Free Speech

• GARM folds: Two days after X raised an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) over its alleged directing of a massive ad boycott following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform, the group has folded. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has announced that it is “discontinuing” GARM. While WFA rejected any notion that it was engaged in antitrust activities, it claimed the decision to disband GARM was “not made lightly” and that it was primarily due to GARM being a not-for-profit organization that couldn’t afford the legal challenge. X CEO Linda Yaccarino responded to the development, stating, “No small group should be able to monopolize what gets monetized. This is an important acknowledgement and a necessary step in the right direction. I am hopeful that it means ecosystem-wide reform is coming.” This is a big win for Musk and freedom of speech. Though, as our Mark Alexander observes, “I presume this effort will come back in some more insidious and less visible form.”

Government & Politics

• Trump calls for three debates while Harris runs scared: Kamala “Say It to My Face” Harris is, all of a sudden, afraid to debate. Or at least afraid to commit to more than one debate with a friendly moderator. After having been repeatedly mocked by Harris from the safety of her campaign rallies, Donald Trump is now on the offensive, calling for three debates instead of just one. And Harris doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. “The former president and 2024 GOP nominee said he agreed to a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News, a Sept. 10 debate on ABC, and a third on NBC on Sept. 25,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The ABC debate was previously agreed upon when President Biden was in the race. Trump had called into question whether he would face off on ABC with the vice president now at the top of the Democratic ticket.” Our sense is that Kamala Harris’s handlers are so petrified of the prospect of her wandering off script or speaking without a teleprompter that she’s content to employ a 2.0 version of Joe Biden’s highly effective “basement strategy.” The question is: Will the mainstream media let her get away with it?

• Harris campaign quietly updates Walz bio: The Harris campaign has admitted that their guy has a stolen valor problem. No, they didn’t admit it in so many words, but their actions spoke volumes. As the Washington Examiner reports, “After Harris picked Walz to be her No. 2 on Tuesday, her campaign website called the Minnesota Democrat ‘the son of an Army veteran and a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard himself.’ Two days later, Walz’s online biography has been changed to label him as ‘the son of an Army veteran who served as a command sergeant major.’” Why is this significant? Because Walz didn’t “retire” as a command sergeant major. He got demoted for failing to complete the requirements of that higher rank. And maybe for ditching his unit just before it deployed to Iraq.

• All of Tim Walz’s military service embellishments — from claiming he carried weapons in war to making people think he deployed to Afghanistan (NY Post)

• Satire: Walz clarifies that he’s never been to Iraq, but he has been to downtown Minneapolis which is basically the same thing (Babylon Bee)

• Walz’s pandemic fraud: No governor across the country had more pandemic-related fraud occur under his or her watch than did Minnesota’s Tim Walz. Some $250 million in COVID-related relief that was intended to provide meals for children instead went to fraudsters, and 70 individuals are now being prosecuted by the federal government. Repeated warning signs of the massive fraud were effectively ignored by the state’s Department of Education. Minnesota Republican Representative Lisa Demuth laid the blame on Walz: “One hundred percent of the fraud lands on the shoulders of Gov. Walz. We have systemic fraud in the state of Minnesota, and it has not been taken seriously.” Bill Glahn, a policy fellow at the Minnesota think tank Center of the American Experiment, observed, “The buck’s got to stop somewhere. The Department of Education is a Cabinet-level agency. [Walz] appoints the commissioner and then several layers of bureaucrats below that. It falls to him.”

• Judge orders DOJ to answer for Ashli Babbitt’s death: It’s been three and a half years since a 35-year-old Trump supporter named Ashli Babbitt was gunned down by a panicky Capitol cop named Michael Byrd. Byrd’s actions were never sufficiently investigated, although he “defended” himself during a friendly 2021 TV interview by saying, “I believe I showed the, uh, utmost courage on January 6. … I know that day I saved countless lives.” On the contrary, our Mark Alexander called the investigation “the whitewashing of an unjustifiable police shooting.” And now, the Washington Examiner reports, “A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to ‘answer’ charges in a $30 million wrongful death suit on behalf of Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Trump supporter shot dead as she entered a lobby just off the House floor during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.” It’s also significant that the judge will listen to arguments for the trial to be held in San Diego, home of Babbitt’s husband, instead of the rigged town of Washington, DC.

Security

• Iran is accelerating cyber activity that appears meant to influence the U.S. election, Microsoft says (AP)

• U.S. issues warning to Iran of “serious risk” if it carries out retaliatory attack against Israel (Fox News)

• “Only one place for Yahya Sinwar”: Israel vows to kill new Hamas political leader (National Review)

• Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Russia leaves Putin with the stunned-mullet look (RedState)

• Taylor Swift terror plot was deadly serious: Three suspects have thus far been detained in connection to a terror plot against now-canceled Taylor Swift concerts in Austria. The three arrested are young men ages 17, 18, and 19. One of the individuals, an Iraqi, reportedly “took an oath of allegiance specifically to ISIS,” though all three individuals were radicalized into the Islamic State and believed it was right to kill infidels. The three plotted to attack a Swift concert scheduled for the 65,000-capacity Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna. Austrian authorities are now looking into a “network” of suspects connected to this trio, whose goal was to murder as many people as possible in the name of ISIS. Swift, an American pop icon, is a high-value soft target; a terror attack on one of her concerts would have been used by ISIS to spread its message of jihadi terrorism. Thankfully, it was thwarted. But this serves as a warning that ISIS and other jihadists are looking for soft targets to attack.

• Satire: Taylor Swift jet launches retaliatory strike on ISIS stronghold (Babylon Bee)

• LEO exasperation with Secret Secret: “I f***ing told them that they needed to post guys f***ing over here… I told them that f***ing Tuesday.” That was from recently released audio and body cam footage from a Butler Township police officer directly before Thomas Matthew Crooks’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump. “I talked to the Secret Service guys. They’re like, ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re going to post guys over here.’” The officer’s body cam footage shows him being hoisted by a fellow officer up to the edge of the roof, where he spots Crooks and immediately drops back down. He radios seconds later, “He’s armed. I saw him. He’s laying down.” Roughly 30 seconds later, Crooks began shooting. What is clear from this body cam footage is a series of significant breakdowns in communication. Butler law enforcement believed that the Secret Service had operational control of the roof and was frustrated to find out that was not the case. Furthermore, Secret Service agents weren’t at a command post that Butler police had set up before the rally, making it difficult for law enforcement to communicate information quickly to the Secret Service. Acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe acknowledged last week that “we should have had more of a presence” at the building, adding, “This was a Secret Service failure. That roofline should have been covered. We should have had better eyes on that.”

American Spirit

• RV retailer defies Cali flag-haters: If you have a Camping World near you, it’s easy enough to recognize. That’s because, in addition to having a lot full of campers, the RV retailer tends to fly a giant American flag at many of its 250 locations. But to the America-hating leftist bureaucrats in San Joaquin County, California, that flag is unwelcome. “Camping World’s flagpole was installed with neither a building permit nor planning approval, therefore they are in conversation with the code enforcement division,” the county said in a statement to a local news affiliate. As Fox Business reports, “The county feels the flagpole could be dangerous because of its closeness to property lines and the highway,” but Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis disagrees, and he’s ordered the flag to be reinstalled. “It’s symbolism about how we feel about this country,” says Lemonis. “We have a lot of veterans who work for us, and a lot of veterans who shop with us. I happen to be an immigrant. I was given the blessing of being able to enter this country and become a citizen, and I’m grateful for it.”

Misc.

• Filings in federal tax case claim Hunter Biden was paid by Romanian oligarch to get investigation killed (RedState)

• Rashida Tlaib shares fake “poll” claiming Israelis support rape (Breitbart)

• Google, Meta hatched secret deal to target teens on YouTube with Instagram ads (NY Post)

• COVID fell out of top five mortality causes last year for first time (Washington Times)

• Delta’s top DEI officer jettisons “ladies and gentleman” gate announcements as part of equity push (Fox Business)

• Dunkin’ Donuts hit with conservative backlash, calls for boycott (Washington Times)

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