TV News LIES

Donald Trump came to office in 2017 after decades of bankruptcies and business failures. Yes, he was rich, but his latest financial disclosure, published this week, suggests he will depart billions richer.

In the first year of his second term, he made more than $2bn from Trump hotels, Trump golf courses, Trump cryptocurrency, Trump watches, Trump cologne, Trump Bibles and more.

That means Trump has accomplished something none of his predecessors achieved, at least not on this scale: transforming the American presidency into a moneymaking enterprise.

Politicians have always enriched themselves but the chutzpah with which Trump is doing so raises the possibility that an ethical code is breaking down. And not just in the US. Across the west, from Clacton to Queensland, a new type of leader is emerging: the political grifter.

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Lawyers for Donald Trump have requested more time to pay a $5m civil judgment to magazine columnist E Jean Carroll from 2023, days after the US supreme court declined to hear an appeal.

In a new filing, the president’s attorney said that since his former lead counsel, Justin Smith, took up a position as a federal judge last month (a post he was nominated to by Trump), his new lead counsel, Josh Halpern, needed more time “to become completely familiar with the facts and procedural circumstances” of the case.

A jury awarded Carroll damages after concluding that Trump had sexually abused her in 1996 and then defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019. Trump deposited money in an escrow fund to pay the award but is trying to delay the release of an amount that is now nearly $5.8m with interest.

Trump’s attorneys requested that the court extend the deadline for a response to Carroll’s request for payment to 14 July, arguing that the “plaintiff faces no risk of material harm as a result of granting this request”.

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A House Oversight Committee panel on Tuesday morning will weigh in on the CIA’s former MK-Ultra project — which for two decades used universities to test behavioral drugs and modification theories.

The Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), has amplified her push to uncover more details of the project. Earlier this year, Luna accused the CIA of pulling relevant documents from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which the department denied, and has called for more transparency on the alleged mind-control program.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) called on Americans to confront the nation’s flaws rather than ignore them on the eve of the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, framing “righteous dissent” as core to the country’s founding ideals.

“This will be no ordinary day of celebration,” he said. “Two hundred fifty years presents a rare opportunity for more than 340 million people to turn together, both toward one another and toward ourselves, to take measure of who we are as a nation.”

Speaking from former President George Washington’s desk at New York City Hall, the first-term mayor reflected on the resilience of American revolutionaries who sought to free themselves from the British “yoke of oppression” in pursuit of a “grand experiment in self-governance.”

He recounted New York City’s role as the symbolic gateway to the nation, tracing the struggles and triumphs of enslaved Africans through the generations of immigrants who came in search of greater opportunity.

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A federal appeals court reversed a lower court’s order requiring the National Park Service (NPS) to restore signs and exhibits that were removed by the Trump administration.

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday halted the ruling, which would have restored park materials that the administration says were purged as part of the administration’s effort to get rid of materials that “disparage” Americans.

The judges determined that the Trump administration “made a strong showing that the harms that the district court relied on” to order the restoration of the materials did not meet the standards for an injunction.

Judges David Barron, Gustavo Gelpí and Julie Rikelman also found that the groups suing the government “cannot show that a stay of the district court’s order … would cause them substantial injury.”

Barron was appointed by former President Obama, while Gelpí and Rikelman are appointees of former President Biden.

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A Princess Cruises cruise ship docked in San Francisco has seen an outbreak of norovirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC said that 102 out of the over 3,000 passengers onboard the Ruby Princess have been affected, along with 23 crewmembers.

Symptoms for those who have become ill include diarrhea and vomiting.

Passengers and crewmembers aboard the Ruby Princess were on a 20-day voyage that began on June 12 and was due to end on Thursday. The outbreak was reported on Saturday, the CDC said.

A representative from Princess Cruises confirmed the outbreak, telling Nexstar’s KRON4, “a limited number of guests reported mild gastrointestinal illness during the 20-day June 12 Ruby Princess voyage from San Francisco.”

“Our crew responded promptly by implementing enhanced sanitation protocols across the ship,” Princess Cruises added.

The CDC says that in response to the outbreak, Princess Cruises and the Ruby Princess crew have undertaken the following actions:

1. Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures

2. Collection of stool specimens from gastrointestinal illness cases for testing

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called protesters "ingrates" on Thursday, July 2, as he and other top members of the Trump administration praised the National Guard's work during a D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force event.

“This background noise this morning is perfect; it’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude, of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them,” Hegseth said. “There’s nothing ideological about this group. There’s nothing political about this exercise.”

Apart from Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche were also heckled by “Free DC” protesters during an event.

The protesters blew whistles and horns while Trump administration officials touted the National Guard, who have been patrolling Washington, DC, since the president deployed the military branch following a public safety emergency declaration last year, according to reporting from The Hill.

“Thank you for being here, for backing us up along the way. To the entire team, to the soldiers here, thank you for everything you’re doing. Thank you for waiting out here in the sun,” Hegseth said.

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The Holocaust Museum LA on Saturday deleted a social media post stating in block letters that "'Never again' can't only mean never again for Jews," on an illustrated image of interlocking human arms of different shades. 

"Standing with humanity does not betray our people," the following slide said. "It honours them."

Within a day, the post was gone, and they promised to "do better".

“We recently posted an item on social media that was part of a pre-planned campaign intended to promote inclusivity and community that was easily open to misinterpretation by some to be a political statement reflecting the ongoing situation in the Middle East. That was not our intent,” a later post said.

"It has been removed to avoid any further confusion," the museum added. "We promise to do better".

A screenshot of the original image released by the California museum was captured by Ryan Grim, co-founder of Dropsite News. 

"Speechless. No words for this," he captioned in a post on X.

"Think about how many people must have complained about this first message to get them to delete it and even issue an apology," he wrote. "If you denounce genocide, some might think you’re being critical of Israel and we can’t have that". 

The Forward news outlet, which targets a Jewish American audience, noted that Jews who have rallied against gun violence in the US and against China's crackdown on the Uyghur minority have used the phrase "never again" for their causes, but others oppose it for anything but the Holocaust of World War II.

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