Trump shuts down blog after less than a month
Former President Donald Trump is going to have to find a new way to reach his MAGA supporters.
The exiled tweeter in chief scrapped his personal blog after less than a month amid poor readership numbers and his indefinite ban from social media.
Once hosted on donaldjtrump.com, the “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump” blog now does not appear. Instead, supporters are offered the chance to sign up for news updates delivered to their email or phone.
Trump spokesperson Jason Miller downplayed the shutdown, calling the blog “auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” the Hill reported.
Trump launched the blog with a splash in the beginning of May. It drew a decent response with 159,000 interactions on its first day but quickly slumped and never drew more than 15,000 after its third day online.
Trump has struggled to maintain a line of communication with his tens of millions of supporters since he was booted off social media after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.
The Facebook Oversight Board ordered the social media platform to reassess Trump’s ban later this year. Twitter says he will remain banned indefinitely.
Trump is seeking to change all that when he embarks on a new round of rallies this summer, starting with a speech at a North Carolina Republican convention this weekend.
—New York Daily News
Ferry system serving Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket hit by cyberattack
Ransomware attackers have hacked into the ferry system between the Massachusetts mainland and its iconic islands in the latest cyber assault on U.S. infrastructure.
“The Woods Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority has been the target of a ransomware attack that is affecting operations as of Wednesday morning. As a result, customers traveling with us today may experience delays,” the authority tweeted. “A team of IT professionals is currently assessing the impact of the attack. Additional information will be provided upon completion of the initial assessment.”
While passenger safety is not affected, the effects on the schedule were unclear, though CNN noted that no ferries had been canceled.
“There is no impact to the safety of vessel operations, as the issue does not affect radar or GPS functionality,” steamship authority communications director Sean Driscoll told CNBC, adding that it’s working with federal, state and local authorities to learn how widespread the hack is, and its origin.
The FBI is leading the investigation, Driscoll said, working with the U.S. Coast Guard 1st District and the Massachusetts Cybersecurity Unit.
The attack comes just as the summer travel season is heating up, with people coming out of a pandemic winter ready to flock to such tourist hot spots.
It’s the latest such attack, similar in dynamic if not in scope to the one last month on Colonial Pipeline, which took down operations in a major fuel conduit between Houston and the East Coast. That took nearly $5 million and several days to put right.
It also comes on the heels of a cyberattack discovered Sunday targeting Brazilian meat provider JBS that shut down production of the company’s five largest U.S. beef-processing plants.
—New York Daily News
Before Nikki Fried announced run for Florida governor, she amended a financial form
MIAMI — Three days before she filed her paperwork to run for governor, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried amended a 3-year-old form to disclose she made a substantial amount more as a marijuana lobbyist than previously reported.
A last-minute amendment to her 2018 financial disclosure forms, first reported by blog Tallahassee Reports, shows that Fried, 43, changed the amount of annual income she made from her consulting firm Igniting Florida from $72,000 to $351,480 on Saturday, May 28, days before she announced that she will seek the Democratic nomination to run for governor against incumbent Ron DeSantis.
A 2020 form says the major source of the firm's income was Fried's client San Felasco Nurseries, a medical marijuana license holder that sold in 2018 to Harvest Health & Recreation Inc. Harvest was recently acquired by Quincy-based marijuana giant Trulieve, and Fried listed about $200,000 invested in the company on her 2019 financial disclosure forms.
The form, required by all elected constitutional officers and candidates, details a disclosure of assets, liabilities, net worth and sources of income over $1,000. According to the Florida Commission on Ethics rule, a person may amend their statement of financial interests "any time after filing the disclosure form."
If there is a formal complaint filed, however, the disclosure must be amended within 30 days.
Fried's campaign said the discrepancy in the numbers was a filing error of which they were not aware until very recently.
—The Miami Herald
Enquirer publisher fined for helping Trump campaign hide story
The publisher of the National Enquirer has been fined $187,500 by the Federal Election Commission for payments the tabloid made to hide a story about former President Donald Trump’s ex-mistress.
The payments were made to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, to buy and then not publish her story, in a “catch and kill” process built to benefit the Trump campaign.
From the New York Post, “The fine was handed down on May 17, 2021, according to Common Cause, a public advocacy group that sought information on the penalties, which released information on the deal between the FEC and A360 Media on Tuesday. A360 Media is the successor company to American Media.”
In the letter to the group, the FEC said the publisher “knowingly and willfully” violated campaign finance laws.
In similar allegations leading up to the election, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen admitted to making payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to silence her.
Cohen spent a year in prison over the payments that he says he made at Trump’s behest.
Trump has repeatedly denied he had an affair with Daniels or that he was involved.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
