biden a speedy recovery from Covid. And I want to wish America a speedy recovery from Joe Biden.”
— Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), speaking at a conservative conference.
A Category 5 Economic Storm
Ben White: “Take some time to relax and enjoy this summer weekend. Because there is a Category 5 storm of economic news headed for our shores next week that will (hopefully) help clear up a muddled picture of America’s direction and almost certainly set competing political narratives for the stretch run of the midterm election campaign.”
Trump and Pence Stump in Arizona
“Former President Donald Trump and his estranged vice president, Mike Pence, held rival campaign events in Arizona on Friday, turning the governor’s race into a broader referendum on the Republican Party’s future,” the AP reports.
“Trump and Pence both talked up the successes of their administration and hammered President Joe Biden, but neither directly addressed the other or the growing rift between them.”
Interestingly, Trump was booed for his endorsement in the Arizona governor’s race.
Pence Still Not Talking About January 6
“A room full of establishment-minded Republicans greeted Mike Pence here on Friday, many of them still chilled by the Jan. 6 committee’s revelations the previous evening about how close Pence and his security detail came to catastrophe during the riot at the Capitol in 2021,” Politico reports.
“They’d heard about the protesters who chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” and, according to committee testimony, then-President Donald Trump’s view that Pence deserved it.”
“Yet in an air-conditioned warehouse in the Phoenix suburbs, where Pence is engaged in a proxy war with Trump over the result of Arizona’s Aug. 2 gubernatorial primary, Pence didn’t mention any of that — or anything negative about Trump at all. And no one was surprised.”
Rupert Murdoch’s Newspapers Weigh In
A Wall Street Journal editorial:
“The brute facts remain: Mr. Trump took an oath to defend the Constitution, and he had a duty as Commander in Chief to protect the Capitol from a mob attacking it in his name. He refused. He didn’t call the military to send help. He didn’t call Mr. Pence to check on the safety of his loyal VP. Instead he fed the mob’s anger and let the riot play out.”
“In the 18 months since, Mr. Trump has shown not an iota of regret.”
“As his followers stormed the Capitol, calling on his vice president to be hanged, President Donald Trump sat in his private dining room, watching TV, doing nothing…”
“It’s up to the Justice Department to decide if this is a crime. But as a matter of principle, as a matter of character, Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again.
Rioter Who Wanted to Shoot Pelosi Sent to Prison
A Pennsylvania woman who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and later recorded herself saying she wanted to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “in the frigging brain” has been sentenced to 60 days behind bars, the Washington Post reports.
Hillary Clinton’s Name Removed at Ivana Trump’s Funeral
“Ivana Trump’s funeral proudly displayed a copy of her 1992 Vanity Fair cover at the memorial for the socialite — but put up a version that removed Hillary Clinton’s name,” the Daily Mail reports.
The Criminal Case Against Trump Is Getting Stronger
David French: “To understand why, let’s turn briefly to Georgia—the state where evidence of his alleged criminality has always been the most compelling.”
“Indeed, as the criminal investigation plays out, the fake-electors scheme may well be the most clearly illegal element of the entire effort to overturn the election. Their designations represent a series of concrete, overt acts that move beyond verbal bluster about election fraud and raise the question—who initiated, approved, and/or directed the scheme?”
“As I’ve written before, Trump’s recorded demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ‘find 11,780 votes’—along with his not-so-veiled threat that Raffensperger faced a ‘big risk’ of criminal prosecution if he failed—was already quite legally problematic. Add this threat to the fake-electors scheme, and the elements of a criminal conspiracy come clearly into view.”
E.J. Dionne: Finally, the dam is breaking against Trump.
