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JD Vance says you should be grateful gas prices aren’t even higher than they already are. The FBI wiretapped a sitting Democratic congressman’s phone calls with a Virginia state senator. A Republican candidate for the Missouri state House has been charged with trying to plant cocaine on his primary opponent. And 33 Democrats joined Republicans to pass a bill stripping federal funding from universities that boycott Israel.
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JD Vance Says You Should Be Grateful Gas Prices Aren’t Even Higher
Marie Antoinette said let them eat cake. JD Vance said let them pay $4.14.
The Vice President told reporters at the White House on Thursday that Americans should stop complaining about what they’re paying at the pump. Vance then claimed that without U.S. military in the Persian Gulf, there would be no guaranteed access to oil and gas.
Vance described the alternative as allowing Iran to “shoot at ships like crazy people.” He said the administration has been quite successful at preventing a worldwide energy crisis and that gas prices could have been much, much higher.
Before the Iran war began in February, gas was under $3 per gallon nationally. The national average is now $4.14. According to a Brown University analysis, that increase has cost Americans more than $50 billion.
There was no threat to the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz before the Trump administration started the Iran war. Vance is asking Americans to thank the administration for partially containing a crisis that they started.
FBI Wiretapped a Democratic Congressman’s Phone Calls
Richard Nixon had to resign for this.
Democratic Rep. Suhas Subramanyam of Virginia released a notice on Thursday showing that a federal judge had authorized a wiretap of his phone calls between March 6 and April 5. The surveillance was part of the DOJ’s corruption investigation into Virginia state legislator Louise Lucas, the president pro tempore of the Virginia state Senate.
The probe centers on alleged corruption related to a cannabis dispensary Lucas co-owns in Portsmouth. She has denied wrongdoing and said the probe is political retaliation for her role in leading Virginia’s redistricting effort, which could give Democrats additional House seats.
Subramanyam also called the timing suspicious. The wiretap took place at the peak of campaigning for the redistricting referendum in Virginia, and while the House Oversight Committee was pressing Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify on the Epstein investigation, which he is on the committee for.
“They have politically investigated multiple states’ Attorneys General and the former FBI director,” Subramanyam said in a statement. “Now they admit they have surveilled conversations by a sitting Democratic Congressman.”
Republican Candidate Charged With Trying to Plant Cocaine on His Opponent
Nothing good has ever been planned from a hotel room in Myrtle Beach.
Thomas Christopher Ross, the Republican candidate for Missouri’s 161st state House district, was charged Wednesday with one count of conspiring to distribute a controlled substance. Prosecutors say he asked his former campaign manager to plant a bag containing cocaine and Adderall in the purse or car of his primary opponent, Louise Secker.
The campaign manager went to the Joplin Police Department instead, which contacted the FBI. Federal agents gave the campaign manager a recording device, and on July 31 he visited Ross at his home. On tape, Ross allegedly confirmed that he still wanted the drugs planted and suggested an anonymous tip about drugs in Secker’s car.
Ross also texted his campaign manager while he was on vacation in South Carolina, asking about “the substance of the matter” and whether he had had any luck getting it “sorted.”
Ross won the Republican primary on August 4 by just 32 votes, meaning he committed a felony for nothing. The Missouri Republican Party chair called the allegations “serious and deeply troubling” and asked Ross to drop out. Under state election law, Ross has until September 8 to voluntarily withdraw his name from the November ballot.
33 Democrats Help GOP Pass Bill to Defund Universities That Boycott Israel
Apparently the First Amendment does not cover your shopping habits.
The House voted 237 to 169 on Thursday to pass the so-called “Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act,” a bill that strips federal funding from any academic institution involved in a boycott of or divestment from Israel. Thirty-three Democrats voted with Republicans to pass it.
The bill applies to what it calls “nonexpressive commercial boycotts” of Israel, which simply means choosing not to do business with the country. In other words, deciding not to buy something is now a punishable offense. It also covers boycotts of institutions based in illegal Israeli settlements, meaning an American university can lose federal funding for refusing to break international law.
Sixty percent of all Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, according to Pew Research, up nearly 20 points since 2022. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, that number is 80 percent. Among Americans under 50, it is 70 percent.
Thirty-three Democrats looked at those numbers and decided to side with the lobbying group over their own voters.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Missouri Supreme Court Unanimously Blocks Gerrymandered Congressional Map. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that new congressional districts pushed through by Republicans at the urging of Trump cannot be used in the November election. The court ordered the 2022 map to be reinstated, and ordered that voters should be allowed to vote for or against the new lines in a statewide referendum. Secretary of State Denny Hoskins tried to keep the referendum off the ballot, saying that redistricting plans were not subject to a public vote. But the court said a referendum on “any act” of the legislature is allowed under the state constitution and redistricting is not one of the exceptions listed.
22 States Sue Trump Administration Over Gender-Affirming Care Ban. Twenty-two states sued the Trump administration Thursday over a new HHS rule that would cut federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for gender-affirming care to minors, starting Oct. 13. The administration finalized the rule despite receiving nearly 35,000 public comments, over 90 percent of which opposed it. The suit names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversaw the rule’s passage. Rob Bonta, California attorney general and coalition leader, said the administration had “disregarded the law and its own policy precedent.”
Fox News Fires One of Trump’s Favorite Hosts, Maria Bartiromo. Fox News abruptly fired longtime anchor Maria Bartiromo on Thursday after more than 12 years at the network. While a company spokesperson described it as a “business decision,” subsequent reporting showed Fox learned Bartiromo had shared a company email with the White House without telling anyone after Fox executives had told staff not to cover a Trump speech about alleged election interference in 2020. Bartiromo had long been a favorite of the president and a named defendant in the Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against Fox. Her departure follows the same pattern as Tucker Carlson’s firing in 2023 and Lou Dobbs’s in 2021.
Newly Discovered “Pac-Man Enzyme” Can Break Down Plastics in Less Than 3 Months. Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany have found a new enzyme that breaks down plastic, including bioplastics made from cellulose, in less than three months. They called it the “Pac-Man enzyme” because its open molecular framework looks like the famous video-game character. Scientists discovered the enzyme while burying small pieces of bioplastic in garden soil, and found that some bacteria with plastic-eating enzymes had attached themselves to the surface of the material and eaten small holes into it. The enzyme can also degrade penicillin-type antibiotics, which may help to limit the spread of antibiotic resistance genes in environments contaminated by plastic waste.
