Daylight Savings Time

Sunshine Protection Act clears House Rules Committee, setting up floor vote on permanent Daylight Saving Time

The House Rules Committee voted 6-4 on Monday to advance the Sunshine Protection Act toward a full chamber vote, moving Congress one step closer to ending the twice-a-year clock change that most Americans say they want gone.

The bill, authored by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), would let states lock their clocks on Daylight Saving Time year-round, or opt out entirely.

President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind the measure, calling it "an easy one" and framing the issue as both a commonsense reform and a political winner for Republicans. The legislation now heads to the House floor after clearing the Rules Committee with bipartisan momentum, and bipartisan opposition.

The bill already sailed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May by a lopsided 48-1 margin. Roughly twenty states, including Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Oregon, and Maine, have passed their own laws making DST permanent. 

This is contingent on Congress giving them the green light. Hawaii and most of Arizona already skip the clock change altogether.

Read about it...

Anti-Trumper Jack Smith

DOJ records reveal Jack Smith's team accessed text messages of 44 lawmakers, bypassing its own safeguards

Former special counsel Jack Smith's investigative team accessed the text messages of 44 members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, after bypassing the office's own internal screening protocols designed to protect privileged and constitutionally protected communications, newly released Department of Justice records show.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin disclosed the findings after the DOJ delivered the records on Tuesday.

The messages, sent between October 2020 and January 20, 2021, were exchanged between the lawmakers and Trump White House personnel. Smith's team obtained them from the National Archives and Records Administration as part of its twin investigations into former President Donald Trump.

The disclosure raises hard questions about the scope and discipline of Smith's probe, and about whether his sworn testimony before Congress squares with the paper trail the DOJ has now produced...Filter Team protocols ignored.

Smith's office had established what it called a "Filter Team", a standard DOJ mechanism meant to screen out privileged or constitutionally sensitive material before investigators could review it. Internal DOJ documents released to Grassley spelled out the rules plainly:

"All communication to/from the Filter Team must go through the Coordinator. No materials shall be disclosed to the investigative team without approval of a filter team attorney."

Those rules were not followed. Assistant Attorney General Patrick Davis, in a letter accompanying the records release, told Grassley that Smith's team "bypassed the Filter Team and directly accessed these text messages." The FBI then identified the individuals whose phone numbers sent or received the texts.

Read all about it...

Proof of Citizenship and Purging Voter Rolls

Department of Justice warns election officials that they could be criminally charged over noncitizen voters

"The Department of Justice has dispatched letters to election officials in several states, warning that knowingly keeping noncitizens on the voter rolls could expose them to criminal liability. The states receiving these letters span party lines, indicating the effort is not confined to one partisan target but reflects a wider federal push.

Election officials and outside experts who examined the letters told Votebeat they appear to function more as intimidation than as the groundwork for actual criminal cases.

The messaging leans on the threat of prosecution rather than presenting evidence of widespread wrongdoing, and multiple studies over the years have consistently found that noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare because it is already a serious federal crime carrying penalties including deportation.

The concern raised by voting rights advocates is that pressure of this kind pushes local administrators toward aggressive list maintenance to avoid personal legal exposure.

Overly broad purges have historically swept up naturalized citizens and other eligible voters, forcing them to prove their eligibility or lose access to the ballot. Nonpartisan election workers, already facing staffing shortages and heightened threats in recent years, now face an additional layer of federal pressure as they prepare to run upcoming elections." [Crowd Blue]

More on CrowdBlue--
CrowdBlue (formerly known as Crowdpac) is a digital organizing, crowdfunding, and community platform dedicated to Democratic, left-leaning, and independent campaigns.

It serves as a centralized hub for grassroots fundraising, political mobilization, lobbying, and supporter engagement rather than operating as a traditional political action committee (PAC).

Florida

Starting January 1, 2027, Florida requires officials to verify whether a prospective voter provided proof of citizenship when applying for a driver’s license or state ID card. If not, the person must provide proof of citizenship to be registered to vote. This also applies to individuals who are updating their registration with a change of name, address, or party affiliation.

Documents acceptable as proof of citizenship include:

(a) An original or certified copy of a United States birth certificate.
(b) A valid, unexpired United States passport.
(c) A naturalization certificate issued by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
(d) A Consular Report of Birth Abroad provided by the United States Department of State.
(e) A current and valid Florida driver's license or Florida identification card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, if such license or identification card indicates United States citizenship.
(f) A current and valid photo identification issued by the Federal Government or the state which indicates United States citizenship.

Sun Rising 7-15-26

Tim Walz pardons child rapist

 

Crime City of Lake Worth Beach

DISTURBANCE ARMED
Incident #: 26077378
500 BLOCK S DIXIE HWY | 7/15/2026 @ 12:04 AM
Palm Beach County Sheriff


SHOPLIFTING
Incident #: 26077261
100 BLOCK N DIXIE HWY | 7/14/2026 @ 4:27 PM
Palm Beach County Sheriff


THEFT/LARCENY
Incident #: 26077118
2400 BLOCK LANTANA RD | 7/14/2026 @ 6:43 AM
Palm Beach County Sheriff

Evening Sky 7-14-26

Birth tourism is not an immigration footnote. It is a sovereignty scam with a hospital bracelet.

The issue is not race. The issue is citizenship integrity, taxpayer burden, border control, Medicaid incentives, and whether foreign nationals can purchase a permanent legal foothold by timing a delivery on U.S. soil.

The Supreme Court may have protected the doctrine. That does not mean Texas, Congress, and the Trump administration must sit there like potted plants while businesses market American citizenship as a birth package.

Investigate the hospitals. Audit the billing. Restrict visas where lawful. Bar fraud. Criminalize schemes that actively solicit birth tourism. Protect taxpayers from subsidizing the transaction.

A serious country decides who joins its political community. An unserious one lets marketers, loopholes, judges, and Medicaid paperwork decide for it. [Luthmann]

Good Night, Patriots!

War on Fraud in America's School Systems

Report exposes $225 million in K-12 fraud across 24 states as taxpayer dollars fund luxury cars, Disney trips

A joint investigation by two government watchdog groups has uncovered roughly $225 million in alleged fraud across America's K-12 school systems, spanning nearly 90 cases in 24 states and Puerto Rico over six years.

The schemes range from old-fashioned embezzlement to fake invoices, inflated enrollment numbers, bid-rigging, and kickbacks, all siphoning money that was supposed to reach classrooms.

The report, co-authored by the State Financial Officers Foundation and Open the Books, landed as the Trump administration ramps up its broader "War on Fraud" initiative led by Vice President JD Vance.

The findings paint a picture of systemic vulnerability in how school districts handle public money, and they raise hard questions about whether existing oversight mechanisms are doing much of anything at all.

Read more about fraud

Trump calls in to Jake Tapper's show on Lindsey Graham

Trump Snaps at Jake Tapper: “Talk About the Reason You Asked Me to Speak”

Jake Tapper changes subject to Iran--Trump says to Stick to Lindsey Graham After Iran Question

President Trump called into CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday for what was supposed to be a discussion about the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham. But the interview quickly took a turn.

Jake Tapper brought up Graham’s support for recent U.S. strikes against Iran, then moved straight into questions about whether America was back at war and who controlled the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump was not interested in letting the segment get dragged away from Graham.

Tapper pressed again, asking about Iran’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz had been closed. Trump shut that down too.

“It’s open as far as we’re concerned. Don’t talk about it. Talk about the reason that you asked me to speak,” Trump said.

Tapper then moved back to Graham and asked if Trump had any final words for Americans about the senator. He did.

Read about what he said...

Housing Act became Law

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law at midnight Saturday

without President Trump’s signature

Trump refused to sign the bipartisan legislation or veto it, letting the Constitution’s 10-day clock run out as a pointed protest against the Senate’s failure to pass his election-integrity priority, the SAVE America Act.

It was an unusual move. The housing bill cleared both chambers with overwhelming margins, 85-5 in the Senate and 358-32 in the House, and Trump’s own White House had previously championed it.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had called the legislation “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history,” noting it included policies “long championed” by the president.

Then Trump pulled the plug on a Capitol signing ceremony, blindsiding at least one senior Republican who showed up unaware the event had been canceled. His reasoning was blunt and public. House Speaker Mike Johnson defended Trump’s approach, framing the unsigned bill as a strategic pressure play rather than a policy disagreement. Johnson told reporters:

“We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively. And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”

Read about it...

Communist Delivery Driver Rips off ICE and steals their food

Buffalo DoorDash Driver Stole ICE Orders Until She Said The Wrong Thing To One Rep

"I love Communism," she said

A gig driver who calls herself a communist bragged about stealing federal agents' food. She assumed the company would quietly let her keep getting away with it.

One conversation with a company representative ended her scheme for good.

A driver going by nixxslingerland operates out of Batavia, New York. The Daily Caller identified her as Nix Slingerland, matching a Facebook profile using the same photo.

Batavia is home to the Buffalo Federal Detention Center, an ICE processing facility that orders food through delivery apps just like any other workplace. Slingerland decided that was reason enough to steal from federal employees.

She posted screenshots bragging that she had canceled an order bound for the detention center and kept the food, mocking the intended recipients as Nazis in the process.

The account behind the posts describes itself as agender and queer, and it links to content supporting drag performers and anti-ICE protests. DoorDash fired her.

This is what open hatred of law enforcement looks like in 2026. A driver decides federal agents protecting the border do not deserve the meals customers paid for, then calls it communism while pocketing free candy.

DoorDash did the right thing...she should be arrested.

Read about it...

Erdogan gives Magnum revolver with ammunition to those at Summit

Turkish President Distributes Loaded Revolvers to NATO Leaders at Alliance Summit

with his name engraved on them

Western leaders came to Turkey to discuss security in an increasingly perilous world. They each left with a revolver and six rounds.

The unconventional gift of Gumusay .357 Magnums from the host of this week’s NATO summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was meant to showcase his country’s growing defense industry.

But it left officials across the alliance scratching their heads. Some were forced to leave their gifts behind due to gun laws in their countries, while others donated theirs to museums.

“It struck me that ⁠my gift of maple syrup kind of undermatched,” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters, adding that the firearm was now in police possession. “I would like to reassure Canadians, they keep guns away from me.”

Read about it...

Democrat's Chokehold

CNN's Scott Jennings talks to McConnell

Crime City of Lake Worth Beach

VANDALISM
Incident #: 26076993
1700 BLOCK N DIXIE HWY | 7/13/2026 @ 3:46 PM
Palm Beach County Sheriff

Evening Sky 7-13-26

Sen. Mitch McConnell on Sunday revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalization, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about the Kentucky Republican’s health.

McConnell, 84, said in a statement that he was “briefly unconscious” around the time he was first taken to the hospital and has undergone a battery of tests to try and determine what led to his fall. He said he was also treated for mild pneumonia and has been moved to a rehabilitation facility.

“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” McConnell said, adding that he is now “regaining my strength.” [Newsmax]

Good Night, Patriots!

Lindsey Graham had Iran Death Threats

Lindsey Graham brushed off Iran's threats just five days before his sudden death

Five days before he died, Sen. Lindsey Graham posted a photo on X showing Iranian mourners parading a poster with a bullseye over his face. His response was seven words long: "At least they used a good photo of me."

Graham added one more line, "Judge me by my enemies", and went back to work. He flew to Ukraine. He toured a drone factory. He met with President Volodymyr Zelensky. He announced a deal on Russia sanctions. Then he came home and, one day later, was dead at 71.

The South Carolina Republican's death from what his office called a "brief and sudden illness" closed a career defined by an unapologetic willingness to confront hostile regimes, and by a final week that captured that posture in miniature. The New York Post reported that emergency dispatch calls suggested Graham experienced chest pain followed by a heart attack, though no official cause of death has been confirmed.

National Review reported the cause as sudden cardiac arrest, placing Graham's death on Saturday night, July 11, 2026. He had returned from Kyiv, his tenth trip to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion, just one day earlier.

Read more about it...

Professional Soccer in Palm Beach County?

Soccer stadium at Palm Beach State college?

A SPORTS MANAGEMENT company wants to build a $50 million soccer stadium at Palm Beach State College for professional and collegiate teams, according to a proposal being considered by the college’s Board of Trustees.

Palm Beach Sports Management is pledging to construct of an 8,000-seat stadium on about 12 acres in the southeast corner of the campus off Sixth Avenue South just west of Lake Worth Beach.

The unsolicited proposal calls for the company to lease the land from the college for an initial term of 50 years, with two 25-year renewals, and build and operate soccer facilities on it. The construction budget is projected to be $50 million to $60 million, paid for with private money.

Palm Beach Sports Management owns franchise rights with the United Soccer League for both a men’s and a women’s professional soccer team in Palm Beach County. The PBSC stadium would be home to those teams, according to the proposal, which includes an exhibit titled “Palm Beach State College Partnership Presented by the United Soccer League.’’

Read about it...

The husband, the lobbyist, the committee

Chris Pappas runs on anti-corruption platform while husband works for company his committee oversees

Rep. Chris Pappas, the New Hampshire Democrat now running for U.S. Senate as a crusader against "corporate special interests," sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the same panel that oversees Uber, where his husband holds an executive policy role.

Uber spent $1.5 million lobbying Congress in the first quarter of 2026 alone, and its lobbyists have already contributed $5,250 to the Pappas Senate campaign.

Pappas's campaign website declares that he "knows the system is rigged against people and in favor of corporate special interests, dark money groups, and entrenched politicians." The arrangement between his committee seat, his husband's employer, and his own financial disclosures suggests the system may be working just fine, for the Pappas household.

The conflict, detailed by the Washington Free Beacon, traces back years and touches lobbying records, financial disclosures, regulatory filings, and a debate-stage denial that Pappas later had to walk back. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Vann Bentley, Pappas's husband, previously worked as a lobbyist for Amazon through 2019. He now serves as policy manager for cybersecurity and privacy at Uber. He is not currently registered as a lobbyist at the company, but his policy work puts him squarely inside Uber's government-facing operations.

Read about Democrat Chris Pappas

Suspended first, celebrated later - "We'll Fix this"

Hegseth steps in again to reverse suspension of Apache pilots after July Fourth flyover

Eight Apache helicopter pilots from the South Carolina National Guard had their suspensions lifted Friday, hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly promised to intervene, following a low-altitude flyover along the South Carolina coast on July Fourth that drew cheers from beachgoers and a bureaucratic crackdown from their own chain of command.

The reversal marks the second time in recent months that Hegseth has personally overridden a military disciplinary process involving Apache pilots, ABC News reported. The pattern raises a pointed question about military culture in 2026: when pilots do exactly the kind of thing the public loves, fly attack helicopters over a patriotic holiday crowd, why does the default institutional response look like punishment?

The pilots, all members of the South Carolina National Guard's Alpha 1-151 Attack Battalion, flew the "Salute from the Shore" route from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to Beaufort, North Carolina, on Independence Day. Video of the low-altitude pass circulated online and drew widespread attention.

Shortly after the flight, the South Carolina National Guard temporarily suspended all eight pilots. The Guard issued a press release Thursday characterizing the move as a "routine administrative measure whenever a flight profile is under review." In a post on X, the Guard added that the suspension was "not a disciplinary action" and said the soldiers were still taking part in "regular daily duties in a non-flying capacity."

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