The State of New York Sues to Dissolve the NRA

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By Daily Mail. The NRA is counter-suing the New York Attorney General, claiming her bombshell lawsuit on Thursday that seeks to dismantle the gun organization is a ‘premeditated’ political attack that has been deliberately timed to thwart Trump’s reelection chances.

New York AG Letitia James filed her lawsuit on Thursday. She claims that Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Wilson ‘Woody’ Phillips, former Chief of Staff and the Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell, and Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer used the NRA as a ‘personal piggy bank’ for years. . .

The NRA responded angrily.

‘This was a baseless, premeditated attack on our organization and the Second Amendment freedoms it fights to defend.

‘You could have set your watch by it: the investigation was going to reach its crescendo as we move into the 2020 election cycle. It’s a transparent attempt to score political points and attack the leading voice in opposition to the leftist agenda. (Read more from “The State of New York Sues to Dissolve the NRA” HERE)

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Who are the allegedly corrupt leaders of the NRA?

By Joanna Walters. The NRA executive vice-president and chief executive [Wayne LaPierre] has led the group for 39 years. . . Thursday’s lawsuit alleges he “has exploited the organization for his financial benefit … [and] to continue, by use of a secret ‘poison pill contract’, his employment even after removal and ensuring NRA income for life; and to intimidate, punish, and expel anyone at a senior level who raised concerns about his conduct. The effect has been to divert millions of dollars away from the charitable mission.”

He is accused of diverting NRA funds for “trips to the Bahamas to vacation on a yacht owned by the principal of numerous NRA vendors … costly black car services, gifts for favored friends”. . .

[Wilson] Phillips is accused of facilitating millions of dollars in entertainment and travel expenses incurred by NRA executives and being improperly billed to the group and evading IRS requirements.

A report in the New Yorker last year alleged that before working for the NRA, in the early 90s, Phillips was quietly fired by a consultancy firm in Washington DC after a $1m embezzlement. . .

Millions of dollars of NRA funds were misappropriated with [Joshua] Powell’s assistance, the lawsuit says, and he secured contracts that secretly benefited family members. (Read more from the story “New York Sues the NRA” HERE)
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Opinion: The NRA’s Leadership is Probably Guilty of Corruption, But the Organization Shouldn’t be Disbanded

By Matt Ford. [New York Attorney General’s] move ignites an existential legal battle for the ailing gun-rights organization that will likely take years to resolve. James’s lawsuit arrives after many years of sustained internal strife within the NRA’s ranks, which pitted LaPierre and his allies against whistleblowers and dissident members who raised concerns about patterns of improper spending. The scandal has sapped the organization’s once-vaunted political strength and drained its coffers; LaPierre reportedly claimed in January that the NRA’s legal struggles had, by that time, cost the organization at least $100 million.

. . . [T]he NRA’s leadership has destabilized the organization more effectively than any state official ever could. In the complaint, which draws heavily from her office’s investigation and from efforts by journalists, James describes a constant stream of unjustified cash and perks that flowed from the NRA’s coffers into the hands of favored members of its upper ranks. LaPierre, who has served as the taciturn and incendiary face of the organization for more than a decade, was the recipient, and often the arbiter, of this largesse. . .

But I can’t bring myself to embrace the notion that a state attorney general—any state attorney general—should be able to disband one of the nation’s most popular political organizations because its leaders misused its members’ donations. If this is the opening bid in an eventual settlement that purges the NRA’s corrupt upper ranks and leaves its ultimate fate to others, however, I would welcome it. (Read more about “New York Sues the NRA” HERE)

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Accuser: Prince Andrew Groped Epstein Victims With Puppet; Ghislaine Maxwell’s Haunting 40th Birthday Present to Jeffrey Epstein

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By NY Daily News. Prince Andrew used a puppet of himself, given to him by Jeffrey Epstein, as a pretext to grope two young women, reported the Mirror.

Writer Virginia Giuffre and Johanna Sjoberg, a former personal assistant for the British royal, said they were both previously fondled by the 60-year-old Duke of York in 2001 as socialite Ghislane Maxwell allegedly looked on and, in one case, snapped a photo of Sjoberg with Andrew.

“I sat on Andrew’s lap,” testified Sjoberg in a 2016 deposition, according to the Mirror. “They took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine.”

The puppet, which was made for the U.K. program “Spitting Image,” was also allegedly a prop in the sexual touching of Giuffre. (Read more from “Accuser: Prince Andrew Groped Epstein Victims With Puppet” HERE)

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Ghislaine Maxwell’s Haunting 40th Birthday Present to Jeffrey Epstein

By Vanity Fair. Jeffrey Epstein’s 40th birthday party was not what Christopher Mason expected.

The British journalist arrived at Epstein’s townhouse that evening, in what would have been January 1993, not as a guest, but as a sort of paid entertainment. As a hobby, Mason wrote and performed satirical songs—musical roasts that he custom-created for his subjects. Maxwell, who seemed to be dating Epstein at the time, had commissioned the Cambridge-educated writer to craft this kind of personalized musical toast for Epstein.

“Ghislaine was pretty specific and controlling,” Mason told Vanity Fair this week. “When I do those songs—and I still occasionally do them—my preferred way of doing it is to speak with as many people as I can so I can get a real idea of the person and as much comic information as possible. But Ghislaine was very clear that I wasn’t to speak to anyone else, that all the information was to come from Ghislaine.” . . .

Maxwell had only been publicly linked to Epstein for months at the time of his 40th birthday in 1993. But judging by the details Mason said Maxwell fed him about Epstein, it sounds as though the socialite already had a vivid sense of Epstein’s interest in young women and insatiable sexual appetite. Nearly 30 years later—as the socialite sits in a detention center having pleaded not guilty to six federal crimes, including enticement of minors and sex trafficking—the alleged lyrics are eery in their perverse prescience.

Recalled Mason, “She wanted me to mention that when Epstein was teaching at the Dalton School, he was the subject of many schoolgirl crushes.” At the time Mason thought it was “kind of an odd thing to want in a song about a man who appears to be your boyfriend. But she clearly thought that that was something that was going to amuse him. Another odd thing that she wanted me to say was that he had 24-hour erections.” (Read more from “Ghislaine Maxwell’s Haunting 40th Birthday Present to Jeffrey Epstein” HERE)

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Project Veritas Founder Sues FBI, Claims Agency Illegally Prevented Him From Purchasing Guns

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Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Thursday, claiming the agency illegally placed his name on a federal watch list that precluded him from being able to purchase a firearm.

According to the complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, O’Keefe alleges that the FBI falsely claimed that he’d been convicted of a felony and “has subsequently repeatedly, wrongfully, and without justification denied Mr. O’Keefe the ability to purchase a firearm.” The right-wing activist is asking the court to order the bureau to remove his name from the list.

O’Keefe said he attempted to purchase a firearm in New York last month but was rejected after his name appeared on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). When O’Keefe asked the FBI why his name appeared on the list, he was told that he was identified as a convicted felon and therefore could not purchase a gun under 18 U.S.C. 922(g).

“This is patently false,” his attorney Jered Ede wrote. “Mr. O’Keefe has never been convicted by any court anywhere of any crime punishable by more than a year of imprisonment.”

“Simply put, the FBI’s placement of Mr. O’Keefe on the NICS deny list for felons is wholly and unequivocally improper and based on demonstrably false information. Notably, the FBI has not disclosed to Mr. O’Keefe what information it is relying on to place Mr. O’Keefe on its watchlist.” (Read more from “Project Veritas Founder Sues FBI, Claims Agency Illegally Prevented Him From Purchasing Guns” HERE)

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Singer Mariah Carey’s Sister Sues Mother Claiming Satanic Child Sexual Abuse

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The troubled sister of Mariah Carey has filed a summons with notice naming her mother as a defendant, claiming she was sexually assaulted as a child, causing her to misuse drugs to suppress the ‘horrific memories’.

Alison Carey, 57, has accused her mom, Patricia, of allowing and encouraging adult men to ‘engage in sexual acts’ when she was just 10 years old in a document filed in February.

According to the summons with notice filed with the New York Supreme Court and seen by DailyMail.com, Alison alleges that as well as enduring her own abuse, she was also forced to watch other youngsters being abused ‘during middle-of-the-night satanic worship meetings that included ritual sacrifices’. . .

In the document, she says her mother allowed the men to engage in ‘sexual acts including forcible touching and sexual assault in the first degree’.

The legal document, filed under the Child Victims Act which temporarily waives the statute of limitations in underage-sex cases, states that the identities of the men allegedly involved are presently unknown. (Read more from “Singer Mariah Carey’s Sister Sues Mother Claiming Satanic Child Sexual Abuse” HERE)

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‘You Now Have Coronavirus’: Man Spits on Child for Wearing Mask

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A Pinellas County man is facing charges after police said he assaulted a child for wearing a mask at a restaurant.

The incident occurred Sunday night at Ricky T’s in Treasure Island. Police said 47-year-old Jason Copenhaver walked up to the boy who was sitting at a table wearing a mask, and told him to take it off.

Police said the suspect also asked the child if he could shake his hand. When the boy refused, police said Copenhaver grabbed the boy’s arm, and got close enough to his face that his spit landed on the child. Then, police said, the suspect told the child, “You now have coronavirus.” . . .

Copenhaver was arrested on charges of simple battery and disorderly conduct.

Police said he told them he doesn’t know if he had the virus, and has never been tested. (Read more from “‘You Now Have Coronavirus’: Man Spits on Child for Wearing Mask” HERE)

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India Bans More Chinese Smartphone Apps

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India banned an uncertain number of Chinese smartphone apps Tuesday, adding to the 59 banned at the end of June and 47 more, mostly clones and alternate versions of the original 59, in July.

One of the newly blacklisted apps is Mi Browser Pro, another version of a popular web browser that was preinstalled on many Chinese phones sold in India until the “Boycott China” initiative began.

Both banned versions of Mi Browser are products of the Chinese company Xiaomi, which said this week it was “working towards understanding the development” and would “adhere to all data privacy and security requirements under the Indian law.”

Voice of America News (VOA) noted that fully banning the Mi Browser could potentially halt the sale of Xiaomi smartphones, and others that normally preinstall the app, unless the phone makers agree to stop installing it on phones sold in India.

The updated blacklist includes browser plugins from Chinese mega-corporation Baidu, video editing tools, email services, and possibly the popular Chinese social media platform Weibo — effectively a substitute for Twitter, which China has banned citizens from using. IndiaTV quoted reports on Thursday that said the Weibo app does not appear on software download sites in India, including the Google Play Store. (Read more from “India Bans More Chinese Smartphone Apps” HERE)

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WATCH: Biden Doubles Down on His Racist Comments About All Blacks Being the Same; President Trump: Biden Is ‘Against’ God

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By Townhall. . .For those who may have fallen victim to the media’s covering for Joe, here’s the original racist thing that Biden said during the video call.

“Unlike the African-American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” Biden said on the call that was released Thursday.

Biden believes Latinos have diversity of thought and opinion whereas African-Americans all think the same. The Biden campaign must have been thinking that surely Biden didn’t mean to say the racist thing he said when his handlers allowed Biden to expand on his controversial remarks from earlier. Oh, but were they mistaken.

“We can build an administration that reflects the full diversity of our nation and the full diversity of the Latino community,” Biden continued. “Now what I mean [by] full diversity, unlike [the] African-American community and many other communities, you’re from everywhere — from Europe, from [the] tip of South America, all the way to our border [in] Mexico, and in the Caribbean, and different background and different ethnicities — but all Latinos.”

(Read more from “WATCH: Biden Doubles Down on His Racist Comments About All Blacks Being the Same” HERE)

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Trump Claims Biden Is ‘Against God’ and Will ‘Hurt the Bible’

By The Hill. President Trump on Thursday claimed presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, is “against God” as he levied a stream of attacks on his likely opponent in the November election.

Trump painted a grim picture of a Biden presidency during a rally-style speech to supporters on the tarmac of the Cleveland airport, claiming the former vice president would follow a radical agenda.

“Take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything,” Trump said, standing behind a podium with the presidential seal. “Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God. He’s against guns. He’s against energy.”

(Read more from “Trump Claims Biden Is ‘Against God’ and Will ‘Hurt the Bible'” HERE)

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Facebook Levels 90-Day Ad Ban on Pro-Trump Super Pac

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By Washington Examiner. Facebook announced a ban on digital advertisements from the pro-Trump political action committee The Committee to Defend the President for sharing alleged misinformation repeatedly, which is expected to continue past Election Day.

The move comes one day after the social media giant deleted a video the president shared where he claimed children were “almost immune” to the coronavirus, which the company said violated its coronavirus “misinformation” policy.

Fox Business reported that Facebook’s ban on the committee’s ads would last 90 days.

“As a result of the Committee to Defend the President’s repeated sharing of content determined by third-party fact-checkers to be false, they will not be permitted to advertise for a period of time on our platform,” said Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone.

A rebuke by the group claims Facebook’s “Trump-hating” fact-checkers “restrict free speech” by failing to assess their claims accurately. (Read more from “Facebook Levels 90-Day Ad Ban on Pro-Trump Super Pac” HERE)

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Reelection Reboot for Donald Trump in Two New Ads

By Florida Politics. U.S. President Donald Trump is attempting a narrative recalibration as August begins, with two new ads in early voting states, including Florida.

The campaign went dark last week, in a belief that strategy needed to be “smarter and more strategic.” The latest spots, in addition to airing in the Sunshine State, will also be seen in North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia. . .

According to the campaign, the goal is to inform voters that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is an “empty vessel, a tool being used by the radical left to advance their extreme agenda.”

The first spot, Takeover, “exposes Biden as a tool of the radical left,” focusing on tax hike proposals, amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and cuts in police funding. . .

The second spot, meanwhile, hits familiar themes of the “Joe Biden is weak” variety, but departs from the usual bombast-and-bluster approach, with no voiceover at all.

(Read more from “Reelection Reboot for Donald Trump in Two New Ads” HERE)

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Trump Campaign Sues Nevada Over Mail-In Voting

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By NBC News. President Trump’s reelection campaign is suing Nevada over a newly passed bill that expands mail-in voting for the November general election[.] . . .

The lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and the Nevada Republican Party against Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, on Tuesday takes aim at Assembly Bill 4, under which all active registered voters in Nevada will be sent mail ballots for the November 3 election. The Trump campaign claims the measure “makes voter fraud and other ineligible voting inevitable.”

“Many of AB4’s provisions are head-scratching — particularly given the stark irregularities in Nevada’s June 2020 primary election, and because AB4 changes so many election laws so close to the 2020 general election,” the Republicans said in their lawsuit.

The legal challenge from the Trump campaign and the GOP claims several of the bill’s provisions are unconstitutional, including one that requires election officials to count ballots received up to three days after Election Day even if the date it was postmarked is unclear. They are also targeting two sections of the bill that dictate the number of in-person polling places for early voting and day-of voting, claiming the provisions will lead to more polling places for voters in urban counties than rural counties. (Read more from “Trump Campaign Sues Nevada Over Mail-In Voting” HERE)

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Wealthy Donors Pour Millions Into Fight Over Mail-In Voting

By AP News. Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over $100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump’s fate in the November election.

In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received $6.3 million from an organization with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court. . .

The massive effort by political parties, super PACs and other organizations to fight over whether Americans can vote by mail is remarkable considering the practice has long been noncontroversial. But the coronavirus is forcing changes to the way states conduct elections and prompting activists across the political spectrum to seek an advantage, recognizing the contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden could hinge on whether voters have an alternative to standing in lines at polling places during a public health crisis. (Read more from “Wealthy Donors Pour Millions Into Fight Over Mail-In Voting” HERE)

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If You Defy COVID Orders in This City, Your Utilities Will Be Shut Off

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Following reports of large parties that violate health orders aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that he will authorize the city to shut off water and power services to residents who hold such gatherings.

Beginning Friday night, if Los Angeles Police Department officers respond to and verify that a large party is occurring at a property, and there’s evidence that the venue has repeatedly engaged in such behavior, the department will request that the city shut off water and power services within 48 hours.

Garcetti said that while all nightclubs and bars have already been closed, “these large house parties have essentially become nightclubs in the hills” and often happen at homes that are vacant or used for short-term rentals. . .

L.A. Councilman David Ryu also introduced a motion Wednesday to increase penalties and provide additional enforcement options against property owners who defy city laws or building and safety rules, including the city’s 2018 party-house ordinance. (Read more from “If You Defy COVID Orders in This City, Your Utilities Will Be Shut Off” HERE)

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