🇬🇧 **British Queen approves Brexit law that will end membership of EU**
🇬🇧 *Business Insider ᵁᴷ* - <http://archive.li/Vzezs>

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth granted royal assent to Prime Minister Theresa May's flagship Brexit legislation on Tuesday, ending months of debate over the legislation that will formally end the country's European Union membership.

The House of Commons speaker John Bercow said the EU withdrawal bill, passed by both houses of parliament last week, had been signed into law by the monarch, to cheers from Conservative lawmakers.

"I have to notify the House in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967 that her Majesty has signified her royal assent to the following acts ... European Union Withdrawal Act 2018," Commons Speaker John Bercow told lawmakers during a session of the house.
┅┅┅┅┅

🇺🇸 **Supreme Court deals sharp defeat to public employee unions, banning mandatory fees**
*LA Times* - <https://archive.li/NdWtU>

By a 5 to 4 vote, the justices overturned a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that the 1st Amendment protects these employees from being required to support a private group whose views may differ from theirs. The decision, in Janus vs. AFSCME, strikes down laws in California, New York and 20 other mostly Democratic-leaning states that authorize unions to negotiate contracts that require all employees to pay a so-called fair share fee to cover the cost of collective bargaining.

In 1977, when public sector unions were getting established, the high court said teachers and other public employees may not be forced to pay full union dues if some of the money went for political contributions. But the justices upheld the lesser fair share fees on the theory that all of the employees benefited from a union contract and its grievance procedures.

But today’s more conservative court disagreed and said employees have a right not to give any support to a union. These payments were described as a form of “compelled speech” which violates the 1st Amendment. The anti-union National Right to Work Foundation, which funded the challenge, predicted the ruling would free more than 5 million public employees from supporting their unions.

For the unions, which traditionally support Democrats, the ruling will mean an immediate loss of some funding and a gradual erosion in their membership. Union officials fear that an unknown number of employees will quit paying dues if doing so is entirely optional. The ruling is likely to have a political impact in many states where these unions have been strong supporters of the Democratic Party.
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🇺🇸 **Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy says he's retiring; Trump to get 2nd high-court pick**
*Chicago Tribune* - <http://archive.is/5qxis>

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday he is retiring, giving President Donald Trump the chance to cement conservative control of the high court.

The 81-year-old Kennedy said he is stepping down after more than 30 years on the court. A Republican appointee, he has held the key vote on such high-profile issues as abortion, affirmative action, gay rights, guns, campaign finance and voting rights.

Without him, the court will be split between four liberal justices who were appointed by Democratic presidents and four conservatives who were named by Republicans. Trump's nominee is likely to give the conservatives a solid majority and will face a Senate process in which Republicans hold the slimmest majority, but Democrats can't delay confirmation.

Trump's first high court nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed in April 2017.
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⚠ **FEDS REMOVING COMMIES FROM PORTLAND ICE HQ LIVESTREAM!!!**
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/federal-cops-move-in-on-ice-protest-in-sw-portland/283-568461821
Aerial helicopter view
https://www.periscope.tv/w/1dRJZgozjOVxB?autoplay=true&q=portland
Periscope
https://twitter.com/BreakingNews/status/1012323513510825984

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🇺🇸 ** Massive data leak could affect nearly all American adults, security researcher says **
*The Mercury News* - <https://archive.li/GBgXT>

Exactis, a Florida-based marketing and data-aggregation firm, leaked detailed information on individual adults and businesses, a security researcher says. While the exact number of individuals affected isn’t known, the leak involved about 340 million records on a publicly available server. No evidence has surfaced that anyone with malicious intent actually obtained the Exactis data. That makes it different from the Equifax hack, which was a cyberattack on the company’s data.

“It seems like this is a database with pretty much every U.S. citizen in it,” Troia, who’s also founder of New York-based security company Night Lion Security, told Wired, which also asked Troia to look up names in the database and confirmed the authenticity of some of the information, although some of it was outdated. “I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen.”

Troia told Wired he was curious about the security of ElasticSearch, which the magazine described as “a popular type of database that’s designed to be easily queried over the internet using just the command line.” When he did a search on the database, he found the Exactis database, which was unprotected. He said he also told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his findings.

If the Exactis numbers are accurate, this leak would make it one of the biggest data security breaches in a while, topping last year’s Equifax breach and the number of Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal, which according to Facebook was up to 87 million.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters**
💩 *WaPoo* - <http://archive.is/S6SCc>

The gathering at a park gazebo in Huntsville, Ala., was by no means the largest of Saturday’s nationwide protests against President Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policies, though it was memorable for other reasons.

It began around noon, as an Episcopal priest delivered a prayer to about 100 protesters gathered around the gazebo and a man marched back and forth in front of her, shouting “womp, womp!”

This was not the man’s only message. He held a sign above his head on which was written “ICE ICE Baby,” and he occasionally shout-sang the notes of a hip-hop song by the same name over the prayer.

A Huntsville police spokesman said the man — identified as 34-year-old Shane Ryan Sealy — pushed one of the protesters, who pushed him back and knocked him to the ground, at which point Sealy allegedly produced the weapon.

A former high school teacher, according to AL.com, he was initially arrested for possessing a gun within 1,000 feet of a protest. But he would later be booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of menacing and reckless endangerment.
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🦅 **24 alleged MS-13 members facing federal indictment for violent racketeering, murder and money laundering conspiracies**
*ICE* - <https://archive.fo/G1tZY>

A federal grand jury has returned a third superseding indictment charging twenty-four alleged members and associates of the gang MS-13. The indictment was returned on June 26, 2018 and unsealed yesterday.

United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert K. Hur stated “MS-13 is one of the most violent and ruthless gangs on the streets today. Working with our state and local partners, and using the tools of our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, we are determined to dismantle this organization to make our communities in Maryland safer.”

“MS-13 is ravaging communities throughout the United States with brutal violence, recruiting children to their murderous ranks, destroying families, and leaving behind countless victims,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Cronan. “This indictment — which charges two dozen alleged MS-13 members with senseless acts of violence — is the latest example of the Department of Justice’s unwavering commitment to combatting violent gangs that prey on communities, whether in Maryland or elsewhere in our country.”

The six-count indictment alleges that from 2015 and continuing through 2017, MS-13 members and associates engaged in racketeering activity that included murders, conspiracies to commit murder, attempted murders, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

The maximum sentence for the racketeering conspiracy is 20 years in prison, or up to life if special circumstances are proven; a maximum of 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering; and a maximum of 20 years in prison for money laundering conspiracy. Initial appearances for the defendants began on June 27, 2018, in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
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<:joye:384631689613148160> **'20 pounds of human waste' dropped on San Francisco street corner**
*SF Gate* - <https://archive.fo/xHq7B>

A foul odor permeated from a massive bag of human excrement sludge left on a street corner in San Francisco's Tenderloin district Saturday.

The horrendous smell and sight quickly gained notoriety when a Reddit user posted a screen shot of a report made to San Francisco's Citizen app for identifying crimes.

"Twenty pounds of feces dumped onto sidewalk," the report called out.

Nancy Alfaro, a spokesperson for 311, says three reports of the human waste at the corner of Cedar and Polk were made to the city's customer service number and app on Saturday.

"The customers did report a large amount of waste," Alfaro says. "It was sent to Public Works."

Alfaro says while reports of human waste are common, this large of an amount is "not typical."

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🇺🇸 **Walmart pulls controversial 'Impeach 45' clothing from website after harsh feedback**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.li/68X45>

Walmart has pulled the the controversial anti-Trump “Impeach 45” apparel from its website after receiving harsh feedback online.

The outcry sparked a #BoycottWalmart trend on Twitter as users expressed their distaste for the chain promoting the impeachment of President Trump, echoing some Congressional Democrats.

Ryan Fournier, chairman of the group Students for Trump, was one of the first to discover Walmart was selling the clothing item, according to the International Business Times. He asked the company in a tweet, “What kind of message are you trying to send?”

"These items were sold by third party sellers on our open marketplace, and were not offered directly by Walmart. We’re removing these types of items pending review of our marketplace policies," a Walmart spokesperson told Fox News.

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🇺🇸 **Trump administration is breaking from Obama-era affirmative action policies**
*Fox News* - <https://archive.li/NhALf>

The Trump administration is doing away with a series of affirmative-action policy documents put in place under former President Barack Obama that encourage colleges and universities to use race in admissions processes to promote campus diversity.

The guidelines, implemented under Obama between 2010 and 2016, put forth legal recommendations that officials in the Trump White House say “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows,” according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration contends that the Obama-era guidelines go far beyond what the Supreme Court has decided on in regard to affirmative action. The court has ruled that colleges and universities can use affirmative action to help minority students get into school, but conservatives over the years have argued that these programs hurt the chances of white and Asian-American applicants.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited “improper rulemaking.” He said, “The American people deserve to have their voices heard and a government that is accountable to them. When issuing regulations, federal agencies must abide by constitutional principles and follow the rules set forth by Congress and the President. In previous administrations, however, agencies often tried to impose new rules on the American people without any public notice or comment period, simply by sending a letter or posting a guidance document on a website. That’s wrong, and it’s not good government.”
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🦅 **Happy 4th of July**

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🇪🇺 **European Parliament rejects controversial copyright rules in major victory for campaigners**
*Independent* - <https://archive.fo/v2AsG>

The European Parliament has voted against an incredibly controversial new set of copyright rules that campaigners claim could "ban memes".

The law will now be sent for a full reconsideration and debate inside the parliament, during which activists will try and remove the controversial Article 11 and 13.

Article 11 has been referred to by campaigners as instituting a "link tax", by forcing tech companies like Google and Facebook to pay to use snippets of content on their own sites. Article 13 adds rules that make tech companies responsible for ensuring any copyrighted material is not spread over their platforms.

Those rules could force technology companies to scan through everything their users post and check it doesn't include copyrighted material. If it is found, the post will be forced to be removed, which campaigners claim could destroy the kind of memes and remixes that spread across the internet.
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🇺🇸 **Teen attacked at Whataburger for wearing 'Make America Great Again' hat**
<http://archive.is/Y5T8W>

Police are investigating after a teen says he was verbally attacked and assaulted at a Whataburger for wearing a Make America Great Again hat.

In the video, you can see a man throw a drink in 16-year-old Hunter Richard's face before leaving the restaurant with his hat. Hunter said some of his hair was pulled during the assault.

"I support my President and if you don’t let’s have a conversation about it instead of ripping my hat off. I just think a conversation about politics is more productive for the entire whole rather than taking my hat and yelling subjective words to me," he said.

Hunter was with his friends at the Whataburger off Nacogdoches and Thousand Oaks Tuesday night when it happened. They say the attack was unprovoked.
https://twitter.com/brxpug/status/1014417257945018368

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🇺🇸 **Ringleader given 8 years in prison for beating teen with disability in attack livestreamed on Facebook**
*Chicago Tribune* - <https://archive.fo/KtYDl>

The accused ringleader in the racially charged beating of a teen with mental disabilities last year was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday. The case drew national outrage when the attackers livestreamed video of the attack on Facebook.

Jordan Hill, 20, pleaded guilty to one count each of a hate crime and aggravated kidnapping, becoming the third of four defendants to admit wrongdoing. An attorney for the remaining defendant, Tesfaye Cooper, 20, indicated in court Thursday his client is considering a plea deal as well.

Prosecutors on Thursday painted Hill as the instigator of the attack, saying he led the 18-year-old victim to the apartment where the incident took place and demanded money from the victim’s mother in exchange for his return.

Video posted in January 2017 shows the four defendants — all African-American — cutting the white victim’s scalp with a knife, punching and kicking him and laughing as he was bound and gagged in an apartment on Chicago’s West Side.

The gruesome video drew condemnation, including by then-President Barack Obama. Right-wing pundits used it as a rallying cry, tying it without evidence to the Black Lives Matter movement and blaming permissive policing.

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⚠ **Scott Pruitt Resigns from EPA**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1014956568129892352

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🇺🇸 **Trump nominates Brett Kavanaugh to Supreme Court**
*AP* - <http://archive.fo/r9zKU>

President Donald Trump is nominating influential conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as he seeks to shift the nation’s highest court further to the right.

Trump chose the 53-year-old federal appellate judge for the seat opened up by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh would be less receptive to abortion and gay rights than Kennedy was.

Kavanaugh is Trump’s second high court pick after Justice Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch served as law clerks to Kennedy at the same time early in their legal careers.

Kavanaugh is a longtime fixture of the Republican legal establishment. He has been a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington since 2006. He also was a key aide to Kenneth Starr during his investigation of President Bill Clinton and worked in the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency.
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🏳️‍🌈 **Study finds health risks for transgender women on hormone therapy**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/Zscha>

Transgender women on hormone therapy may be at a higher risk for cardiovascular problems, such as stroke, blood clots and heart attack, researchers reported Monday.

The study was done by reviewing eight years of medical records of nearly 5,000 transgender patients in the Kaiser Health system, and looked at patients over the age of 18 who took hormones for gender transition. Over 97,000 cisgender patients — people whose sex assigned at birth matches their gender identity — with similar age and health characteristics were studied for comparison.

“This is the largest study of the health of transgender individuals on hormone therapy ever done,” Dr. Darios Getahun, an author of the study and research scientist at Kaiser Permanente, told NBC News. “Doctors and patients need to be aware of the possibility for increased health risks for transgender women.”

The study found that transgender women, who are assigned the male sex at birth, were twice as likely as cisgender men or women to have the blood clot condition venous thromboembolism. Transgender women on hormone therapy were also found to be 80 to 90 percent more likely to have stroke or a heart attack than cisgender women.
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🇺🇸 **Trump pardons Oregon ranchers at center of 40-day standoff**
*The Hill* - <http://archive.is/H9P9k>

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned a pair of Oregon ranchers whose arson conviction became a focus for opponents of federal government land ownership.

Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son Steven, 49, were convicted in 2012 and sent to prison on arson charges. They had set a series of fires on their ranch that spread to federal land.

The Hammonds’ case became the inspiration for the 40-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The organizers wanted to protest federal land ownership.

The Hammonds distanced themselves from the occupiers and didn't endorse the action.
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<:ancap:280811320541052940> **The Government Will Allow Cody Wilson's Defense Distributed to Distribute Gun-Making Software**
*Reason* - <http://archive.is/S1shv>

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the Second Amendment Foundation and Defense Distributed, a collective that organizes, promotes, and distributes technologies to help home gun-makers. Under the agreement, which resolved a suit filed by the two groups in 2015, Americans may "access, discuss, use, reproduce or otherwise benefit from the technical data" that the government had previously ordered Defense Distributed to cease distributing.

Before this, the feds had insisted that Defense Distributed's gun-making files violate the munitions export rules embedded in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Defense Distributed's suit claimed that this was was "censorship of Plaintiffs' speech," since the files in question consist of computer code and thus counted as expression. It also argued that "the ad hoc, informal and arbitrary manner in which that scheme is applied, violate the First, Second, and Fifth Amendments." (The Second because the information in the computer files implicates weapons possession rights.)

Wired also speculates that the settlement is some sign of a Trump administration bending over backwards to satisfy a Second Amendment constituency. Alan Gura, one of the lawyers on the plaintiffs' side—and the attorney who won both 2008's Heller case and 2010's McDonald, two major Supreme Court victories for gun rights—disagrees, noting the administration's record in other ongoing Second Amendment cases.

-
*tl;dr*
>Significantly, the government expressly acknowledges that non-automatic firearms up to .50-caliber—including modern semi-auto sporting rifles such as the popular AR-15 and similar firearms—are not inherently military.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Antifa tries to blockade Portland ICE HQ again but got smoked**
https://twitter.com/pdxlawgrrrl/status/1017176379056517120
https://twitter.com/Braidsoffury423/status/1017083464481308672
https://youtu.be/uhWe44a7Yjc

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music to my ears

🇺🇸 **Stormy Daniels arrested at Ohio strip club. Her attorney calls it a setup.**
*CNN* - <https://archive.fo/BWZjS>

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels was arrested early Thursday at an Ohio strip club for allegedly touching patrons on stage in violation of state law.

Daniels, who gained notoriety after suing President Donald Trump following an alleged affair, faces three misdemeanor counts of illegally touching a patron and will be arraigned Friday morning, court records show. She posted a $6,054 bail and was released Thursday morning.

Daniels will plead not guilty to the three misdemeanor charges, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted. Avenatti said his client was taken into custody while performing at a strip club in Columbus.

Under Ohio law, an employee who regularly appears nude or seminude is prohibited from touching patrons on the premises of a sexually oriented business -- unless it's a family member.
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🇺🇸 **Trump releases letter from Kim Jong-Un**
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1017446575474335744/photo/1

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🇰🇵 **N. Korea announces amnesty to celebrate 70th founding anniversary **
*YONHAP/KCNA* - <https://archive.fo/aKF7k>

North Korea plans to implement a general amnesty next month before celebrating its 70th founding anniversary on Sept. 9, Pyongyang's media said Monday.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that amnesty will be granted to those who were convicted of crimes against the country and people on the occasion of the North's 70th founding anniversary.

The amnesty will take effect on Aug. 1, the report said, noting the cabinet and relevant organs will take practical measures to help the released people settle down to a normal working life.

In this regard, the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly promulgated a decree on July 12, the KCNA said.

According to a full text carried by the Rodong Sinmun on the same day, the decree said it is the intrinsic demand of a Korean-style socialist system and the consistent principle of state activities to protect the independent and creative life of the popular masses and make selfless, devoted efforts for them by thoroughly applying the people-first principle.

The North last carried out a general amnesty in 2015 in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula's liberation from Japan's colonial rule and the founding of the Workers' Party.
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🇺🇸 **Illegal Immigrant BEHEADS 13-Year-Old Special Needs Girl, Murders Grandmother, Officials Say**
*Daily Wire* - <http://archive.is/9Ti0V>

Alabama law enforcement officials say that an illegal immigrant and an immigrant in the United States on a green card are responsible for the brutal murders of a grandmother and her 13-year-old special needs granddaughter in what investigators say is violence related to Mexican drug cartels.

The grandmother, 49-year-old Oralia Mendoza, was allegedly connected to the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel which is widely considered to be the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world.

Authorities say that Mendoza and Aguilar lived together and were dating and that she had dated Palomino in the past.

He also found a text message sent to an unknown woman during the Georgia drug run, investigators said. In that text, Mendoza asked the woman to pick up her granddaughter from Palomino's wife because she was afraid for their lives, they said. After discovering the text message, Palomino and Aguilar allegedly woke up Mendoza during the night and told her that they were taking her and her granddaughter to somewhere safe, investigators said.

The two men then reportedly took her to a cemetery where she began to argue with Palomino who then stabbed her and left her there to die. The two men then took the granddaughter to a separate location where they allegedly decapitated her.

Several days after the murders, authorities had Aguilar and Palomino in custody. Aguilar allegedly confessed to the crimes.
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another set of doctors and lawyers from mexico.

<:trump:284711336934375425> **Watch: Man kicked out of Trump-Putin press conference**
https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1018875039201026054

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🇺🇸 **National Guard deployment led to more than 10,000 additional arrests of illegal immigrants, says CBP**
*Wash Ex* - <http://archive.is/2GqQv>

The National Guard's deployment to the southwest border in mid-April has led to an additional 10,805 "deportable alien arrests" of people who illegally entered the United States from Mexico, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said Monday.

Because guardsmen are military personnel and not law enforcement officers, they cannot apprehend illegal immigrants. But CBP officers and Border Patrol agents apprehended thousands of additional people that guardsmen helped point out.

The National Guard's presence also helped lead to the interception of more than 3,300 others who were turned back before they crossed into the U.S., CBP press secretary Corry Schiermeyer said in an email to the Washington Examiner. The Guard's deployment has also led to an additional 11,686 pounds of marijuana being seized as a result of their work.

Troops are providing support from the air, surveillance backup, and assistance with infrastructure projects like vegetation clearing and road maintenance, not including border wall construction. Another task is to specifically free up agents to leave their desks and get back out to the field. The troops monitoring remote video surveillance systems have then been able to report sightings to a greater field of agents, and thus the number of apprehensions has increased, officials said.
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🇺🇸 **'Trump Baby' protest blimp is coming to America**
*NBC News* - <https://archive.fo/2YuyY>

Activists from various states including California, Texas, Louisiana, North Carolina and Utah have already reached out to get involved in the 'Trump Baby' tour.

A GoFundMe page to bring the giant blimp of ‘Baby Trump’ — from the recent protests in the U.K. — to the United States has raised more than $10,000 in just three days, doubling its original goal.

"This effort is our commitment to opposing Donald Trump in any way we possibly can," activist Jim Girvan, the co-creator of the fundraising page, told NBC News. "This is an opportunity to get even a little bit closer and even more annoying to the president."

The 20-foot-tall inflatable orange baby with the face of Donald Trump floated over Britain’s parliament as tens of thousands of protesters took the streets in response to the president’s visit. A failed petition to fly the blimp over Trump's golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, prior to his visit, garnered more than 16,000 signatures.

Girvan and Jimenez plan to do a nationwide tour with the blimp starting in August and are hoping to use the money they raised to create an American-made version, instead of transporting the original one from the U.K.

"Some of the plans we are keeping under wraps, but we are looking at Mar-a-Lago, there will be a Trump Baby flying off of his golf course, because he uses it as a hideaway from his job," Girvan said. "He doesn’t like doing his job, he doesn’t even know how to do his job."
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🇺🇸 Elon Musk calls British diver in Thai cave rescue 'pedo' in baseless attack
The Guardian - http://archive.li/xsydd

Elon Musk came under fire on Sunday after launching an extraordinary attack on a British diver who helped rescue the boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand, baselessly calling him a “pedo” on Twitter and then doubling down.

Twelve boys and their football coach were rescued from the Tham Luang cave complex by an international team and after a week of intense drama.

The chief executive of the tech giant Tesla offered to assist the rescue mission by providing a submarine. The request was turned down. Musk lashed out on Sunday, saying he would make a video proving that his “mini-sub” would have been successful and adding: “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”
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