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The White House just canceled $810 million in health and education funding that Congress had already approved. A Republican nominee for office in Texas was caught calling for the public execution of Barack Obama in since-deleted social media posts. A Moms for Liberty activist who ran for office on an election integrity platform has been convicted on nine counts of election fraud. And the Education Department formally stripped Title IX protections from LGBTQ students.
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They found $810 million in wasteful spending, which somehow did not include the president’s golf trips.
The Trump administration said Friday that it intends to cancel $810 million in congressionally approved funding for health, education, and refugee programs. The announcement was made just days before the end of the fiscal year and while the House was not in session, giving lawmakers almost no time to respond.
The move is called a pocket rescission, where the president refuses to spend congressionally appropriated money until the end of the fiscal year, allowing the funds to expire. Trump did the same last year to cancel about $4 billion in foreign aid without the approval of Congress.
Over half ($567 million) is being taken from the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. Other cuts include $25 million for a program that helps migrant students, $70 million for international academic exchange programs, $28 million in health research funding, and $56 million in housing counseling programs.
The White House described the rescission as a historic action to eliminate wasteful spending. But that television ad telling you to “love me” made the cut.
Sponsored Kalshi poll: Midterms: Congress Balance of Power?
Republican primary voters looked at a man who wanted to hang Barack Obama and said, “Finally, someone who gets us.”
A CNN KFile investigation found that Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, called for the public execution of Obama and other Democrats in social media posts over the course of six years. The posts have since been deleted, but CNN verified they were French’s by cross-referencing the account’s numeric user ID with several usernames.
In May 2020, amid the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, French called for the death penalty for what he dubbed “Obama conspirators.” He wrote the penalty for treason used to be death, “even for a former president,” and tagged the posts with #HangEmHigh.
Earlier this month, French wrote about the student section at a University of Texas football game, calling the racially diverse crowd a “problem” that was “far worse than anyone imagined.” He has also called for the deportation of 100 million people and has asked his social media followers whether Muslims or Jews pose a greater threat to America.
Governor Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton have stood by their endorsements of French, which should look great on their own campaign websites.
The call was coming from inside the Moms for Liberty meeting.
Gaea Powell, a Moms for Liberty activist and Trump supporter from California, was convicted last week of nine counts of election fraud and could face up to eight years in prison. The charges included falsely stating her place of residence, illegally registering to vote, and casting fraudulent ballots.
Powell twice ran for mayor of Arroyo Grande, in 2022 and 2024, both times running on the integrity of local elections. While warning voters about election fraud, she was filing campaign paperwork under penalty of perjury falsely swearing she lived within the city limits.
Powell also broke local campaign finance laws by promising not to raise or spend more than $2,000 on her campaign in June 2022. She then spent significantly more than that amount on campaign mailers without disclosing it to local officials.
Powell has refused to acknowledge wrongdoing, saying in a statement that she was deeply disappointed by the verdict. She plans to appeal, because if there is one thing she is committed to, it is not accepting results.
“Protecting women and girls” the way the Titanic protected its passengers.
The Education Department said Monday it has formally rescinded a Biden-era Title IX rule that protected LGBTQ students from discrimination. The 2024 rule also required schools to take proactive steps on cases of sexual assault and harassment and expanded protections to pregnant or parenting students.
The announcement came the same day that New York state prosecutors reopened an investigation into the alleged gang rape of a student by seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University. The victim filed a lawsuit last week, asserting she was drugged and raped for hours by fraternity brothers who coerced her into taking drugs and alcohol.
Cornell’s internal investigation resulted in suspensions and the option for the accused to write essays to reduce their punishment. No arrests were made, and the victim dropped out of Cornell.
Shiwali Patel of the National Women’s Law Center called the Cornell case proof of why Title IX protections are necessary. She said the administration has “decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students.”
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** New Mexico Jury Finds Facebook Liable for Over 43 Million Violations.** A jury in Santa Fe ruled Friday that Facebook was liable for deceiving its users about data privacy protections on the platform. The case was over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a third-party personality quiz collected data on some 87 million profiles and sold it to a political consulting firm whose clients included Trump’s 2016 campaign. The jury found that Facebook made false statements about protecting user data that affected New Mexico’s entire population of more than two million people. Penalties will be determined by a judge at a hearing Oct. 1. State attorneys are seeking the maximum of $5,000 for each violation, which would total more than $200 billion.
Democrats Preparing to Investigate Trump Family Business Deals if They Win Midterms. Corporate donors to Trump’s White House ballroom project and those involved in business deals brokered by Trump family members are expected to be among the first targets of congressional investigations if Democrats win the House or Senate in November, according to a Reuters report citing multiple Capitol Hill staffers and lawmakers. Control of either chamber would give Democrats subpoena power and the ability to launch probes as early as February. Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Richard Blumenthal told Reuters they are particularly interested in crypto firms linked to Trump and Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital.
At Least 900 Flock Surveillance Cameras Have Been Unplugged in Texas. At least 14 Texas cities and counties have disabled more than 900 Flock surveillance cameras since Gov. Greg Abbott cut off state funding for the devices in late August. Abbott pulled the funds after the Texas Tribune revealed a small state agency quietly funneled at least $30 million into the cameras with little public oversight. Cities like Pflugerville and Hutto ended their contracts after discovering hundreds of law enforcement agencies they didn’t recognize had been accessing their camera data, and the Texas Department of Public Safety had permitted more than 2,800 agencies to search its own network without agreements.
Pennsylvania Proposes Law Requiring Game Publishers to Keep Digital Games Playable. A Pennsylvania state senator has introduced a bill called the Protect Our Games Act, which would give customers at least 60 days notice before a video game publisher cuts off access to a title. The proposed law would then require publishers to offer an offline mode, a patch to make the game independent of the publisher’s servers, or a refund of at least 25% of the original sale price. The bill was introduced after Sony announced it would stop making physical disks by 2028, raising concerns about what will happen to games that are only available digitally when their servers eventually stop working. The bill is still in its infancy, but if it becomes law, it could set a precedent for other states.
