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Passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA);

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) reconsideration and repeal of Clean Air Act Greenhouse Gas Standards, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines for electric power plants;

EPA’s repeal of the endangerment finding and federal tailpipe emissions standards;

Passage of Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning approvals for state-level tailpipe emissions standards;

Actions to limit renewable energy development—especially onshore and offshore wind plants—including limitations on issuance of new permits;

Department of Energy cancellations of hydrogen hub funding and easing of 45V tax credit qualification for natural gas-based hydrogen; and

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a Republican nominee for Senate, is under fire once again after a video surfaced online that purportedly showed on vacation in London around the Fourth of July holiday. The video, obtained by The Daily Mail, appears to show Paxton sightseeing in London alongside a woman reported to be Tracy Duhon, a Christian influencer who has been romantically linked to him. He is estranged from his wife, Texas state Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed for divorce on “biblical grounds.” James Talarico, the Democratic nominee in the race, commented on the video on X: “Americans celebrated 250 years of independence from Britain this weekend. Ken Paxton spent it with the British.” The Texas Democratic Party added to the insults, noting, “The last place any patriotic Texan would be the week of America’s historic 250th anniversary is vacationing in England.” This is the second round of controversy that Paxton has whipped up on his vacation. When he was first spotted getting on a plane to Iceland at the end of June, Talarico noted, “He takes lavish vacations in Iceland while Texans can’t afford the basics.”

Ken Paxton schlepped to London, England on the 4th of July.

Katie Hawkinson at The Independent:

Donald Trump’s team bragged about “lowering the price at the pump” after launching its new Freedom Fuel gas stations, but a new report suggests one of those locations charged an even lower price for fuel before the president took office. Trump’s White House shared a video Tuesday announcing the opening of Philadelphia’s first Freedom Fuel gas station, which charges $3.47 per gallon in honor of the 47th president. There’s now a total of 25 locations across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to the Freedom Fuel Network’s website.

Google Maps photos reviewed by MeidasTouch News indicate the location featured in the video was once branded as a Sunoco gas station and charged customers just $2.99 per gallon in November 2024, two months before Trump’s second term began. The White House bragged that the Freedom Fuel Network is “lowering the price at the pump” and said Trump is “leading the charge to lower gas prices this summer.” But critics have hit out at the White House, suggesting the president’s war with Iran caused gas prices to jump in the first place.

"You raise prices, then pretend when they go down you’re some savior,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger wrote on X. “Besides, all your supporters spent the last half year telling us presidents don’t control gas prices?" “Going through all that trouble and the best they can do is $3.47 per gallon? What a joke,” said Jared Holt, a senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that monitors social media activity. “[For what it’s worth], gas averaged $2.87 on February 1 before the war,” CBS News reporter Kathryn Watson added.

Freedom Fuel Network = just another Trump scam.

See Also:

HuffPost: Critics Spotted 1 Major Problem With This 'Joke' Of A White House Gas Prices Post

MeidasTouch Network: Trump’s Featured ‘Freedom Fuel’ Station Advertised Cheaper Gas Before He Took Office

Brianna Tucker and Paige Lavender at HuffPost:

A judge ordered E. Jean Carroll to be paid $5.8 million, rejecting President Donald Trump’s last-minute plea to prevent the payment awarded by a jury that found he had sexually abused and defamed her. Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the release of the funds from the 2023 civil verdict on Wednesday. Attorneys for Trump argued the funds couldn’t be paid out to Carroll unless and until the Supreme Court rejected the president’s new, long-shot bid for reconsideration of his petition that it hear his appeal of that verdict. The Supreme Court on June 29 denied Trump’s earlier attempt to block the payout, saying it would not hear Trump’s appeal. However, attorneys for Trump petitioned the Supreme Court for a rehearing of its denial, according to the new filing. Lawyers for Carroll say she would receive roughly $5.8 million dollars with accrued interest. Trump’s lawyers argued in the plea that he would face “unrecoverable loss” if the payouts are made because Carroll has said she plans to give away all of the funds she collects.

Noah VanDowe at MMFA:

On his radio show, notorious political operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone has touted his friendship with acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte, celebrating that he thinks Pulte will use his position to investigate voter fraud and “finally reveal what really happened in the 2020 election.” In their new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that Stone — once kept at a distance from the White House — has taken a greater role in Trump’s second term in office, including helping connect the president with Pulte. Stone’s counsel was taken up by Trump on a number of occasions — the book reports that he pushed the president to select Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and “advocated relentlessly” for a pardon of former Honduran president and convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández. According to Haberman and Swan, Stone also “squired Pulte around Mar-a-Lago during the 2024 transition.” Building on this in-person effort to connect Pulte with the president, Stone has repeatedly used his radio show to promote Pulte after Trump named him to replace Gabbard as acting DNI. On June 3, Stone called Pulte “extraordinarily capable” and “extraordinarily loyal to President Donald J. Trump” while slamming his critics in Congress as “unqualified to be in public office, in my opinion.” On June 5, Stone described Pulte as a “longtime friend of mine, someone I originally recommended for the job of Federal Housing Finance Administrator.” Stone further attacked Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) as “RINOs” for their support of a Democratic amendment which would have barred Pulte from serving as DNI while he also remains head of FHFA. Stone was also clear about Pulte’s ultimate goal as DNI: Relitigating Trump’s 2020 election defeat with debunked claims of fraud.

David Nir at The Downballot:

Maine Democrat Graham Platner abandoned his bid for the Senate on Wednesday evening, two days after a former romantic partner, Jenny Racicot, accused him of raping her in 2021. Platner once again denied the allegations but said he was “suspending” his campaign in an 11-minute video posted to X. “I think as many of you know, over the past couple days, I have faced some very serious allegations, and I just want to make it clear: This is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real,” he said. “It's not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are. It's the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us,” he continued. However, he said he was “suspending campaign operations” and added, “I intend to file my paperwork to withdraw.”

“This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not,” he said. “We're not doing it because of the allegations. We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.” Top allies had called on Platner to quit the race and threatened to withhold their financial support if he did not. Because he dropped out ahead of a critical Monday deadline, Maine law now allows Democrats to choose a replacement to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

They have until July 27 to decide, and they have great leeway in how they pick a substitute. The statute in question offers little guidance, saying only that a “political committee may make a replacement nomination for the general election” if a vacancy arises early enough, as is the case here. Maine Democrats have such a committee: the party’s 113-member governing body, known as the Democratic State Committee, or DSC, whose members are elected across the state and intended to be representative of the party as a whole. But the DSC does not plan to act on its own. Instead, the party said in a statement on Wednesday that the committee had voted to hold a “nominating convention” to select a candidate and promised more information about the details of that process “soon.”

Last night in Maine, scandal-tainted Democratic nominee Graham Platner ends his run, allowing Maine Democrats to select a replacement nominee to face off against incumbent Senator Susan Collins (R-ME).

See Also:

HuffPost: Graham Platner Drops Out Of Maine Senate Race After Sexual Assault Allegations