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From Cuba to Gaza, the investigative journalist's new documentary delves into a ‘sadistic’ and ‘depraved’ U.S. foreign policy. She's also the first American reporter to interview Cuba's president.

On this 250th Consider How Different We Are, and Could Have Been The list of things the left has been correct about over the last 100 or so years is astounding. With so much review of history that has been presented as part of the 250th anniversary of the country, this aspect deserves a review [...] The post The Left Has Been Correct About a Long List appeared first on DCReport.org.

Donald Trump is absolutely, finally, paying E. Jean Carroll.The Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied the president’s emergency motion to temporarily suspend the court-ordered payment late Wednesday.The decision came shortly after Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the release of $5 million in court-held funds to the beleaguered columnist, more than three years after Trump was found civilly liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store in late 1995.The last-minute stay was a Hail Mary thrown by Trump’s legal team, who had tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court earlier this week. But the nation’s highest judiciary ultimately rejected the request on Tuesday.Despite the high court’s decision, Trump’s legal team wrote to Kaplan asking him not to release the funds, claiming that the president’s Supreme Court petition for a new hearing was still pending.By Wednesday morning, the SCOTUS docket had been updated to reflect that it was anticipating a corrected petition from the president’s team. But hours later, it appeared that Kaplan had gone ahead and ordered the release of the funds to Carroll despite Trump’s pending filing, anyway.In a six-page memorandum penned Wednesday, Kaplan noted that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.” “It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” Kaplan ordered.The Second Circuit Court of Appeals clearly agreed.Carroll has a long and grim history with the president. After the 2023 civil case, Trump tried and failed to sue Carroll for defamation. Kaplan later ruled that Trump had continued to defame the advice columnist by denying the rape on the basis that she wasn’t his “type,” and by accusing her of making up the sexual assault allegations against him for the benefit of her book. A jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in that case, though Carroll has not yet seen any proceeds from that decision, either.Late last month, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the New York–based judge) asked a judge to implement an expedited payment schedule for the sum that Trump owes Carroll, noting that by this point, the president owes Carroll interest on the original amount.“It is time for this case to come to an end,” Carroll’s attorney wrote in a Tuesday legal filing.

Graham Platner continued to deny his sexual assault allegations, lambasted “larger forces” against him, and demanded that the Maine Democratic Party allow him a say in his replacement upon announcing his withdrawal from the Senate race. The angry video went against everything his closest aides advised. “Accusations are supposed to be the beginning of things, not the end,” Platner said in his 11-minute video, posted Wednesday evening on X. “This was the last week to try to get me off of the ballot. That’s why this is occurring.... [The allegations] are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us.... It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish. That if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed.” “They are going to take everything away from us. Those in power who have the ability to do so are using these allegations as an excuse to take away all of the things we need to run a campaign,” Platner continued in his vertically shot video. “They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.”  My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 9, 2026His indignant rhetoric was also mirrored in his claims that national Democrats were trying to choose his successor behind “closed doors” and his insistence that they choose a fellow progressive. In reality, Maine’s Democratic Party is planning to hold a nominating convention with about 600 delegates later this month.According to Politico, several of Graham’s closest advisers begged him not to take this approach with his resignation video, urging him to center “gratitude” and to to strike a “conciliatory” tone instead. But he refused to take their advice.Platner was accused of sexual assault by Jenny Racicot, a 41-year-old Maine resident who dated him on and off for two years, in a Politico article published on Monday. She alleged that the former Marine drunkenly entered her home uninvited five years ago and forced himself on her even as she asked him to stop. Platner continued to profusely deny these allegations in his resignation video. Blaming the larger political establishment for your rape allegation with an 11-minute long video does not seem particularly gracious. Now Maine’s Democratic Party has until July 27 to pick a candidate—and to try and clean up Platner’s long mess of a campaign.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s lavish spending spree and misuse of government planes has now attracted Republican ire.Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Patel asking for information about his use of FBI jets and the bureau’s purchase of BMW cars, MS NOW reports.“For each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records,” Grassley wrote in his letter.Grassley wrote that while Patel is required to use FBI planes even for personal use, Congress needs the information to make an “independent and objective review.” The senator also asked Patel to explain “why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans.”Grassley has defended Patel in the past against accusations that he misused government resources, telling the press in April that “I’ve never had an FBI director cooperate with me as much as Kash Patel has cooperated with me on my request for information, my request for documents. In fact, most FBI directors have been an impediment to my investigations.”Now, though, Grassley is joining Democrats, such as Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Dick Durbin, who wrote their own letter to Patel Wednesday saying that they “appreciate Chairman Grassley raising these concerns, which mirror those raised repeatedly by House and Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats.”Raskin and Durbin’s letter raises concerns about Patel’s travel as FBI director, referring to an incident last year where the military allowed Patel to snorkel at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii around the wreckage of the USS Arizona, which sank during Japan’s attack on the base in 1941.“Your VIP snorkeling experience in Hawaii was not an isolated incident,” wrote Raskin and Durbin. “You frequently demand special perks on ‘official’ trips around the globe, such as a taxpayer-funded helicopter tour during your multi-country jaunt across East Asia and other recreational activities like jet skiing.”The letter added, “Your jet-setting and the lack of justification for these trips are ‘out of control,’ and the new attaché office you established in Wellington, New Zealand, may have been opened in part to justify a sightseeing trip you took there.” Grassley’s words may mean that Patel will now face bipartisan scrutiny for his actions on the job. In the past, he’s had support from Republicans in Congress, not to mention President Trump. But with the midterm elections approaching, Grassley and others in the GOP could be gearing up for a stronger Democratic presence in Congress that demands more oversight of Trump’s appointments, especially those that like to party on the job.