Nick Shirley’s testimony
Citizen journalist Nick Shirley appeared before Congress on Wednesday to answer questions about his viral reporting on fraud in federal income redistribution programs. Unlike many who refuse to answer even the simplest yes-or-no questions, Shirley addressed the questions and issues head-on. Unashamed, Shirley explained that his reporting has shown that “America’s good faith has been abused by others, often foreigners, who seek to harm, rob, and cheat America.” Senator Ron Johnson asked Shirley to explain the legislation crafted to stop citizen journalists from exposing similar stories of fraud. The “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” as California’s Assembly Bill 2624 is known, made it illegal to film outside immigration support provider locations, such as Medicaid providers. Johnson said the bill should be renamed “the Protect Medicaid Fraudster Act.”

Blanche hearings
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whom President Donald Trump nominated to replace former AG Pam Bondi, testified in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Democrats have no intention of voting in his favor, leaving confirmation in Republican hands. Two outgoing Republican senators, Thom Tillis and John Cornyn, have yet to express support for Blanche. The apparent issue is the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund that Blanche helped create as part of Trump’s settlement with the IRS. Cornyn questioned Blanche about the program, which the DOJ has since backed away from, asking whether it was, in fact, “dead.” Tillis asserted, “I want to stick a fork in this turkey of a 1776 fund,” expressing his desire for Congress to pass legislation to ensure it was dead. Blanche responded, “We do not object,” and that he’d “absolutely” support legislation that did so.

Hearings for intel chief
President Trump’s nominee for the director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday. Clayton would replace acting DNI head Bill Pulte, who took the position after Tulsi Gabbard left due to her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Clayton previously served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and in the first Trump administration, as the chair of the SEC. Some Democrats still question his qualifications, although others have expressed support. Senator Tom Cotton suggested that DNI staff should be cut further than they already have been; Senator Susan Collins disagreed. Democrats tried to force Clayton to disavow Trump’s view of the 2020 election results, which are likely to feature in his prime-time address tonight.

Joe Biden “wrote” a book
Coming November 17 is the presidential tell-all book that absolutely no one is excited to read. Former President Joe Biden allegedly “wrote” a book titled Promise Me, America, which will be a “candid” account of his “deeply agonizing calculation” to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after he had the worst debate performance in living memory. In his announcement, Biden said, “I’ve had a lot of people ask me, ‘Joe, what have you been doing?’” Conservatives were quick to bash the book, suggesting that Biden, who is incapable of getting through a speech without slurring, losing his place, and reading out the stage instructions, did not write this book. Ben Shapiro summed up the response: “I can’t believe the autopen wrote a whole book.”

Judge gives Hunter Biden a big payday
U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson awarded Hunter Biden $1.7 million in a defamation lawsuit against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne. Hunter sued Byrne over his 2023 claim that Hunter contacted the Iranian government in 2021 with an offer to get his father, Joe Biden, who was president at the time, to unfreeze some $8 billion in frozen funds in exchange for a bribe. In his decision, Wilson wrote that the court “found that ample evidence supported a finding that Defendant knew the story to be false” but peddled it anyway. “This was not a product of excusable neglect but rather of coordinated strategy,” Wilson found, concluding that Byrne was “motivated to defame” over “hostility and anger toward” the Bidens. Hunter responded to the ruling, stating, “The court determined that everything he said about me was a complete fiction.”

House Dems fail in attempt to cut military aid to Israel
There is growing anti-Israel sentiment among House Democrat lawmakers. This was demonstrated in a vote on Wednesday, in which almost half of the Democrat members voted in favor of an amendment to cut military aid to Israel. It failed to pass, as all but one Republican, outgoing Congressman Thomas Massie, who introduced the amendment to a State Department appropriations bill, voted against it. Prior to the vote, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voiced his opposition to Massie’s amendment, but disingenuously framed it as Republican leadership “desperately trying to weaponize an amendment they do not support for nakedly partisan reasons.” Yet the fact that not a single Republican other than Massie voted in favor, while nearly half of Democrats did, belies the fact that Jeffries’s real problem lies within his own party and its growing antisemitism.

AOC connected to Jew-hating terrorists
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a fair representative of the up-and-coming generation on the Left: Socialist, Muslim-friendly, sound-bite factories who hate Israel. AOC was caught donating to anti-Israel activist Naurin Islam. Islam has previously organized “refugee camps” in Judea, sometimes called “the West Bank,” that have become hubs for Hamas. AOC’s donation last month apparently went toward organizing an Eid celebration, a Muslim holiday, in New York. Islam works for Sapna NYC, a Southeast Asian female immigrant group. A Sapna NYC spokesperson suggested Islam had been performing Henna services at the celebration and fundraising for food relief in Gaza.

DSA platform calls for abolishing ICE and Senate
The Democratic Socialists of America recently released an updated platform. The radical leftist group, which has been making significant inroads within the Democrat Party, reveals its Marxist-rooted vision for transforming American government. Titled “Workers Deserve More,” the DSA platform calls for eliminating the U.S. Senate and ICE, as well as a fundamental rebuilding of the nation’s political institutions. This includes eschewing the model of three coequal branches of the federal government in favor of a superpowered Congress with oversight authority over both the executive and judicial branches. Under this model, Congress would then act to replace the president and the Supreme Court. “This is not a game,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson. “This is not our fathers’ Democratic Party. We are not arguing over nominal tax rates. We are arguing over whether freedom will survive.”

Pete Hegseth announces testosterone testing
In a video titled “The High-T Department of War,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the department will begin screening for testosterone deficiency as part of its annual health assessment for military personnel. Service members over age 30 will take the test to mitigate medical concerns, since testosterone naturally declines with age. Doctors say that deficiency can lead to fatigue, muscle loss, and increased risk of disease. Personnel can also choose to take testosterone replacement therapy. Healthy testosterone levels reduce injury risk, help the body heal, and improve performance under pressure. “We owe our warriors the absolute best medical care in the world,” Hegseth said. “And this program delivers on that obligation.” The announcement prompted outrage online.

Small English village declares independence from England
In a PR stunt to highlight the town of Piddington’s predicament, the 200 villagers voted overwhelmingly for independence from England — on July 4. What prompted the symbolic vote? The national government intends to house 1,250 illegal immigrant adult males in a military installation next to a children’s playground in a village that has no pubs and no police. Many are asking the obvious questions about sex, vetting, and safety for villagers. The country’s leaders and judicial system have already turned a blind eye to the grooming gangs that terrorized young English girls for decades, so it’s not shocking that these locals don’t trust the British government to protect them or uphold the rights of citizens over illegals. Unfortunately, the people of Piddington are powerless to do anything about it aside from protesting and raising the profile to draw attention to the problem.

Headlines

• U.S. slaps 25% tariff on most Brazilian goods (CNBC)

• Treasury releases photos of $1 gold Trump coin (Washington Examiner)

• Foreign Marxist terrorist group spent years building influence in U.S. activism (Washington Examiner)

• Zillow faces buyer lawsuit, as Wall Street climate scores reportedly crush home values (RedState)

The Executive News Summary is compiled daily by Jordan Candler, Thomas Gallatin, Sterling Henry, and Sophie Starkova. For the archive, click here.