On Wednesday, Jewish Democrat Rahm Emanuel delivered a speech at Tel Aviv University, where he attacked Israel and their Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declaring that Israel needs to make major changes if it wants to keep America as its top ally. The speech was a topic of conversation Wednesday on CNN's NewsNight with Abby Phillip, and it was used as a vehicle to further bash Netanyahu and Israel. Phillip got the ball rolling by undoubtedly overstating the significance of the speech, and playing a clip of Emanuel. PHILLIP: Tonight, a turning point for mainstream Democrats on U.S.-Israel  relations. Speaking in Tel Aviv, potential Democratic Presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel said that unconditional U.S. support for Israel must end, warning that its leadership has turned into a territorial pariah. EMANUEL: Israel does not have a problem in the Democratic Party. Israel has a problem in America and very specifically a generational problem under 30.... there's a poll out today, Mamdani is more popular with American Jews than your Prime Minister. I want that to sink in. Phillip failed to inform viewers of other results from that AP-NORC poll, which shows that in fact, Israel does mostly have a Democrat problem. Just 20% of Democrats consider U.S. support for Israel "about right", 60% say the U.S. is too supportive. The numbers are reversed for Republicans.  She then threw it to former GOP congressman Peter Meijer who added insightful perspective to the Mamdani findings. MEIJER:  He's (Netanyahu) a very easy person to pin blame on for the consequences post-October 7th ...but 98% of the prosecution of the war would have been the same under any other Israeli government.... So I don't know how much you can read into it. Phillip then gave the floor to a woke Middle East "expert," former ESPN-er Jemele Hill of The Atlantic. HILL: Israel has kind of a narrative issue in this country.... There's a lot of people here who... just feel like.... he (Netanyahu) had one over on the President, and that he was somehow suckered into getting into this conflict. And so people just don't like the idea of Israel running the shots for us and controlling what we do....whether that is one rooted in fact or just one rooted in emotion.... People see the vast amount of money that we're pouring into Israel, and they don't like it. They don't like the idea that we are single-handedly writing blank checks to this country.  Don't tell Hill that we give Israel $3.8 billion per year, a figure that increased to $6.82 billion in 2024, and beyond, , due to the war in Gaza. Jordan and Egypt get $1.5 billion, and since the war, we have given Ukraine $195 billion. Don't worry, Phillip didn't tell her! She also didn't mention that Trump has denied that the Iran war was Netanyahu's idea, which allowed former Biden Senior Advisor Neera Tanden to bring up old, discredited talking points. TANDEN: Marco Rubio, at the beginning of the war, pointed to Israel, that there's been reporting that essentially, Netanyahu talked the President into the in the Situation Room, talked him into this war.... She continued before Scott Jennings briefly interrupted her, making what would oddly be his only contribution to the entire segment. TANDEN: I think the real problem here is that under Netanyahu, Israel has seemed like an aggressor nation and in a way that has undermined support for people. It's really pushing-- JENNINGS: Who was the aggressor on October the 7th, just for the record? TANDEN: Absolutely, Hamas was the aggressor.... This is the reporting, that Netanyahu told the President that the war would be over in two weeks....And I personally think that Israel's role in the war with Iran is actually another reason why so many Democrats have turned against them. In fact, as Netanyahu pointed out Tuesday, to Dana Bash, on CNN's Inside Politics: I've looked at the the Gallup polls.... And you see the decline in support for Israel. And it's several years before the Gaza war took place.... The one correlation you see...is the penetration of TikTok and other social media in the United States. And as the penetration increases, the support for Israel decreases. Of course Phillip did not mention this, and later, after bringing up the issue of increased Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, she made no mention of the fact that the Palestinian Authority, who shares responsibility of the area along with Israel, still pays their people to kill Jews.  Phillips used Emanuel's anti-Israel, anti Netanyahu speech, as an excuse to bash and trash Israel and Netanyahu. This is CNN.

Late on Wednesday, the thoroughly disgraced Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner dropped out of the 2026 midterm race, after a new rape allegation and unfavorable polls surfaced. Even most of the liberal media was done running cover for him and trying to bury his many scandals. Two hours after Platner’s 11-minute dropout announcement video was posted to his campaign’s X account, MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell went on his show The Last Word to spend nearly the full runtime bashing Platner with a passion that, previously, he’d reserved only for Donald Trump. If only he had done this before Platner won the nomination. It was almost impressive how much Platner managed to tick off the elitist media’s old grump: I would love to be reporting to you tonight that Graham Platner looked within himself and in his own words, from the heart, delivered the best speech of his campaign. But that's not what happened tonight. Instead, Graham Platner lied his way out of the Senate race in Maine tonight.    Not gonna lie, it's so refreshing to see old Larry O'Donnell hating on somebody besides Trump Source: @MSNOWNews's @TheLastWord, July 8, 2026 pic.twitter.com/VYLQTLGbJz — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   O’Donnell attacked Platner for being recruited for office by a New York Democrat strategist who previously worked on Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign: That consultant, Morris Katz, described the recruitment of this candidate this way: "'Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was like, this guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,' Katz recalled, of his first meeting with Platner." That will take its place as the stupidest line about American politics said by anyone on the Democratic side of campaigning in this campaign season.    Oh so now they're gonna pretend to notice the Democrat political machine for the first time? pic.twitter.com/At23tXM6V7 — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   He then reiterated his criticism from the previous night about Platner’s false image as a working-class American: The image Graham Platner tried to create nationally was just of a hard working guy struggling with the mortgage payments, struggling with all of the economic pressures that people who just are living paycheck to paycheck have to struggle with. It was never true.  O’Donnell credited the New York Times with doing their “due diligence” on Platner and breaking the story of his intergenerational wealth, when the Free Beacon actually first broke the story months ago.   Um... the @nytimes definitely DIDN'T do their due diligence when it came to corroborating the rape allegations, right? pic.twitter.com/gXxgyQJlu0 — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   As NewsBusters reported yesterday, O’Donnell never bothered to reveal his skepticism on Platner before this latest round of allegations. He supposedly never thought Platner would make it to November, yet he kept his mouth shut through the Reddit posts, sexting, Nazi tattoo, and domestic violence accusations. However, O’Donnell denied the real reason Platner dropped out, accusing Platner of lying about the backstage forces compelling him to quit: O’DONNELL: Graham Platner said that this didn't happen to him because of horrible things he had written in old social media posts, which he never denied, or because he had a Nazi tattoo, which he claimed he had no idea was a Nazi tattoo. So, like, no discussion at all with the tattoo artist about what that was that was going on his chest?  And of course, it wasn't happening, he said tonight, by omission, because of women he knew and dated who accused him of sexual abuse and violence. That had nothing to do with what was happening to him, in Graham Platner's view.  In the Graham Platner lying version of where he is tonight, none of those things or people, none of the words from any of those women in any way brought him down. Instead, it was some dark, large force. [Cut to video] PLATNER: Large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing that a person could do, and it was not remotely true.   He's only half-right. Platner dropped out because he was pushed by the Democrat party, who pretended it was because of his rape allegations when it was also very much about his falling poll numbers. Same old Biden-style switcheroo. pic.twitter.com/OuQJ2kmqem — Cici Marie (@Cici_Marie_1776) July 9, 2026   O’Donnell was half-right. The scandals, which have been mounting for months now, certainly played a role in forcing Platner’s hand. But the final straw was the Democratic Party establishment pulling their support and money. All they had to do was pretend to suddenly grow a moral backbone, and they could have themselves a new, hopefully less problematic, Senate candidate. All the Democrats care about is winning. That’s why they didn’t force Platner to drop when the revelations about his Nazi tattoo or domestic violence came out. Their media did their best to paint him as a redeemed man, the embodiment of healthy masculinity. But when that didn’t work, they waited until Platner was down in the polls to stab him in the back and let his campaign die. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 7/8/26 10:01:57 P.M. Eastern (...) LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: And so, I would love to be reporting to you tonight that Graham Platner looked within himself and in his own words, from the heart, delivered the best speech of his campaign. But that's not what happened tonight.  Instead, Graham Platner lied his way out of the Senate race in Maine tonight.  He issued an 11-minute online video statement recorded today, full of self-pity, completely absent of any word of apology to anyone, and blaming everyone he could think of for the collapse of his campaign except himself.  He began by saying that everything we have heard and read from women who accuse him of sexual abuse is a lie. [Cut to video] GRAHAM PLATNER: Hey everyone, it's Graham Platner here. I think as many of you know, over the past couple of days, I have faced some very serious allegations. And I just want to make it clear this is all false. The things that have been claimed did not happen. It's not real.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: It then seemed that he was going to tell the story of how his political campaign began.[Cut to video] PLATNER: Amy and I are regular people. We were not looking for this experience. We were not looking to get into politics. We had no desire to run for office.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: But that was the end of the story of how he decided to become a candidate. He didn't tell that story.  He left out the fact that he was recruited to run for Senate in the state of Maine by a 27-year-old political consultant who has lived his entire life in New York City, having been born and raised in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Manhattan.  That consultant, Morris Katz, described the recruitment of this candidate this way: "'Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was like, this guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,' Katz recalled, of his first meeting with Platner."  That will take its place as the stupidest line about American politics said by anyone on the Democratic side of campaigning in this campaign season.  Graham Platner complained about a corporate media system and the political establishment conspiring against him. Much of the corporate media he is complaining about delivered admiring coverage of his campaign to the entire country, thereby helping him raise money all over the country.  The New York Times, no doubt, is part of what Graham Platner considers the corporate media, and it was the New York Times that did due diligence on Graham Platner and reported to its readers that he was born a rich kid in a family of intergenerational wealth, with a rich, famous architect as his grandfather and a rich lawyer as his father, and that his mother, who owns a restaurant in Maine, buys most or all of the oysters that he harvests, and his father, in effect, bought him a house, providing him with a 200,000 dollar mortgage for a house that sold for 205,000 dollars. There is no way of tracking just how much of a struggle Graham Platner has in staying up to date in making mortgage mortgage payments to his father.  The image Graham Platner tried to create nationally was just of a hard working guy struggling with the mortgage payments, struggling with all of the economic pressures that people who just are living paycheck to paycheck have to struggle with. It was never true.  There was only one victim in Graham Platner's statement tonight, and that was, of course, Graham Platner.[Cut to video] PLATNER: We live in a political system that is not built for normal people. 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.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: Tell that to this guy. The only winning political campaign, which Morris Katz has played a significant role in was last year's mayoral election in New York City, where he served as Zohran Mamdani's top strategist. And no one [Zohran] crushed that mayoral campaign. And Zohran Mamdani's political influence has only grown since he won the mayor's election.  Graham Platner said that this didn't happen to him because of horrible things he had written in old social media posts, which he never denied, or because he had a Nazi tattoo, which he claimed he had no idea was a Nazi tattoo. So, like, no discussion at all with the tattoo artist about what that was that was going on his chest? And of course, it wasn't happening, he said tonight, by omission, because of women he knew and dated who accused him of sexual abuse and violence. That had nothing to do with what was happening to him, in Graham Platner's view.  In the Graham Platner lying version of where he is tonight, none of those things or people, none of the words from any of those women in any way brought him down. Instead, it was some dark, large force.[Cut to video] PLATNER: Large forces were working against you personally to accuse you of the worst thing that a person could do, and it was not remotely true.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: "Large forces."  Okay, here is what Zohran Mamdani, whose political movement has not been crushed, said yesterday about Graham Platner:[Cut to video] ZOHRAN MAMDANI: I believe that it's time for him to drop out of the race.  And when it comes to my own endorsements, I've made eight endorsements at the state and federal level. They've all been right here in New York City. I'm incredibly excited at the fact that they won their races, and that's where my focus is for now.  I think the focus of today should be to respond to the gravity of what so many of us have read, and I think that the only appropriate response is for the campaign to come to an end.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: So, according to Graham Platner, he must be part of the large force trying to crush Graham Platner and push him out of the race.  And it's worth noting that Mayor Mamdani, who shares his top political strategist with Platner, never endorsed Graham Platner's campaign.  Graham Platner told this lie about the people who urged him to drop out of the race:[Cut to video] PLATNER: They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next Senator from Maine.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: That is an obvious lie. That is what he looks like when he is lying to you, just boldly lying to you.  Not one Democrat anywhere in Maine or outside of Maine who has called on Graham Platner to leave the race would rather see Susan Collins win. He is lying about that.  They wanted him out of the race because they hope to beat Susan Collins in November, and that Graham Platner would have to leave the race, in their view, at this point in order to do that.  But when you are committed to a self-centered, lying version of what is happening here, that is the kind of lie that Graham Platner is willing to throw at people who chose to support him, people who know that's a lie, including United States Senators who chose to endorse him and who then called on him to leave the race.  Graham Platner said he's not trying to dictate who the next Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine should be:[Cut to video] PLATNER: I'm not trying to dictate to anyone who it should be or how we get there, but I will say this: it needs to be open, transparent and democratic. It needs to be reflecting the will and the values of the people that built this movement, the people that showed up on June 9th. People in D.C. need to stay in D.C.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: That sounds good to me, "People in D.C. need to stay in D.C." But Graham Platner sure didn't think that when this guy, Bernie Sanders, came up from D.C. to endorse him. And now, every single person, every Senator, every House member who made the trip from D.C. to endorse and campaign for Graham Platner in Maine has already called for him to drop out of the race. They did that yesterday.  And so we have to wonder, who wrote that line, "People in D.C. need to stay in D.C.?" And one reason to wonder is that Morris Katz flew from New York City today to Maine to help Graham Platner prepare his exit statement tonight. So, who wrote that line?  And so, does Graham Platner think that people in New York should stay in New York? Because he sure didn't think that when he began his campaign at the urgings of that New York City political operative who flew to Maine today to help him.[Cut to video] PLATNER: We are suspending campaign operations. This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it's an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not. We're not doing it because of the allegations. We're doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: "We're not doing it because of the allegations." So, he's not dropping out because of anything any woman has ever said about him.  He's doing it because of those evil people in power, people like Zohran Mamdani, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, people who have been advocating for the policy positions that Graham Platner took from them to use in his campaign for, in Bernie Sanders's case, decades before Graham Platner was even born.[Cut to video] PLATNER: All we were asking for was health care, was the end of genocide. To use our taxpayer dollars at home to uplift our communities instead of waging war overseas. We were asking for a fairer system. We were asking for an end to the corruption, the end to the money in politics. We were asking for real democracy.[Cut back to live] O'DONNELL: Yeah, no one has ever asked for that before. No one's ever campaigned on anything like that before. So that campaign had to be crushed.  Bernie Sanders is a Senator from Vermont. You can - you could, if you wanted to, walk from Maine to Vermont, wouldn't take that long, walking across New Hampshire, especially at the Northernmost point, and find a Senator who's been campaigning on those things for all of Graham Platner's life.  But Graham Platner pretended tonight that without him, we never would have heard any of those ideas, all of which were lifted directly from Bernie Sanders and from many other Democratic elected officials all over the country.  There wasn't a single original idea in the Platner campaign, not one. Graham Platner, who has been paying attention to politics for all of a year now, decided to lecture the people who have the horrible job, now, the horrible duty to clean up after his mess. He decided to lecture our first guest tonight and all of the other people who were going to have to step in now and fix all of this, the mess that Graham Platner created, and do it in a hurry. (...)

Republican lawmakers in Washington and California have written to their states' Democrat governors, urging them to protect their citizens from increased gas taxes. Washington state Republican senators sent a letter to Democrat Governor Bob Ferguson requesting that he call a special legislative session to pause two climate initiatives, arguing that they increase gas prices by as much as 60 cents a gallon. In the letter sent Tuesday, nine Republican state senators allege that two climate programs, the cap-and-trade carbon tax and the “so called” low-carbon fuel standard, have resulted in a 60-cent per gallon price increase in the state: “Governor, we believe the Democratic cap-and-trade carbon tax is adding around $0.55 to the cost of every gallon of gas. The so called low-carbon fuel standard program is now adding another $0.05, for a total carbon-tax impact of $0.60/gal on Washingtonian’s gas costs.” These Republicans are not alone in calling out the effects of climate policies on gas affordability. A few weeks ago, anticipating California’s scheduled gas tax increase, California’s Republican Congressional delegation asked Democrat Governor Newsom to suspend that increase. In their letter, Republicans allege a total surcharge of $1.15 a gallon due to California’s climate policies. State and local taxes, along with regulatory programs such as the LCFS, Cap and-Trade, and the State Underground Storage Tank Program, are significant contributors to these elevated costs, collectively adding approximately $1.15 per gallon, or roughly 20 percent of the total price. The Washington letter, while not calling for a pause to the state’s general gas tax, comes amid the first installment of a perpetual annual two percent increase in the state’s gas tax. Last year, Governor Ferguson signed SB 5801, a law mandating a two percent yearly increase in the state’s gas tax, to begin July 1, 2026, without a scheduled end date. On July 1, Washington’s gas tax rose from 55.4 to 56.5 cents per gallon in accordance with it. At the time, Republican State Representative Ed Orcutt offered an amendment to remove that part of the bill, though it was voted down in Committee by a voice vote. In that hearing, Orcutt voiced the public’s opposition to the bill: “[T]ime and time again, people have said ‘no we don’t want an automatic inflator in there, we want the legislature to come back and make the case, make the arguments each time they wish to raise this, so that the public has a chance to weigh in.’” Gas prices in Washington have become so onerous that many drivers in Eastern Washington are resorting to filling their tanks in Idaho, recording great savings. Roughly one in four bus drivers from Spokane's East Valley School District travel across the border into Idaho to fill up on diesel, according to that district’s interim transportation director, Michelle Monzingo, as reported in The Chronicle. According to reporting from the same source, one bus saved around $100 on a 55-gallon fill-up by going across the border.  AAA data Friday puts Idaho’s diesel price at $4.669 a gallon, while recording Washington’s at $5.681 per gallon. A 100-gallon tank would therefore take an additional $120 to fill up in Washington, compared to Idaho. 

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Wednesday allowed a Florida lawsuit accusing the American Academy of Pediatrics and other defendants of misleading the public about transgender procedures to proceed.  Florida’s lawsuit, filed in December 2025, alleges that the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with the World Professional Organization of Transgender Medicine and the Endocrine Society, violated Florida laws prohibiting deceptive and unfair trade practices and racketeering.  Among its lawsuit’s specific claims are that these organizations misled the public about the evidence for the efficacy of transgender medicine and falsely argued that puberty blockers were reversible: “Defendants have made false and misleading representations and omissions about the safety, reversibility, and efficacy of sex interventions in Florida and St. Lucie County in particular through many mediums, including their websites, publications, and public statements, and through their members. “Specifically, Defendants continue to falsely advertise that: (1) there is credible evidence demonstrating that sex interventions mitigate gender dysphoria and suicidality, (2) puberty blockers are fully reversible, and (3) their guidelines are ‘evidence-based.’” The lawsuit also alleges that these organizations prey upon the vulnerable for profit: “Defendants’ reprehensible and immoral actions capitalize on the mental distress of children—as well as the natural affections and fears their parents—to help their members sell lucrative surgeries and drugs that irreversibly mutilate and chemically alter children’s bodies without providing any credible medical benefit.” In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) sued the Florida Attorney General in federal court, denying the original allegations, and alleging in turn that the original suit was purely political in nature and an attempt to deny it of its first amendment rights: “Unable to prevail in the marketplace of ideas, the AG is abusing the powers of his office to impose state-sanctioned medical orthodoxy.” …. “In filing the Retaliatory Action, the AG crossed from permissible political activity into unconstitutional, coercive use of state power against AAP.” Northern Illinois Federal District court last June placed an injunction against the Florida legal proceedings, pausing them until AAP’s federal suit was resolved. On Wednesday, the 7th Circuit lifted the injunction, allowing Florida to proceed in its original lawsuit. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier celebrated the decision on X:  “CA7 Saw right through the Chicago-based district court’s attempt to stop our lawsuit against AAP for their deception on the safety of mutilating procedures on kids and removed every barrier the court tried to put up.” “This is a huge win for states’ rights and parents’ ability to protect their child!” Indiana Attorney General Todd Ritka agreed in a separate post on X.

“This Is Today’s Democrat Party,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) warned Thursday, sharing video of comments by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members revealing their plans for America. In a post on X.com, Sen. Cruz shared a video posted by Canary Mission, an organization that “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” “DSA members make it clear what their goal is: destroying America,” Canary Mission introduces its video on X. In the video, DSA-San Francisco’s Hazel Williams calls for overthrowing the country through “revolutionary struggle”: "Imperialism is, U.S. imperialism is not a thing that can be reformed away. It has to be overthrown through revolutionary struggle." DSA-Seattle’s Amy Wilhelm also called for overthrowing the U.S. – by ensuring its “entire failure”: “Our goal ultimately is to facilitate our own entire failure in the ways that we can. Ultimately to overthrow our own empire.” "The most important thing we can do is take that (American) empire down from within," DSA-Los Angeles member Frances Gill says in the video. DSA-Portland’s Sarah Anastasia Milner calls for building “a mass movement that can use the leverage of workers to hit the kill switch on American imperialism here within the American empire.” According to Canary Mission’s website, Hazel Williams has called for the destruction of America as a leader in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and is a supporter of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. The website’s profile of Amy Wilhelm reports that she “has expressed support for Hamas terrorism, promoted hatred of the police, spread anti-Semitism and called for the destruction of Israel.” Likewise, Frances Gill has “spread hatred of America and the police, promoted hatred of Israel and Zionists and engaged in anti-Israel activism, as a leader in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA),” according to Canary Mission. Milner is listed as a member of DSA’s 2025-2027 National Political Committee (NPC) and has echoed the sentiments of Williams, Wilhelm and Gill. This is today’s Democrat party. https://t.co/VvCtquIjvz — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 9, 2026