White House Dossier's

Trump, DeSantis rivalry ratchets up with ‘critical’ Iowa fundraiser . . . Former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are set to appear at the same event in Iowa for the first time since joining the 2024 race on Friday as both men look to shore up support in the Hawkeye State. The annual Lincoln Dinner is an important fundraising event for the Iowa GOP and regularly draws candidates vying for the party’s nomination in the state, which is the first to vote in what will be a long line of primaries and caucuses to determine the nominee. The Hill

Ron DeSantis' Popularity Plunges to Lowest in Poll's History . . . Ron DeSantis' net approval rating has slumped to a new low of -24 according to an opinion survey, the worst it has been since the pollster started tracking the Florida governor in May 2022.

The Civiqs poll concluded that on July 26 some 57 percent of registered American voters had a negative view of DeSantis, versus just 33 percent with a positive impression and 10 percent who were unsure. Newsweek

DeSantis to GOP Rep. Donalds: Whose side are you on? . . . Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday took a direct swing at Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) during a campaign stop in Iowa amid an escalating conflict over the state’s newly revised Black History standards. In his first public comments about Donalds, who slightly criticized the standards in a social media post Wednesday, DeSantis lumped the conservative Black Republican in with Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris last week blasted the standards adopted by the state’s education board primarily due to a portion that requires middle schoolers to be instructed that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Politico

Senate GOP rallies behind Romney call for winnowing anti-Trump field . . . Senate Republicans are rallying behind Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) call for Republican donors to refrain from giving money to long-shot presidential candidates once it becomes clear they can’t win the GOP nomination.  GOP lawmakers who are deeply skeptical of former President Trump’s chances of beating President Biden in next year’s general election are worried that long-shot candidates will stay in the race too long and siphon support away from more viable candidates.   The Hill

McConnell seeks to silence GOP speculation about his future . . . Mitch McConnell moved on Thursday to quash speculation about whether he will finish out this Congress as GOP leader that spiked after a brief, very public freeze caused a national stir. A spokesperson for the Senate minority leader said in a statement to POLITICO that “Leader McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues, and plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.” Politico

Door may be open to impeaching Biden for misdeeds committed prior to presidency: legal experts . . . House Republicans have floated launching an impeachment inquiry against President Biden amid newly surfaced allegations that suggest his involvement in the business dealings his son, Hunter. But can congressional lawmakers initiate the use of that constitutional tool for alleged treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors that transpired before holding the office of the presidency? "The answer is clear," Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Fox News Digital. "No one knows." Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution states: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Fox News

Secret Service Refuses to Hand Over ‘Known Pool of Individuals’ List in White House Cocaine Incident . . . The Secret Service has refused to turn over the list of individuals who may have accessed the area of the White House where authorities discovered cocaine over the Fourth of July weekend, saying that the record of such a list does not fall under the Freedom of Information Act. This suggests that the Secret Service never created such a list in the first place. “As your request seeks records reflecting visitors or related information concerning the Office of the President, please be advised that these records are not Secret Service agency records subject to the FOIA,” Kevin Tyrrell, a Freedom of Information Act officer at the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Signal. “Rather, these records are governed by the Presidential Records Act, and remain under the exclusive legal custody and control of the White House.” Daily Signal

Of course.

Legal Experts Are Pointing To Another Fishy Aspect Of Hunter Biden’s Proposed Plea Deal . . . Legal experts said Thursday that the statement of facts included in Hunter Biden’s proposed plea deal favored the defense as, due to the terms of the Department of Justice’s agreement with Biden, it would have immunized him from prosecution for a number of offenses. The statement of facts section of the plea deal appeared heavily skewed towards the defense, encompassing a wide range of activity that could have shielded Biden from future charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). That’s because the diversion agreement allowing Hunter Biden to avoid jail time for a felony gun charge — a separate document from the plea deal for the two misdemeanor tax charges — included a paragraph affirming the United States would not prosecute the president’s son for any crime “encompassed by the attached Statement of Facts” in both the diversion agreement and the plea deal. Daily Caller

U.S. expects to begin delivering Abrams tanks to Ukraine in September . . . U.S. Abrams tanks are likely to arrive on the Ukrainian battlefield in September, according to six people familiar with the planning, as Kyiv’s forces push to retake territory in a counteroffensive that is picking up steam. The plan is to send a handful of Abrams tanks to Germany in August, where they will undergo final refurbishments. Once that process is complete, the first batch of Abrams will be shipped to Ukraine the following month. Politico

Bunkers, sniper rifles: Deepening sectarian war in India dents Modi's image . . . A one-mile stretch of a highway in the lush green foothills of India's Manipur state has become the symbol of a vicious sectarian conflict that has killed over 180 people since May and severely dented the strongman image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The bitter fighting between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribals is in the remote northeast of the country but it has lasted for almost three months, a deep embarrassment for Modi as he prepares to host a summit of G20 leaders in September and contest a general election next year. Reuters

What Qin Gang's disappearance means for U.S.-China relations . . . The flurry over Qin Gang's disappearance and removal from the position of foreign minister has little impact on U.S.-China relations, analysts said. Qin had only held the position for about six months before he disappeared from public view in late June — with little explanation. China officially announced his dismissal from the foreign minister role on Tuesday. China's top diplomat Wang Yi is reassuming the foreign minister role, a position he held for two terms before his promotion late last year within the ruling Chinese Communist Party. He has met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken twice in the last two months. CNBC

Money

America wins if we help Ukraine defeat Russia . . . By Michael R. Pompeo , Sen. Jerry Moran. There should be no doubt of the importance of the outcome in Ukraine and what it means not just in Kyiv, but in the United States. There are those who today favor appeasement with respect to Russia. This is a losing strategy. We must remember that Russia is America’s adversary by its choosing, not our own. From both an international and domestic perspective, it is in America’s vital national interest to assist Ukraine in repelling Russia’s invasion. Ending the war on terms favorable to Kyiv will leave Ukraine and NATO’s front in a stronger and better position to deter further Russian aggression.  It requires providing the Ukrainians with the weapons they need to win the war on their own.We are thus supportive of the recent announcement by the U.S. on training Ukrainian forces to operate F-16 fighter jets as well as the provision of long-range missiles and other needed equipment to Ukraine. Fox News

Highly recommend to read the comments on the Fox News website, at the bottom of the article. They reveal exactly where Americans stand on this issue. 

How Foreign Thieves Are Scamming Americans on Welfare . . . The man using the Wells Fargo ATM in Panorama City seemed at first like the thousands of other Californians who withdraw their welfare benefits at the beginning of each month. But after taking out cash the morning of March 1, the man reached into his pocket for a second debit card and withdrew more money. He then whipped out another card, and another. Within 10 minutes, he used 15 cards and withdrew nearly $3,000, according to court documents. When investigators watching the ATM arrested him minutes later, the thief gave an alias, “Giuseppe Crescente,” and a fake British ID. He had 21 bogus debit cards in his pockets. Wall Street Journal

Culture (and Corruption)

Facebook Bowed to White House Pressure, Removed Covid Posts . . . Facebook META removed content related to Covid-19 in response to pressure from the Biden administration, including posts claiming the virus was man-made, according to internal company communications viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The emails show Facebook executives discussing how they managed users’ posts about the origins of a pandemic that the administration was seeking to control. “Can someone quickly remind me why we were removing—rather than demoting/labeling—claims that Covid is man made,” asked Nick Clegg, the company’s president of global affairs, in a July 2021 email to colleagues. “We were under pressure from the administration and others to do more,” responded a Facebook vice president in charge of content policy, speaking of the Biden administration. “We shouldn’t have done it.”  Wall Street Journal

American Bolsheviks are turning USA into USSR 2.0

NYC cabbie, 60, viciously beaten by 5 brutes on busy street: video . . . A New York City taxi driver was viciously beaten by a group of five brutes on a busy Midtown Manhattan street last week in a disturbing attack that was caught on camera.

The horrific footage shows three women and two men repeatedly striking the 60-year-old cabbie with shoes and closed fists near Sixth Avenue and W. 34th Street on July 19. The male driver attempts to avoid their blows and bends down to pick an item off the street, but is continuously pummeled. NY Post

Mysterious illness triggered by tick bite could affect thousands, yet many doctors are unaware of it . . .  A little-known, life-threatening food allergy that is triggered by a tick bite could be affecting hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Thursday. The condition is called Alpha-Gal Syndrome (AGS) — also known as the "red-meat allergy" or the "tick bite meat allergy." It begins with a bite from the Lone Star tick, found primarily in Southeastern and Eastern states. The tick’s saliva contains a sugar molecule called alpha-gal, which is injected into the body with the bite. This triggers allergies to certain types of red meat (primarily pork, beef, rabbit, lamb or venison) or products made from mammals (including cheese, milk, other dairy products and gelatin). Fox News

Where’s All That Military Aid for Ukraine Going? . . . Both the House and Senate defense policy bills include measures to beef up oversight on U.S. aid for Ukraine. Three inspectors general across the departments of Defense, State and USAID have been tracking everything from Javelin missiles to 60 excavators donated to repair water systems. So oversight is already considerable. But sending weapons and help into Ukraine is an enormous undertaking, and tracking is all the tougher given that few Americans are in Ukraine during the war. Bad actors will doubtless try to exploit the chaos of conflict and Ukraine’s fledgling public institutions to steal. Some U.S. aid will be lost or wasted, as is inevitable in a war. Wall Street Journal

Aided by A.I. Language Models, Google’s Robots Are Getting Smart . . . A one-armed robot stood in front of a table. On the table sat three plastic figurines: a lion, a whale and a dinosaur.

An engineer gave the robot an instruction: “Pick up the extinct animal.” The robot whirred for a moment, then its arm extended and its claw opened and descended. It grabbed the dinosaur.

Until very recently, this demonstration, which I witnessed during a podcast interview at Google’s robotics division in Mountain View, Calif., last week, would have been impossible. Robots weren’t able to reliably manipulate objects they had never seen before, and they certainly weren’t capable of making the logical leap from “extinct animal” to “plastic dinosaur.” New York Times

Woman receives over 100 Amazon packages she never ordered . . . A Virginia woman received more than 100 Amazon packages she didn't order, including headlamps, glue guns and binoculars. Cindy Smith said the boxes recently started showing up at her Prince William County home and soon she had received about 1,000 headlamps, 800 glue guns and dozens of pairs of binoculars. "A lot of people told me I was weird," Smith told WUSA-TV. "I would drive around with headlamps and glue guns in the car. I gave them to everybody I met." UPI