WHAT'S BREWING
ABRAMOFF CHARGED IN ANOTHER LOBBYING SCHEME Jack Abramoff, perhaps the most infamous lobbyist in the world and a face of George W. Bush-era corruption, is facing new federal charges in connection with a lobbying and wire fraud scheme involving a new cryptocurrency called AML Bitcoin. Abramoff was charged in the indictment of Rowland Marcus Andrade. As part of the scheme, according to federal prosecutors, Andrade claimed they had technology that “would allow the AML Bitcoin cryptocurrency to comply with anti-money laundering and know-your-customer laws and regulations.” [HuffPost]
TEXAS PUTS REOPENING ON 'PAUSE' AS COVID-19 CASES SOAR Gov. Greg Abbott halted elective surgeries in Texas’ biggest counties and said the state would “pause” its aggressive re-opening as it deals with a surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations that has made it one of the nation’s virus hot spots. The suspension of elective surgeries is designed to protect hospital space in the Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio areas. Statewide, the number of COVID-19 patients has more than doubled in two weeks. [AP]
FACEBOOK AD BOYCOTT GAINS STEAM More corporate advertisers are pulling ads from Facebook for the month of July, joining the Stop Hate for Profit boycott organized last week by the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Color of Change and other civil rights groups. The campaign urges advertisers to “hit pause on hate.” The list of participating companies has grown in recent days to include The North Face, Patagonia, Arc’teryx, outdoor retailer REI, Ben & Jerry’s, Eileen Fisher, Eddie Bauer, Magnolia Pictures, Upwork, HigherRing, Dashlane and Talkspace. On Thursday, Verizon (HuffPost’s parent company) also joined the boycott. [HuffPost]
MAXINE WATERS RIPS TRUMP FOR FOCUS ON DEAD CONFEDERATES In a scathing statement, Rep. Maxine Waters on Thursday lashed Trump’s inaction against the coronavirus pandemic as he instead focuses his energies on protecting statues honoring dead traitors and slaveholders. "We are left with Donald Trump, an incompetent and heartless man who is more focused on saving statues of slaveholders, Confederate generals, and racists than protecting the health of living and breathing American,” the California Democrat said. [HuffPost]
UNICEF WARNS MILLIONS OF CHILDREN COULD STARVE AS COVID-19 SWEEPS YEMEN Millions of children could be pushed to the brink of starvation as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across war-torn Yemen amid a “huge” drop in humanitarian aid funding, the U.N. children’s agency warned. The stark prediction comes in a new UNICEF report, “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and COVID-19.” It said the number of malnourished Yemeni children could reach 2.4 million by the end of the year, a 20% increase in the current figure. [AP]
TRUMP TALKS LIKE HE'S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY Trump is running for a second term as president of the United States, but in recent weeks he’s spoken and written as if he wants to be the next president of the Confederacy. Amid a national uproar over the killing of a Black man by a white Minneapolis police officer and an erosion in his own polling numbers, Trump has made the cornerstone of his response a vow to protect monuments and memorials to the leaders of the treasonous rebellion that cost 750,000 lives for the sole purpose of keeping Blacks enslaved. [HuffPost] |
