The State Department has refused to tell even Congress about how it spent taxpayer money on firms that rate the credibility of domestic news outlets, which have been used to dissuade companies from doing business with conservative media. That forced the House Small Business Committee to resort to serving the State Department with a subpoena last week demanding records of payments by the Global Engagement Center, The Washington Examiner reported. The subpoena asked for all GEC grant recipients and sub-recipients, and specifically mentioned NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index, the Atlantic Council, Park Capital Investment Group, and Poynter Institute, which runs Politifact. It also seeks more information about a document called 2023.02.14 GEC-GDI-BLACKLIST.docx, according to the subpoena, which was published by The Examiner. In a letter accompanying the subpoena, committee chairman Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) wrote to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that “The House Committee on Small Business is investigating the U.S. government’s censorship-by-proxy and revenue interference of American small businesses because of their lawful speech.” GEC is a government entity housed at the State Department that was supposed to be focused on propaganda abroad, but has emerged as a central player in attempts to stifle domestic journalism that is deemed “disinformation.” GEC paid GDI, which deemed mainstream, center-right news organizations in the United States to be not credible. Advertisers are under pressure to avoid boycotts from the Left by not associating with news organizations that peddle “misinformation,” and companies rely on third-party ratings organizations like GDI and NewsGuard — also funded by GEC — to determine which those are. GEC also used a cutout called Park Advisors, a group tied to a former State Department employee, seemingly to hide some of its payments which impacted the domestic news marketplace. Neither the State Department nor GEC are allowed to operate on Americans. Yet a GEC platform called Disinfo Cloud, managed by Park Advisors, promoted products designed to suppress so-called disinformation, and GEC even opened up an office in Silicon Valley to allegedly gain influence over U.S. tech firms that control what Americans hear about. Williams wrote in his letter that his committee was seeking “legislative solutions to federal funds being used to demonetize, tarnish, or censor domestic small businesses on the basis of their lawful speech.” “Rather than comply with the Committee’s investigation into and oversight of the GEC’s funding of third parties who engage in these activities, the State Department has, stunningly, provided only two documents totaling 12 pages, with heavy redactions, in the span of one year,” the letter states. House Republicans are considering defunding GEC. The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the state of Texas are suing the State Department, alleging that its promotion of companies that make lists used to put conservative news outlets out of business amounts to a violation of the First Amendment. GDI says it aims to destroy “the incentive to create [disinformation] for the purpose of garnering advertising revenues.” GDI keeps its main blacklist secret, but publicly published its top 10 “riskiest” outlets, which was essentially a list of America’s most prominent and mainstream conservative media publications, including both The Daily Wire and The Federalist, as well as the New York Post, and Reason Magazine. Meanwhile, an advertising trade group, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, is being investigated by the House Judiciary Committee for potentially violating anti-trust laws for similar alleged activity.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has returned a key he received from New York City after admitting he’d beaten ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura following the release of video of the attack. On June 4, New York City Mayor Eric Adams wrote to the 54-year-old disgraced music mogul that he was “deeply disturbed” by what he had witnessed in the 2016 surveillance video before asking for the key back from Combs, the Hollywood Reporter reported. “I strongly condemn these actions and stand in solidarity with all survivors of domestic and gender-based violence,” the letter added. “After internal deliberations, the Key to the City of New York committee recommended nullifying and rescinding Mr. Combs’ key.” Adams’ office confirmed to the outlet that it received the key on June 10 from Combs. In 2023, the music producer was honored with the key to the city during a ceremony in Times Square. Adams presented it to him in recognition of the rapper’s “contributions to music, business and philanthropy.” At the time, Combs called receiving the key to the city “an honor and incredible moment in my life … To Mayor Adams and the city of New York: I promise to keep giving to this city that made me,” People magazine noted.  Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Returns Key to New York City Following Request from Mayor https://t.co/2DPENMj0uE — People (@people) June 17, 2024 In the video of the incident at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles, Combs is seen running down the hall after Ventura and catching up to her as she waits for an elevator. He appears to grab her, throw her on the ground, kick her, and attempt to drag her back to the hotel room, as previously reported.  She slowly gets up and picks up a phone on the wall near the elevator as Combs walks back to the hotel room with her bags. He later returned and appeared to shove her into a corner before sitting on a nearby chair and throwing an object at her. Howard University also revoked Combs’ honorary degree he got in 2014 after the video release, saying in a statement that the music mogul’s behavior in the video was “so fundamentally incompatible with Howard University’s core values and beliefs that he is deemed no longer worthy to hold the institution’s highest honor. The University is unwavering in its opposition to all acts of interpersonal violence.” “The Board has also directed the University administration to immediately take the following actions: terminate a 2016 gift agreement with Mr. Combs, disband the scholarship program in his name, return his $1 million contribution, and terminate a 2023 pledge agreement with the Sean Combs Foundation,” the statement added.  Combs released a statement after the video came out and said that it’s “so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that. I was f***ed up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. And I make no excuses. My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video.” Ryan Saavedra contributed to this piece.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) claimed in her 2022 book that she once performed a miracle, healing a woman with tumors by laying hands on her and praying over her. Bush, who defeated incumbent Rep. William “Lacy” Clay in 2020 and promptly aligned herself with the far left “Squad” — originally Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) — made the claim in her 2022 book, but it went unnoticed until The New York Post’s Jonathan Levine published a piece over the weekend. “As I learned how to apply God’s Word to my life in new ways, I better understood the power that was already residing in me,” Bush wrote in ‘The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America.'” “It was there, waiting for me to acknowledge it, to use it. I had the confidence to heal others with God’s power,” she continued, and went on to give several examples. “One woman whom we met had several visible tumors on her torso. She was due to have surgery but lacked health insurance and living in the park. One of the tumors was particularly painful to her. I laid hands on her and prayed, and I felt that my hand was no longer touching a tumor. It shrank along with the others on her body,” Bush claimed. She also claimed to have cured a toddler who couldn’t walk as the result of a brain bleed shortly after birth: “I carried the child from the prayer room in the back of the church out into the sanctuary … ‘Walk,’ I said gently to the three-year-old girl, ‘you will walk.’ And this girl took her first step. Then another, and another. She walked. Her grandmother walked into the sanctuary just in time to see the child take about two dozen steps. She screamed, and then she kept screaming. When she caught her breath, she looked at me in wonder and said ‘Praise God.’ She grabbed her granddaughter and walked with her out of the church.” According to Levine, Bush’s miracle claims went largely unnoticed despite her book tour — but PBS’ Margaret Hoover did ask her about them. Cori Bush’s claims of performing miracles and shrinking tumors went almost entirely unnoticed during her 2022 book tour — one person who did ask her about it was @MargaretHoover https://t.co/TDaFocI7Xm pic.twitter.com/oT96BUFhOt — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) June 15, 2024 The pastor of Bush’s church claimed to have healed the Congresswoman of COVID in 2021 by praying for her over the phone.

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