White House Dossier's

Trump Vows To Encourage Early Voting For 2024 Election . . . 

Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would encourage his supporters to participate in early voting and “legal” ballot harvesting in 2024. The Republican National Committee unveiled plans to enhance their ability to gather both early votes and absentee ballots following the loss of the 2020 presidential election and the disappointing 2022 midterms. Republicans gained ten seats in the House during the 2022 midterm elections and lost one Senate seat, underperforming expectations of a nation-wide “red wave.” Daily Caller

Tim Scott’s formidable charm meets a tough Republican electorate . . . Tim Scott posts some of the highest favorability ratings in the presidential primary field. He’s well liked by donors and the conservative media, and with Ron DeSantis sputtering, he appears to have an opening. There’s just one problem: so far the GOP electorate ain’t buying it. In interviews with a dozen strategists and pollsters, terms like “affable,”and “optimistic” came up repeatedly. The description that did not come up often was “president.” “I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t think he’s a nice guy,” Ryan Rhodes, a Republican strategist in Iowa, said of Scott. “But I don’t believe the primary electorate believes that we can just have somebody that’s going to get along with the other side in Washington.” Politico

‘Built On Muscle:’ The DeSantis Campaign’s Playbook to Beat Trump and Shock the Haters . . . Despite Trump’s commanding lead in many polls, the Florida governor’s campaign says its organization and messaging will carry the day. Donuts for Iowa lawmakers. A 99-county pastor recruitment plan. An in-house marketing department outpacing competitors on Facebook.

Seven weeks after launch, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign is entering a new phase of its online outreach and ground game – all of it fueled by his $20 million fundraising quarter, the largest haul of any first-time Republican White House hopeful in more than a decade. “We're not built on sugar highs,” Generra Peck, DeSantis’s campaign manager, told The Messenger. “We’re built on muscle that remains even amid the inevitable ups and downs that happen in the course of the campaign.” The Messenger

Five times the FBI treated Hunter Biden more favorably than Trump . . . As IRS whistleblowers from the Hunter Biden investigation prepare to testify publicly for the first time, former President Donald Trump announced that he expects to be indicted in the Jan. 6 investigation, marking another divergence in the progression of two explosive political cases.

Trump’s claim that he received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating him on a range of issues, signaled that he might face his second federal indictment in as many months right as Hunter Biden finalizes a plea deal for misdemeanor charges. Washington Examiner

The Deep State has turned the FBI into the Soviet KGB.

Investigator to subpoena Biden business partner's documents, securing fresh evidence for Congress . . . House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer has secured the cooperation of one of Hunter Biden's closest business partners, setting an interview for next week with Devon Archer. Now Congress' chief investigator is readying a subpoena to compel a New York firm to turn over a tranche of Archer's documents that have been in storage since the FBI took them years ago. Just the News

Endless Trump Indictments And Jail Threats Means Republicans Can’t Quit The Weaponization Fight . . . The deep state’s incessant attempts to undermine the 2024 presidential election by throwing President Joe Biden’s number one political enemy in jail is getting old. It seems like every day, Biden bureaucrats and Democrats manufacture new justifications for why former President Donald Trump deserves to be behind bars. The reasoning behind the partisan push to knock Trump out of the presidential run is often toothless, something even anti-Trump pundits and lawmakers admit. In this particular case, the Biden administration is attempting to try Trump for actions on January 6 he was already cleared of by the Senate, “Smith will be hard-pressed to concoct a crime Trump committed related to Jan. 6, with the former president’s speech constitutionally protected and his legal theories, even if flawed, insufficient to create criminal liability,” Federalist Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland wrote in April. Clearly, the deep state is willing to try anything to keep Trump and his voters from regaining power because they pose a threat to the current unconstitutionally-inclined regime. The Federalist

US falling behind China in tech advancements . . . China’s rapid technological growth poses a threat to the U.S. defense industrial base, according to a new report from data analytics firm Govini. The report, released Monday, details the U.S. federal government’s nearly $200 billion in fiscal 2022 spending on critical technologies — but warns China is still outpacing the United States. In FY22, biotechnology topped the list of the 12 identified critical technologies the U.S. invested in, at $81.3 billion. Defense News

May be a few more $ billions to Ukraine will help correct the imbalance.

US soldier detained in North Korea: How past imprisoned Americans fared after crossing the border . . . Breaking reports of a plainclothes American soldier detained after willfully crossing the Military Demarcation Line into North Korea has recalled past incidents which involved Americans finding themselves on the wrong side of that border. The soldier was identified by a senior U.S. defense official as Private 2nd Class Travis King, who was serving under U.S. Forces Korea and the U.S. Army and was due to face disciplinary action. King was supposed to board a flight to go back to the U.S. and was escorted to the airport, but the military escort could not follow him past airport security, so King entered the terminal by himself with no escort. A U.S. defense official told Fox News the soldier was on a tour in a personal capacity and was wearing civilian clothes at the time of the incident. Fox News

Biden relies on note cards rested on his lap, barely faces Israeli prez —  and still struggles with city names during sitdown . . . President Biden leaned heavily on his notes Tuesday while welcoming Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the Oval Office — as left-wing Democrats lined up to boycott Herzog’s scheduled speech at the Capitol in protest of the Jewish state’s policies toward Palestinians. “This is a friendship, I believe, that is just simply unbreakable — unbreakable,” said Biden, who read from notecards on his lap rather than look Herzog in the face for much of his roughly one-minute of public remarks before journalists were removed from the room. The 80-year-old president then described some of his administration’s initiatives, including supporting an Israeli-Lebanese maritime boundary deal and backing Saudi and Omani decisions to allow Israeli flights over their territory. Biden struggled to pronounce the cities of Aqaba, Jordan, and Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt — where Israeli and Palestinian leaders recently met with the involvement of the US and Middle Eastern governments. NY Post

At this point, Biden a national security liability.

Kissinger Meets Top Officials in China and Gets a Warm Greeting . . . At 100, Henry Kissinger met with China’s top diplomat as well as its defense minister, who last month rejected an invitation to meet with the U.S. defense secretary. Henry A. Kissinger, the 100-year-old former secretary of state who has pushed the United States to take a more conciliatory approach to China, has made a surprise visit to Beijing, meeting with China’s top foreign policy official and its defense minister. The reception for Mr. Kissinger, who more than 50 years ago helped pave the way for diplomatic ties between the United States and China during President Richard M. Nixon’s administration, was warmer than those for current American officials who have visited Beijing recently to try and stabilize U.S.-China relations. While the U.S. officials have faced varying levels of chilliness or lecturing from their Chinese counterparts or state media, Mr. Kissinger, whose arrival was abruptly announced on Tuesday evening, was welcomed effusively. New York Times

Biden warns ‘special relationship’ on the line in absence of consensus on overhaul . . . US President Joe Biden said that Israel’s leaders need to slow down their divisive overhaul of the judiciary and instead strive to achieve a broad consensus with opposition parties on the issue, reportedly warning that the “special relationship” between the two countries could sustain irreparable damage. Biden made the comments to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, whom he sat down with in the White House Tuesday after meeting earlier in the day with President Isaac Herzog, who is visiting Washington. Times of Israel

Cracks in Russia-Iran pact. Moscow holds back SU-35 jets delivery to Tehran . . . After waiting a year for promised Russian warplanes, Iran’s Air Force Chief Brig.-Gen Hamid Vahedi admitted this week: “Regarding the purchase of Su-35 fighter-jets [from Russia], we need them, but we don’t know when they will be added to our squadron.” Just a year ago, Iran began supplying Russian forces fighting in Ukraine with suicide drones. Their role in the war has been critical. In return, Moscow contracted to deliver to Iran its most sophisticated warplane, the Sukhoi-35, in the course of 2023. Two months ago, Tehran began remitting payment for the jets. Today, Iran’s air force chief does not seem sure he will get them at all. American intelligence sources speculate that recent exchanges between Moscow and Israel may have caused the Kremlin to have second thoughts about letting the Islamic Republic lay hands on this major asset to its air power. They note that high-ranking Russian and Israeli officials met on June 13 for a conversation that was described as “open and frank.” The prospect of Su-35s falling in the hands of Israel’s archenemy was almost certainly discussed. DEBKAFile

How Dubai became ‘the new Geneva’ for Russian oil trade . . .     For decades, the lakeside city of Geneva was home to many of the traders who sold Russia’s oil to consumers around the world. But since Switzerland joined the embargo imposed on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine much of that trade has shifted to Dubai and other cities in the United Arab Emirates. Companies registered in the small Gulf state bought at least 39mn tonnes of Russian oil worth more than $17bn between January and April — around a third of the country’s exports declared to customs during that period — according to Russian customs documentation analysed by the Financial Times. Some of that oil ended up in the UAE, ship-tracking data shows, landing at storage terminals in places such as Fujairah. The rest — about 90 per cent — never touched Emirati soil, instead flowing from Russian ports directly to new buyers in Asia, Africa and South America as part of one of the biggest redirections of global energy flows in history. Financial Times

Money

GOP attacks Blackrock as Fink pivots on ESG . . . Republican lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee are ramping up their offensive against the so-called ESG movement and the corporations that embrace the controversial investment trend. Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI), today sent letters to ten of the largest asset managers including BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and JP Morgan requesting information on how the investing giants balance their ESG initiatives with their fiduciary responsibilities of maximizing investor returns. Fox Business

The Biden Administration canceled $39 billion of student loans for 804,000 borrowers — here’s how to see if you’re one of them . . . The Biden Administration announced $39 billion in automatic loan forgiveness to 804,000, according to a July 14 press release from the U.S. Department of Education. This wave of student loan forgiveness is separate from the forgiveness plan outlined in August 2022 that the Supreme Court recently struck down in June 2023. The department cited “historical failures in the administration of the Federal student loan program” that inaccurately represented the number of qualifying months counting toward forgiveness for borrowers on income-driven repayment (IDR) plans. Under Secretary James Kvaal said in the statement that “millions of borrowers had earned loan forgiveness but never received it.” CNBC

Culture

Trans swimmer Lia Thomas photographed wearing 'disturbing' Antifa shirt: 'Doesn't this make so much sense?' . . . Lia Thomas, the transgender athlete who won a women's NCAA Division I championship in 2022, was photographed wearing an Antifa shirt, according to a report Monday. It said, "Antifa Super Soldier." Thomas' representative was contacted for comment and did not immediately respond. Thomas grabbed national headlines after winning the NCAA Division I championship in 2022. Thomas has since called out "anti-feminists" for pushing purported "transphobic beliefs" by showing "half support" transgender inclusion in female sports. Thomas' teammates have come forward to vocally express opposition to Thomas being on their team. Fox News

Empty Government Buildings Galore . . . Not one major federal agency has in-office attendance above 50%. Managers struggling to call workers back to empty offices should cheer up, because it could be worse. A new report shows that federal government buildings have reached their own tier of ghost town, making corporate towers look bustling in comparison. These vacancies could be either a burden or small gift to taxpayers, depending on how agencies respond. A report last week from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that, on average, the headquarters of federal agencies are about 20% occupied each week. The finding is based on surveys conducted with 24 agencies between January and March. These headquarters are a small share of the federal government’s 511 million square feet of office space, but the GAO took them as a representative sample. Wall Street Journal

America the Stoned . . . More states are legalizing weed every year. An estimated 13.2 million Americans use the drug every day. So why is it starting to feel like a bad idea? During the fall of 2017, Neal Pollack had a psychotic break brought on by weed.
The nonfiction writer had bought a ticket to the World Series, a lifelong dream, to see the Dodgers play the Astros. As was his typical daily routine at that point, he’d “spent all day” getting high. By the time Pollack showed up to the gate and realized that his ticket was fraudulent, “I was stoned out of my mind,” he says. “I screamed and cursed. Amazingly, they didn’t arrest me.” 
Afterward, he wandered the parking lot, sobbing and delirious, and at one point caught a glimpse of himself in the passenger mirror of a pickup truck. The Free Press

One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent . . . More than one-quarter of young adults are estranged from one or both parents, or have been, a finding that suggests a societal shift away from the traditional bonds of family. Several recent studies, articles and hot-selling books have hinted that young America is rejecting the biblical adage, “Honor thy father and mother,” along with the attendant concept of compulsory kinship. Instead, young adults are picking who will populate their families.  

One recent study, drawing on thousands of interviews with adult children, found that 26 percent reported estrangement from fathers. A much smaller share, 6 percent, had cut ties with mothers. The findings appeared in the April issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. The Hill

The Sick Strategy of Smearing Moms as Nazis . . . Last week French jumped on board one of the most brain-dead outrage cycles of 2023—the effort to smear Moms for Liberty, a parental rights group, as hateful fascists. The smear job began when the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center added Moms for Liberty and other parental rights groups such as Parents Defending Education to its “hate map” alongside groups including the Ku Klux Klan—a gross libel that garnered condemnation in a congressional resolution. The smear went viral after one of Moms for Liberty’s 300 chapters sent an email containing this pull quote: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.” Given that Moms for Liberty’s cri de coeur is “We do not co-parent with the government,” any thoughtful individual would recognize that this quote was not a mission statement, but rather a warning about the danger of educational indoctrination. This was made all the more clear by the historical figure credited with the quote: Adolf Hitler. “Gasp! They quoted Hitler! That proves they’re basically Nazis!” That was about the level of argumentative sophistication evinced by Twitter leftists, corporate journalists, and, finally, a New York Times columnist. Daily Signal

Tucker Carlson’s new show scores advertising deal with Don Trump Jr.-linked anti-ESG company . . . Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has scored a lucrative advertising deal with a marketing app specifically targeted toward conservative shoppers that has deep ties to investors such as Donald Trump Jr.

Carlson signed the seven-figure advertising deal with Public Square, a newly developed shopping app that allows consumers to vet companies before purchasing their products to avoid supporting businesses with “woke” agendas. The app specifically targets companies that utilize environmental, social, and governance policies, or what’s known as ESG. The agreement is the first advertising deal Carlson has secured since launching his own show on Twitter and hints at the kind of conservative audience he is hoping to attract. The deal has already garnered the support of several high-profile investors, including Trump Jr. Washington Examiner

This is Yuuuge.

In Iowa, Tucker Carlson Did The Job The Decaying Media Monolith Won’t . . . Last week, six Republican candidates for president had to answer questions from an interviewer who actually shares a lot of the same views and concerns as the average person who will end up voting for those candidates. How novel! Friday’s interviews, hosted by Tucker Carlson and Blaze Media at the Family Leadership Summit in Iowa, have implications aplenty for the Republican Party, the 2024 primary, and the candidates themselves (some of whom escaped the hot seat more intact than others). But the biggest loser of the day wasn’t Mike Pence or Asa Hutchinson; it was the failed gatekeepers in America’s corporate media. Federalist

A new treatment for Alzheimer’s offers hope—but raises questions, too . . . Two new drugs have now been proved effective against the disease. For decades the search for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease had seemed a costly wild-goose chase. Then, in 2021, a drug called aducanumab received regulatory approval in America. A second, lecanemab, got the nod in January this year. Now a paper published on July 17th in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that a third may not be far behind. In a trial involving 1,736 people showing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s, donanemab, developed by Eli Lilly, an American firm, was shown to have “significantly slowed” the progression of the disease—by 35% after 76 weeks by one measure. The result, which headlined the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, held this year in Amsterdam, was hailed as a “breakthrough” and “turning-point”. That is overblown. But it does mark steady—and welcome—progress. Economist

Do You Play Enough? Science Says It's Critical to Your Health and Well-Being . . . Neuroscientists, educators and psychologists like Hirsh-Pasek know that play is as an essential ingredient in the lives of adults as well as children. A weighty and growing body of evidence—spanning evolutionary biology, neuroscience and developmental psychology—has in recent years confirmed the centrality of play to human life. Not only is it a crucial part of childhood development and learning but it is also a means for young and old alike to connect with others and a potent way of supercharging creativity and engagement. Play is so fundamental that neglecting it poses a significant health risk. Newsweek

Not Just Gas Stoves: Biden Admin Rule Would Outlaw Nearly All Portable Gas Generators . . . Just months after a Biden-appointed regulator teased a ban on gas stoves, the administration is working to enact a rule that would prohibit the manufacturing of nearly all portable gas generators on the U.S. market. A proposed Consumer Product Safety Commission rule limits the amount of carbon monoxide a product can emit, with the commission admitting that 95 percent of portable gas generators on the market cannot comply with its new standard. As a result, industry leaders say, the rule will prompt widespread generator shortages, as manufacturers only have six months to design generators that meet the proposed regulation. That process normally takes years, Portable Generator Manufacturers' Association executive director Susan Orenga told the Washington Free Beacon

Soviet Playbook.

Obese hedgehog goes on a diet, being too fat to curl into a ball . . . An obese hedgehog, weighing in at nearly three times the average weight of a wild hedgehog is going on a diet. Jabba is on a strict diet of liquefied dog food, having been overfed by his previous owner. He had grown so large, Jabba was unable to curl into a spiky ball and therefore easy prey in the wild. Independent