After a legal debate about standing in the case of Biden v Nebraska, the Supreme Court took up the issue of whether the President could unilaterally forgive student debt without an act of Congress.  In a 6-3 ruling {pdf here}, the court determined the executive authority of the Dept of Education did not permit such action.

Joe Biden campaigned in 2020 on a promise to eliminate student debt unilaterally, without congressional approval.  The court opinion released today affirms that Congress must be involved in their role as decision-makers of federal spending.  Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion.

[SCOTUS BLOG] – […] When the Biden administration announced the program in August 2022, student-loan repayments had already been on hold for over two years. Betsy DeVos, who served as the secretary of education during the Trump administration, suspended both repayments and the accrual of interest on federal student loans at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She relied on the HEROES Act, a law passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that gives the secretary of education the power to respond to a national emergency by “waiv[ing] or modify[ing] any statutory or regulatory provision” governing the student-loan programs so that borrowers are not worse off financially because of the emergency.

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Today at 4:15pm ET President Donald Trump will be delivering the keynote address at the Mom’s For Liberty event. {Direct Rumble Link}  Livestream Below

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Presidential candidate Mike Pence made a pilgrimage to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and affirm Pence’s position that the unilateral power of the Ukraine government needs to be supported.

Mike Pence then presents himself as the arbiter of what it means to be a Republican with a Twitter message saying, “I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal, and I know who needs to win this war in Ukraine, and it’s the people fighting for their freedom and fighting to restore their national sovereignty. There is no room in our party for apologists for Putin. There is only room for champions of freedom.”

Americans must sacrifice to support the magnanimous interests of the industrial military complex. Failure to adhere to the dictates and fiats of Republican power will not be tolerated in his party.

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As if on cue, here comes another billionaire group by well-established political control agents in yet another multimillion effort to block President Trump.   This time it’s Koch and his Americans for Prosperity network.

The Koch groups are planning to spend $70 million in their effort to eliminate the support of Donald Trump in 2024.

However, what will be interesting will be to watch how the downstream media networks attack Trump in order to get a piece of the spending allotment.  That’s where knowing where the Koch money flows comes in handy.

First the article:

(New York Times) – The political network established by the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch has raised more than $70 million for political races as it looks to help Republicans move past Donald J. Trump, according to an official with the group.

With some of this large sum to start, the network, Americans for Prosperity Action, plans to throw its weight into the G.O.P. presidential nominating contest for the first time in its nearly 20-year history. The network spent nearly $500 million supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies in the 2020 election cycle alone.

Two groups closely affiliated with Charles Koch contributed $50 million of the more than $70 million that has been raised. Mr. Koch is a major shareholder in Koch Industries, which contributed $25 million to Americans for Prosperity Action, according to a preliminary draft of Federal Election Commission filings. Another $25 million was donated by Stand Together, a nonprofit he founded.

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President Trump famously threatened Mexican President AMLO with 25 to 50% immediate border tariffs within a week if Mexico didn’t help secure the southern U.S. border. The result was 18,000 activated Mexican National Guards to enforce the “Remain in Mexico” policy, while the border wall was under construction.

The southern border crisis has created an opportunity for a desperate Ron DeSantis to skip the seven-minute-ab border security competition and go straight to the six-minute-ab pitch, whereby a President DeSantis will start shooting Mexicans who attempt to smuggle across the border.  Appearing in a heavily coordinated and scripted interview with Rupert Murdoch’s debate moderator, Martha MacCallum, DeSantis announced his “use of deadly force” policy just before traveling to the Yale Club in New York for fundraising.

A gleeful Martha MacCallum was more than willing to support the 6-minute-ab pitch, narrating an introduction of “the governor“, yes, she used that exact descriptive for the guy who is on the monitor.  The transparent construct of the interview was made even funnier by the desperate transparency of it.  WATCH:

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Ron DeSantis is heading to the Big Apple to reunite with his Yale alumni and accept a boost in capital for his ailing campaign.

The $6,600/plate appearance is the latest effort by Team DeSantis to connect to the ordinary working class voter he needs to try and regain footing after his effort has fallen short of the Sea Island billionaires’ expectations.

The Yale Club appearance tomorrow is more friendly terrain for the Florida governor, a return to those who are at the root of his political career.

(Via NBC) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is coming to New York for a private presidential campaign fundraiser that’s set to be hosted by at least four Wall Street executives, including one with past ties to a firm backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, a frequent target of DeSantis and other Republicans.

The event is scheduled to take place June 29 at the swanky Yale Club, according to a copy of an invitation seen by CNBC. It will be one of DeSantis’ first fundraisers in the Big Apple since he officially launched his campaign for president last month.

The hosts listed on the DeSantis invitation include Paul Ardire, a partner at GoldenTree Asset Management, along with Christian Michalik, Rob Michalik and Corwynne Carruthers, who are all leaders at Kinderhook Industries, a private equity firm with at least $5 billion in assets under management, according to data from PitchBook. GoldenTree has at least $50 billion in assets under management, PitchBook says. (read more)

Despite the combined efforts of Rupert Murdoch, Ken Griffin, Elon Musk, the Sea Island billionaires, hedge fund managers, Wall Street groups and a host of multinational corporations, recent polling shows the richest fundraiser in the GOP field has failed to gain traction with the lesser controllable voters.

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For his Twitter monologue episode 7, Tucker Carlson walks through the post COVID new authoritarian model of ‘western democracy’, a system of dictatorial fiat and unilateral power intent on retention of control. {Direct Rumble Link}

Within our new system of “western democratic norms” authoritarianism is embraced by both wings of the UniParty vulture as it ensures power for those who benefit. From the dual system of U.S. justice to the dictatorship now present in Ukraine, the common thread is power by a select group of system operators with large control mechanisms.

The retention of this power structure requires the passing of the baton to the next loyalist of the regime. In the case of Joe Biden, Tucker foresees the rise of California Governor Gavin Newsom. I predicted a very specific flow for this transition a year ago and fully agree with Carlson’s prediction. WATCH:

[NOTE: I find it interesting [at 06:29] that Carlson notes the Ukraine war is only opposed by “one opponent”, yet he never mentions the man’s name, Donald Trump.  It is a small datapoint, but an omission datapoint nonetheless enhanced by the chosen platform of the Carlson broadcast.  I notice nuance. Keep watching.]

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At the heart of the IRS whistleblower statements, is a meeting that took place on October 7, 2022, where U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses that he was not able to pursue a full case against Hunter Biden due to Dept of Justice roadblocks.

Notes and a contemporaneous email in regard to the explosive meeting were taken by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who then testified to Congress and delivered the evidence which contradicts the statements by Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy AG Lisa Monaco.  Shapley’s lawyers documented some of the participants from the meeting on behalf of their client, as they refute the claims of Main Justice (Garland & Monaco):

Today, buried 21 paragraphs deep in their own reporting, the New York Times now confirms the content of the meeting and the statement by USAO David Weiss.

[New York Times] – […] in mid-2022, Mr. Weiss reached out to the top federal prosecutor in Washington, Matthew Graves, to ask his office to pursue charges and was rebuffed, according to Mr. Shapley’s testimony.

A similar request to prosecutors in the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, was also rejected, Mr. Shapley testified. A second former I.R.S. official, who has not been identified, told House Republicans the same story. That episode was confirmed independently to The New York Times by a person with knowledge of the situation.

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I’m not going to say I toldyaso; I’m just smiling.

After a full media cycle of apoplexy and pearl-clutching, which included Andrew Weissmann appearing on MSNBC to declare “It’s the end of Trump,” CBS is now reporting there is no Defense Department memo about attacking Iran – the foundation of the media claims surrounding the leaked audio tapes from Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Worse still, and exactly as CTH previously outlined, despite the claims by CNN about how this audio would be used as the “central element” by the prosecution of Trump, the audio and mysterious memo are not part of the Special Counsel case.

So, why was the transcript of the audio recording used by Jack Smith in the indictment if the audio and nonexistent memo were never going to be used?  Because it’s Lawfare, that’s why.  Everything, yes including the specific language being deployed (ie “documents containing classification markings“), is hype for public consumption.

(Via CBS) – The Defense Department memo on Iran — at the heart of the now-public audio recording that captured a July 2021 meeting with former President Donald Trump — is not part of the 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information charged in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News. 

[…] The document and recording are described in the indictment Smith’s team secured against Trump earlier this month, recounted as an alleged meeting with “a writer, a publisher, and two members of” Trump’s staff, “none of whom possessed a security clearance.”  But according to a source familiar with the matter, Trump was not charged with unlawfully holding onto the Iran-related document discussed in the recording.

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The Morning Consult has an updated poll {DATA HERE} of the GOP field showing President Trump is pulling even further ahead despite the political targeting efforts of the DOJ.

[DATA SOURCE]

(Morning Consult) – Trump takes lead over Biden in general-election matchup: Trump continues to be the favorite for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination, with 57% of potential GOP primary voters supporting his candidacy. But for the first time since tracking began in December, Trump also leads Biden by 3 percentage points in a hypothetical general-election matchup, outside the surveys’ margins of error.

Ramaswamy gets a bump: Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy is backed by 6% of potential GOP primary voters, his best showing in Morning Consult surveys so far following a steady improvement over the past week. Ramaswamy has seen a recent uptick in our buzz metric: 46% of potential GOP primary voters reported hearing something about him over the past week, up from 33% the week before. (read more)

Primary state data below.

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