President Trump may face a cool reception Wednesday from local leaders in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, when he travels to each city in the wake of back-to-back mass shootings. Democrats in both cities have indicated they’re not crazy about the president visiting, particularly in El Paso, where the suspected gunman allegedly published an anti-immigrant manifesto that echoed some of Trump’s own language.  Read the rest of the story at The Hill.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman has submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump after two tumultuous years on the job, two U.S. officials and another person close to the diplomat confirmed to NBC News. The former Utah governor has been in the job since 2017. His resignation, effective Oct. 3, comes amid widespread speculation in Utah that he might run for governor again.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

President Donald Trump responded to the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings by insisting Monday that “mental illness pulls the trigger not the gun,” but shortly after taking office he quietly rolled back an Obama-era regulation that would have made it harder for people with mental illness to buy guns. Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Top Democrats House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) issued a joint statement on Monday calling for a renewed focus on gun control legislation in light of the two mass shootings over the weekend in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.  Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

President Donald Trump spoke Monday in response to the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend, calling them a “crime against all of humanity.”
The president blamed white supremacy, the internet, video games and mental illness for the massacres. He did not blame guns or himself.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

U.S. stock markets plummeted on Monday following China’s move to devalue its currency, Beijing’s latest step in a tense faceoff on trade with President Trump.  Read the rest of the story at The Hill.

Mexico on Sunday threatened to take legal action against the United States for failing to protect its citizens after this weekend’s mass shooting in the border city of El Paso. Of the 20 people gunned down at a Walmart at the Cielo Vista Mall, at least seven were Mexican citizens, and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard promised Mexico City will act.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Patrick Crusius has been identified as the suspected gunman who attacked a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, a senior law-enforcement source told The Daily Beast. Crusius’ identity was first reported by CNN. Crusius apparently foreshadowed the attack online almost an hour beforehand, according to postings reviewed by The Daily Beast. Read the rest of the story at The Daily Beast.

At least nine people have been killed and 26 people injured after a shooting early Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, police said. The suspected shooter, who is believed to have acted alone, is also dead.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

A gunman opened fire Saturday in a Walmart and around a nearby shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, leaving 20 people dead and 26 injured, law enforcement officials said. In delivering an updated number of deceased, Gov. Greg Abbott called it “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas.”  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

With the second debate wrapped up, the third Democratic debate hosted by ABC and Univision will happen during the second week of September. The candidates are still working to qualify and have another month to reach the polling threshold and grassroots fundraising thresholds as laid out by the Democratic National Committee.  See the full list at CNN.

After years of decrying deficits and debt, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a massive $2.7 trillion budget plan, 67-28, that will suspend the debt ceiling for two years and increase spending to both domestic and military programs.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

The Justice Department inspector general’s office referred former FBI Director James Comey for potential prosecution over his handling of memos that the FBI later determined contained classified information, a person familiar with the matter confirmed Thursday.  Read the rest of the story at CNN

Following a contentious debate among Democratic White House contenders Wednesday, a number of party leaders aren’t thrilled that some of the candidates focused on attacking former President Barack Obama’s legacy as a way to challenge Joe Biden.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs. Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a shot at Jared Kushner on Thursday as she defended Rep. Elijah Cummings after days of attacks from President Donald Trump. Pelosi, a Baltimore native, said that, instead of focusing his ire on Cummings, Trump should look within his own family when it comes to deteriorating housing conditions in the city. Read the rest of the story at Politico.

Ronald Reagan was the governor of California in 1971 when he phoned the White House to vent his political frustration to President Richard M. Nixon and, according to a newly released audio recording, called African people “monkeys” in a slur that sparked laughter from the president of the United States. Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

The House GOP has been smacked by a wave of retirements over the past few weeks — but some Republicans fear the worst is yet to come. With the GOP relegated to the minority for the first time in eight years, a mix of veteran and vulnerable members have decided to call it quits instead of sticking around to see whether the party wins back power in 2020. Read the rest of the story at Politico.

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2008, citing concerns about the global economy and muted U.S. inflation, and signaled a readiness to lower borrowing costs further if needed.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

President Donald Trump lambasted CNN’s Don Lemon as “dumb” and “stupid” after the Democratic debate moderator asked questions about the president’s “bigotry” on Tuesday.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

Two former top staffers to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have lobbied Congress and the Treasury Department on the development of a new Kentucky aluminum mill backed by the Russian aluminum giant Rusal, according to a new lobbying disclosure.  Read the rest of the story at Politico.

After Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren fended off repeated attacks from moderate competitors, the next 10 presidential primary contenders take the stage Wednesday for second night of the second Democratic debates. Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a controversial bill Tuesday that would all but force President Donald Trump to give in to longstanding demands that he release his tax returns.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

Donald Trump’s new pick for director of national intelligence played a role last year in popularizing what briefly became one of the right’s most easily debunked conspiracy theories about the investigation into the president and Russia, offering what he presented as evidence of an anti-Trump “secret society” operating within the FBI.  Read the rest of the story at The Daily Beast.

President Donald Trump’s attacks on Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummingshaven’t gained as much internal support at the White House as his earlier attacks on the “Squad,” according to administration officials. But there are no signs Trump believes his strategy is wrong or is planning to pull back his attacks on the African American lawmaker from Baltimore.  Read the rest of the story at CNN.

A former software engineer from Seattle has been arrested in connection with a massive data breach that potentially puts over 100 million Capital One credit card applicants at risk.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Hours before President Donald Trump announced him as the pick to be the new director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe was on Fox News saying the Russia investigation may have been tainted by a criminal conspiracy.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) should visit Somalia, where she was born, to gain a better appreciation for the United States, calling the Muslim lawmaker “ungrateful” to be an American.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said Sunday that he will leave the Trump administration in mid-August. President Trump announced in a tweet that he would nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) to replace Coats.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating President Donald Trump to determine whether to file articles of impeachment against him, members of the committee said on Friday.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

President Donald Trump slammed one of his leading congressional opponents, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), in a Saturday morning Twitter rant calling him a “brutal bully” and berating his majority-black Baltimore district as a “rodent infested mess.”  Read the rest of the story at HuffPo.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released the first section of its report on 2016 Russian interference, which found that hackers likely tried to access election systems in all 50 states, confirming widespread fears that America’s election system may not be secure from attack.  Read the rest of the story at Vox.

Attorney General William Barr directed the Justice Department on Thursday to adopt a new rule for carrying out the death penalty, which would restore executions in the federal system for the first time in 16 years.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked two election security measures on Thursday, arguing Democrats are trying to give themselves a “political benefit.”  Read the rest of the story at The Hill.

The partisan war over Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election reached a messy and contentious climax on Wednesday as lawmakers spent hours grilling Mr. Mueller about his conclusions but extracted little information beyond what he had written in his voluminous report.  Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

Jay Sekulow, an attorney for President Trump, said Wednesday that former special counsel Robert Mueller’s daylong testimony validated the claims of the president and his allies and revealed “troubling deficiencies” in the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  Read the rest of the story at The Hill.

Americans’ confidence in the fairness of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has never been higher — even among Republicans, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center released Wednesday, the day Mueller testified before Congress.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Since he was first appointed special counsel, Robert Mueller has been a unique foil for President Donald Trump — the kind who doesn’t clap back on Twitter, issue press releases in his own defense or go on television to accuse the president of committing crimes.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

House Democrats are preparing an all-out messaging blitz over the next three days to refocus Americans’ attention on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, hoping to channel the intense focus on Mueller’s congressional testimony Wednesday into a public outcry against President Donald Trump, as well as the prospect of future foreign interference in U.S. elections.  Read the rest of the story at Politico.

President Donald Trump is going to court to prevent House Democrats from getting his long-hidden tax returns from the state of New York.  Read the rest of the story at Politico.

The White House and congressional leaders have struck a budget deal that would suspend the debt limit until mid-2021, President Donald Trump and Democratic leaders announced Monday.  Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Two police officers in Louisiana were fired Monday after one wrote a Facebook post suggesting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot and the other liked it.  Read the rest of the story at CNN.

The Department of Justice has sent a letter to Robert Mueller warning him that he should not go beyond the “scope” of his report when he testifies in front of Congress on Wednesday.  Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said he still believes President Donald Trump could be indicted after he leaves office, saying “the president is not above the law.”  Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Trump on Friday defended the rally-goers as “patriots” while again questioning the loyalty of four Democratic lawmakers of color. His comments marked a return to a pattern that has become familiar during controversies of his own making: ignite a firestorm, backtrack, then strongly reaffirm his original, inflammatory position. Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

George Nader, a man who served as a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, faces new charges of child pornography, sex trafficking and obscenity.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

The Trump administration has quietly dismantled or cut back multiple programs that were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help detect and prevent terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. Read the rest of the report at The Los Angeles Times.

President Donald Trump claimed Thursday he “was not happy” with the crowd at his campaign rally for chanting “send her back,” after he had goaded the North Carolina audience with a fiery attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).  Read the rest of the story at Politico.

CNN’s two-night Democratic primary debate will offer a rematch of former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris, whose clash over race became the most closely watched moment of the first round of debates. Biden and Harris will debate in Detroit on Wednesday, July 31.  Read the rest of the story at CNN.

The Democratic-led House passed a bill Thursday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025, delivering a major, though mostly symbolic, victory to the Fight for $15 movement.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Documents unsealed in federal court Thursday lay out the beginning of a federal investigation into Michael Cohen that sent the Donald Trump fixer to federal prison, and further indicate that Trump was closely involved in hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

In a moment of unrestrained demagoguery, President Donald Trump presided Wednesday over a crowd chanting “Send her back! Send her back!” about an American Muslim congresswoman who he targeted with racist attacks.  Read the rest of the story at CNN.

The House of Representatives voted to hold Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress over their refusal to comply with subpoenas related to the effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

If you, like a shockingly large number of celebrities, recently downloaded FaceApp to predict what you’ll look like in old age, you may be unsettled to learn what you agreed to in the app’s terms and conditions.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

In response to President Donald Trump telling four congresswomen to “go back” to their original countries, Democrats offered a resolution condemning the president’s words as racist. But the House descended into even more chaos than expected Tuesday as Republicans objected to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) calling Trump’s comments “racist” ― technically a violation of House rules ― and Democrats upheld House rules in one instance and ignored them in others.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

When White House reporter Andrew Feinberg posed a question to Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday about the president’s racist tweets against the four congresswomen known as the “Squad,” he found himself taken aback by her response. Read the rest of the story at The Daily Beast.

The decision to not prosecute NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo in Eric Garner’s death was ultimately made by Attorney General William Barr himself — because of “insufficient evidence” in the case, Brooklyn’s top prosecutor announced Tuesday.  Read the rest of the story at The New York Post.

White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress.  Read the story at Politico.

Agents unearthed a “pile of cash, diamonds” and “a passport from a foreign country” in a safe belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors told a judge Monday during a bail hearing for the wealthy financier and accused sex trafficker.  Read the story at NBC News.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced plans for a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s racist Twitter rant in which he said four Democratic congresswoman ― all of them American ― should “go back and help fix” the “totally broken” countries they came from. Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

In his first public comments since he leveled racist attacks on Democratic congresswomen , President Donald Trump defended his tweets in a press conference on the south lawn of the White House.  To read the rest of the story, head over to Mediaite.

CNN and the Democratic National Committee will determine the lineups for the second Democratic presidential debate this week — finalizing the roster of which candidates will qualify and how they’ll be split among the two-night event starting July 31st.  Read the rest of the story at Vox.

In a report on a gathering of conservative national security experts at a gathering at a private Reagan Institute retreat in Beaver Creek, Colorado, the Washington Post reports that many of those attending who might provide counsel to Donald Trump are being iced out for the crime of opposing his election in 2016.  Read the rest of the story at Raw Story.

A Michigan couple is facing a mix of praise and pushback on social media for hosting a wedding themed after Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan ‘Make American Great Again.’  Read the rest of the story at Fox 5, New York.

Attorney General Bill Barr has ordered an investigation into whether the CIA was correct to determine that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to boost Donald Trump during the 2016 election. But that question has already been asked and answered at the CIA’s highest levels — by Mike Pompeo, a Trump loyalist, according to three people familiar with the matter.  Read the rest of the story at Politico.

Fox News’ Todd Starnes told Rep. Ilhan Omar and other immigrants who find America “just doesn’t meet their standards of living” to take a “one-way plane ticket back to whatever third world hellhole you came from.”  Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Politico’s Tim Alberta has a book coming out titled American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump, and it’s already making waves in Washington (details about Paul Ryan and the behind-the-scenes account of the Trump campaign when the Access Hollywood tape dropped).  Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein attempted to pay $350,000 last fall to two potential witnesses, federal prosecutors alleged in court on Friday.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Indicted Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is reportedly mailing letters filled with Islamophobic rhetoric about his Democratic opponent, Ammar Campa-Najjar, and two Muslim congresswomen to voters in his Southern California district.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Almost 400 migrant men were so severely packed into detention cages at a Texas border facility Friday that they could not lie down on the concrete floor at the same time to sleep, according to a report from a pool of reporters traveling with Vice President Mike Pence. There were no cots, mats or pillows for them to sleep on, and several men said that they had been in the cages, largely unwashed, for 40 days.  Read the rest of the story at HuffPost.

Despite public outcry, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) re-signed a proclamation Thursday declaring July 13 as Nathan Bedford Forrest Day in the state, honoring the Ku Klux Klan grand wizard and former Confederate general. To read the rest of the story, visit HuffPost!

President Donald Trump said Monday that this year’s Fourth of July celebration in the nation’s capital would feature military tanks. Read the story at NBC News.

Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren have made steep gains after the first Democratic presidential debate, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. shows, with former Vice President Joe Biden’s lead over the field shrinking to a narrow 5 points. Read the story at CNN.

Gaslighters/narcissists create an enemy and crisis, then “solve” that same crisis.  They then demand accolades after that crisis (that they created) has been resolved.  Why do they do this?  It creates support within their base.  And with 2020 elections right around the corner, Trump knows the importance of manufacturing an enemy and then portraying himself as the only person who could “conquer” this manufactured enemy. Read the story at Forbes.

Months after the public release of the Mueller Report, former special counsel Robert Mueller finally agreed to testify before the House Judiciary and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on July 17. Although Mueller’s testimony before Congress has been routinely called for by Democrats, President Donald Trump’s Republican allies in the House appear just as eager for Mueller’s testimony as it will provide them with an opportunity to discredit the former FBI director in front of the American public. Read the story at Law & Crime.

President Donald Trump is fuming that his various business organizations are still under scrutiny. Read the story at Mediaite.

A video encounter between Ivanka Trump and world leaders that went viral over the weekend has liberals and conservatives up in arms. Read the story at Mediaite.

California Senator Kamala Harris and Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren outclassed the competition at last week’s Democratic presidential debates by several country miles, according to a pair of new HuffPost/YouGov polls. Read the story at Mediaite.