Business Insider: “A key fundraiser for Republican women is criticizing GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, likening them to ‘carnival barkers’ who are overshadowing the work of serious female legislators. The Value In Electing Women Political Action Committee has supported every GOP woman serving in the US House and Senate, with the “intentional exception” of the two Republican freshmen, according to Julie Conway, VIEW PAC’s executive director and a longtime fundraiser and political consultant. Conway said the PAC would not endorse them in 2022, either.”

“‘While we rightfully celebrate the number of GOP women serving in the House, I’ve always professed quality over quantity,’ Conway told Insider in an email. ‘The work of Congress is not a joke or reality show. Our women have fought too hard for too long to be respected and taken seriously as legislators, policy makers and thought leaders. We cannot let this work be erased by individuals who chose to be shameless self-promoters and carnival barkers.”

“Tokyo Olympics to be held without fans, Olympic Minister Maurkawa tells Kyodo as state of emergency goes into force” reports the AP’s Jonathan Lemire.

CNBC: “Two national Republican Party organizations rushed to Georgia’s defense in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice, which alleges that a recently passed election law violates voting protections for minorities. The Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee said in a press release Thursday that they were intervening to defend Georgia against the ‘politically-motivated lawsuit.’ President Joe Biden and other Democrats are ‘weaponizing the Justice Department by trying to strong-arm the state of Georgia into making its elections less secure,’ RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement in the release.”

“Republicans argue that SB 202, the election overhaul bill signed in March by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, enshrines common-sense voter protections into law. But Attorney General Merrick Garland, who announced the lawsuit in June, accused the Peach State of enacting the law ‘with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color.'”

“In Arizona, the Republican-controlled state Senate has been conducting a farcical audit of the election results in the state’s largest county that’s been criticized by local GOP officials and much of the party’s statewide leadership. The partisan effort will cost taxpayers millions of dollars… Republican leaders haven’t seemed to absorb any lessons from Democrats’ statewide victories in 2018 and 2020. Despite clear evidence that Biden and [Mark] Kelly made major inroads with moderate suburbanites in last year’s election, the party is imposing even more reckless litmus tests for their nominees. Gov. Doug Ducey passed on the race after receiving sharp criticism from Trump for certifying the state’s election results for Biden. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, one of the early front-runners, has drawn Trump’s wrath for not doing enough to champion his baseless allegations of voter fraud. ‘We’re asking [Republicans] to vote for us in an election system they don’t believe in anymore,’ lamented one Arizona-based GOP strategist.”

“While Brnovich initially distanced himself from the sham audit taking place, he’s since attacked the Justice Department for raising the specter of federal oversight of the state’s elections. While Republicans would prefer to focus on other issues, Trump’s engagement has all but guaranteed ‘voter fraud’ will be an issue in next year’s primary; one Republican strategist said that the Phoenix arena where the audit is taking place has become something like a religious shrine to hardcore Trump supporters. Brnovich is expected to face competition from venture capitalist Blake Masters, an associate of Trump-backing entrepreneur Peter Thiel; solar-energy executive Jim Lamon; and former state Adjutant General Mick McGuire. Meanwhile, amid the GOP bickering, Kelly raised an impressive $6 million in the most recent fundraising quarter” – National Review.

Washington Post: “Former president Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., charged the Secret Service nearly $10,200 for guest rooms used by his protective detail during Trump’s first month at the club this summer, newly released spending records show. The records – released by the Secret Service in response to a public-records request – show that the ex-president has continued a habit he began in the first days of his presidency: charging rent to the agency that protects his life. Since Trump left office in January, U.S. taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $50,000 for rooms used by Secret Service agents, records show.”

“The Washington Post reported previously that Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club – where he lived from January, when he left the White House, to early May – charged the Secret Service more than $40,000 so that agents could use a room near Trump. These newly released records provide the first proof that, when Trump moved north to Bedminster, the invoices kept coming. The Secret Service released a bill it paid to Trump Bedminster in May, totaling $10,199.52. The agency redacted the nightly rate, but the dollar amount itself offered a clue: The bill was an exact multiple of what Trump Bedminster charged the Secret Service while Trump was still in office: $566.64 per night for a four-bedroom ‘cottage’ on the property.”

“Six months after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the Republican Party is a mess. It’s been a mess for a long time; that’s a big part of why it wound up nominating a reality TV show host with serious allegations of fraud and sexual assault lodged against him for president in the first place. It’s in worse shape now. Where to start? Usually, when a president loses re-election, his party quickly moves on. Republicans in 1992 and Democrats in 1980 thanked George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter for their service and then ignored them. Donald Trump never fell to the popularity lows of either of those one-termers and didn’t lose re-election by margins comparable to theirs, but then again he never had the periods of solid popularity that they had – or an initial impressive win. Trump is popular among Republicans, but that’s less of an accomplishment than it seems. Most partisan voters like most of their party’s politicians! Republicans could have moved on, during a period where the danger in doing so was as low as it’s likely to be, and they chose not to.”

“Part of the reason was that Trump didn’t act like Bush, Carter or any other former president. Not only is he whining nonstop about his usual grievances, and adding false claims about fraud in the 2020 election, but he’s pressuring candidates up and down the Republican Party to go along with his increasingly anti-democratic rants. Among other things, this has meant that Republicans have lost a made-to-order opportunity supplied by the Jan. 6 attack. Mainstream Republicans could have looked good by consistently condemning the attack, thereby distancing themselves from organized hate groups involved in the event. Instead, they’re stuck defending the indefensible and making it a major part of Republican messaging, while allowing their leading voices to be… well, let’s call them the high-profile Republicans least likely to appeal to swing voters” – Bloomberg.

Reuters: “Olympic organisers are set to ban all spectators from the Games, the Asahi daily said on Thursday, as Japan declared a coronavirus state of emergency for Tokyo that will run through its hosting of the event to curb a new wave of infections. Organisers were set to formally reach the decision on spectators during five-way talks between main parties on Thursday, the newspaper said, citing people involved in the Games. If confirmed, the ban on spectators would mark the latest blow to the troubled Olympics, delayed by a year because of the pandemic and plagued by a series of setbacks, including massive budget overruns. Medical experts have said for weeks that having no spectators at the Games would be the least risky option amid widespread public fears that an influx of thousands of athletes and officials will fuel a fresh wave of infections.”

The temporary chain link security fence erected around the Capitol after the January 6th domestic terrorist attack will be removed starting Friday and could be completely gone within three days, Politico reports.

The announcement comes six months and one day after thousands of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote that deemed Joe Biden won the November 2020 election.  Trump and his followers believe the election was fraught with fraud, although they’ve been unable to offer any proof of their claims.

More than 500 people have been arrested due to their actions at the January 6th insurrectionist attack.  One police officer died in the immediate aftermath of the attack; two more took their own lives in the days following the attack.  Five rioters died, including one shot by a Capitol Police officer as she crawled through a broken window in a barricaded door as she tried to reach the Speaker’s Lobby outside the House chamber.

House Sergeant at Arms William Walker sent a memo to all members of Congress and staff informing them of the fence removal, but also informing them that the fence can be redeployed “expeditiously” if it should be needed in the future.

As Texas gets hit by a heat wave, Republican Texas Senator (and man who somehow got his spine made of Twizzlers to stay erect) Ted Cruz declined an invitation to attend the state’s version of the CPAC convention, saying that he had a previously scheduled family commitment.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Cruz will not appear at this weekend’s three-day Conservative Political Action Conference to be held in downtown Dallas, which will hit high temperatures in the mid-90s.

Cruz did not say what the family commitment was, whether the plans were made at the insistence of his daughters, or if the plans include fleeing the Texas heatwave to seek more temperate weather.

Donald Trump is slated to be the keynote speaker at the event.

Various media reports are arising that Haitian police have captured some of the men responsible for the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse at the presidential compound in Port-au-Prince.

Some media reports, including the Wall Street Journal, report that four of the gunmen have been captured.  Others report that four gunmen were killed and two captured after a gun battle with police.

Initial reports claim that the assassins spoke English and Spanish during the attack; the primary languages in Haiti are French and Creole.  Some witnesses reported that the gunmen claimed to be members of the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

Moise’s widow, first lady Martine Moïse, was severely wounded in the early morning attack.  She was medivac’ed to South Florida for medical treatment Wednesday afternoon.

The number of people worldwide who have perished because of the coronavirus has surpassed four million, according to the 9:21 p.m. ET update of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard.

The first coronavirus death occurred January 9th, 2020 in Wuhan, China.  Since then, an average of more than 7,300 people have died per day around the world.

The United States, although the third most populous nation on the planet, has the most deaths of any country, with 606,000, 50% more than the next country on the list, India, which has a population four times greater than the US.

Newsweek: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is still a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump but she’s not in the camp of people who believe he’ll return to office before fall. Several religious leaders and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell have backed the belief that Trump will be reinstated as president in the coming months. The hope is rooted in the conviction that evidence will come out showing the election was fraudulent and while Greene believes Trump won the 2020 election, she doesn’t see him being reinstated. ‘I would hate for anyone to get their hopes up thinking that President Trump is going to be back in the White House in August because that’s not true and I’m telling you that as a member of Congress, that’s a very difficult thing to do,’ Greene told Steve Bannon on his podcast on Wednesday, adding that people need to be ‘careful in what they believe,’ but didn’t mention anyone by name as to who she thought was peddling faulty information.”

Now that Fox News host (and person who claims butterflies are useless creatures and shouldn’t be allowed to live) Tucker Carlson has had his claims that the National Security Agency was unlawfully monitoring his communications, (because he was communicating with agents of Russia’s government), Carlson’s attack is now aimed at the person(s) who unmasked him, another non-illegal process.

He also picks up the Trumpian mantle that the intelligence agencies are working to undermine the United States by spying willy-nilly on citizens–not that Carlson was picked up talking to an adversarial foreign government. 

Pillow magnate (and man who *really* will do anything to get you to drive off the lot in that 1994 Ford Probe GT) Mike Lindell faces another hurdle in getting reinstated by his most-recently promised August 13th deadline because a Minnesota federal court has put an indefinite hold on the lawsuit Lindell filed in the state to overturn the November 2020 election.

“A federal court in Minnesota has temporarily put on hold the lawsuit that pillow executive Mike Lindell boasted would prompt the Supreme Court to unanimously overturn the results of the 2020 election,” Brad Heath of Reuters reports.

The lawsuit, filed against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic in Minnesota federal court, is stayed until the case brought by Dominion in the DC Federal Court has some issues resolved. 

The operations at the collapsed Surfside, Florida condo complex have switched from rescue to recovery efforts, essentially ending hope of finding any additional survivors after more than two weeks, NBC News reports.

So far, 54 people have been confirmed killed in the disaster, which happened at 1:30 a.m. local time on June 24th.  The recovery of 18 bodies so far on Wednesday make it the single largest daily increase in the number of remains recovered.  Eighty-six people still remain unaccounted for.  Thirty-three of the dead have been identified and their families notified.

Officials conducted a controlled demolition of the remaining standing structure Sunday night in hopes that it would stabilize the site so the standing tower wouldn’t collapse on the existing rubble pile.  They had also hoped that the demo would allow rescuers to find new paths to find survivors.  However, officials said they were “not seeing anything positive” in the day after the move.

A federal judge ruled that the US Air Force held the majority of the responsibility for an Air Force veteran legally purchasing weapons that he used in a mass murder at a Texas church in which 25 people were killed in 2017, the Associated Press reports.

United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas Xavier Rodriguez ruled that the US Air Force’s failure to report Devin Kelley’s history of violence and abuse to a federal database was central to Kelley’s ability to carry out the massacre.  Such a conviction on the record would have barred him from buying a gun at a store.

“The trial conclusively established that no other individual — not even Kelley’s own parents or partners — knew as much as the United States about the violence that Devin Kelley had threatened to commit and was capable of committing,” Rodriguez wrote.

An order from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals declares that Rudy Giuliani’s law license is hereby suspended in Washington DC for violations of rules 11(d) and 14 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

“Tucker Carlson was talking to U.S.-based Kremlin intermediaries about setting up an interview with Vladimir Putin shortly before the Fox News host accused the National Security Agency of spying on him, sources familiar with the conversations tell Axios.”

“Those sources said U.S. government officials learned about Carlson’s efforts to secure the Putin interview. Carlson learned that the government was aware of his outreach — and that’s the basis of his extraordinary accusation, followed by a rare public denial by the NSA that he had been targeted.”

Traveling to McHenry Community College in Illinois, President Joe Biden promoted the benefits of the bipartisan trillion-dollar infrastructure deal he developed with members of the Senate two weeks ago, and he used his predecessor’s failures to get a major initiative through in the process, the Washington Post reports.

“Under a bipartisan infrastructure agreement, we’re going to make the biggest investment in roads and bridges and the construction of the interstate highway system, literally creating millions of good paying jobs,” Biden told the crowd. “And God willing, we’re not going to have 40 weeks of ‘this is infrastructure'”–a reference to the Trump Administration’s habit of declaring a new “Infrastructure Week” as a distraction to whatever new scandal was impacting them.

Biden noted that while just getting the two parties to agree to the bipartisan infrastructure deal was an important accomplishment, the legislation could still be blocked from passage by Senate Republicans who are dead set on being an obstructionist party that have announced they’ll block another part of Biden’s infrastructure agenda.

Hey @POTUS – coming soon to https://t.co/qR9l7GcL8G… pic.twitter.com/LzCSJt2qd7

— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) July 7, 2021

The original version of that emblem had a cannon where the syringe is, as it was flown as a battle flag during the Texas Revolution, in reference to an early skirmish in which White Texans had repelled an attack by Mexican army forces who had been sent to seize the cannon. With that history in mind, Texas Congressman Chip Roy’s supposed anti-vax messaging here is something we might as well just let speak for itself. Less is more sometimes.