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BREAKING: Trump Just Invented a Venezuelan Election Hoax — And This Time, It’s Not About 2020

The BIG lie is coming back. And this time, Trump's using blaming Maduro for helping BIDEN "rig" the election.

Dean Blundell Jan 6

Donald Trump is posting fake videos again.

Not memes. Not hyperbolic screeds. Fabricated “evidence.” Deeply unserious content, presented with deadly seriousness, claiming that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen because Joe Biden paid Venezuela to hack American voting machines — with Nicolás Maduro personally “in on it.”

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I’d LOLZ if I wasn’t intently keen on his intention.

Yes. That Venezuela.
Yes. Those voting machines.
Yes. That lie.

And no — this is not Trump re-litigating the past because he can’t let go. This is not grievance politics or nostalgia for his greatest hit of authoritarian gaslighting.

This is pre-authorization.

This is Trump laying the narrative groundwork to criminalize elections, punish political enemies, and strip legitimacy from any democratic outcome he doesn’t control — starting in 2026 and rolling forward from there.

The lie isn’t the point.
What the lie enables is.

Why This Lie? Why Now?

Trump didn’t pick Venezuela at random.

Venezuela is the perfect villain in the MAGA cinematic universe: foreign, socialist, brown, oil-rich, endlessly demonized, and familiar enough to sound plausible to an audience trained to confuse Fox News graphics with facts.

And then there’s Smartmatic — the voting-technology company Trump world has been lying about for years.

Here’s the inconvenient truth Trump desperately wants you to forget:
Smartmatic was not used in the states Trump claims were “stolen.”
Courts have said this. Repeatedly. Under oath. With evidence.
So convincingly, in fact, that people who pushed these lies are now facing catastrophic legal exposure.

Which is exactly why Trump has escalated.

When facts don’t work, invent video.
When courts don’t cooperate, rewrite reality.
When accountability looms, turn the lie into policy.

This Is Not About 2020

Let’s be absolutely clear:
Trump already lost every meaningful legal challenge over the 2020 election. More than sixty court cases. Republican judges. Conservative states. Trump-appointed officials.

That battle is over.

What Trump is doing now is something far more dangerous: weaponizing the idea of a stolen election to justify future repression.

Because if the public can be convinced that:

• Democrats are foreign-backed,

• Elections are compromised,

• Voting infrastructure is treasonous,

Then anything can be justified in response.

Federal “investigations.”
Political prosecutions.
Seizure of election oversight.
Criminal charges for election officials.
“Emergency” controls in the name of national security.

This is not theory.
It’s a well-worn authoritarian playbook.

The Maduro Distraction

Dragging Nicolás Maduro into this isn’t just lazy propaganda — it’s strategic.

Trump wants a foreign villain he can point to while he dismantles democratic norms at home. Venezuela isn’t the culprit. It’s the permission slip.

By claiming the U.S. was the victim of foreign election warfare, Trump isn’t just denying his loss — he’s reframing democracy itself as a national-security vulnerability.

And once elections are framed as threats, not rights, the solution is always the same:

Control them.
Override them.
Or cancel them outright.

Fake Videos, Real Consequences

The most dangerous part of this moment isn’t the absurdity of the claim — it’s the medium.

Fake videos aren’t meant to convince everyone. They’re meant to radicalize enough people, enough of the time, that reality becomes optional.

By the time courts rule, the damage is done.
By the time journalists debunk, the base is locked in.
By the time accountability arrives, Trump will claim persecution.

This isn’t misinformation.
It’s information warfare, aimed inward.

What Comes Next (If This Isn’t Stopped)

If this narrative sticks — even partially — here’s what follows:

• Calls for DOJ action against political opponents

• Federal “oversight” of state elections

• Criminalization of Democratic Party governance

• Attacks on international election monitors

• The branding of dissent as foreign-aided sabotage

At that point, elections don’t need to be canceled. They just need to be rendered meaningless.

That’s the endgame.

The Media’s COMPLETE F****** Failure

Here’s the most damning part: none of this is new.

Trump has told us who he is, how he operates, and what he intends to do. Over and over again.

But each escalation is still treated as a novelty.
Each lie is covered as content, not threat.
Each warning is softened by false balance and breathless “what does this mean?” panels. Chasing bullshit nuance, not calling this what it really is: a BREATHTAKING lie, built on the staged kidnapping of the President of a foreign country to

We know what it means.

It means the lie is now the policy, and that policy is treated as legitimate. Chasing bullshit, calling it “nuance,” not calling this what it really is: a BREATHTAKING lie, built on the staged kidnapping of the President of a foreign country to change the reality of the American people and the criminality of America’s rapist President.

Final Truth

Donald Trump is not trying to prove the 2020 election was stolen.

He’s trying to ensure the next elections don’t matter.

The fake Venezuela-Smartmatic hoax isn’t about the past.
It’s about authorizing the future.

And if Americans — and the institutions meant to protect them — don’t recognize that in real time, they won’t get another chance to argue about facts later.

Because by then, the lie will already be law.

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—Dean

 

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Where to find the truth?

As we enter the darkness of the Trump regime, it’s more important than ever that we have access to the truth

Robert Reich Nov 29

Friends,

I hope your Thanksgiving Day was peaceful.

Today I’d like to raise a less peaceful question that many of you are asking me: As we enter the darkness of the Trump regime, where can we find trusted sources of information? What and whom can we count on to give us the truth?

I will give you the sources I rely on in a moment, but first let me explain why reliable and independent sources of news are threatened by a growing alliance of oligarchs and authoritarians.

The mainstream media doesn’t use the term “oligarchy” to describe the billionaires who are using their wealth to monopolize information and turn it into propaganda — but it’s the most accurate term, because that’s exactly what’s happening: from Elon Musk’s X to Jeff Bezos’s The Washington Post to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to Vladimir Putin’s worldwide disinformation campaign to Donald Trump’s continuing stream of lies on Truth Social and X.

Even legacy mainstream media — which mostly answer to corporate or billionaire ownership — refrained during the 2024 campaign from reporting how incoherent and bizarre Trump was becoming, normalizing and “sanewashing” his increasingly wild utterances even as it reported every minor slip by Joe Biden.

The New York Times headlined its coverage of the September 2024 presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris — in which Trump bellowed conspiracy theories about stolen elections and Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs — as: “Harris and Trump bet on their own sharply contrasting views of America.”

Trump has called the free press “scum” and the “enemy within.” He has threatened to revoke the licenses of television networks and jail journalists who don’t reveal their anonymous sources. Last month, Trump sued CBS, based on conspiratorial claims that “60 Minutes” made “edits” favorable to Harris for the final cut of its interview with her.

Come January 20, Trump and his billionaire toadies — including Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, Doug Burgum, and Linda McMahon — will control the executive branch of the United States government, and Trump’s MAGA Republicans will be in charge of both chambers of Congress.

Members of the Supreme Court (some of whom, like Clarence Thomas, have been beneficiaries of billionaire gifts) have already signaled their willingness to consolidate even more power in Trump’s hands, immunize him from criminal liability for what he does, and further open the floodgates of big money into American politics.

All of this is sending a message from the United States that liberalism’s core tenets, including the rule of law and freedom of the press, are up for grabs.

Elsewhere around the world, alliances of economic elites and authoritarians similarly threaten public access to the truth, without which democracy cannot thrive.

It’s a vicious cycle: Citizens have grown cynical about democracy because decision-making has become dominated by economic elites, and that cynicism has ushered in authoritarians who are even more solicitous of such elites.

Trump and his lapdogs lionize Viktor Orbán and Hungary’s Fidesz party, which transformed a once-vibrant democracy into a one-party state, muzzling the media and rewarding the wealthy.

Trump’s success is already encouraging Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party in France; Alternative in Germany, or AfD; Italy’s far-right Giorgia Meloni; and radical right-wing parties in the Netherlands and Austria.

Trump’s triumph will surely embolden Russia’s Vladimir Putin — the world’s most dangerous authoritarian oligarch — not only in Ukraine and potentially eastern Europe but also in his worldwide campaign of disinformation to undermine democracies.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk — the world’s richest person, self-described “First Buddy” of Trump, and a linchpin of U.S. space efforts — has been in regular contact with Putin since late 2022.

Evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents used Musk’s X platform to disrupt the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign in favor of Trump. Musk did little to stop them.

During the campaign, Musk himself reposted to his 200 million followers a faked version of Harris’s first campaign video with an altered voice track sounding like the vice president and saying she “does not know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire.” Musk tagged the video “amazing.” It received hundreds of millions of views.

According to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Musk posted at least 50 false election claims on X, which garnered a total of at least 1.2 billion views. None had a “community note” from X’s supposed fact-checking system.

Murdoch, another oligarchic champion of authoritarianism, has turned his Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post into ever-louder outlets of right-wing propaganda, further amplifying Trump’s lies.

Artificial intelligence may make it even easier for oligarchs and demagogues to manipulate the public. Trump has nominated right-wing FCC commissioner and Musk bro Brendan Carr to chair the agency. Don’t expect him to do anything about weaponized disinformation. Carr ranted publicly about NBC featuring Kamala Harris on “Saturday Night Live” during the election.

Bezos barred The Washington Post from endorsing Kamala Harris. Evidently, he didn’t want to raise Trump’s ire because Bezos’s other businesses depend on government contracts. The mere possibility of a Trump presidency forced what had been one of the most courageous newspapers in the U.S. to censor itself. Marty Baron, former editor of the Post, called the move “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty.”

The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked his newspaper’s planned endorsement of Harris as well, prompting the head of the paper’s editorial board to resign. Mariel Garza said she was “not OK with us being silent,” adding: “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up.”

Honest people standing up is precisely what resisting authoritarianism and protecting democracy require — monitoring those in power, acting as watchdogs against abuses of power, challenging those abuses, and sounding the alarm about wrongdoing and wrongful policies.

But how to “stand up” without reliable sources of the truth?

So, as we enter the darkness of the Trump regime, please make sure you and others you know have access to accurate information about what’s occurring.

Here are the sources I currently rely on for the truth: The Guardian, Democracy Now, Business Insider, The New Yorker, The American Prospect, Americans for Tax Fairness, The Economic Policy Institute, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.

Please add in the comments any additional sources you rely on.

 

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Election Day

Joyce Vance Nov 5

Here’s an early prediction: Donald Trump will unilaterally declare victory sometime this evening. He’ll do it no matter what’s going on. He lies about everything—he lied about where Obama was born, he lied about bleach curing Covid, he lied about winning the election in 2020, and he’s lied about Kamala Harris throughout the campaign, including claiming she just “turned black.” It should come as no surprise that he will lie about the outcome of this election.

Trump will lie; he will do it convincingly in the view of his base, more than likely. He will do it without regard for the truth in order to suit his purposes. He makes stuff up, like Monday night when he said there was a 96.2% chance he would win—completely baseless. I know it’s not the prediction you wanted, but we should all be prepared for this. Hopefully the media will be prepared to simultaneously fact-check him as it’s happening.

Some states will have final tallies, or close to them, tonight. Michigan, for instance, has new rules that are designed for a faster count. Others may take a day or longer, including Arizona and Georgia, especially if it’s close. Litigation can also delay results, but as we know from 2020, just because the Trump campaign or the RNC files a case, it doesn’t mean they’ll win. As Marc Elias is quick to point out, he won 61 of 62 cases in 2020, and the one he lost was just an early-stage procedural issue.

We may see certification-resister officials at the county level, like the Georgia cases we’ve been tracking. Some of this could delay results too. But, at least so far, courts have taken a dim view of election deniers who claim that state laws that say they have a mandatory duty to certify election results don’t actually mean that. It may take a court decision or two to get final results in some places. We all want to know the outcome of the election as soon as possible, but just like in 2020, delay doesn’t mean fraud is happening or something else is amiss. It means all of the votes are being counted. No matter what Trump says.

Federal officials continue to be on high alert for the risk of violence at polling places. Again, be cautious as news emerges. There are reports that Russia is circulating disinformation. Wait for confirmation—from credible sources—of anything you hear.

Late Monday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency put out a joint bulletin cautioning that Russia and other foreign interests were using disinformation campaigns to undercut Americans’ confidence in the integrity of the election and stoke divisions. They said they expected to see more of this on election day and after.

We all know the most likely scenarios for how today could unfold. I'm sure you've been playing them over and over in your head, just like I have:

• American women and the men who love them, outraged by Dobbs and Trump’s misogyny, reject a return to second-class citizenship for themselves and their daughters. They turn out and vote in record numbers, especially white suburban women, independents, and centrist Republicans. The polls close, and it's over within hours. It's a romp. Kamala wins by convincing margins. Or,

• It's a virtual dead heat in many of the battleground states. Vote counts go late into the night, but we realize they won't be complete until later in the week when provisional ballots and various types of mail ballots are counted. Or,

• The RNC goes to the mattresses early and an insane number of court challenges crop up in multiple counties, swamping the courts. The country waits in a state of suspended animation while the lawyers do battle.

And so forth.

Lots of possibilities; all just speculation. Let’s wait and see what actually happens.

Today's the day! If you haven't already—if you couldn't in advance, like I can't here in Alabama with its one day of voting—get out and vote. If you know anyone who hasn't, remind them to. Offer them a ride if they need one.

I’ll vote first thing this morning with friends from my neighborhood. Our polling place has been combined with another polling place. Instead of a school, we now vote at a library. It’s a little bit further from our house, but not significantly so. We've been wondering what the lines will be like with the combined precincts. It feels festive, important, and very American to be preparing to vote in this most crucial of all elections.

I’ll keep up with developments and may pop in with a quick post if anything happens while the polls are open. Tonight, we’ll watch the results come in.

In many ways, this campaign has been a form of slow torture. But I have also learned something important in the past few months: We still have what it takes. We are strong. We care deeply about our democracy. We can build community. Of course, that’s not true for everyone. Some people have gone astray and have given in to the allure of easy money, snake oil and a would-be-strongman who gives them permission to blame all of their woes on immigrants and communist-Democrats. But there are enough of us who still care about democracy and about having the ability to live our lives in freedom and with dignity. And we are going to prevail.

We're in this together,

Joyce

FBI Issues WARNING About Vídeo Going VIRAL In MAGA World FAKE VIDEOS!

 

Occupy Democrats

588K subscribers

The FBI and two other major national security agencies just issued an urgent warning about a video that is going viral among the MAGA crowd on social media that every voter MUST be aware of.

POLITICO Nightly: Kamala Harris’ Israel test

 
IT'S TIME TO STOP THE GAZA GENOCIDE!


US ALLIES ARE RECOGNIZING A PALESTINIAN STATE, SEEKING NOT 

ONLY A CEASEFIRE, BUT AN END TO ISRAELI OCCUPATION & END 

TO ILLEGAL WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS. 

CORRUPT NETANYAHU IS PROVOKING EXPANDING WAR TO IRAN 

& LEBANON - THE US CANNOT BE DRAWN INTO ANOTHER ENDLESS 

WAR! 

NETANYAHU HAS BLOCKED HUMANITARIAN AID & MEDICAL SUPPLIES

CAUSING GAZA STARVATION & FAMINE! CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY! 

ISRAEL CONTINUES TO BOMB CIVILIANS, AID WORKERS, HOSPITALS, 

TORTURES & EXECUTES DOCTORS & CIVILIANS, 

DEFENDING WAR CRIMINALS IS NOT MORALLY ACCEPTABLE!

By Calder McHugh Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25. | Pool photo by Kenny Holston GENERATION GAP — The leaders of Israel’s government are unhappy with Vice President Kamala Harris. After Harris skipped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress last week, met with him afterwards, and then commented publicly on the humanitarian toll of the war, they expressed that displeasure. A top Israeli official, briefing reporters anonymously , said that their government has been uncomfortable with her tone and argued that she’s made a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas more difficult. The tonal shift on the issue of Israel from President Joe Biden to a potential Harris presidency is no accident. Since the war on Gaza began, she’s pushed the Biden administration to be more overtly sympathetic to show public concern for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And Israeli officials publicly hammering Harris — even if they choose to do so anonymously — shows that there’s already concern on their side that she won’t be as willing a partner as Biden. Seizing on that criticism, Republicans have focused many of their early attacks on Harris’ campaign on what they argue is her soft support for a major U.S. ally; a cover of The New York Post last week read “ISRAEL LEFT BEHIND,” referring to Harris’ absence from Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Harris’ position on the issue may be a departure from Biden, but it’s far from a left-wing lark. She is voicing what is now essentially the mainstream Democratic position on the issue — increasing public frustration with Netanyahu and a right-wing Israeli government, sympathy for humanitarian conditions in Gaza, pushing for a ceasefire while remaining staunchly committed to providing military aid to Israel. On the occasion of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last week — in which he attacked the U.S. for not providing enough aid or weapons on a timely enough basis — House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi called it “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer refused to shake Netanyahu’s hand in the chamber, pointing later to “serious disagreements” with the prime minister. Earlier this year, Schumer said that Israel had “lost its way” and called for new elections. And Harris was far from the only Democrat not to stick around to hear Netanyahu; around half of congressional Democrats skipped the speech altogether. It is Biden who has been the party outlier in his nearly unwavering support. The president has a longstanding relationship with Israel and its leaders, and regularly cites his 1973 meeting with Golda Meir — a moment from a half-century ago — as one of the most profoundly affecting moments of his life. He hasn’t always been reflexively supportive of Israel — he has clashed with Israeli leaders over settlements in the West Bank. But throughout his political career, Biden has stood out as someone who is distinctly more sympathetic toward Israel than the median Democrat. During the Obama administration, Biden was dispatched regularly to deal with Netanyahu after Obama’s own relationship with the prime minister quickly deteriorated. So, a change in tenor between a potential Harris administration and Biden’s current stance says more about Biden’s unique relationship with Israel than about Harris. In any case, at the moment the differences aren’t dramatic. The party and Harris remain committed to supporting Israel — and have so far advanced a party platform that bucks left-wing critics . Palestinian rights advocates, many of whom believe Harris is a step in the right direction, are still hoping for more from Harris — something that U.S. officials and analysts are not convinced they’ll get . Nevertheless, the current discord between the right-wing Israeli government and Harris might be a sign of what’s to come. The 81-year-old Biden’s veneration of the state — which comes from his memories of conflicts in 1967 and 1973 and his long-held personal relationships with heads of state there — is largely outmoded in modern Democratic politics. In her willingness to antagonize Israel’s government, Harris is simply a reversion to the mean. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmchugh@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh . What'd I Miss? — FBI: Trump has agreed to interview about assassination attempt: Former president Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI about the assassination attempt against him earlier this month, an FBI official told reporters today. Trump’s reported agreement to sit down with investigators comes after he sharply criticized the FBI’s handling of the probe, even calling for FBI Director Christopher Wray — a Trump appointee — to resign. — Biden decries ‘extremism’ on Supreme Court, details plan for term limits, ethics code for justices: President Joe Biden said today that “extremism” on the U.S. Supreme Court is undermining public confidence in the institution and called on Congress to quickly establish term limits and an enforceable ethics code for the court’s nine justices. He also called on lawmakers to ratify a constitutional amendment limiting presidential immunity. Biden, who has less than six months left in his presidency, detailed the contours of his court proposal in an address at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, where he was marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. His calls for dramatic changes in the court have little chance of being approved by a closely divided Congress with 99 days to go before Election Day. ***RETALIATION IS NOT A SOLUTION**** — U.S. shrugs off ‘all-out war’ worries in Middle East: The Biden administration said worries about a wider conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants breaking out are “exaggerated,” even as some Israeli officials signal that fierce retaliation could come soon. Israel and the U.S. have blamed the Lebanon-based militant group for an attack over the weekend that killed a dozen children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah has strongly denied any involvement. On Sunday night, Israel’s security cabinet gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant authorization for a military attack in response. Nightly Road to 2024 RESTORING ROE — Kamala Harris jumped into the presidential race with a broad pledge to “restore reproductive freedom.” The Harris campaign specified today that she’s calling for restoring Roe v. Wade . While many abortion-rights groups are championing her bid for the White House, some activists are frustrated with her position on the issue and plan to keep pushing to go further than President Joe Biden. While progressives hoped she would tack significantly to Biden’s left on an issue they see as pivotal to winning in November, the promise to restore Roe is the latest example of the more moderate path she is taking as the likely presidential nominee compared with her platform when she first ran for the office in 2019. Even as abortion-rights groups embrace her campaign and insist they aren’t surprised by her stance, they argue that restoring Roe has always been the floor and the onus is on activists to push for policies that allow abortions later in pregnancy — and a Congress willing to pass them. ***WATCH OUT FOR FAKE VIDEOS!***** THE POWER TO MISLEAD — A video that uses an artificial intelligence voice-cloning tool to mimic the voice of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she did not say is raising concerns about the power of AI to mislead with Election Day about three months away , reports The Associated Press. The video gained attention after tech billionaire Elon Musk shared it on his social media platform X on Friday without explicitly noting it was originally released as parody. By late Sunday, Musk had clarified the video was intended as satire, pinning the original creator’s post to his profile and using a pun to make the point that parody is not a crime. The video uses many of the same visuals as a real ad that Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, released launching her campaign. But the fake ad swaps out Harris’ voice-over audio with an AI-generated voice that convincingly impersonates Harris. AROUND THE WORLD A protester throws a gas canister back at police after President Nicolas Maduro was declared the election winner in Caracas, Venezuela today. | Cristian Hernandez/AP FORMAL VICTORY — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was formally declared the winner of his country’s disputed presidential election today , a day after the political opposition and the entrenched incumbent both claimed victory in the contest. The National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro’s ruling party, announced his victory, handing him a third six-year term as the leader of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change. The ministers of defense, communications and technology and the head of the National Assembly applauded. There was no immediate comment from the opposition, which had vowed to defend its votes. Opposition leaders planned to hold a news conference later in the day. Within hours, a few thousand Venezuelans began taking to the streets near Caracas’ largest poor neighborhood to protest Maduro’s claim. MELONI GOES TO CHINA — Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed to “relaunch” relations with China during her first visit to Beijing since taking office, announcing that she has signed a three-year plan to deepen cooperation. After meeting Chinese premier Li Qiang on Sunday, Meloni said the trip demonstrated “the will to start a new phase.” According to a statement released by Li’s office, the two countries aim to increase “mutually beneficial cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises in the fields of shipbuilding, aerospace, new energy, artificial intelligence.” *****LEBANON**** GROUNDED — Airlines suspended routes and canceled flights to Beirut today amid fears of a full-blown war between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Germany’s national airline Lufthansa said it had suspended five routes to and from the Lebanese capital until August 5 out of “an abundance of caution,” with its subsidiaries Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings following suit. Turkish Airlines, Greek carrier Aegean Airlines, Ethiopian Air and Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines also reportedly canceled flights due to land in Beirut on Sunday and today. *****TURKEY**** ESCALATING RHETORIC — Turkey’s leader is threatening to send the NATO heavyweight’s troops into Israel to intervene on behalf of Palestinians in an escalation of rhetoric that raises fears of wider regional conflict. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the northeastern city of Rize on the Black Sea that Turkey “must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine.” “Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we will do [something] similar exactly to them,” Erdoğan said. Nightly Number $24 million The amount House Majority PAC, the House Democrats’ largest super PAC, is adding to its initial $186 million TV and digital fall ad campaign , as it tries to capitalize on a surge of enthusiasm surrounding Vice President Kamala Harris’ rise. RADAR SWEEP THE NEW CONVERSION THERAPY — The idea of “conversion therapy” — that people who are gay or queer can be made straight again — has been discredited for decades. But now, a new, younger strain of digital-native influencers are bringing the concept back . So-called “ex-gay” influencers on TikTok are attracting followers and going viral for posts that describe how they used to be gay and what turned them straight again. They directly appeal to their viewers to take God into their lives by discussing their own personal journeys. Many of their viral moments, though, might be more complicated than people signaling support for their message — social media can lead to all kinds of “hate watching,” or people purposefully watching content that they disagree with. For The Daily Beast, Finbarr Toesland breaks down the phenomenon. Parting Image On this date in 1990: A Mongolian herdsman and his family arrive on horseback at the town center of Cachuurt to vote in the country’s first multi-party elections. | Mark Avery/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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