Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America.
Two Republican holdouts cleared Todd Blanche’s path to attorney general in exchange for immunizing Trump’s family from IRS audits. Trump is reportedly considering firing U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro after the DOJ admitted his $14 million Reflecting Pool renovation was “hasty and botched.” A bipartisan House committee found “substantial evidence” that a 65-year-old congressman lavished thousands in jewelry and Hamilton tickets on staffers who were 19 and in their early 20s. And the Department of Education will stop tracking the bullying and assaults of LGBTQ+ youth. .
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GOP Senators Sign Off on Trump Family IRS Immunity
Some people hire a good tax attorney. Trump got to hire an Attorney General.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination is back on track after two Republican holdouts, Sens. John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, signed off on a deal shielding Trump and his sons from IRS audits.
The two senators had refused to advance Blanche until he agreed to terminate the DOJ’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” created to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. In a Sunday social media post, Blanche claimed he issued an order doing just that.
He also kept in place the provision offering Trump, his two eldest sons, and their businesses broad immunity for past tax-related conduct. This is an extraordinary protection for a family that has spent decades avoiding taxes. A previous audit could have cost Trump more than $100 million, according to a 2020 New York Times analysis of his returns.
Cornyn and Tillis said they were “pleased.” Legal experts noted a small problem — a settlement is a binding contract that one party cannot unilaterally cancel, which means Trump could sue to force the fund back into existence. The settlement itself says it “may be modified only with the written agreement of the Parties.”
Nothing bars Blanche from resurrecting the “anti-weaponization fund” after his confirmation. In poker this is called a bluff.
Trump Could Fire Attorney for Dropping Reflecting Pool Charges
The government spent millions renovating the Reflecting Pool and the only thing it reflects now is their competence.
Trump spent the weekend “furious” at Jeanine Pirro, his own U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, over the case of the Reflecting Pool. The Justice Department had concluded in a Friday court filing that the problems with the pool came from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, admitting that the project was “hasty and botched.”
The DOJ then dropped the felony charge against former Olympian David Hearn. It also dropped cases against three more people who had faced up to 180 days in jail.
Trump was not gracious about it. “I was disappointed in Jeanine Pirro. Really disappointed in Jeanine Pirro,” he told reporters. “She folded like an umbrella.”
He considered firing her at a White House meeting Monday afternoon, though he ultimately didn’t. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was also in the room, which was awkward, because Pirro’s office had blamed Burgum’s department for not being forthcoming.
FOIA requests reveal that the National Park Service acknowledged as early as July 1 that the pool needed to be drained because of algae. The agency even weighed dyeing the water black to help it reflect better. Meanwhile, Trump still claims vandals did it.
MAGA Rep. Busted for Sexually Harassing Young Staff
Chuck Edwards is about to become the most famous poet in Congress, and not in the way he wanted.
The bipartisan House Ethics Committee found “substantial evidence” that the North Carolina Republican, who is 65 and has been married for 46 years, sexually harassed two female staffers. The committee recommended censure, its first such recommendation since 2010.
Investigators interviewed 16 witnesses and reviewed more than 1,500 pages of documents. They found thousands of dollars in jewelry, flowers, Broadway tickets to see Hamilton, and trips to Las Vegas and New York City.
The women, identified as Staffer 1 and Staffer 2, were 19 and in their early twenties when they started working for him. He wrote them emotional poems. In a handwritten letter, he called one of them “the most amazing woman” and wrote that their time together had “written a complex chapter in my heart that I will never stop reading.”
Edwards also performed chores at one woman’s home, and allegedly skipped House votes to decorate her Christmas tree. He brought the younger staffer to a White House event, texting her beforehand that he wanted the evening to be “perfect.” She said he later tried to pressure her into continuing the evening with him.
His spokesperson says the report “completely exonerates” him. His spokesperson must not know how to read.
DOE Will Stop Tracking Bullying Against LGBTQ+ Kids
The government’s new plan to address harassment in schools is to close its eyes and hum.
The Department of Education says it will no longer track the number of transgender and nonbinary students in its Civil Rights Data Collection survey. Because it will no longer count those students, it will also no longer count how often they are bullied, harassed, or assaulted.
The survey has been mandatory for all public school districts for over 50 years. Schools could previously log how often those students were targeted and note whether the district had a policy to prevent it.
The department also edited a note that once read “all students, regardless of sex, or sexual orientation, or gender identity can be victims of rape.” The new version deletes “gender identity” and leaves the rest.
The Office of Civil Rights said “its costs outweighed its benefits.” Its own comments point to Trump’s “two sexes” executive order, which is not law, and goes against the scientific consensus that sex is a spectrum.
The change applies to the 2025-2026 school year, which is already over. More than 1,800 districts will now have to go back into finished data and reclassify students against their own self-reported gender identity.
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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
New Jersey Ensures No Veteran Has to Go Homeless. Governor Mikie Sherrill announced at the Trenton War Memorial that New Jersey’s Bringing Veterans Home initiative now fully funds housing resources so no veteran in the state has to go homeless. The program has permanently housed more than 2,500 veterans after launching in November 2024 with more than $30 million in state and federal funds. Six regional coordination hubs now handle referrals, with a goal of contacting veterans within 24 hours and placing them in stable housing within 30 days. More veterans now enter housing each month than enter homelessness. Officials say the state has enough permanent housing capacity to keep it that way.
Mamdani Breaks Ground on 50,000 Affordable Homes Across NYC. Eight months after signing three executive orders on his first day in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has broken ground on a large-scale affordable housing project that will use more than 100 city-owned sites to build an estimated 50,000 new affordable homes. On August 3, Mamdani spoke at the groundbreaking of the Casanova Residence in the Bronx, a 100% affordable project with 96 homes, 58 units for people with a history of homelessness, and supportive services including free internet. In his remarks, Mamdani called out the “intentional city government disinvestment” that neglected Hunts Point for decades.
Women’s Pro Baseball Returns to the U.S. After Almost 30 Years. On a rainy Saturday night in Springfield, Illinois, the Los Angeles Queens rallied past the New York Heights 10-8 in the debut of the Women’s Professional Baseball League — the first women’s professional baseball league in the United States in nearly 30 years. More than 4,000 fans packed the 101-year-old Robin Roberts Stadium, lining up for hours to grab a Mo’ne Davis bobblehead. Maggie Foxx notched the league’s first hit and said she started crying when she walked on the field. The biggest ovation went to 99-year-old Maybelle Blair, a veteran of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that inspired A League of Their Own, who threw the ceremonial first pitch.
California Made Over Half Its May Electricity From Solar, a World Record. For the first time anywhere, a large-scale power system surpassed 50% solar generation for an entire month, according to an analysis from the U.K.-based energy think tank Ember. California pulled it off in May, and for the first five months of 2026 the state made more electricity from solar than from natural gas. The breakthrough has been driven by a boom in battery storage, which shifts midday solar into the evening peak, along with new imports from the SunZia wind project in New Mexico. Under 2018 legislation, all of California’s electricity is supposed to come from clean sources by 2045. This year, solar may beat gas for the first time.
