Commentary Culture Investigations

On Sunday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) encouraged a legislative fight against the recent Supreme Court decision, Trump v. Barabara, concerning birthright citizenship. Johnson said in an interview with Shannon Bream, “We do need to address it. We’re looking at all angles,” to find a congressional solution for upholding President Donald Trump’s executive order. which denied automatic birthright citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents were illegal immigrants or were only temporary visitors (including students and tourists).
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court released its 6-3 decision, ruling against the president’s executive order. However, their opinion was split 5-4 over the constitutionality question. Five justices voted that the executive order was unconstitutional, but one, Brett Kavanaugh, voted that it only violated federal law.
This difference in ruling based on constitutional law vs. federal law is an important distinction. If the ruling is based on the unconstitutionality of the executive order, then the only way Congress could change the effects of this decision would be to change the Constitution itself.
Trump seems to think that will not be necessary. As he posted this on Truth Social, “We can easily make it up in Congress through Legislation … No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary!” 
Others think a Constitutional amendment is the only way to change this decision. “It is a substantive decision that says the 14th Amendment requires citizenship for those born to, among others, birth tourists or those unlawfully present in the country. Will need either a constitutional amendment or a future court to overrule this,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stated. 
As a former constitutional litigation attorney, Johnson said he enjoyed Justice Clarence Thomas’s dissent. Johnson summarized Thomas’s main points, saying, “The 14th Amendment’s original intent was to enhance and really value citizenship.” But today, citizenship “has been devalued because of birthright tourism.” Johnson says future steps may include legislation or a longer process of a Constitutional amendment, either of which he is willing to work towards in Congress.
The major issue in this case sheds light on what the constitutional debate was about. The majority and dissenting justices were debating one little clause in the 14th Amendment, “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The difference of opinion was based on the question of whether jurisdiction involves merely being born in the country or if it also involves one’s political allegiance.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts advocated for adopting the old English common law view of jurisdiction, “jus soli” or the right of the soil. Simply, the old English common law interpretation of jurisdiction implies if one is born in the U.S. then that person should have the right of citizenship in the U.S. 
Justice Samuel Alito noted that accepting an English law definition of citizenship is greatly ironic, given the timing of America’s 250th. “That is a curious claim, and it is ironic that the Court should embrace it only days before we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, which emphatically renounced the foundation on which the British rule rested,” Alito stated in his concurring opinion.
However, Roberts’ adherence to the British definition is not so black and white. He further outlined a couple of exceptions to the rule of birthright citizenship, which seem to collide with his previous blanket definition of jurisdiction. Roberts wrote that the children of diplomats and the children of an invading army do not count in this automatic citizenship group. Why? The dissenting justices had a clearer answer.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court’s dissent and defined jurisdiction as including not only a person’s physical location at birth but also something that must be dependent on one’s political allegiance. This is why children of diplomats, invading armies, and also children of illegal immigrants do not have automatic citizenship rights if born on U.S. soil, according to Thomas.
Whatever happens with Johnson’s claims to advocate for a legislative response, it is undeniable that there has been some significant change in the birthright citizenship debate. Going into this case, many thought the ruling would be closer to a 9-0 decision. Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, said in an interview with World she thinks the change in opinion is “a testament to the strength of the historical arguments that the Trump administration put forward and a lot of the scholarship that had been done … even in just the last year or two on this issue.” 

The University of California at Berkeley, the flagship UC campus, is “joining forces with Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, to launch a new, nonpartisan institute dedicated to strengthening American democracy and advancing solutions to the country’s most pressing challenges.”
The Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy (NPI) “will be a hub for research, teaching and civic engagement rooted in a shared commitment to advancing the public good.” California taxpayers have to wonder if UC Berkeley bosses conducted in-depth research.
Nancy Pelosi is the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro, a Baltimore mayor and member of Congress. He passed away in 1987, the year Nancy first ran for Congress in California, representing part of San Francisco. In the Congressional Record in 2001, Rep. Pelosi praised Harry Bridges as “the most significant labor leader of the twentieth century” and “beloved by the workers of this nation.” For all but the willfully blind, he wasn’t.
As Joshua Muravchik noted in “Pelosi’s Favorite Stalinist” article, Bridges’ membership in the Communist Party had been revealed a full nine years before Pelosi’s encomium. Bridges was a Stalinist thug dedicated to the Soviet Union, a Communist dictatorship. The former Speaker also has some strange ideas about how democracy works in America.
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” proclaimed Pelosi in 2010. The people’s representatives needed to know what was in the “Affordable Care Act” before the vote. After all, nobody would vote for a candidate before knowing who she or he is, and what they stand for.
In 2018, Nancy Pelosi charged that President Trump was ignoring the “spark of divinity” in the MS-13 gang. By that time, MS-13 had established a reign of terror in California, with at least 14 murders in the central valley town of Mendota alone.
No word from Pelosi about the spark of divinity in the gang’s many victims. At UC Berkeley, Pelosi will partner with a person of similar views.
Chesa Boudin is the son of Weather Underground terrorists Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, involved in a 1981 armored car robbery that claimed the lives of two police officers and a security guard. Chesa Boudin is named after Joanne Chesimard of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), who fled the country after murdering a New Jersey state trooper.
As the district attorney of San Francisco, Chesa Boudin was basically a pro-bono attorney for criminals, whom he portrayed as victims of an oppressive capitalist society. It was too much even for San Franciscans, who in 2022 booted Boudin and elected Brooke Jenkins, a prosecutor in the city’s homicide division.
In 2023, UC Berkeley Law named Chesa Boudin as executive director of the new Criminal Law & Justice Center, a “hub for research, education and advocacy.”
According to Berkeley Law dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Chesa Boudin has “thought deeply about the system, and I cannot think of anyone better to create and direct this important center.” Californians have cause to wonder about Boudin’s commitment to justice and the description of Nancy Pelosi’s institute as “nonpartisan.”
UC Berkeley was once regarded as a great university. If Californians think it has become a soft landing spot for over-the-hill politicians and crime-friendly attorneys, it would be hard to blame them.
READ MORE from Lloyd Billingsley:
Woke Supremacy in California
Investigating the Newsoms
California Forces Venture Capitalists Into DEI Regime
Lloyd Billingsley is a policy fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California.
Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

Apparently, Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner never read Sun Tzu.
Sun Tzu, of course, is the legendary ancient Chinese general and military strategist. He is credited with writing the classic book on military strategy, The Art of War.
Safe to say, Tzu’s book of military strategy has been around a while. He is said to have been born in 544 BC and died in 496 BC. His book is seen even today as a classic. Basic reading for any strategist out there, military, political, or otherwise.
It is apparently safe to say that now-derailed Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner either never read The Art of War or, if he did, never took in its wisdom.
One of Tzu’s central tenets is this one:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
It is crystal clear at this point that candidate Platner did not know himself. By which I mean, Platner had to know his own background of sexual misconduct allegations from various women. And knowing them, he should have known that if he pursued a decidedly public campaign for the United States Senate, these allegations, with accusers attached, would make their way into what politicians politely call “opposition research.”
Which is to say, his opposition’s political dirt diggers would be out there rummaging through his past, for anything political, but most importantly for anything personal. And if, or in this case, when, his various female problems were discovered, they would inevitably be dragged into the spotlight.
And, with all the predictability of rain in a thunderstorm, that is exactly what happened.
This was an entirely predictable event. Everybody in America is granted the freedom to live their life as they see fit. And if they, for whatever reason, screw up and have a record of alleged or real personal misconduct — and they choose to run for public office? Safe to say — make that very safe to say — particularly in the day and age of the Internet, there will be a political price to pay. (RELATED: Graham Platner’s Campaign Ends Just as ‘Hamlet’ Does)
Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this was that of the late Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Elected to the Senate seat of his older president-brother JFK, Teddy eased into his Senate seat with everyone in the political world assuming that the day would come when an older Teddy would himself be a serious and unbeatable presidential candidate.
And then.
The story is legendary. With a young Teddy allegedly having imbibed a tad too much booze at a party, then getting behind the wheel of his car with a young woman who was not his wife at his side. Thus impaired the young Senator drove off a bridge in rural Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, drowning his passenger. As he was both a famous sitting Senator, a Kennedy, and a presumed future president, the negative PR was seriously overwhelming. That being the case, even though the incident happened at the very time America was landing the first man on the moon, a serious PR attraction all by itself.
Safe to say, Teddy was never to be elected president as a result. Yes, he lived the rest of his life as a Senator. But that supposedly “sure thing” election to the presidency not only did not materialize, but when he finally made his presidential run it came back to be part of the the lead weight on his candidacy that ensured Kennedy’s defeat.
Certainly, it can be said that Graham Platner’s situation is nowhere near the equal of Kennedy’s. But it most certainly was more than enough to dump a bucket load of bad PR on Platner and send a number of his prominent supporters running away from him as fast as they could go.
Indeed, Politico reported:
GORHAM, Maine — The dam has broken on Graham Platner’s candidacy.
Democratic leaders in Maine and Washington, along with a growing pack of Platner’s close supporters, abandoned his Senate campaign on Monday after POLITICO reported that a woman who dated him said he forced her to have sex with him. Platner called the allegation false.
All of which is to say, there is a lesson out there for any rising star candidate for office. The lesson is quite simple. Not to mention quite old.
Live your life the way you want it to be lived. But if you have given serious thought to running for public office, think carefully before you make an unwanted move on an attractive lady or gentleman you just met. Or even someone you are in a relationship with. If the thought ever crosses your mind that just maybe you should not do X… don’t do X.
This is, in American politics, a very old lesson. And in fact, this is an even older lesson from China’s famous military warrior Sun Tzu.
And now, Graham Platner is getting a refresher course in how Sun Tzu’s lesson works.
Doubtless not fun.
READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord:
Will America Make it to 500?
America at 250 — and Beyond
Time for a ‘Politicians’ Tax’?

Europe’s cloud computing market remains firmly in American hands. Rather than fostering open competition that would give European startups and investors room to grow, the European Commission has chosen a strategy of regulatory pinpricks against U.S. technology companies. That strategy is now placing the cloud divisions of Amazon and Microsoft squarely in Brussels’s crosshairs.
The European Union stands on increasingly fragile geopolitical foundations. Through a combination of rigid regulation and ideological self-restraint, Europe has effectively removed itself from the defining strategic industries of our time. That is simply the sober reality. Whether in energy policy, geopolitical influence, or the industries that will define the coming decades — including digital technologies, robotics, automobiles, and advanced manufacturing — Europe is falling behind the United States, China, and, increasingly, India.
Rather than addressing these structural weaknesses, Brussels has responded by burying markets beneath ever-expanding layers of regulation. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) has become the Commission’s principal legal instrument for doing so. Operating within broad interpretive gray areas, the law has increasingly been deployed against America’s leading technology companies.
Most recently, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure have found themselves under the DMA’s microscope. The European Commission has launched investigations to determine whether the dominant market positions of the two cloud providers amount to quasi-monopolies. Today, countless European businesses rely on Amazon and Microsoft to operate administrative systems, research infrastructure, and much of their digital operations through cloud-based services. (RELATED: American Tech Is Under Siege in Europe)
According to the Commission, this degree of market concentration creates dependencies that can no longer be viewed as merely a normal outcome of competition. Instead, Brussels argues that the concentration raises concerns involving security, innovation, and industrial policy. Should the DMA ultimately apply, both companies would face substantially stricter regulatory obligations.
Since November 2025, the Commission has formally investigated whether Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure should be designated as so-called “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act. Preliminary findings reportedly point toward exactly that outcome. Although the final decision has not yet been announced, all indications suggest that both companies will soon fall under the DMA’s full regulatory regime. (RELATED: The Delusional Policies of the EU Nomenklatura)
There is, of course, another path available to policymakers. Governments could choose to liberalize markets, reduce regulatory burdens, and create an attractive environment for investors, entrepreneurs, and highly skilled professionals. Such reforms would help narrow the enormous competitiveness gap separating Europe’s economy from those of the United States, China, and much of Asia.
But pursuing such a strategy would require something Europe’s regulatory establishment has little interest in doing: surrendering power. After all, the influence of modern bureaucracies rests largely on rulemaking, administrative control, and the extraction of economic resources.
Regulatory institutions almost never choose to limit themselves voluntarily. History offers few examples of bureaucracies willingly reducing their own authority. Political control naturally expands whenever meaningful institutional constraints are absent.
With both the Digital Markets Act — which targets the market power of major digital platforms — and the Digital Services Act, which governs online content moderation, the European Commission has created a legal framework capable of imposing enormous financial penalties on technology companies. (RELATED: Europe’s Speech Crackdown Is Crossing the Atlantic)
The Commission has discovered that aggressive enforcement against large American technology companies serves not only political objectives but also provides an attractive new source of revenue.
One could describe it another way: Brussels has discovered a lucrative new business model. Over the past several years, America’s largest technology firms have repeatedly found themselves writing increasingly large checks to European regulators. What is presented as consumer protection often resembles something quite different — a combination of regulatory ambition and fiscal opportunism that has generated growing resistance in Washington while further straining transatlantic relations.
Meta became one of the Commission’s most prominent targets last year after receiving a €200 million fine for alleged violations of European digital rules. Apple was also ordered to pay €500 million for DMA-related violations.
Another widely publicized case involved Google. The Commission accused the company of using exclusivity clauses in the online advertising market that allegedly prevented websites from placing competing advertising services on equal footing alongside Google’s own offerings. The resulting €1.49 billion fine represented one of Brussels’s most visible demonstrations of regulatory muscle directed at Washington.
Although that particular penalty was later overturned by European courts, the broader trend remains unmistakable. The Commission has discovered that aggressive enforcement against large American technology companies serves not only political objectives but also provides an attractive new source of revenue.
The classical liberal economist Friedrich August von Hayek would likely view today’s widening intellectual divide between Brussels and Washington with profound concern. Hayek understood a healthy economy as a discovery process — an environment in which decentralized decisions, spontaneous order, entrepreneurial experimentation, and open competition generate innovation and prosperity.
Modern European bureaucracy represents precisely the opposite philosophy. It increasingly defines itself through regulation, restriction, supervision, and extraction.
When governments substitute regulation for innovation, they drive away both capital and talent while suffocating the entrepreneurial spirit that depends upon freedom and flexibility. Nor is the argument that ever-expanding regulation is necessary to dismantle monopolies especially convincing. Competitive markets have consistently demonstrated that extraordinary profits inevitably attract entrepreneurs, investors, and challengers eager to attack dominant incumbents.
The claim that governments must continuously expand their regulatory authority in order to preserve competition ultimately collapses under the evidence of how markets actually function. It is, in the end, a political fiction masquerading as economic necessity.
READ MORE from Thomas Kolbe:
Booming Data Economy: Brussels Regulates Innovation to Death
BRICS Summit: Underwhelming and Cautious
EU Climate Goals: Pure Placebo Politics

CNN invoking the economy as a gotcha against President Trump’s retaliation for Iran’s unprovoked strikes on cargo ships is like telling FDR not to strike Japan after Pearl Harbor.

CNN Business’s dense senior reporter David Goldman — who’s become the poster-child for some of the network’s dumbest economic hot takes — woke-scolded Trump in a July 8 item headlined, “Trump is playing with economic fire by calling the peace deal with Iran ‘over.’”

For context, Trump’s comments on him being done dealing with the Islamist regime in Tehran came after Iran fired on three commercial vessels July 7 in Oman’s territorial waters near the disputed Strait of Hormuz. Goldman completely glossed over Iran’s unwarranted violence by attributing renewed fears over the Strait’s accessibility to a bilateral “exchange of fire” as if Trump was somehow equally complicit.

In fact, Goldman didn’t even mention that it was Iran that struck first at all — despite his own network covering the attacks yesterday. His entire thesis assumes that Trump is the economic villain for realizing that Iran is about as reliable as a punctured inflatable pool and throwing his hands up over the ever-dwindling expectations of a negotiated peace.

Goldman claimed that the previously instituted Memorandum of Understanding didn’t provide enough time for the U.S. to “avoid the looming ‘economic catastrophe’ that Trump feared would earn him comparisons to Depression-era President Herbert Hoover.” This just shows that Goldman knows as much about game theory as he does about economics: Zilch!

A negotiation — as anyone with even a cursory understanding of how game theory works — only functions properly on the assumption that the parties in question are acting in good faith, which Iran has proved is not by constantly attacking commercial ships in the middle of negotiations. Acumen Risk, LLC senior analyst Yaron Schwartz wrote in a March 31 op-ed that Iran “perceives war as an ongoing state rather than a temporary aberration of the international order.” He continued: “This fundamental divergence has resulted in nearly 50 years of conflict that have left the free world to grapple with a delusional understanding of peace and war.” 

The only recourse for the U.S., then, would naturally be the legitimate use of force to nullify further threats. But anyone reading Goldman’s spin would assume that no one but Trump would be to blame if the Strait closes again and sends markets reeling over commodity traders losing their marbles again:

Trump threatened Wednesday to resume America’s naval blockade of the strait – but so far, the strait remains open to ships willing to take the risk to get in and out. But if it closes again, the US economy could take an unwelcome hit.

Goldman even attempted to ding Trump for putting sanctions on Iranian oil following the attacks, which he fretted accounted for much of the 200 million barrels that’s passed through the Strait of Hormuz for the past three weeks. “Another caveat: Much of that oil – around 60 million barrels worth – is Iranian, which the Trump administration sanctioned again on Tuesday, giving buyers just 10 days to take hold of it before it’s off-limits again,” Goldman bleated.

Interpretation: Ah, so what if Iran bombs a few commercial vessels? Why are you overreacting?

Utter insanity. The real “economic fire” is coming from a trigger-happy Islamist regime that would rather see the U.S. smoked into smithereens than sustain a negotiated peace. 

As NewsBusters reported, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was hassling Navy veteran Zachary Young as he tried to get a book published about his successful defamation trial against CNN, even demanding he delete everything to do with his manuscript. While the CIA never cited what exactly it objected to, it seems as though the Agency was more interested in protecting themselves from embarrassment. A NewsBusters investigation has uncovered that the CIA public affairs director who improperly burned him to CNN had actually worked for the network.

In his letter to the CIA’s Publications Review Board, Young noted how then-Public Affairs Director Tammy Kupperman Thorp improperly outed his affiliation with the agency to then-CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt as he was working on the defamatory report on Young (bold added to highlight):

The trial record also establishes that my prior CIA affiliation was not merely incidentally mentioned by a private individual or inadvertently disclosed by an unauthorized outsider. It was confirmed through the Agency’s official press function. The documentary record, admitted as a trial exhibit and broadcast nationally, shows CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt formally tasking the Agency’s Office of Public Affairs on October 29, 2021, stating: “FYI I asked Tammy if they can look into the other guy’s claim that he’s CIA.” This was not a casual conversation. It was a directed request to the Agency’s official press office to look into whether a named individual was connected to the CIA. Marquardt testified under oath at trial that Tammy Kupperman Thorp, who served as the CIA’s Director of Public Affairs from 2021 to 2025, confirmed my Agency background and described the practice as a “steer,” which he defined on the record as the Agency’s established method of informally confirming information to credentialed journalists. This testimony is further corroborated by Marquardt’s contemporaneous written communications stating that the Director of Public Affairs “just basically told me that dude was former CIA.” These communications were entered as exhibits and displayed during the televised proceedings. The disclosure of my identity was accordingly the result of an official Public Affairs response to a media inquiry, provided by the Agency official responsible for press relations, and later confirmed through sworn testimony and contemporaneous communications in open court. 

A NewsBusters investigation into Thorp examined her public (as of publication) LinkedIn profile and found that she had worked for CNN as a “supervising producer” on matters of “justice, transportation, [and] regulation.” She was at CNN from January 2017 to January 2020. 

According to her, her duties entailed: “Led CNN’s coverage of the US Justice Department, FBI, Homeland Security, Supreme Court, and immigration policy. Edited television scripts and digital stories, authored digital content.”

In a little over a year, Thorp bounced from CNN to a PR firm to director of media relations at military contractor BAE Systems before landing in the CIA as their director of public affairs.

 

 

Interestingly, she started at the Agency in May 2021, just months before the fall of Afghanistan, Young’s efforts to help rescue nearly two dozen women and baby, and CNN’s maliciously defamatory report about him. She was only on the job a few months before burning Young to her former employer, who she worked for just a year prior.

Even more interestingly, Thorp’s time at the Agency ended in February 2025. Young won his trial against CNN in January 2025.

Thorp’s page for the Intelligence and National Security Alliance boasts of her use of the revolving door to shift between the media and governmental positions:

Tammy Kupperman Thorp is an award-winning journalist and public affairs practitioner with more than 30 years of experience in public affairs, media, and national security, most recently serving as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of Public Affairs. Just before joining CIA, Tammy directed media relations for BAE Systems, Inc. From 2017 to 2020, she led CNN’s coverage of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, focusing on issues including the Mueller investigation, immigration, and the confirmations of two Supreme Court justices.

On June 17, 2026, Thorp appeared on The Readiness Edge with Dr. Jennifer Posa, one of her friends and colleagues from her time at the Agency. As she ironically described the appearance on her LinkedIn activities page, she was there “to talk about the importance of teamwork.” She also beamed about working at CNN in the interview.

 

 

In a statement to NewsBusters, Young expressed suspicion of the CIA’s relationship with CNN given Thorp’s close ties:

I’ve wondered about the relationship between CNN and the CIA for a while now. I can’t tell you what to make of it, only what I’ve seen with my own eyes. Tammy Thorp spent years at CNN before becoming the CIA’s official spokesperson, the person who speaks for the Agency to the media. In that official capacity, she’s the one who confirmed my background to a CNN reporter. I’m not going to pretend I have the full picture. But having lived through this, it’s hard not to wonder.

Politically, Thorp is a liberal. According to OpenSecrets, her only personal political donation was to President Obama’s reelection in 2012 to the tune of $750. She was working for the National Counterterrorism Center as a managing editor at the time. Her husband Frank Thorp is the Democratic alderman of Ward 8 of the Annapolis City Council in Maryland.

She also started her media career at NBC News.

Colleges need to recognize this as an existential threat as well as a branding opportunity.

On Thursday morning, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC were forlorn over the left’s now-former Senate darling in Maine Democrat Graham Platner, who insisted late Wednesday he’ll quit the race amid on-camera claims of abuse and assault from two ex-girlfriends, a fake working-class persona, a Nazi tattoo, odious social media posts about minorities and veterans, and a tawdry profile on a children’s website.

But those were largely afterthoughts on their flagship newscasts with ABC still downplaying the Nazi tattoo, CBS showing zero interest in party accountability, and NBC ignoring one of the ex-girlfriends (Lyndsey Fifield) in favor of actor Patrick Demsey passing on the seat.

NBC’s Today co-host Craig Melvin described Platner as an “embattled” candidate who said he would quit “following a string of sexual misconduct accusations.”

Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson called the “bombshell” development “stunning, certainly, if not shocking, considering the chorus of calls that have been building” following “new, explosive allegation against him” from Racicot.

“Once seen as a rising star, Platner, facing a firestorm these last few days after a former romantic partner, Jenny Racicot, publicly alleged he sexually assaulted her five years ago,” she declared.

But along with fretting Platner has “throw[n] into chaos a race Democrats saw as their best hope of flipping a Republican Senate seat,” Jackson and Melvin spent over 30 seconds gushing over the fantasy of a Senator Dempsey:

NBC’s ‘Today’ didn’t mention Lyndsey Fifield in their story Thursday about Platner dropping out, but you know what they had 43 seconds for?
Talking up McDreamy passing on campaigning to place him on the ballot pic.twitter.com/SJSpzJJmoX
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 9, 2026

MELVIN: So, Hallie, perhaps no surprise here, a number of folks have already thrown their hats in the ring to be Platner’s replacement in that race. But notably this morning, there’s someone who says he’s not going to be running. That’s making some news. What can you tell us about that?

JACKSON: Yeah, that’s right, Craig. He — a familiar face and not just in his home state of Maine. Patrick Dempsey, you may know him as McDreamy from Grey’s Anatomy. He says he gave real thought to running, but in a new op-ed, Dempsey says, while public service is honorable, he thinks he “can contribute more effectively through the life [he’s] already built.”

Incredibly, Today reupped a truncated version in the second hour, including a rehashing of the Dempsey news.

Disney-owned ABC’s Good Morning America was similarly ludicrous. Co-host Michael Strahan also framed the story as one of concern for his fellow liberals: “Embattled Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner dropping out of the race after mounting pressure after one accused him of sexual assault. Democrats are now racing to replace him on the ballot.”

D.C.-based correspondent Jay O’Brien made Fifield a footnote in history, further bolstering the cynical view that Racicot’s interviews a week before the drop-out date for Platner was (along with the bottom dropping out on polling) the story that actually forced someone’s hand.

O’Brien said Platner only ended his campaign because of an “accusation of sexual assault…and unrelenting pressure” from allies, but left in his wake “an all-out scramble amongst Maine Democrats.”

Thursday’s Platner segment on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ was ludicrous.
From huffing about Democrats having to “rac[e] to replace him” to a half-sentence on @LyndseyFifield to touting him as “an oyster farmer” to boasting of his “anti-establishment jolt,” correspondent Jay… pic.twitter.com/I3gkg5fGTa
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 9, 2026
“The announcement following an arduous three-day collapse of Platner’s candidacy after an ex-girlfriend accused him of sexual assault, which he denies…Jenny Racicot telling Politico she dated Platner on and off starting in 2019. She claims that, in 2021, he showed up at her home ‘almost blackout drunk’ and says Platner forced her to have sex against her will,” he added.

O’Brien conceded “a chorus of Democrats…had previously stuck by him when other alleged parts of Platner’s past came to light” and boiled down Fifield’s story about a years-long emotionally and sexually abusive relationship to an afterthought alongside other scandals the broadcast networks refused to touch until May 31.

Take notice of O’Brien’s absurd framing of the Totenkopf and emphasis of Platner as “an oyster farmer” even though that claim was dubious (click “expand”):

A chorus of Democrats, including top supporters like Senator Bernie Sanders pushing Platner to drop out. Many had previously stuck by him when other alleged parts of Platner’s past came to light, including another former girlfriend who accused him of abusive behavior, which he has denied. Also, sexual messages Platner acknowledged sending to multiple women shortly after he was married in 2023, and questions about a chest tattoo resembling a Nazi image Platner says he drunkenly got on leave with other Marines in 2007, which he later covered up, claiming he didn’t know its significance. An oyster farmer and Marine combat veteran, Platner bringing a progressive, anti-establishment jolt to the race to unseat Maine’s longtime Republican senator, Susan Collins, a seat Democrats almost certainly need to flip to take back control of Congress. After a standoff with state Democrats, Platner taking parting shots at party leaders who, by Maine law, now have just over two weeks to replace him on the ballot.

Left out of O’Brien’s rundown? Platner’s profile on the site Kik, which is seen as a hotbed of pedophilia.

CBS Mornings brought up Fifield and Racicot, but the laudatory language ends there as it too was concerned about their team’s future in Maine.

“Now to the political meltdown in Maine that could impact control of the U.S. Senate. Overnight, Democrat Grant Platner said he is dropping out of his state Senate race. It follows allegations of rape and physical abuse, which he denies. Democrats are scrambling to find a new nominee,” featured co-host Vlad Duthiers began.

Congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns noted Platner was “defiant” in “dismissing those allegations and arguing it was the party system trying to force him out, but now the hard work begins as Democrats here trying to pick up the pieces[.]”

Notice the level of concern on Thursday’s ‘CBS Mornings’ for Democrats in post-Platner.
While they did mention both Fifield and Racicot, the second block in particular with a former Obama official was absurd. It was an exercise in finding a way to spill a lot of words without… pic.twitter.com/3SWARfA9zD
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 9, 2026
Ahead of soundbites from both women, Huey-Burns said Platner voiced “he intends to drop out” following “a week of mounting allegations, vanishing support, and a showdown with state Democratic Party officials” and new claims “of sexual and physical abuse.”

Huey-Burns pivoted to the field of candidates looking to take Platner’s place, including one she interviewed in former Maine director of health, Dr. Nirav Shah.

CBS had a second segment with CBS News contributor and former Obama official Joel Payne that served as an exercise in finding a way to spill a lot of words without actually saying anything.

“He seems, though, to be blaming the Democratic establishment for forcing him out. Joel, is that because party leaders concluded he was simply unelectable, because — or because Democrats feel that there’s some kind of moral obligation here for a candidate facing an allegation like this to withdraw, regardless of whether or not it’s been proven,” Duthiers asked.

Aside from a passage when he conceded Maine Democrats have to ensure a new candidate doesn’t have the stench of a coronation like in 2024 with Kamala Harris, try and search for contrition in Payne’s answers that his side almost got away with enthusiastically backing someone of Platner’s ilk (click “expand”):

He kind of, you know, offered up [a] very strong critique of the establishment because his campaign itself was a commentary on the establishment and the power that he hoped to rebalance between working people and between those in power. And so, the fact that he offered this commentary and this critique is not surprising because this was essentially a proxy war about that. I think what we go from here is Democrats trying to pick up the pieces and you hear a lot of commentary online about, well, how did we get here? Who’s fault is this? Is it the fault of the people that identified Graham Platner? Is it the fault of the establishment class who did not offer up the type of candidates who would appropriately challenge a Platner in the primary? And to me, I think there’s medicine for everybody to take and I think what Democrats across the country and in Maine are doing right now is trying to learn the lessons of how we got here with Platner, and where do we go next? And how do you refocus on trying to defeat Susan Collins in November?

(….)

It is important that this decision is transparent, and open, and public. I think a lot of Democrats are learning the lessons from what happened with Joe Biden in 2024. Very different circumstance, obviously, but same impact voters chose somebody, and then because of decisions out of their hands, that person was not on the ballot, ultimately, when they chose them in a primary. I think what Democrats want to do is make sure that Maine voters, particularly those who are reached by Platner’s working-class, economic populism message feel represented, and they don’t feel like the type of candidate with the type of focus and the type of agenda that they believe in, that that is not represented on the ballot in November. And Caitlin talked about there’s going to be a nominating convention by the end of the month. You’ve talked about some of those candidates, whether it’s Troy Jackson or Nirav Shah, Dan Kleban, there will be lots of folks, I imagine, who jump in and lots of opportunities for people to weigh in.

To see the relevant transcripts from July 9, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).

With Democratic Party Nazi Graham Platner finally dropping out of the race for Senate in Maine, the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View thought the Democrats could pat themselves on the back. During Thursday’s episode, they defended how long it took Democrats to turn on Platner and engaged in some electioneering as they urged their Democratic Party to find someone who matched Platner’s platform.

Despite it taking around 10 months for Democrats to reject Platner after his Nazi tattoo first became public knowledge, co-host Joy Behar praised the development and falsely compared Justice Brett Kavanaugh to Platner. Meanwhile, co-host Sunny Hostin wanted to play with whataboutism:

BEHAR: But at least the Democrats are dumping him. Whereas, Susan Collins was one of the major votes to put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court and he also had allegations exactly like this. If I recall correctly. Am I wrong?

HOSTIN: Well, the allegations were a little bit different but they were of a sexual nature.

BEHAR: Exactly.

HOSTIN: And you have someone like Pete Hegseth who is actually in the cabinet who was accused of rape, and actually settled with that woman and paid her $50,000.

Hostin followed up with a message and a demand for the Democratic Party that they find someone like Platner to pick up the baton:

But I will say this, you know, to Whoopi’s point about the Maine voters will speak, they’ve interviewed a lot of Maine voters after he stepped down, and one Maine voter in particular said, ‘Platner did show to establishment Democrats that this is exactly what Maine wants, these are the policies that we want. This is the messaging that we want.’

And I think when you look at Platner’s platform which was ban billionaires buying elections, universal healthcare, defend Medicare and Medicaid, protect Social Security, support unions, support public schools, support our veterans, no more pointless wars, and bring Gaza genocide to an end.

 

Joy Behar falsely claims Justice Kavanaugh “had accusations exactly like” Platner’s against him.
Sunny Hostin calls on her Democratic Party to find someone who speaks to Platner’s voters because she insists Democrats can win the seat:
JOY BEHAR: But at least the Democrats are… pic.twitter.com/uTmyuviXj7
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 9, 2026
 

“If Maine is saying that’s the type of candidate they want, those are the policies that they want, then I think the Democratic National Committee needs to listen to that and find, you know, some sort of contender that speaks to those voters,” Hostin argued.

Hostin again expressed her desire for Democrats to rally in an attempt to beat incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins. “But I think that this is a winnable race. I think Susan Collins is not good — not a fair representation of the Maine voter right now, and I think the Democrats need to win this race,” she declared.

Hopefully, the next candidate wouldn’t hold the baton with their arm at a 45 degree angle while goose strutting around.

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin remarked that Democrats really damaged their credibility by holding onto Platner for so long and really couldn’t effectively argue they held “the moral high ground.”

“And it’s harder to argue that when you have several people who you defended the bigoted statements he had, you stood by him when he had the Nazi tattoo,” Farah Griffin pointed out. To which Behar griped: “But they got rid of him now, so it’s a clean slate eventually.”

 

Whoopi Goldberg suggests it’s fine that Democrats stuck with Platner and defended his Nazism for so long because Trump is president:
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: The point being that, I just think this is such a missed opportunity and there’s also this question of the moral high… pic.twitter.com/oQmeeYvn3A
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 9, 2026
 

As Farah Griffin argued that it took too long, moderator Whoopi Goldberg interjected to defend Democrats by blaming President Trump:

FARAH GRIFFIN: Eventually, like, how long does it take?

GOLDBERG: You know how long it takes. I takes You-Know-Who is still sitting there. So, yeah.

This is more evidence that The View was not a “bona fide news program.”

The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:

ABC’s The View
July 9, 2026
11:05:51 a.m. Eastern

(…)

JOY BEHAR: But at least the Democrats are dumping him. Whereas, Susan Collins was one of the major votes to put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court and he also had allegations exactly like this. If I recall correctly. Am I wrong?

SUNNY HOSTIN: Well, the allegations were a little bit different but they were of a sexual nature.

BEHAR: Exactly.

HOSTIN: And you have someone like Pete Hegseth who is actually in the cabinet who was accused of rape, and actually settled with that woman and paid her $50,000.

But I will say this, you know, to Whoopi’s point about the Maine voters will speak, they’ve interviewed a lot of Maine voters after he stepped down, and one Maine voter in particular said, ‘Platner did show to establishment Democrats that this is exactly what Maine wants, these are the policies that we want. This is the messaging that we want.’

And I think when you look at Platner’s platform which was ban billionaires buying elections, universal healthcare, defend Medicare and Medicaid, protect Social Security, support unions, support public schools, support our veterans, no more pointless wars, and bring Gaza genocide to an end.

If Maine is saying that’s the type of candidate they want, those are the policies that they want, then I think the Democratic National Committee needs to listen to that and find, you know, some sort of contender that speaks to those voters. Because he could have won this race but for these — I think the additional allegations that came forward that the voters did not know about.

SARA HAINES: Yes.

HOSTIN: But I think that this is a winnable race. I think Susan Collins is not good — not a fair representation of the Maine voter right now, and I think the Democrats need to win this race.

(…)

11:08:27 a.m. Eastern

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: The point being that, I just think this is such a missed opportunity and there’s also this question of the moral high ground. I think Democrats really wanted go into the midterms saying, ‘we are running on the moral high ground, we hold our own accountable.’ And it’s harder to argue that when you have several people who you defended the bigoted statements he had, you stood by him when he had the Nazi tattoo.

BEHAR: But they got rid of him now, so it’s a clean slate eventually.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Eventually, like, how long does it take?

GOLDBERG: You know how long it takes. I takes You-Know-Who is still sitting there. So, yeah.

[Applause]

HOSTIN: Somebody is still sitting there.

(…)

The Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s Seventh Congressional District, Bob Brooks, did not hold a workers’ compensation insurance policy at his lawn care company for more than four years, records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show, an apparent violation of state law.
Brooks Lawn Care LLC, which Brooks founded in 2013, canceled its workers’ compensation insurance on Nov. 30, 2017, and did not take out a new policy until Dec. 28, 2021, according to state records. Pennsylvania law states that workers’ compensation insurance is “mandatory for all employers who have one or more employees, whether they’re part-time or full-time, including family members.” Businesses that don’t hold a policy face a $2,500 fine and up to one year in prison for each day the employer doesn’t have coverage—that can increase to $15,000 and up to seven years in prison if the employer intentionally violated the requirement.

Brooks Lawn Care appears to have employed enough people to fall under that law during at least a portion of the time in which it did not have a workers’ compensation insurance policy. Brooks’s son, Austin Brooks, managed “six man crews” while serving as a foreman for the company from May 2017 to August 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Brooks, a longtime firefighters’ union official challenging incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R.), has made his lawn care company a centerpiece of his campaign as he positions himself as a tribune of the working class. His website touts the “small family-operated snow removal and lawn care business,” stating that, “Whether plowing driveways at 4 a.m. or mowing lawns after a firefighting shift, Bob has never stopped hustling to provide for his family.” Profiles of the candidate in Politico and Time have zeroed in on Brooks Lawn Care as well.
The lack of workers’ compensation insurance is particularly striking given Brooks’s own history on the topic. Brooks, a retired firefighter, has served as president of the Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association since 2021. In 2024, as leader of the organization, he successfully advocated for a state law to expand workers’ compensation insurance to increase coverage for first responders with post-traumatic stress injury.
Brooks’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
News of Brooks’s insurance snafu comes as the former firefighter attempts to flip a district Republicans took in 2024 and which President Donald Trump carried by 3 points that same year. Brooks gathered a long list of primary endorsements that included Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (D.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Brooks said in May that Shapiro asked his union to back a Republican for state treasurer in 2024 because the Democrat in the race had opposed the governor as a potential running mate for former vice president Kamala Harris. Shapiro denied the claim, and Brooks later said he “misspoke and made an inaccurate comment.”
Earlier this year, Brooks berated union firefighters who also work as volunteer firefighters off the clock as “scab[s]” and “shitbags” in social media posts, the Free Beacon reported last month. Several volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania’s seventh district told the Free Beacon they took issue with his comments, with one saying, “This guy is speaking poorly of good people.”
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