mark
Common Dreams
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[l] at 7/10/26 2:45pm
What better way to mark the 250th anniversary of a nation founded on lofty ideals now plunged into ugly discrepancies than to double down on hate-and-fear-mongering? Cue a Racist-In-Chief who stays silent when 400 masked Nazis march in D.C. but goes online to assail graduating kindergarteners in Minnesota for wearing hijabs - goading his followers in vicious lockstep to screech, "Deport them, big and small!" Stay classy, MAGA.Somehow, we still manage to be shocked at how ludicrously low the bar's sunk. Never mind the unhinged May hearing where House Repubs attacked the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), following up on equally unhinged fraud charges, by directly quoting a letter from the same hate groups unhappy they'd been named hate groups. In a blistering response, a Dem rep called out their "embrace of white nationalist rhetoric" with the melted clock from the KKK’s 1983 firebombing of the SPLC, charging, "They’re trying to turn back the clock (on) some of the darkest days of our past.”Then there's the Kentucky pastor of a Baptist church "befuddled" by this year's backlash against a 30-year-old ritual of their vacation Bible school wherein men in military garb march down their church aisle, pull "sinners" outside to a mock firing squad and pretend to open fire. Pastor Dewayne Walker blamed "misinformation" - "part of what this generation has become" - for outrage at “nothing more than a small part" of their school helpfully aimed at identifying good and evil. Others called the ritual "depraved" and "appalling abuse," noting, "There’s not enough context in the world to make this okay." Same, alas, for much of what passes these dark days for political discourse. On America's 250th birthday, it was reported, about 400 neo-Nazis from the white nationalist Patriot Front joined the day's tawdry mayhem in D.C. by marching in masks and uniforms - seeking "the menace of a mob with none of the accountability" - chanting "Reclaim America." They looked unsettling enough that many on the right uneasily dismissed them as bad actors or imaginary Antifa; Laura Ingraham sneered, "I call fake," then righteously, nonsensically added, "No one should be allowed to cover their faces."One image of the day went viral: A lone, young, tense Black woman, sitting on the Metro, surrounded by Nazis. "I have taught this photograph before," wrote a longtime teacher on I Fucking Love Australia, describing the September day in 1957 in Little Rock, AR. when 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, trying to integrate Central High School, was stopped by the National Guard. In the image, she walks alone in the white dress her mother had sewn for her first day through a screaming, snarling white mob. Asked for their response, one of today's students inevitably offers, "Look at their faces. They wanted to be seen.""They believed history would agree with them," notes the teacher. "The men on that Metro" - in their masks and khakis - "did not." In the 1940s and '50s, states in the Jim Crow South passed laws banning masks in public, their nod to the brutal presence of the KKK; even they understood that a man who covers his face is not expressing an opinion - he is issuing a threat. "In 1957, the mob showed their faces because they thought history was on their side. In 2026 they hide their faces because they know it is not," the teacher wrote. "That is not nothing. That is 69 years of progress, measured in cowardice."There was another, less widely viewed photo from that day on the train. Roswell Encina, a gay Filipino American, came to the US as an infant; his father served in the U.S. Navy. Roswell is head of the non-partisan U.S.Capitol Historical Society; as part of his job, he places replicas of the Declaration of Independence in embassies, stadiums, public places so ordinary people can read it and see it as their own story. The train on the 4th had been full of red, white and blue families heading to the fireworks; when they got off and the Nazis got on, he said the mood felt "unnerving" and he had to "summon my better angels" to stay put.The group was civil and chatting; he tried not to make eye contact, looked up their patches on his phone, texted friends in a familiar safety ritual to say where he was. Later, neither wearing nor needing a mask, he spoke to reporters, in part to protect the young Black woman whose name was unknown. As a historian, he said he felt reassured unnerving" reassured a photographer was documenting the moment. "Democracy is very fragile," he said. "We need to stay engaged with history, civics, education. History is a conversation, and this is part of it." Then he cited another name and image from that earlier era: Ruby Bridges.Ruby Bridges was six years old in November 1960 when she walked between federal marshals into her New Orleans school as its first Black student after a federal court ordered schools to integrate; white parents were so outraged they kept their kids home, and Ruby spent the year alone in her classroom. To memorialize the historic day, Norman Rockwell painted her, small and again set between marshals, walking along a stone wall where a member of another mob had scrawled "NIGGER" and thrown a tomato, which oozed down. Rockwell titled the 1964 painting, "The Problem We All Live With." Ruby was 6. The 20 or so kids who proudly stood and joyfully sang on a stage in St. Paul, Minnesota last month were all five and six. A brief video clip from Somali TV of Minnesota shows them celebrating their kindergarten graduation at Gateway STEM Academy, a public charter school serving about 180 students, many Somali, most with legal immigration status, not that it should matter. They wore small sweet blue robes and caps, with hijabs under their mortarboards and white stoles around their shoulders whose rainbow letters, under a teddy bear, read, "Kindergarten Graduate."Theirs was one of several school graduations celebrated around the state, and the country. It was the only one spotlighted online by a right-wing account named “End Wokeness,” which in 2024 went viral with the claim Haitian immigrants in Ohio were stealing and eating people’s pets.This time, it posted a photo of the small celebrants with an enraged, "Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab…in kindergarten.” When 400 masked Nazis marched through the nation's capitol on the nation's birthday, the President of the United States said nothing. But hijabs: "He found his voice."This week, months after he called Minnesota's Somali community "garbage," after vandalism at mosques, women harassed for wearing hijabs, a fire on a school bus at another largely Somali charter school, the ongoing terror of ICE's Metro Surge, he shared the "End Wokeness" post - twice - in hopes of siccing maybe just a modest mob of his 13 million followers, though not the sharpest tools in the shed, on the tiny perps in gowns and terrorist caps. And, oops, when he "pointed at babies," he did not blur their faces, which only takes seconds, and which normal people unthinkingly do to protect babies. The “anti-human” rhetoric found its mark. From Truth Social, "There are just some cultures that don't belong and for good reason," "I think they have stolen enough money from the US that they can buy their own ticket. I could help them out with a size 13 boot," and "This is the case for literally every single immigrant we unfortunately let in our country. They’re here to take advantage of our system and tell us how great their country is because they can rape their way through the population without consequence," which for damn sure wouldn't happen here in Epstein land, right?Parents and advocates expressed "shock and horror" at the reckless cruelty of targeting kids in kindergarten. CAIR: Trump "is putting lives at risk (in a) dangerous escalation of religious hatred. Children deserve to feel safe in their schools and communities...to recognize this is their country.” Tim Walz: "The President (is) attacking a group of kindergarteners because of the clothes they wore to school.” A local Imam: "Our children (are) fully part of this state and country. That is the Minnesota we believe in. That is the America we hope for." Educator Ms. Rachel: “Hijabs are beautiful...No matter what we wear, we all belong.”Online commentators offered, "At least he is attacking his intellectual peers." Outraged parents of kindergarteners protested the insult by noting their kids can "run intellectual circles around that fool," read at higher grade levels, learn new things daily, nicely share without being asked, and are potty-trained. Despite his vast resources, added the teacher at I Fucking Love Australia, he did not find the 60 seconds to at least blur their faces, "Because he was never trying to show you a graduation. He was showing his people where to aim.That is the whole story. Everything else is commentary."
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[l] at 7/9/26 2:47pm
The first-ever U.S. lawsuit seeking to hold Big Oil companies accountable for the death of a family member in a climate disaster will proceed toward discovery and trial after a Washington State court rejected the companies’ joint motions to dismiss and strike the case. The court found that the claims in this first-of-its-kind case are not blocked by federal law because they are “not about regulating emissions,” as the oil companies argued.Misti Leon sued ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and other oil and gas companies for fueling the extreme heat that killed her mother, Julie Leon, on the hottest day in Washington State history during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. Scientists found that the event would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change.The temperature rose above 100 degrees for the third consecutive day on June 28, 2021, when Julie was driving home from a doctor’s appointment in Seattle, Washington. Julie was later found unresponsive in her car with the windows down, and despite several rounds of life-saving measures, she could not be revived. The medical examiner ruled Julie’s cause of death as hyperthermia — a condition that killed hundreds of people during the heat dome.The court granted ConocoPhillips’s request to be removed from the case, but allowed Ms. Leon the opportunity to amend her complaint. Olympic Pipeline Company was removed as a defendant in the case.Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said:“Big Oil’s reckless climate lies have contributed to countless preventable deaths. Now these corporations are one step closer to being held accountable or knowingly fueling climate conditions that are killing people. Legal action cannot undo the pain and suffering that fossil fuel companies have caused with their callous disregard for the well-established lethal impacts of their products, but it can secure a measure of justice for Big Oil’s victims and their families.” Background on U.S. Climate Accountability Lawsuits Against Big Oil:Eleven U.S. states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai`i, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont — and the District of Columbia, along with dozens of city, county, and tribal governments in California, Colorado, Hawai`i, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Puerto Rico, have active lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. These cases collectively represent more than 1 in 4 people living in the United States. The oil and gas industry and its allies have been lobbying Congress and the Trump administration for more than a year to escape accountability. Republican lawmakers have introduced bills in the U.S. House and Senate that aim to grant Big Oil companies broad immunity from climate laws and lawsuits, and a growing number of states have passed state-level laws that aim to shield fossil fuel companies from legal accountability. Recent reporting from ProPublica found those bills are "part of a coordinated effort by groups linked to right-wing activist Leonard Leo."Last year, 16 Republican attorneys general proposed creating a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies modeled on a 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits. In January, the American Petroleum Institute announced that killing state climate lawsuits is a top 2026 priority for the oil lobby. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a case from Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is one of a growing number of communities across the U.S. — including Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, the District of Columbia, and the states of Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota and Connecticut — whose climate deception lawsuits against Big Oil companies are advancing toward discovery and trial after courts denied the companies’ motions to dismiss.
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[l] at 7/8/26 10:45am
A new analysis from clean energy think tank Energy Innovation finds that the Trump administration's rollback of clean energy policy will add more than half a trillion dollars to American households' collective energy costs by 2040, even as it publicly promises lower bills. 350.org says the findings confirm what millions of Americans are already living through this summer: a sudden AI-driven electricity crunch colliding with policy choices that are making the problem worse, not better.According to the report, the cumulative impact of the administration's actions, including the repeal of clean energy tax credits, new barriers to permitting wind and solar, and a tilt toward more expensive coal-fired power, will raise the average household's energy costs by $460 by 2035, rising to $490 a year by 2040. That comes on top of electricity rates that have already spiked 7.4% nationwide since last fall, with more than a dozen states seeing double-digit increases, driven in part by the explosive growth in data center electricity demand.The findings land just as households across the eastern US are living the consequences directly. A "heat dome" and severe storms over the Fourth of July weekend left almost a million households without power across more than a dozen states, and sent wholesale electricity prices up more than 240% in New England and doubled in New York City. Detroit was among the hardest hit: roughly 350,000 people lost power, some for four to five days, with outages still ongoing for some. Detroit's utility, DTE, ranked among the worst-rated in the country, has pushed through repeated rate hikes even as reliability has failed to improve, including a $242.2 million increase approved in February during a deadly cold snap, and a further request in April for up to $474 million, an 11% increase.Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has intervened in DTE and Consumers Energy's current rate cases over the pattern, saying DTE continues to treat Michigan families like an open checkbook to satisfy its shareholders, whether through massive rate hike requests or secret data center contracts.Candice Fortin, US Campaigns Manager at 350.org, said:"This report puts numbers on something households are already feeling in their bills and their blackouts. We were told cutting clean energy would lower costs. Instead, we're seeing the opposite: rates spiking, grids failing under record heat, and households paying more while data centers' electricity use explodes. You can't fix an affordability crisis by blocking the cheapest, fastest power we have to build. The fossil fuel industry and this administration's policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned."The Trump administration disputes the report's findings, with the White House and Department of Energy characterising Energy Innovation's analysis as partisan and arguing that rolling back clean energy regulation will ultimately lower prices by letting market forces determine new generation. Energy Innovation and other independent analysts maintain there is a direct line between the administration's policies and rising bills, pointing to the growing gap between the promise of cheaper energy and the reality households are experiencing this summer.
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[l] at 7/8/26 10:22am
Meta’s latest AI image generation feature raises serious privacy concerns by automatically allowing public Instagram profiles to be used in AI-generated images unless users actively opt out. The new “Muse Image” model enables users to generate AI images using another person’s likeness simply by tagging their public Instagram account in a prompt. Consumers are not affirmatively asked for permission, are not notified when their images are used, and AI-generated images already created from their content will remain even if they later disable the feature. While Meta says users can opt out through account settings, those controls require users to navigate multiple layers of settings rather than obtaining clear, affirmative consent before their likeness is used.J.B. Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:“Meta has once again chosen the creepiest possible path. People should not wake up to discover their face has become raw material for someone else’s AI experiment. This is another invasion of consumers’ privacy. Instead of asking for meaningful consent, Meta quietly defaults users into the system and buries the opt-out in account settings. It’s a playbook we’ve come to expect from a company with a long history of putting its business interests ahead of the public.“Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where many technology companies treat every piece of our personal information—our photos, our voices, our biometric identifiers, even our relationships—as raw material to fuel their AI ambitions. Privacy has already been eroded in countless ways, but allowing companies to appropriate people’s likenesses without meaningful, affirmative consent crosses what should be a brightline. If our faces can be repurposed for AI simply because we posted a public photo, then very little remains off limits. Congress should establish clear privacy protections that require affirmative consent before companies can use a person’s image or likeness for AI products.”
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[l] at 7/7/26 9:51am
In 2026, the American Civil Liberties Union will make its largest-ever investment in down ballot races, marking a historic escalation in its “Firewall for Freedom” strategy to protect civil liberties across the country. As part of this new campaign, the ACLU will spend $25.5 million across underfunded but critical state-level campaigns with an outsized impact on American’s rights and freedoms, from key ballot initiatives to state Supreme Court races, secretaries of state races, and state legislative races.“The ACLU and our millions of supporters across the country have been at the forefront of the fight to protect Americans’ civil rights and liberties, but these freedoms remain under attack both at the federal level and in the states. We need to fight back,” said Deirdre Schifeling, ACLU chief political and advocacy officer. “The Firewall for Freedom campaign will allow the ACLU to stop efforts to restrict reproductive and voting rights and protect our democracy at every level of the ballot. We see where the threats are emerging, and we and our supporters are ready to respond. This is our largest-ever down ballot effort with plans to contact hundreds of thousands of voters across our key states to help protect our fundamental rights and freedoms.”In recent campaign cycles, the ACLU and ACLU Foundation together have emerged as the largest institutional player in the ballot measure space on issues of reproductive freedom and democracy, with notable victories in Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Michigan, Montana, and Ohio.The ACLU and ACLU Voter Education Fund together have also become one of the biggest spenders in state Supreme Court races. Meanwhile state and local offices have proven increasingly decisive in determining the future of key rights and liberties, including voting rights, abortion access, and LGBTQ rights.This new $25.5 million campaign is a response to the new threats to civil liberties emerging at every level of the ballot and will be complemented by the ACLU’s national organizing infrastructure that helps educate voters and mobilize communities. Working with the ACLU’s 54 affiliates, the ACLU and the ACLU Foundation will work to beat back ballot measures aimed at overturning hard-fought victories to protect abortion rights and overturning the will of the people, as well as investing in initiatives to protect state courts from politicized judicial selections. The ACLU and ACLU Voter Education Fund will educate voters about important state Supreme Court races that impact civil rights and freedoms and equip them with information about how supermajorities in state legislatures can impact civil liberties across the country.The Firewall for Freedom effort will target the following races, ensuring they have the resources to educate voters to make informed decisions when so many resources are flooding into federal campaigns: Seven ballot measures addressing civil liberties in Montana, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia.Supreme Court races in Michigan, Montana, and North Carolina.State legislative races in Georgia, Michigan, Montana and North Carolina.Secretary of state races in Arizona and Nevada.
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[l] at 7/7/26 7:59am
Millions of low- and middle-income Americans are losing health coverage because the Trump administration allowed the subsidies that made it affordable to lapse, according to a new Public Citizen analysis of government data. The analysis contradicts claims by Trump administration health officials that removal of fraudulent enrollees is responsible for declining Obamacare enrollment.Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act marketplace decreased from 22.3 million people in 2025 to an estimated 17.5 million in 2026. Administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, have attributed the decline to the removal of fraudulent enrollees. Public Citizen’s analysis, which uses the government’s own enrollment data, has found that explanation to be almost entirely wrong.“The people losing coverage are concentrated at incomes well above the poverty line – exactly the opposite of what the administration’s fraud theory would predict,” said Peter Whoriskey, Health Research Group research director for Public Citizen and author of the report. “These are low- and middle-income families whose premiums doubled after subsidies were cut. They didn’t cheat their way in. They simply can’t afford to stay.”The administration’s fraud theory – which originated with the Paragon Health Institute, a think tank aligned with the Trump administration – holds that millions of enrollees misreported income just above the federal poverty level to qualify for subsidies. If the theory were correct, the sharpest enrollment declines would appear at that income level. Instead, enrollment in that bracket has grown. Nearly half of all enrollment losses are among people earning more than four times the poverty level – families whose subsidies were cut when congressional Republicans allowed the enhanced premium tax credits to expire.
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[l] at 7/7/26 1:22am
Hoo boy. Many of us slogged through a July 4 more vigil - "act of purposeful wakefulness" - than celebration as hostages of a dark timeline wherein history's smallest, weakest political "leader" and his racist cabal screech about "godless communists," one-party rule and forced sterilization of brown people who will "suicide your civilization" while masked Nazis march in the streets. Welcome to "exceptionalism," stripped of its pieties. The "danger of this age," notes one sage, "isn't merely organized hate (but) indifference to it."In the summer of 1776, a few dozen brave men with much to lose who had "watched power gather dangerously into one man’s hands" came together in Philadelphia to pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" to stop it. Concluding a long list of grievances against King George in their Declaration of Independence, they issued their ultimate moral and legal justification for the American colonies to sever ties with Great Britain: "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.” Today, in his new show, Larry David echoes them. On this Fourth of July, wrote John Pavlovitz, "Most of us were pulled between the despair of what this nation has become (or always has been) and the hope of what we might still be," leaving us "not knowing quite where to stand." We are "told today by the men who would humiliate us," he adds, "that America was founded in a spirit of innocence, that its leaders never did anything wrong, and that patriotism means insisting on our own blamelessness and assigning all evil to others" - this, in a country founded in genocide that blithely went on to institutionalize slavery and racism, then took to rampaging imperialism.Despite the right's longtime myths about American "exceptionalism," for decades the arc of our political history has bent toward liberalism and the egalitarian ideals of its founding. No more. The last ten years, and especially the last two, have seen us hurtling backwards, obviously in large part due to the toxic rise of Trump, who "didn't invent America’s oldest prejudices (but) exploited them, legitimized them, rewarded them (and) transformed grievance into political identity." Writes Congressional candidate Fred Wellman, "The level of racism and bigotry this pathetic small man spits out daily could fill an algae-filled pool."Last week saw some of what it's wrought. Death by firing squad - really - is on the rise: Idaho just became the first state to adopt it as its primary method of state murder, which can inflict "prolonged and agonising death," and it's the seventh state to include it in grisly execution rosters. SCOTUS hacks just stripped legal protections from over half a million Haitians and almost as many Syrians, prompting hateful vampire Megyn Kelly to spew, "Get out. Go home. Go back to fucking Haiti. We know our country’s better than yours (because) we filled it with our work ethic and culture and values. You being here only dilutes it for us."MAGA ghouls emitted more vicious racist bilge after SCOTUS barely struck down Trump's "BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL" move to strip birthright citizenship from U.S-born kids of non-citizens despite a 14th Amendment clearly stating anyone born here, even with dark skin, is a citizen. It was widely deemed a win for the rule of law, but it was also "one step away" from a scary "birthright precipice" that saw four judges construct 100 pages of legal arguments "to write immigrants’ children out of the Constitution and still call it jurisprudence." The ruling was "very nice," wrote Jonathan Last, like "it's nice when a person walking past you doesn't pull out a gun and shoot you...(The) majority followed the Constitution. Yay."Still, the right freaked out, raving it was "a betrayal of the republic (that) cheapens the sacred value of American citizenship." Sample rants: "We are supposed to be a country, not an orphanage," "Any woman illegal alien who is capable of having a child needs to be rounded up and ejected," the "obvious lesson" of traitor Amy Barrett upholding "birth tourism of China's communist party" is to stop nominating female justices, "Mass deportations. Round every illegal up. Don’t pull back when the lesbian activists start screeching about it," and, "If you see a pregnant foreigner, contact ICE immediately - the future of our country depends on it.” They want to ban foreign-born pregnant women, ban all female foreigners, do pregnancy screenings for those women, "require sterilization of all foreign visitors before entry," dissolve the Union. Todd Blanche will fight (imaginary) "birth tourism." J.D. Vance says his faith is why "we don't like low-wage foreigners stealing" jobs: "We want normal Americans to be able to live a dignified life, and I think that's a very Christian concept." Texas Rep.Troy Nehls wants a 10-year moratorium on immigration - "We gotta put a big bedsheet over the Statue of Liberty," maybe with cut-out eye holes and pointy hat? - "because we’re not letting anybody in."As usual, a not-at-all-unhinged Stephen Miller won the Mein Kampf Award by arguing the ruling “requires you to suicide your civilization.” After proposing the case serve as a litmus test for all future judges, he warned - under a Fox chyron blaring “Birth Tourism Is A Ticking Bomb” - that it offers "a direct line into American cash (for) the rest of that child’s life (as mothers) send welfare checks back home to support a whole family." "They can just come into the country, have a baby in a hospital, paid for by you and me, and then that baby is automatically a citizen?" he howled. "And that baby can sit on a jury when he turns 18, and sit in judgment of...me?“That baby won't be the only one. In The Empire Loses the Ball, a terrific piece about the World Cup, Troy Nahumko describes colonial powers who've "spent centuries confusing dominance with superiority," Africa's "arrival" this year as a force to be reckoned with, and soccer's contempt for and inexorable repudiation of racial hierarchy. "There comes a time when the people who used to draw the maps no longer get to decide what the world looks like," he writes. "The World Cup has become that moment." And Stephen Miller, "a man who has made the question of human belonging his life’s organizing principle," has been or will be made to confront it.As part of his racist rant, Miller denigrated people "from third world nations (that) on their own would have never invented the wheel, let alone modern technology, medicine, air travel." Hold my beer, says Nahumko: The wheel emerged in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, writing in Sumer and Egypt, algebra in ninth-century Uzbekistan, agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa, the "numerical system Miller uses to count the families he splits up and deports" in India. "That is the birthright Miller calls worthless," he writes. "On the pitches where he would have their descendants excluded, (they) are eliminating European football powers in front of the watching world."The beautiful game "rolled downhill" from "a damp little island" through oil towns in Algeria, fishing villages in Senegal, barrios, favelas, refugee camps "where the goalposts are flip-flops." "We come from the red earth," said Paraguay’s coach after they beat Germany. "We learned to play football barefoot." Europe long bragged about a diversity that "won trophies for France," but proved "less popular in Dakar than in Paris." This year, nine of ten "shithole countries" - Morocco, South Africa, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cape Verde, Egypt, DRC, Algeria - advanced. The final will be in New Jersey, "across the river from where millions of immigrants arrived and received the protection of an amendment Stephen Miller would now like to declare worthless."Cockroach-like, Miller has also declared "divine providence“ the reign of a moronic narcissist con man who, says a report from House Democrats, hijacked and twisted a landmark 250th anniversary into ”a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment,“ packed with pay-to-play schemes through a DOGE-run, wire-fraud-committing shadow corporation, all ”in service of the President’s ego, political ideology and pet projects.“ The resulting grift and incompetence is now everywhere, from the trashed “Reflecting Lakes” with “criminally-made algae” to the post-rapture-like State Fair where Fox bobbleheads yammered about non-existent “crowds,” there were no chairs, shade or AC in the steamy heat, but if desperate you could find relief in the baptism pool.Meanwhile, the "festivities" lurched on. Speaking at Mt. Rushmore, amidst millions going hungry, losing health care or voting for Democrat Socialists in primaries, Trump back-tracked to the 1950s and blamed it all on "godless communists" who are "finally making their move," also "illegal immigrants, criminals and everybody that doesn’t want to work,“ who he'll "send into exile." Saturday, in a still-broiling D.C, officials cancelled the parade due to "heat," aka rumors nobody would show, but Patriot Front Nazis turned up to march, wave Confederate flags and chant "Reclaim America," evidently for racist morons with socks on their patriotic faces in 100-degree temps.That night, back at the Great American Shitshow on the Mall, looming thunderstorms prompted chaos and a mass evacuation; it was close to midnight by the time limp crowds snaked again through security lines and Trump ranted, “You can be a communist or a patriot - you cannot be both.” He bragged he’s taking America’s “Golden Age” to “new levels” and he’d insisted the show go on “so it was even more spectacular (than) it would have been as normalized.” Then they set off 850,000 fireworks - experts had urged viewers wear N95 masks - which made so much smoke it was all people could see. Some said it looked like war footage or the,end of the world; Trump dozed off.Sunday morning, D.C. officials issued a Code Red Air Quality Alert for the most polluted air of any major city on the planet; some observers wondered if Trump had hired his pool guy for the fireworks. The pool itself, thick with algae and guarded by soldiers, fencing, signs and security cameras, was now also littered with menacing black husks of spent fireworks. "What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?" asked Frederick Douglass, who bared the hypocrisies of this nation's founding. "To him, your celebration is a sham; your national greatness, swelling vanity...your prayers and hymns, mere bombast, (a) thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.""Stand out - someone has to," historian Timothy Snyder urges today. "Whenever you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken." For the Fourth of July, who better than New York City's Zohran Mamdani to take on that task, to sit at George Washington's desk among new Americans, "take measure of who we are as a nation," see "an opportunity to begin anew," and join with the city's immigrants, peasants, serfs, those "treated as less than, for whom power was something that someone else had " - to come together in "the work of rendering America, year after year, a little more faithful to its founding ideals." The core of our exceptionalism: Nothing is fixed in its place." Our "special power": "To determine what America means." For the Black woman in this image, for all of us: Not this, please. A lone tense Black woman rides the D.C. subway surrounded by masked Nazis in an "image that indicts an era."Photo by Cheney Orr/REUTERS/TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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[l] at 7/2/26 9:41am
The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, in response to the Social Security Administration announcing that babies born during the rest of 2026 will receive Social Security cards featuring the Freedom 250 logo:“The first Social Security card was issued in 1936, ninety years ago. In all that time the design has never been politicized. Now, the Trump administration is putting the logo of a semi-private, partisan entity, which is widely reported to be corrupt, on the Social Security cards of newborn babies. They claim ‘no additional cost to families or taxpayers’, but the cost has to come from somewhere.Alarmingly, Freedom 250 has a history of harvesting data, and employs former DOGE operatives. DOGE has been found in court to have mishandled our private Social Security data, and these cards may provide another opportunity for that abuse of Americans’ most personal, sensitive information.We demand Commissioner Bisignano answer the following questions: Is the Social Security Administration paying a licensing fee to Freedom 250?Will you release any and all contracts between the Social Security Administration and Freedom 250? Will Freedom 250 have access to data associated with beneficiaries of Social Security cards bearing their logo? This is abuse of Social Security, a nonpartisan institution which Trump claimed he would not hurt. Like issuing passports with Trump’s visage and signature, putting his name on the Kennedy Center, and destroying the East Wing of the White House, turning Social Security cards into political propaganda reveals yet again Trump’s contempt for the American people he is supposed to be serving.”
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[l] at 7/2/26 7:59am
Today’s jobs report shows the labor market added only 57,000 jobs in June, with April and May hiring revised down by 74,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. The unemployment rate changed little at 4.2%. A total of 720,000 people left the labor force last month, pushing the share of Americans working or looking for work to its lowest level since March 2021. Beneath the headline, workers are less confident they can find a job, higher prices continue to eat into paychecks, and families feel worse about their financial situation. The share of unemployed workers who have been without a job for at least six months remains above one in four, up sharply from one year ago, while a growing share of workers are stuck in part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work. Though President Trump campaigned on saving “Black jobs,” the unemployment rate among Black Americans is far higher than the national rate, reflecting the president’s unequal economy. Under President Trump, the economy is leaving working families with fewer opportunities to get ahead.Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief of Policy and Advocacy, Alex Jacquez, released the following statement:“Today’s weak jobs numbers are grim warning signs of a struggling labor market. Job gains reflect temporary seasonal hires and other workers separated from the broader economy while the majority of the labor force is frozen. Working Americans increasingly report that their paychecks can’t keep up with Trump’s high prices, but are not confident they’ll be able to find better opportunities. They’re instead focused on trying to keep up with the president’s price hikes.”
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[l] at 7/2/26 1:14am
Declaring, "I believe in America, I believe in us," an active duty Air Force major was arrested Wednesday for a non-violent act of civil disobedience after he publicly called for Trump to be impeached, removed and convicted for his scores of impeachable offenses. Citing the "foundational oath" he took to defend the country "against all enemies foreign and domestic" - most vitally a lawless president - Major Jason Watson insisted, finally, "The bill must come due."Watson's action came after a press conference with advocacy groups including About Face Veterans, Defenders of Our Republic, Removal Coalition, its newly launched Remove the Regime, and Free Speech For People, which has gathered over a million signatures urging Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against Trump for his hundreds of crimes. Also present was Rep. Al Green, the only member of Congress to have filed impeachment articles. Declaring this "an existential moment for our nation," Free Speech president John Bonifaz praised Major Watson for "the kind of courage our democracy demands (in) stark contrast to those who continue to look away as President Trump commits unprecedented abuses of power."Watson introduced himself by citing his 17-year career in the military before swiftly adding, "Who I am is immaterial. In the grand scheme of things I'm a nobody. What's more important is what I have to say, and the price I'm willing to pay to say it" - which is substantial. Thanking allies "working to restore responsible governance to our country," he repeated the "foundational" oath he first swore over 20 years ago, and has since repeated "many times since," to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States," which "binds us all together as Americans." We have all "played a part in getting us into this mess," he added, but undeniably "the burden of culpability" falls most heavily on the executive branch, "and the bill must come due."Matter-of-factly, he offered a hefty list of high crimes and misdemeanors: The "unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ authority" with military action against foreign countries, absent the requisite emergency scenario, in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran; the granting of power to an unelected person to shut down large swaths of the government; the detaining and sending of residents without due process to a foreign country; the abuse and murder of those exercising their First Amendment rights, etc etc. After each, he added, "For this, the president and vice-president must be impeached convicted, and removed." He was there not as a Democrat - "I am not a Democrat" - but to call on Americans to peacefully "join me in the defense of our republic." Video of his speech then briefly cuts out; when it returns, he is walking slowly, deliberately, toward the Capitol steps, an area that is open to the public but where protest is prohibited. Several Capitol Police stand to the side, nervously watching. In somber, lonesome silence, he climbs the stairs; mid-way, he stops and holds up a sign that reads, "Impeach. Convict. Remove." The watching crowd cheers. After a brief huddle, a couple of officers arrest him. As he is led away, his hands cuffed behind him, his dignity intact, the crowd breaks into chants of "Shame!" and, "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?" Excellent questions. We, and many weary, grieving, enraged Americans, salute him and his good trouble.
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[l] at 7/1/26 11:10am
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the highly persistent pesticide trifludimoxazin for use on wheat, oats, oranges, apples and almonds. The pesticide is a “forever chemical” — often called PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances.“This is the PFAS presidency brought to you by Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Waiting to open the floodgates on new pesticide approvals until after the Supreme Court granted immunity to pesticide companies takes a special kind of callousness.”The approval late Tuesday marked the third new forever chemical pesticide approved in a single day by the Trump administration. Diflufenican and epyrifenacil were also approved Tuesday.Often the EPA will accompany new pesticide approvals with a press release to alert the public, however the agency has done nothing to announce these approvals other than quietly post approval documents on regulations.gov.This is the fifth PFAS pesticide approval under Trump in less than two years in office. The previous two PFAS pesticide approvals were cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram. The Biden administration approved one PFAS pesticide in the prior four years.A 2024 report from researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Working Group and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility found that forever chemicals are increasingly being added to U.S. pesticide products, contaminating waterways and posing potential threats to human health.In addition to the three new PFAS pesticides approved Tuesday, the EPA also approved new uses of the PFAS pesticide bifenthrin, the first food use of chlormequat, and the non-PFAS, fluorinated pesticide fluoxapiprolin.While some PFAS differ in their toxicities, potential to accumulate in the body, and potential to pollute water, all PFAS are highly persistent and have chemical bonds that will essentially never break down. PFAS ingredients in pesticide products have been found to contaminate streams and rivers throughout the country.The EPA has found that trifludimoxazin will eventually break down into 12 different PFAS chemicals. Trifludimoxazin is one of the few PFAS pesticides that does not break down into trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), however EPA has found that it breaks down into other PFAS chemicals that are highly persistent.The agency has classified trifludimoxazin as having “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential” based on the development of thyroid tumors in exposed animals.Trifludimoxazin’s approval will allow it to be combined in the same product as another PFAS pesticide called saflufenacil, all but ensuring that any resulting pollution will contain mixtures of different PFAS chemicals.Diflufenican can also break down into a chemical called 2,4-difluoroaniline malonate, a fluorinated chemical that has a similar structure and toxicity profile to aniline, a component in tobacco smoke. Although the EPA has classified aniline as a probable human carcinogen it did not require any studies to assess the cancer risks of diflufenican’s breakdown product in real-life settings.Epyrifenacil causes liver tumors in animal studies and is part of a class of pesticides called PPO-inhibitors, many of which are also linked to liver tumors. However, the EPA categorized it as “not likely to be carcinogenic” at low doses based solely on the pesticide company’s interpretation of their own studies.The EPA also approved new uses of another PFAS pesticide, bifenthrin. Uses of bifenthrin that have been in place for years have made it one of the most widely detected insecticides in U.S. streams, lakes, and rivers, where it is often found at levels that exceed aquatic safety thresholds.The EPA’s approval of chlormequat, a non-PFAS pesticide, is also controversial. Chlormequat is found in the urine of 90% of Americans, thought to come mostly from residues on imported foods where the pesticide has been used. Approval of its use on U.S. wheat and oats ensures that exposure to the U.S. population will increase dramatically. The pesticide has been linked to reduced fertility, reproductive toxicity and birth defects.
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[l] at 7/1/26 9:34am
As 350.org, Fuel Poverty Action and coalition partners today demonstrate against rising energy prices outside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, a new report from the UN Development Programme (UNDP) lays bare the true scale of the fossil fuel subsidy crisis: governments worldwide are on course to spend $1.1 trillion propping up the fossil fuel industry in 2026, a figure that could rise to $1.43 trillion if oil prices reach $110 a barrel. The UNDP report, Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock, finds that governments have responded to conflict-driven oil price spikes by expanding fossil fuel subsidies, price caps and tax rebates. While these measures offer short-term relief, they are consuming public budgets that should be building schools, hospitals and clean energy infrastructure. Many developing countries entered the latest crisis already burdened by rising debt, and fossil fuel handouts to keep prices artificially low are depleting public budgets and increasing their risk of debt distress.Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment. Every dollar spent shielding the fossil fuel industry from the consequences of its own price volatility is a dollar not spent on the clean energy systems that can bring costs down for good.We need a phase out to end public subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel profits. Not a one-off levy, but a permanent, legislated mechanism that redirects the extraordinary profits of an industry driving this crisis into the just transition every country needs. That means affordable clean energy, retrofitted homes, and funding to protect people from the extreme weather unleashed by fossil pollution..”The UNDP report calls for easier access to international climate financing and accelerated investment in renewable energy, and explicitly frames energy security and the energy transition as inseparable.
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[l] at 6/30/26 10:17am
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down President Trump’s order denying birthright citizenship to children born on U.S. soil, affirming that the Fourteenth Amendment means what it has always meant. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which filed an amicus brief in Trump v Barbara, welcomed the ruling and issued the following: Dariely Rodriguez, chief counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said:“Today’s ruling solidifies what we have known to be true for over a hundred years and what our Constitution and federal laws have supported: that anyone born on American soil, regardless of the legal status of their parents, is born an American citizen. We have endured an incredible test of our collective will as a nation and have prevailed. We are glad ideological gamesmanship failed, and the right result was reached here.” Olivia Sedwick, counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said:“We are satisfied with today’s result, however, we know it should have never been a question from the start. This part of our democracy’s foundation remains intact. The domicile status of one’s parents has never been a part of the calculus to determine who is born an American citizen. We hope this ends the attack on the citizenship of our American-born brothers and sisters who are born to immigrant parents. That question has finally been asked, answered, and laid to rest, hopefully, forever.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 10:16am
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing states to ban trans youth and some intersex youth from participating in school sports, the Center for Constitutional Rights released the following statement:Today's decision confirms what trans and intersex advocates have known for some time: we are in the Plessy v. Ferguson/Bowers v. Hardwick era of trans rights, which is to say that we have entered a period when the legal recognition and legal protections for trans and intersex people are at an all-time low. As was the case for Black Americans after Plessy was rebuked by Brown v. Board of Education, and for the LGBTQIA+ community after Lawrence v. Texas overturned Bowers, eventually this moment will be seen for what it is: a disgrace, a legal wrong, and a failure of moral clarity for which we must atone. We stand in solidarity with trans and intersex people as they face a wave of persecution and hatred much more vast than is commonly recognized. A comprehensive campaign years in the making – one that includes a raft of executive orders and federal rules driven by anti-LGBTQIA+ animus, 797 anti-trans bills in 43 states (with exceptions impacting intersex youth), efforts to censor speech and punish professors, cuts to funding for nonprofits that serve LGBTQIA+ people, and shameful kowtowing by hospitals – has endangered the health, rights, and safety of trans and intersex people across the country. The anti-trans policymakers and activists have, through their actions and rhetoric, made their goal clear: to terrorize trans people and remove them from public life. And yet, with today’s decision, the Supreme Court has once again abdicated duty to be a bulwark against state-sponsored persecution of trans and intersex people that is so severe that, according to the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security, trans and intersex people are experiencing the early stages of genocide.Rather than document this persecutory campaign, the mainstream press has boosted anti-trans propaganda in the deceptive name of “science” and “balance,” while many Democratic Party leaders are sacrificing trans and intersex people on the altar of political expediency. We cannot defeat hatred with equivocation, we cannot mollify fascists, sadists, and bigots, and we cannot fixate on the presumed predilections of “swing voters” when the rights and wellbeing of fellow citizens are under sustained assault. What is needed is simple yet elusive: unshakable support from the broad left. Awed and inspired by the courage of trans and intersex people in the face of this mounting threat, we are proud to stand with them, and we are eager to join others ready to bring unwavering fierceness and love to this urgent civil rights struggle.
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[l] at 6/30/26 10:13am
In response to the Supreme Court decision in West Virginia v. BPJ, Karla Gonzales Garcia, Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Director at Amnesty International USA said:“This decision comes at a time of rising authoritarian practices under the Trump administration, which use gender and sexuality as a cultural battle for political gain. Amid escalating efforts to legalize discrimination against transgender people, this decision could pave the way for broader laws that exclude transgender people from public life altogether. “Transgender youth should have the same opportunities afforded to their cisgender peers. Athletic programs are essential to the growth and development of all young people. Today’s ruling would deny transgender youth the ability to participate in recreational activities with their friends and peers – simply due to their gender identity. “Transgender people are our family, neighbors, friends, coworkers and community members, and the U.S. government will not force them from existence. We are united in solidarity with every young transgender athlete whose future feels less certain today. “Together, we will continue to fight for a better future – one where transgender people can enjoy their human right to bodily autonomy and a life of freedom, safety and dignity.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 9:46am
Nearly one third of all corporate political spending on elections since the 2010 Citizens United decision has occurred in the current election cycle – months before the general election, a new report from Public Citizen finds. Since the U.S. Supreme Court greenlit direct corporate spending to influence election outcomes in 2010, corporations have spent $1.58 billion on federal elections. In the 2026 election cycle alone, they have spent $517 million, a figure sure to soar as the November general election approaches (these totals reference disclosed political spending, not any contributions from Dark Money organizations that keep donors secret).The 2026 cycle spending already far exceeds the $461 million corporate spending during the 2024 presidential cycle. Driving this unprecedented surge of political spending are crypto, Big Tech and online betting corporations. Altogether, those three sectors are responsible for 57 percent of the corporate spending in the 2026 midterms. The new corporate spending is going primarily to corporate supremacist super PACs, which, unlike most super PACs, prioritize the interests of specific corporate sectors over either major political party or any particular candidate. The report, “The Rise of Corporate Supremacist Super PACs,” also finds that the biggest beneficiary of corporate contributions besides the industry-prioritizing super PACs is the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. MAGA Inc. received $120.6 million in direct contributions from corporations including Crypto.com, Energy Transfer Partners, UnitedHealthcare, and Reynold’s American. “A decade and a half after Citizens United, corporations are starting to spend on politics like never before,” said Rick Claypool, Research Director at Public Citizen and author of the report. “Crypto corporations shattered norms against corporate spending in elections last cycle and now many others are following suit – and still more are sure to follow.” “This corporate spending is a disaster for democracy,” said Claypool. “If the current, broken campaign finance system remains unchallenged – and corporate spending is allowed to drown out the voices of real voters and real people – these corporate campaigns will keep multiplying, even as voting rights for individual Americans face escalating attacks.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 9:13am
Today, by a vote of 6-3, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the long-standing federal limit on campaign spending coordination between political parties and candidates. This limit was passed by Congress in 1971 to guard against the corrupting effect of large campaign contributions flowing through party committees to candidates to circumvent federal limits on the amount of direct campaign contributions to candidates. The case is National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission. Public Citizen filed an amicus brief in the case arguing in support of the law. “This Supreme Court twisted the First Amendment to help billionaires and corporations buy our elections and bend our government to their will,” said Public Citizen Democracy Advocate Jon Golinger. “We have to combat this outcome by increasing transparency so voters know who’s paying for election ads, empowering small donors and public matching funds, and passing the Democracy For All Amendment to empower Congress, the states, and the voters to put in place reasonable protections to guard against campaign finance corruption.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 9:01am
Today in Trump v. Barbara the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship to everyone born in the United States.Thomas Wolf, director of democracy initiatives at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, had the following reaction:“Today’s ruling is the right one amid an avalanche of Supreme Court opinions undermining our democracy. The Court could not have defensibly ruled any differently. The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to everyone born here over 150 years ago. The Supreme Court affirmed that 20 years later in Wong Kim Ark. Meanwhile, the Court has been on an anti-democratic rampage.“In just the past few weeks alone, the Court further undermined the Voting Rights Act, encouraged more aggressive partisan gerrymandering, dangerously expanded presidential power over federal agencies, and further depleted protections for immigrants. This ruling does not make up for all the damage the Court has done this term.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 9:00am
In an important victory for all Americans, today the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a presidential executive order that would have changed the 14th Amendment’s process for U.S. citizenship. But while today is a victory, attacks on communities of color continue to persist both with the president and in cases with this court. “While we welcome the Court finally upholding a constitutional amendment ratified nearly two centuries ago, upholding the law is no cause for celebration, it is a requirement” Common Cause President & CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said. “Let today be a stark reminder that this court continues to systematically dismantle voting protections for Black and brown communities, tilting the scales of justice toward a dark era where a wealthy, privileged few dictate the rules for the rest of us. Today may be a brief victory for the rule of law, but our fight to protect our multiracial democracy continues.”
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[l] at 6/30/26 8:58am
Today, the Supreme Court ruled for the Republican Party and JD Vance in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, reversing previous decisions and removing one of the last restrictions preventing wealthy donors from funneling huge sums to their preferred candidates through political parties. The decision strikes down limits on "coordinated expenditures" and opens the door to even more billionaire influence in American elections.Stand Up America’s Managing Director of Policy and Political Affairs, Brett Edkins, issued the following statement on today’s decision:“The right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court thinks Citizens United didn’t go far enough. Today they gave their blessing for billionaires to buy even more influence over the politicians who represent us.“Americans deserve a Supreme Court that upholds our fundamental freedoms–not one that consistently sides with billionaire donors and diminishes the power of everyday citizens in our democracy. Congress should rein in this rogue Court once Trump leaves office by enacting major reforms, including term limits, an enforceable code of ethics, and expanding the Court with justices who will defend our democracy and our fundamental freedoms.”Since 2021, Stand Up America has been on the front lines of the fight for Supreme Court reform, mobilizing its members to take nearly one million actions in support of Supreme Court term limits, expansion, and a binding code of ethics.
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[l] at 6/30/26 12:43am
In his latest Freedom 250 triumph, Pres. Fragile Snowflake launched a Great American State Fair in D.C, which is not a state, boasting tens of attendees, no shade or seats, melted ice cream, busted Ferris wheel, $25 pretzels, teenage performers, sorry-ass pavilions often sporting a mere chair, a masturbating MAGA podcaster, and a Spinal-Tap-like mini-Arc-de-Pedo that began disintegrating its first day. No wonder headliner Trump - right again! - giddily proclaimed, "This is the beginning of the golden age of America."Fresh from miraculously transforming the iconic "reflecting lakes" into a fetid debacle, Trump launched "the most unforgettable birthday party any country has ever had," though maybe not in the way he envisioned. Many observers noted "his own Potemkin Village," billed as "a world-class exposition," sadly "sputtered out of the gate," bathed in the same "stench of kitsch and failure" as everything he touches. The “sparsely attended and shockingly boring” result was variously likened to "comedy gold," "horror movie vibes," "theater of the absurd," and a Butlins - low-rent British package resorts - "for fascists with heatstroke." It did not have to be this way. A viral Reddit post by a former worker at the Smithsonian recalled the "millions in private philanthropy" raised years ago for a landmark 250th anniversary of what's been called "the greatest sentence ever written" declaring "all men (sic) are created equal." Planned was a month-long folk festival, "The Festival of Festivals," featuring a blend of the likes of Burning Man, Farm Aid, Grand Ole Oprey and local festivals highlighting the best of American arts, redolent of the famed Christmas Truce of World War One when "people put down their weapons and got together" in a hopeful, unifying cause.That was before Trump "stole America's 250th birthday and threw it for himself," refusing to issue permits for the Smithsonian's version and swiftly turning what could have been a joyful historic civic celebration into a bleak, gaudy reality-TV pageant, an alleged state fair (which clearly neither he nor his minions have ever seen) without the requisite rides, games, farm animals, cotton candy, fried dough, fresh lemonade or "fun," which could be why reports surfaced of a muggy and miserable scene where bored kids were loudly complaining and at least one took to rolling in the steamy grass screaming, "I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME!!!”Because grifters gonna grift, it also became an egregious “$100-million laundering operation" with a small Ferris wheel. Added to $80 million in our money he stole from the bipartisan, real 250 commission, he lured corporate sponsors seeking favors or contracts - Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Oracle, ExxonMobil, United Airlines - with obscene "deals": $500,000 for “V.I.P access and seating" at all events, $1 million for a “private thank you reception” and “historic photo opportunity,” $2.5 million to be handed the mike for "a speaking role" at a July 4 event," up to $10 million for God knows what further abuse of power. Thus did his latest round of corrupt bombastic patriotism, trailing "a sense of dread" and blaring Creed's Higher, kick off Wednesday night to a military flyover, a National Anthem badly sung by Kash Patel's girlfriend, and a speech behind bulletproof glass to a mostly empty National Mall. "I am thrilled to declare that America is back,” he said, going on to reassure himself on the greatest terror of his life. "We were a joke two years ago, but nobody's laughing at us anymore" - this, from a purported US president forced to fill in for Milli Vanilli. Then he did his cringey robot "dance" while a Marine band played YMCA. Oof. Despite a relatively, mercifully brief speech, a viral video showed people streaming out as he droned on. Later he posted the rally was "packed to the brim with 45,000 happy people. Everybody stayed right until the end of my speech - they loved hearing about a truly successful America." Uh huh. "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears": Most reports put the crowd at about 1,000. Sleepy Joe last week: "Whoa. What a loser." Online, people cracked about "almost dozens of people," said they'd seen bigger crowds at school fairs, family reunions, Walmart, and suggested, "They were all at Mamdani's pool party."Grimly smiling Fox News hosts, though, toughed it out. Before a vast vista of grass dotted with maybe 14 people, they posted AI slopaganda and happily exclaimed "How great is this?" "We've got thousands celebrating!" "People are still coming!" and, "The feeling of patriotism is all in the air!" After C-listers all bailed and Vanilla Ice cancelled due to non-existent "inclement weather," performers came down to a 14-year-old singer from Arkansas and a local artist who painted an American flag live on stage; steadfast Fox chirped "so many cool people" watched him. They didn't mention, per one sage, that more people have been sexually assaulted by Epstein et al than attended this week's Fair. Meanwhile, generator issues caused the Ferris wheel to periodically shut down and the ice cream to melt; inexplicably, a butter sculpture of Trump and mascot cow named Melania didn't. Food vendors were few and airport-pricey: $5 water bottles, $23 turkey legs, $25 stuffed pretzels, a $27 dry burger with "limp, slimy lettuce on top.” Replicas of Trump passports, bewilderingly reading, "Welcome but be good," were gifted; invited whiteboard messages included, "A felon and predator resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave!!”; police arrested a MAGA podcaster dressed as Uncle Sam for masturbating to a performance by women acrobats.Lining the Mall were slapdash, flimsy state pavilions looking like empty doctors' waiting rooms or "like something Wile E. Coyote would run into while chasing the Road Runner." Over 20% of states declined to partake in the regime's ideological project to rewrite American history into a white, male Christian saga; some sent a minimal token - state name or symbol, (welcome) chair or two. Maine is a bare room whose walls list lobster facts; Oregon, "the Beaver State," has a chair, Vermont was empty until a woman drove down with maple syrup pamphlets; Alabama has a tub of peanuts; Kansas, cut-outs of Wizard of Oz characters.North Carolina flew a Confederate flag, later taken down. In "a small act of cultural sabotage," Florida honors anti-Trump Tom Petty and Jimmy Buffett among its famous residents. A mostly empty Faith and Family pavilion adorned with an Israeli flag hosted an evangelical pastor and drew two customers to "plunder hell and populate heaven”; other evangelicals reportedly wander the empty grounds, offering exorcisms. An empty War Department (sic) booth exhibits a cardboard cutout of George Washington, a montage of Hegseth's noble "war-fighters," and camo vests for kids to try on, get hyped and emulate them.Overseeing it all stands a stubby, shabby plywood and vinyl mock-up of Trump’s $100 million “Arc de Trump,” aka "Arc de Mentia," "Epstein Memorial Arch," "L' Arc de Dômbfuqué," his "Triumph of the Will" vision of "democracy if it had a midlife crisis and bought a white tracksuit." Many liken it to McDonald's arches, Spinal Tap's mini-Stonehenge, or Derek Zoolander's Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too," but the arch quickly began buckling and melting in D.C.'s humidity. Some fair-goers in search of rare shade have still sought it out. Others argue it'd get more traffic as a urinal. - YouTube www.youtube.com On Monday, the Fair was devoted to RFK's so-called MAHA, Make America Healthy Again program, or what has now morphed into Make America Hurl Again after organizers inexplicably decided the best way to promote better eating habits was to hold a contest in muggy-90-something-degree temps where people stuff their faces with as many pancakes as possible while gagging and trying not to throw up. Eat till you puke: Fun for the whole family! Up next, some speculate: "They will swim in some sewage and stare into an eclipse." Or mebbe snort heroin off a toilet seat? Stay classy, fascists. Trump was right: Too much winning.America's 250th marks the signing by 56 brave men of "a flawed but aspirational document" declaring a nation's independence and asserting, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Facts owe. Most of the Founding Fathers - slaveholders, misogynists, oppressors of Native Americans - "did not live up to those words," notes one historian. "The country they created was incomplete, and the work of completing it has been the work of every generation since."Since its inception, America has been "wrestling with the contradictions of its original sin," says Eddie Glaude, a professor of African- American studies. "This divided soul in which America imagines itself as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic (is) a kind of madness at the heart of the country. That madness evidences itself in cycles, and we happen to be in one right now." Still, every bailed musical act, court victory, voice raised in truth tells Trump, "We see you," writes Dean Blundell. "The country is not him. It has never been him. The country is the people who showed up across 250 years and did the work." And for now, it remains.

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