Florida Airports Investigate Absurd “Weather Modification” Conspiracy

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier—the “brains” behind the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp—threatened to strip state funding from Florida airports that fail to submit monthly reports on the “geoengineering and weather modification activities” at their facilities.

Uthmeier sent a crankish letter to Florida public airport operators on Monday, in which he vowed to enforce a piece of legislation signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this month that prohibits (and requires airports to report) the introduction of substances into the Florida atmosphere “for the express purpose of affecting the temperature, weather, climate, or intensity of sunlight.”

“Because airports are most likely to catch those who seek to weaponize science in order to push their agenda, your compliance with these reporting obligations is essential to keeping our state safe from these harmful chemicals and experiments,” Uthmeier wrote. “In Florida, we don’t jeopardize the public health so that we can bend the knee to the climate cult.”

Under the new law, public-use airports will be required to file monthly reports with Florida’s Department of Transportation starting in October.

Asked about the new mandate by the Orlando Sentinel, a spokeswoman for the operator of the Orlando International Airport and Orlando Executive Airport replied, somewhat shruggingly, that the airports would comply. However, she noted, “Neither airport performs any geoengineering or weather modification activities, nor are we … aware of any activity on airport properties that must be reported at this time.”

Uthmeier’s letter also supported baseless conspiracy theories attributing the deadly flooding in Texas over the July 4 weekend to weather modification—a claim that the director of Texas A&M’s Center for Extreme Weather has called “complete nonsense” and which even Republican Senator Ted Cruz dismissed as bunkum.

“I can’t help but notice the possibility that weather modification could have played a role in” the disasters in Texas, Uthmeier wrote, adding that “Florida’s new law seeks to prevent something like that from ever happening.”

Conspiracy theories about weather modification have become increasingly common on the right, with prominent figures like Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia elevating them amid extreme weather events.

Like much of Trump’s base, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is tired of watching the president align with the more traditional “neocon” wing of the Republican Party, particularly on the “end” to endless wars.

“It’s not just Ukraine; it’s all foreign wars in general and a lot of foreign aid,” Greene told The New York Times on Monday after Trump announced he’d be selling a large amount of weapons to NATO countries, which would then give the weapons to Ukraine. “This is what we campaigned on. This is what I promised also to my district. This is what everybody voted for. And I believe we have to maintain the course.”

“I said it on every rally stage: ‘No more money to Ukraine. We want peace.’ We just want peace for those people,” she continued. “And guess what? People haven’t changed.”

“Without a shadow of a doubt, our tax dollars are being used,” she added, refuting Trump’s claim that the latest weapons shipment would not cost taxpayers.

Taylor Greene is one of many MAGA hardliners left confused by the president’s switch up on Ukraine, especially just months after he and Vice President JD Vance verbally accosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“No one’s walking around thinking about Ukraine. No one’s walking around thinking about Russia. They’re just not,” she said. “They walk around and all they think about is their bills, their problems and the road that may look like crap in front of their house—or they can’t buy a house…. We’re opening the door for younger generations to turn to radical leaders.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has declared undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings, thus opening the door to the indefinite detention of millions of immigrants while their deportation proceedings are underway.

Previously, an immigrant facing detention who did not have a serious criminal history could request a hearing in which an immigration judge would consider various factors, such as flight risk and potential danger to the community, before deciding whether to release them on bond while their case progressed.

But now, in a stark departure from precedent, the agency will suspend bond hearings, per a July 8 memo obtained by The Washington Post.

In the memo, ICE acting Director Todd Lyons ordered the detention of undocumented immigrants “for the duration of their removal proceedings”—potentially months or years. Lyons justified the change in policy in light of Trump’s Justice and Homeland Security departments having “revisited [their] legal position on detention and release authorities” and determining that such immigrants “may not be released from ICE custody” barring rare exceptions.

Already, the American Immigration Lawyers Association informed the Post of denied bond hearings in over a dozen DOJ-run immigration courts in states such as New York, Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia.

The new policy is based on a peculiar interpretation of a law stating unauthorized immigrants “shall be detained” after their arrests, which has, per the Post, historically been applied only to immigrants who’d recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, rather than—as it now will—to those who have lived and worked in the country for decades, many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens and may have strong legal cases against deportation.

As such, Lyons acknowledged in the memo that he fully expects the policy to face legal challenges, writing, per Reuters, that the change is “likely to be litigated.”

If this new policy stays in effect, it will staggeringly balloon the population of immigrants detained under inhumane conditions at ICE facilities across the country.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s foray into truancy is over—but not everyone was so confident that he’d be back. 

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins appeared on Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night to discuss Bongino, who didn’t show up to work Friday amid reports he was considering resigning over the lack of findings from the Department of Justice’s investigation into alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Apparently, Trump administration officials were so unsure of Bongino’s next move that they had texted Collins to ask whether he’d bothered to show up to work Monday. 

“Is it clear where Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino—his career—is headed tonight?” Cooper asked. 

“No, it’s not clear—even to White House officials, Anderson,” Collins said. “Who were texting each other, and texting me this morning asking, you know, whether or not they had figured out if he had shown up to work today, because it was still an open question in Washington this morning if he was going to be back at the FBI today.”

A senior Trump administration official told Axios that Bongino had “lost his mind and ran out of D.C.” after receiving “heat online” over the DOJ’s memo declaring that Epstein kept no “incriminating ‘client list.’” Bongino had spent a long weekend in Florida. 

Collins confirmed that Bongino hadn’t lost his job or quit. “But the relationship has deteriorated so much that there are officials inside the White House who have not spoken to Dan Bongino in days,” she said.  

CNN previously reported that Bongino had iced out all communications with his colleagues, and hadn’t spoken with anyone at the department since Wednesday. Axios confirmed that he’d gotten into an argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi that day. 

Collins said she’d been told that Donald Trump was “very angry” with Bongino, and with FBI Director Kash Patel “to a degree.” Patel, however, had come crawling back with a statement saying he had no intention of resigning from his post after receiving pressure from Trump to get in line. 

The consequences of Trump’s tariffs have begun to set in.

Prices are rising as normal Americans shoulder the burden of Trump’s fiscal policy of spite, and his tariffs cause basic goods to become more expensive. Annual inflation rose 2.7 percent last month, according to the Consumer Price Index data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday. That marks the highest increase in inflation since January. Core inflation, which doesn’t include food and energy prices, increased 2.9 percent.

This is something economists, and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, have been warning for months now. But Trump has trudged on, insisting that the market is robust while trying to cyberbully Powell into prematurely lowering interest rates.

“The level of tariff increases announced so far is significantly larger than anticipated, and the same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth,” Powell said back in April.

It will be interesting to see how the Trump administration attempts to spin things if and when inflation reaches even higher peaks as his tariffs kick in. The president is already telling a different story.

“Consumer Prices LOW,” he posted Tuesday on Truth Social. “Bring down the Fed Rate, NOW!!!”

As President Trump’s heart hardens against Russian President Vladimir Putin, he recently asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy whether he could strike the Russian capital if provided long-range weaponry by the United States, according to recent reports.

On Tuesday, The Financial Times reported that Trump, in a July 4 phone call, asked Zelenskiy, “Volodymyr, can you hit Moscow?” and also inquired as to whether he could hit St. Petersburg, the second-largest Russian city.

“Absolutely. We can if you give us the weapons,” Zelenskiy is said to have replied. Trump was apparently open to this, reportedly mentioning a strategy to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” to pressure Putin to negotiate a peace deal.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius seemingly reported on the same conversation on Monday, writing that Trump had reportedly asked why Zelenskiy “didn’t hit Moscow,” and urged Ukraine to “put more pressure” on the two Russian cities in order to get Putin to the table.

Ignatius also wrote that Trump’s recently announced batch of military aid to Ukraine could include permission to use American-made long-range ATACMS missiles Ukraine currently possesses, which would allow it to strike deeper into Russia—but not so far as to reach the two cities Trump reportedly mentioned in his phone call.

President Biden in November 2024, to the chagrin of some Trump allies, had allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS, leading the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. to accuse him of trying to “get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”

Ignatius reports that Trump has also considered granting Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would be able to reach Moscow and St. Petersburg, but these remain off the delivery list for the time being.

The president has toughened his stance on Russia in recent days. On Monday, Trump threatened to slap massive tariffs on countries that trade with Russia and announced that the U.S. would send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine.

Trump’s newly reported conversation with Zelenskiy provides the most recent—and perhaps most striking—evidence that he is beginning to sour on Putin, as he increasingly comes to grips with the notion that the Russian president might not be the good-faith actor he once took him to be.

House Republicans on Monday struck down a Democratic-led effort to release the Epstein files in their entirety. The Republican-majority House Rules committee voted 6-5 to block an amendment that would force the Department of Justice to make all files publicly accessible.

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina was the only Republican to vote for their release.

“Whose side are you on? That’s really what this Epstein file issue has become,” Representative Ro Khanna, who introduced the amendment, told MSNBC on Monday. “It’s not just about knowing who’s being protected, the rich and the powerful, in terms of who had interaction with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the sense that people have that the government is too beholden to certain interests, who have their thumb on the scale. And that they’re not working for ordinary people.... This is something that many Republicans believe should happen.”

This is perhaps the most intense test of allegiance that the MAGA movement has faced so far. Trump didn’t just break a major promise by closing the Epstein case; he did so with indignation, as if his supporters were crazy for still talking about it. And although many of his supporters are scapegoating Attorney General Pam Bondi rather than Trump, it doesn’t seem like this issue will just go away. After Monday’s vote, Khanna said he would try again to get the files released.

The Epstein files are especially likely to keep festering because the stars of the MAGA movement—like Steve Bannon, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—are still genuinely upset by it. Whether other Republicans will move with the same compass as Representative Norman remains to be seen.

Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia are suing Donald Trump’s administration for withholding $7 billion in federal funding for education, The Washington Post reported.

A lawsuit filed Monday against Trump, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Office of Budgement Management Director Russell Vought claimed that the Trump administration had “caused chaos” for K-12 school districts by refusing to distribute funding to six long-standing grant programs.

Those grants provide funding for after-school care for children of working parents, English classes for non-native speakers, bullying and suicide prevention, and expanding science and arts curricula. The funding also goes toward recruitment and training for teachers, which is particularly crucial as 79 percent of public schools nationwide have reported difficulties with hiring in the last year.

When the funds were expected to roll in at the beginning of July, the Department of Education notified states that the money was under review for compliance with Trump’s agenda, and OMB stated that it was investigating if the funds had been used for a “radical leftwing agenda.”

The plaintiffs, who sought relief for their own states, alleged that by freezing the funds, the Trump administration had overstepped Congress’s power of purse, violating the Impoundment Control Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“The federal government cannot use our children’s classrooms to advance its assault on immigrant and working families,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement. “This illegal and unjustified funding freeze will be devastating for students and families nationwide, especially for those who rely on these programs for childcare or to learn English. Congress allocated these funds, and the law requires that they be delivered. We will not allow this administration to rewrite the rules to punish the communities it doesn’t like.”

The lawsuit was joined by attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

Andrew Cuomo just doesn’t know when to quit.

The former New York governor officially reupped his flailing bid for New York City mayor Monday, weeks after losing the Democratic primary by double-digits to New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

“Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that the Democratic primary did not go the way I had hoped,” Cuomo said in a video posted to social media, thanking the voters who’d ranked him and apologizing for his tremendous loss.

“But as my grandfather used to say: When you get knocked down, learn your lesson and pick yourself back up and get in the game,” he said. “And that is what I am going to do. The fight to save our city isn’t over.”

Cuomo’s video appeared eerily similar to many of Mamdani’s viral campaign videos, which show the young politician encountering New Yorkers around the city. But Cuomo failed to capture the voters’ excitement seen in Mamdani’s, performing a stilted stump speech over footage of him gladhanding people on the street, with no background music. One might say it lacked any Cuo-mentum.

Mamdani replied to Cuomo’s video by simply posting a link to contribute to his own campaign in the comments—which immediately ratio’d the original post. Mamdani’s link had 38,000 likes and 3,000 reposts within hours of the original post, while Cuomo’s video had 1,500 reposts and only 1,100 likes.

In another post, Mamdani joked that Cuomo’s video was a blatant attempt to copy him. “We got him making man on the street videos with a guy in carhartt. By next week, he’ll be sipping adeni chai and eating khaliat al nahl,” he wrote.

People online couldn’t help but notice how off-putting Cuomo’s video was.

“If you watch this, in 7 days you’ll start to cough,” New York City Councilperson Chi Ossé wrote on X. Ossé, who represents Bedford-Stuyvesant, has been a vocal critic of Cuomo’s mayoral run.

“Nothing more energizing than a video of a politician saying ‘I’m sorry I let you down’ in a voice that sounds like aphasic Christopher Walken,” wrote Erik Baker, senior editor at The Drift.

“No means no, Andrew,” wrote an X account for Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor, a group that had organized to prevent people from ranking Cuomo in the Democratic primary, referring to the more than a dozen women that Cuomo sexually harassed.

And many, many people remarked on the most obvious gaffe: that Cuomo still can’t seem to pronounce “Mamdani.”

Dan Bongino’s future as FBI deputy director is still up in the air on Monday after his no call no show on Friday, as the fallout from the Justice Department’s dismissal of the Epstein case continues into its second week.

Bongino has apparently iced out all communications with his DOH colleagues, not having spoken with anyone at the department since Wednesday, according to a CNN report. The feud between Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi has reportedly gotten so bad that Vice President JD Vance spent the weekend trying to mediate. Bongino, Bondi, and FBI Director Kash Patel have been the eye of the storm of incensed MAGA supporters who once viewed the trio as potential arbiters of the Epstein client list and the exposure of the greater deep state. All three made promises along those exact lines, Bongino particularly.

Sources told CNN Bongino’s future in the administration is basically untenable, and he is unlikely to stay in this role in the long-term.

“I think so. I spoke to him today,” Trump said when asked if Bongino was still FBI deputy director on Sunday. “Dan Bongino is a very good guy. I’ve known him a long time. I’ve done his show many, many times. And he sounded terrific, actually, no, I think he’s in good shape.”

Some MAGA supporters, like Laura Loomer, have called for Bondi’s firing, to no avail. Patel has denied any rumors of his resignation.