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The Feeling of Patriotism Is All In the Air, Sort Of
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.
Jun 30, 2026
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Trump's Reflecting Pool Disaster Exposed as More Details Revealed on Firm That Won No-Bid Contract
New reports have revealed the full scope of President Donald Trump's disastrous renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which the National Park Service this week has been scrambling to clean up.
A Thursday report in The New York Times revealed that the firm tapped to install the pool's water purification system, Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract that "bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required" for such projects.
Even though Greenwater had only received one other federal contract in the past, NPS said it bypassed the normal bidding process on the grounds that "there was no time to consider other offers because the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the country’s 250th birthday," reported the Times.
The Times also found that Greenwater is owned by JJ Cafaro Investment Trust, whose owner is a Trump donor and "a neighbor to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida."
The firm's work has come under scrutiny in recent days after a massive algae bloom erupted in the pool, which prompted NPS workers to dump containers of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which had turned a fluorescent green.
As noted by the Times, the NPS refilled the pool before Greenwater had installed a permanent water purification system, which the paper wrote raised "the risk that it would quickly be clouded with algae."
While algae blooms have long been common in the Reflecting Pool, The Washington Post on Thursday commissioned expert analysis of satellite imagery and determined that this year's bloom was the largest to occur in the last five years and that "algae levels spiked days after Trump’s renovation was completed."
Alana Menendez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, told the Post that there was more algae in the Reflecting Pool on the first week after its reopening than in any other June satellite images of the pool going all the way back to 2021.
Algae blooms aren't the only problem facing the pool, as CNN reported on Thursday that some of the blue material that had been installed at the bottom of the pool as part of the renovation has started peeling off.
Specifically, CNN said that its reporters "observed a flap of blue material that was partially attached to the bottom in one area of the pool and floating toward the top," although the network added that "it is unclear if the material is paint or sealant, and it's unclear what caused it to come up."
Jun 19, 2026
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Alan Greenspan, Longtime Fed Chair and Ayn Rand Disciple, Meets Ultimate ‘Invisible Hand’
Alan Greenspan, whose policies during nearly 20 years as US Federal Reserve chair fueled soaring economic inequality and helped create the conditions for multiple economic crashes, died Monday at age 100 after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
While many corporate media outlets published hagiographic obituaries lionizing the "Maestro" who presided over nearly two decades of low inflation, rising stock prices, and American economic confidence, critics focused on Greenspan's role in promoting dangerous deregulation and "easy money" policies that inflated financial bubbles, with sometimes disastrous results.
Robert Reich—who served as US labor secretary under President Bill Clinton during all of Greenspan's tenure—called him "in many ways the most powerful person in America" during that era.
"If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan."
"He maintained an iron grip over the Fed, and almost single-handedly decided on interest rates," Reich wrote. "He essentially fired George H. W. Bush by raising interest rates so high (ostensibly to ward off the inflation then threatening the economy) that the economy took a dive, and voters blamed Bush. This was enough to convince my boss, Bill Clinton, to do exactly what Greenspan wanted—which was to reduce the federal budget deficit and thereby destroy much of the agenda Clinton ran on (and I helped create)."
"I don’t want to speak ill of anyone who has passed. Greenspan was an extremely charming, intelligent, and thoughtful man," Reich added. "But the truth must be told: If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan. That crisis—the worst collapse since 1929, which led to the worst recession in decades, in which millions of Americans lost their jobs, savings, and even their homes—resulted from the deregulation of Wall Street that Greenspan advocated."
Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis wrote on X: "His epitaph? A singular, glorious confession, 'I found a flaw in my model of the world.' A flaw, he said, as though it were a leaky pipe, not a total collapse of the intellectual architecture that anointed him Oracle. For decades, he preached that the self-interest of the predator was the invisible hand of the common good.
"Then, in 2008, the beast devoured the table, and to his credit, he blinked, admitting that his entire worldview—the one that central bankers canonized and the world swallowed—was a fairy tale for rentiers," Varoufakis added. "He did not, of course, admit to culpability. That would require a moral compass, a device notably absent from his Ayn Randian toolbelt. No, he merely noted the flaw, as a meteorologist might note a gust of wind, and returned to his well-earned silence."
Born 10 miles from Wall Street in Manhattan's Washington Heights during one of the most infamous economic bubbles of all time, Greenspan was a protégé of libertarian writer and philosopher Ayn Rand and was influenced by the Atlas Shrugged author's moral defense of capitalism, her fierce advocacy of deregulation, and her insidious insistence that self-interest was socially beneficial.
Their relationship cooled as Greenspan embraced more mainstream economic policies despised by Rand and gradually became a leading steward of the very sort of state-shepherded system she deeply distrusted.
After heading President Gerald Ford's Council of Economic Advisers, Greenspan was appointed chair of the Fed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He would remain in the post well into George W. Bush's second term.
Greenspan generally favored low interest rates, especially after crises like the 1987 stock market crash, the 1998 Long-Term Capital Management crisis, and the 2001 recession. His fame grew after he suggested that the economy might be experiencing a tech-driven “productivity miracle," language that many investors took as validation that traditional valuation limits were obsolete.
Critics would later call it a "productivity mirage."
Staunch devotion to low interest rates by Greenspan's Fed boosted stock prices and real estate values under "easy money" policies. Many investors came to believe that the Fed would intervene aggressively whenever markets fell sharply—the so-called "Greenspan Put."
However, since ownership of financial assets (and the firms that sell and promote them) is concentrated among the wealthy, it was the rich who benefited most from Greenspan's polices. When bubbles burst, as they did after the dot-com boom that ended in early 2000 and during the 2008 global financial crisis, the rich bounced back thanks to their diversified portfolios and bailouts, while middle- and lower-income households were wiped out through asset devaluation, foreclosures, and job losses.
"It is no exaggeration to say the global financial crisis of 2008 had an enormous and lasting impact on American life and the way ordinary people view elites," New York Times global economic correspondent Peter S. Goodman said on social media. "It is also no exaggeration to say that Alan Greenspan has as much responsibility for the crisis as an individual can."
"For those not old enough to remember, it is difficult to state his aura during his time of greatest influence," Goodman continued. "When he told Americans that they should buy houses and use variable-rate mortgages to do it, they listened. Much is made of his econ jargon-laden vernacular that went over the heads of nearly all listeners."
"That was central to the mystique," he added. "When he went to the Hill and spoke to Congress, most people had no idea what he was talking about but assumed that smarter kids did. And so his quasi-religious faith in the efficiency of markets as the ultimate insurance against risk went unchallenged and became dogma, and the risks kept building."
Jun 22, 2026
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22 Democrats Join GOP to Block Lebanon War Powers Resolution, Enabling Netanyahu's Sabotage of US-Iran Ceasefire
Nearly two dozen Democrats joined almost every Republican on Tuesday to vote down a war powers resolution that would have halted US military participation in Israel's assault on Lebanon, which is threatening to derail President Donald Trump's peace negotiations with Iran.
"More than 1.3 million people have already been forced to leave their homes or be killed, with the Israeli military telling them they will not be allowed to return," said the resolution's sponsor, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), on the House floor Tuesday. "Eighty-one Lebanese neighborhoods have been violently depopulated and demolished—erased from the map entirely."
Along with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.), the resolution received support from 187 Democrats on Tuesday, more than double the number who supported a similar resolution introduced by Tlaib earlier this month.
Despite top House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (NY), giving rhetorical backing to the resolution this time around, The Intercept reported that they did not formally whip the vote.
Twenty-two Democratic hawks joined the GOP to vote against ending cooperation with Israel's war, which has killed more than 4,000 people since March.
Among them were a clique of Democrats who have signed on to the centrist "Promise to America" aimed at countering the momentum of progressive and democratic socialist candidates within the party—including Reps. Donald Davis (NC), Laura Gillen (NY), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Adam Gray (Calif.), Susie Lee (Nev.), and Tom Suozzi (NY).
Others include favorites of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), including Reps. George Latimer (NY), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), and Brad Schneider (Ill.), who have each received over a million dollars from it and other pro-Israel lobbying groups over their careers, according to FEC reports reviewed by Track AIPAC.
Other Democratic opponents include Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Donald Norcross (NJ), Jimmy Panetta (Calif.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Brad Sherman (Calif.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Norma Torres (Calif.), Juan Vargas (Calif.), and Marc Veasey (Texas), many of whom have also received extensive support from the lobby.
As voting began on Tuesday afternoon, Lebanese-American journalist Rania Khalek said that "how people vote on this is a big indicator of who is bought and paid for by the war machine and Israel lobby."
In a comment to Axios, the staunch pro-Israel centrist Golden justified his vote against the measure by claiming that "to the best of my knowledge, we're not engaged in a conflict with Lebanon."
Latimer made a similar statement on social media, claiming that the resolution was only good for "messaging" since the US did not have any active troops in Lebanon.
But Tlaib argued on the House floor that "the United States is not a bystander to these war crimes. It's an active participant."
"The United States is currently engaged in illegal and unauthorized hostilities supporting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in violation of the War Powers Act," she said. "The Trump administration is providing intelligence, coordinating strikes, demonstrating overt command over the Israeli military decisions, including greenlighting specific Israeli attacks and operations."
Other supporters of the resolution emphasized that ending Israel's occupation of Lebanon is a precondition for ending Trump's war with Iran.
"Ending Israeli military action in Lebanon is a key part of ensuring that the negotiation process with Iran continues and peace prevails in the Middle East," said Rep. Betty McCullom (D-Minn.).
The memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran earlier this month states that, for peace to be achieved, it must be implemented on "all fronts," including in Lebanon.
Iranian negotiators have repeatedly emphasized that they will not allow Trump to pull back from the war he's desperate to end unless Israel fully withdraws troops from Lebanon, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emphatically refused to do.
Janet Abou-Elias, a researcher at the Democratizing Foreign Policy Project at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Common Dreams earlier this month that without US military participation, Israel could likely continue its occupation “only for a limited period of time."
Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war group that has agitated for the passage of Tlaib's war powers resolution, lambasted the 22 Democrats who voted against it.
"These 22 fringe House Democratic hawks revealed today that they don't actually want the Iran War to end," the group wrote in a post to social media. "By failing to end US participation in the Israeli war in Lebanon, they are undermining a peace deal."
Noting that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused oil prices to spike and inflation to ripple across the economy, the group said these Democrats were "keeping prices high for Americans."
Just Foreign Policy's executive director Erik Sperling told The Intercept that although the resolution did not pass, the vote signaled that things were moving in the right direction.
“Democrats have been pretty unified about speaking out against the killing of innocents and all of the harm by the Iran War, but there has been less vocal outrage about the mass killing and occupation in Lebanon,” Sperling said. “This is just an important signal that Democrats are aware of the way the Lebanon war is a humanitarian crisis and is the key roadblock to ending this war and delivering the peace that Americans are demanding.”
Jun 30, 2026
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Venezuelans Just Deported by Trump Among Tens of Thousands Missing After Earthquakes
Tens of thousands of people still haven't been found after a pair of devastating earthquakes in Venezuela last week—including some Venezuelans who had just been deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump's mass deportation push and were being held in a hotel when the temblors hit, The Associated Press revealed Monday.
There were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, on a deportation flight that arrived just hours before the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes, the AP reported, citing a Human Rights First initiative that has tracked thousands of such flights under Trump. They were brought to Hotel Santuario La Llanada in La Guaira, which collapsed because of the quakes.
"Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building," according to the outlet.
Another deportee who survived, 24-year-old Jenny Rodriguez, told Telemundo: "I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help... Thanks to God—and to him—I was able to get out of there."
Oswadeliz Núñez Ramírez is still "frantically searching for her son," 28-year-old Daniel Alejandro Núñez Ramírez, who was also on the deportation flight and at the hotel, the Miami Herald reported Monday. A member of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service who called himself "Jonathan" told her that he had pulled her son from the rubble, but, "skeptical of the official account, his mother has searched every hospital, clinic, and sector of La Guaira and Caracas without success."
While US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to the AP's request for comment, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, told the Herald: "This flight safely reached Venezuela, and all illegal aliens on board were returned home. When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them."
Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez said Monday that the earthquake has left at least 1,719 dead, 5,034 injured, and 15,866 displaced from their homes.
UN News noted Monday that the ongoing search and rescue effort involves more than 2,000 workers from over two dozen countries, plus over 160 dogs, and Gianluca Rampolla, the United Nations resident coordinator in Venezuela, "reported that the UN and Venezuelan authorities had agreed to procure 10,000 body bags in anticipation of the death toll rising further."
Rampolla said that "together with the search and rescue operations, we are focusing, together with the government, on providing emergency healthcare, shelter, food assistance, water and sanitation, and logistical support to ensure not only the storage but also the distribution of all the supplies arriving in the country, as well as protection."
As of Monday evening, more than 44,000 people remained missing, according to a reunion website for families. As NBC News detailed Monday:
Even as the chances of finding survivors diminished with every passing hour, Venezuelans continued using shovels, ropes, and their bare hands as they dug through mountains of collapsed concrete.
They were joined by a growing number of international rescue teams, who pulled multiple survivors from the wreckage, offering desperate families a rare glimmer of hope.
Among the rescues, teams from the United States, France, and Venezuela pulled a man and his son from the ruins Sunday morning after they had spent four days trapped beneath the rubble.
Organizations including US-based peace group CodePink and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington, DC-based think tank, have called on the US and allied countries to lift all sanctions against Venezuela in the wake of the earthquakes.
Trump earlier this year directed an illegal invasion of Venezuela, during which US forces killed scores of people and abducted President Nicolás Maduro, then seized control of the South American country's nationalized oil industry.
Jun 29, 2026
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Caving to Trump 'Temper Tantrum,' Two Republicans Flip to Block Iran War Powers Resolution
Two Senate Republicans who supported a previous resolution calling for an end to the US war on Iran changed their votes late Wednesday after President Donald Trump publicly and privately berated GOP lawmakers, calling them "losers" who provided "aid and comfort to the enemy."
In Wednesday's procedural vote, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)—who reportedly got into a shouting match with Trump over the Iran war during a closed-door lunch hours earlier—sided with virtually every other Republican in opposing the war powers resolution, just a day after he supported a separate, symbolic resolution calling for the removal of US forces from the conflict. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also switched, changing his vote to "present" at the urging of the president.
Senate Republicans forced late Wednesday's vote in a clear effort to placate Trump, who fumed at "Republican losers" who backed the symbolic war powers resolution that passed the upper chamber earlier this week. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the lead sponsor of the resolution that Republicans blocked on Wednesday, said the vote was held to "appease [Trump's] temper tantrum."
"After both Republican-majority Houses took the historic step of voting that additional war against Iran is illegal without congressional authorization, President Trump came to the Capitol and tried to browbeat Republican senators for upholding their oaths of office," said Kaine. Wednesday's vote, the senator added, "does not undo the expressed position of Congress that further war against Iran is illegal unless Congress votes for it."
Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to resume attacks on Iran if negotiations collapse, celebrated Wednesday's vote in a late-night post on his social media platform, thanking Senate GOP leaders and highlighting that Cassidy and Paul changed their votes.
Cassidy, who lost reelection last month and insisted hours before the vote that he would not "be bullied" by the administration, subsequently thanked the White House for giving him a "thorough briefing" on Iran to "address many of my concerns." Trump reportedly called Cassidy a "lunatic" during Wednesday's private lunch.
"This president is telling the American people there’s no money for healthcare, housing, or childcare—but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support."
Wednesday's vote came amid tenuous negotiations between the US and Iran on a diplomatic resolution to end the illegal war that Trump launched in late February, killing thousands of Iranians, throwing the global economy into chaos, and driving up prices at home.
On Wednesday, prior to the Senate war powers vote, the White House asked Congress to approve an $87.6 billion supplemental funding package that includes nearly $70 billion for military programs to address "operational costs incurred" during the war on Iran.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement that "the tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump administration could be used to protect Americans’ healthcare, feed hungry children, and help working families afford everyday life."
"Instead, Trump wants taxpayers to continue footing the bill for his reckless war in Iran, which has sent the cost of gas and everyday goods skyrocketing, put our brave men and women in uniform at risk, and left the region no safer than before," Boyle added.
Senate Democrats' top appropriator, Patty Murray of Washington, said she would not "rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice."
“This president is telling the American people there’s no money for healthcare, housing, or childcare—but there should be endless taxpayer dollars to fund wars they don’t support," said Murray.
Jun 25, 2026
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At Shuttered Hospital, Platner Accuses Collins of 'Throwing Gasoline' on Raging Rural Healthcare Crisis
While Sen. Susan Collins "brags" that she's secured money for rural hospitals, the funding is a "pittance" compared to the billions in Medicaid cuts she helped push through, said her Democratic challenger in Maine.
Jul 01, 2026
Joined by medical professionals, patients, and local healthcare advocates outside a hospital in central Maine that was forced to shut down last year, Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Wednesday highlighted the human impact of the crisis that he said Sen. Susan Collins is actively making worse by prioritizing "health insurance companies, Big Pharma, and private equity firms" over Mainers—even as the Republican claims to bring crucial funds to the state's struggling rural hospitals.
Platner held a press conference outside the former Northern Light Inland Hospital in Waterville, Maine, which closed last May along with its associated primary care centers.
The closure left roughly 5,000 patients without general practitioners and further away from an emergency department and inpatient care, as well as putting more than 300 local residents out of work.
The hospital system said last May that it was closing Northern Light Inland due to rising operational costs, stagnant or reduced reimbursement rates, and a tight labor market with more competition for a smaller pool of qualified healthcare workers. A hospital official told Maine Public last year that the 48-bed facility was losing more than $1 million per month due to operating costs.
Since Northern Light Inland closed, said Platner, "Waterville Fire and Rescue has tripled its out-of-city ambulance transports," as there is no regular public transportation between Waterville and Augusta, where the nearest hospital is. Patients who were once charged $50 for a ride to the hospital now have to pay $400, the combat veteran and oyster farmer-turned-Senate candidate said, "and a ride that is longer means higher mortality rates."
One former patient of the healthcare center, Kyla Mihalovits, said her family was "thrown into a state of uncertainty regarding our access to healthcare" after Northern Light Inland closed and her primary care provider relocated to Unity, Maine.
"When your community no longer has access to high-quality [healthcare], it doesn't matter if you identify as a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. You have lost something that your community needs to survive."
"We consider ourselves lucky to get an appointment once a year for our annual checkups. Many of my friends and neighbors lost their doctors and are on excruciatingly long waiting lists," said Mihalovits, adding that she no longer has access to women's healthcare and does not know where she will obtain her first mammogram after she turns 40 this year.
"Because my hospital closed, I no longer have any semblance of continuity of care available for me at this crucial time in my life," she said. "For women, especially since we are very often not listened to, dismissed, or even believed by certain healthcare providers, especially when we see them for the first time, continuity of care is crucial. Because our community hospital closed, it will take years for my family to establish care outside of our community."
Stories like Mihalovits', said Platner, show that "rural healthcare is not collapsing sometime in the future. This isn't some vague thing we talk about that may happen someday. It is happening now, but it is not an accident. No rural hospital closes by chance. It's the outcome of policy, and it is a choice that people in places of political power like Susan Collins have made."
Rural hospitals in Maine are projected to continue closing due to nearly $3 billion in Medicaid cuts that are expected to hit the state over the next 10 years—cuts that were included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), a law that also included tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and whose passage Collins helped ensure by casting a decisive vote to send it to the Senate floor.
"Before the bill's passage, nearly half of Maine's rural hospitals were found to be at risk of closing while some, like the one here today, had already shuttered," said Platner. "The One Big Beautiful Bill is doing exactly what the experts warned it would do. It is throwing gasoline on a crisis that was already raging in Maine's rural hospitals."
The Senate candidate emphasized that Collins voted to advance the bill out of committee "one day after a private equity billionaire, Stephen Schwarzman, the chair of [Blackstone], and a man who will personally reap huge profits from the bill, gave $2 million towards her reelection campaign."
Collins frequently emphasizes that she ultimately voted against the OBBBA almost exactly a year ago—after Republican leaders had secured enough votes to pass the legislation without her—but Platner stressed that "her vote was pivotal to advancing it and paving the way for its eventual passage. She knew what she was doing. She was profiting off of her vote."
He also took particular issue with the five-term senator's "bragging" about the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion fund also included in the OBBBA through which, Collins said in a recent ad, she secured $190 million for Maine rural health systems.
"She likes to brag," said Platner, "that she uses her power to bring money to Maine to help the state, except that the money she brings is a pittance. It is a pittance in comparison to the money sucked out of the state through tax cuts for corporations and billionaires that she happily goes along with. It is a pittance to the money sucked out of our system in the forever wars that we send trillions to year after year that she has always supported. A pittance toward the billions of dollars we continue to send to Israel to fund a genocide in Gaza."
The candidate, who is a proponent of Medicare for All, added that "people see through" Collins' claims that she is a "moderate" Republican.
"The idea that she stands up for the needs of Mainers over that of corporations is really laid bare with something just like the Rural Health Transformation Program," Platner told Common Dreams. "The numbers don't lie. It's very obvious what she's doing. And I am seeing in every single corner of the state and hearing from not just Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, who fundamentally understand that Susan Collins is someone who, for decades now, has represented not their interests, but the interests of those who donate the most money to her. And they're sick and tired of it."
While Collins has boasted that the program included in the OBBBA is helping rural Maine residents, the law is already harming millions of people across the country and making it harder for them to access crucial healthcare a year after it was signed by President Donald Trump. According to Protect Our Care, 3.8 million Americans have lost coverage through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program since the law was passed. Fifteen million people are projected to lose their healthcare by 2034. More than 1,000 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have shut down since the OBBBA was passed, as well as 40 maternity wards.
"When your community no longer has access to high-quality [healthcare], it doesn't matter if you identify as a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent," said Platner. "You have lost something that your community needs to survive and you have lost it because establishment politicians like Susan Collins have for decades fought not for your community, have fought not for the needs of working Mainers, but have fought to protect the profits of health insurance companies, corporations, and private equity, and that must come to an end."
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'Beginning of a New Phase': Hottest June Ever Recorded for World's Oceans
"With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months."
Jul 01, 2026
A new report released Wednesday shows that surface temperatures of the world's oceans hit a record for June, sparking fresh warnings of grave “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems” across the globe.
The analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Marine Service, and confirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), finds that “record global sea surface temperatures” of 21.0° Celsius (69.8° Fahrenheit) in June of 2026 beat the previous record in the same month broken in 2023 and again in 2024.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo warned that the "current conditions" of the oceans "could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory."
"With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months," Buontempo warned. "That Copernicus Marine data reaches the same conclusion through independent methods speaks to the strength of European science—and to why open, robust data matters now more than ever.”
According to a statement from Copernicus, warmer oceans have wide-ranging impacts on natural systems and human infrastructure, noting that "higher ocean temperatures keep the atmosphere warm for longer, provide extra energy to storms and increase evaporation, thus enhancing the potential for extreme precipitation and flooding. Ocean warming also contributes to sea level rise and ice melt, and stresses marine ecosystems."
With the onset of a new El Niño cycle—which tends to trigger more pronounced weather events worldwide—the continued increase of ocean temperatures is a serious concern of scientists.
Wednesday's report on ocean temperatures also arrives as record-breaking heat waves hit both Europe and North America, offering more evidence of the perils of an ever-hotter world that is being pushed to the brink by the burning of fossil fuels and the failure of governments worldwide to finally act against the fossil fuel industry that is driving the crisis.
Surging ocean surface temperatures are "not unexpected,” Michael Meredith, an ocean scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in response to the Copernicus report. “But the pace of warming we are now seeing is alarming.”
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Another Blow to Democratic Establishment as Melat Kiros Unseats 30-Year Incumbent
“We won tonight, but this is also something so much bigger than this moment," said Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist.
Jul 01, 2026
Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist and first-time candidate, defeated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette on Tuesday in Colorado's 1st Congressional District primary, the latest signal that progressive momentum and backlash against the Democratic establishment are spreading nationwide.
"We won tonight, but this is also something so much bigger than this moment," Kiros, who was fired from the law firm Sidley Austin in 2023 for speaking out in support of Palestinian rights demonstrators, told backers late Tuesday after The Associated Press called the race in her favor. "We believe that fundamental change can, and will, happen if we fight for it—if we organize, if we show no fear in standing up for what’s right. That is the message that Denver has sent to both parties, to Donald Trump, and to the entire country."
Kiros' upset win came a week after a series of progressive victories in New York congressional primaries, which sparked backlash from the party's corporate wing. Days after the New York contests, more than a dozen centrist Democrats signed an open letter declaring that "we are capitalist, not socialist," a clear rebuke of insurgent progressives.
Justice Democrats, a national progressive group that backed Kiros, said it is having its "most successful cycle to date, winning six Democratic primaries and proceeding to the top two in two California primaries." The organization recruited Darializa Avila Chevalier, who upset five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in New York's 13th Congressional District last week.
"Melat and our candidates continue winning this cycle because Democratic voters are finally getting leaders acting on their demands to bring the fight to the corporations raising our prices, the war lobbies profiting off endless war and genocide, and the immigration gestapo terrorizing our communities," Alexandra Rojas, Justice Democrats' executive director, said in a statement Tuesday.
Kiros—whose platform includes Medicare for All, universal childcare, and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement—prevailed despite a last-minute torrent of super PAC spending in support of DeGette. Drop Site reported that "super PACs funded by AIPAC and major big tech donors have poured roughly $2 million behind Rep. Diana DeGette on the eve of her contentious primary."
"Across the country, voters are rejecting corporate politics and electing candidates willing to take on billionaire influence, confront the climate crisis, fight for working people, and speak with moral clarity on the defining issues of the moment," said the youth-led Sunrise Movement following Kiros' win.
Kiros will be the heavy favorite to win the general election in November, when she will face Republican Christy Peterson.
Progressives also celebrated Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser's Democratic gubernatorial primary win over US Sen. Michael Bennet, whose campaign received nearly $3 million in support from billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“This movement is what democracy looks like,” Weiser told supporters late Tuesday. “You all sent a very clear message: The future of Colorado will not be decided by out-of-state billionaires, by corporations or special interests. Colorado’s future belongs to all of us."
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