1/2 "When Donald Trump put his short orange fingers on Lincoln’s Bible in January of 2017, Mitch McConnell was already one of the worst Americans to ever draw breath....

"CNBC ranked the ten worst states to live in America, and every single one has a Republican governor, a GOP-controlled legislature, and a 2024 Trump victory. Tennessee took the top spot, followed by TX, IN, LA, GA, UT, MO, AL, OK, and AR." open.substack.com/pub/reallyam...

"The murder of yet another...decent...American at the hands of ICE thugs operating under the banner of federal immigration law should be grounds for national outrage and termination of all Trump officials involved in the perpetuation of a rogue operation." open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

1/2 "the overarching moral of this story is the immense folly and criminality of a war that has left America and the world in a much worse place than they would have been if Trump and his enablers had just left things alone —

Rachel Maddow’s description of Juan Sebastian Guerrero killed by ICE in Maine is a must see. She explains what happened w/out being graphic, and somehow that makes it even more powerful. Remember Alex, Pretti, and Renée? There have been no prosecutions. Still no justice. We know how this goes.

"Crucially, officials in the Trump administration continue to deny that Congress has any role in declaring war, despite the clear language of the Constitution." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

"Trump is turning America into a police state. His forces are ICE and Border Patrol, the National Guard and the U.S. Army, and the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI. [Read the post - linked below - for] a quick summary" open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

1/2 "A federal judge has delivered a sweeping rebuke of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, ruling that the case never presented a legitimate legal controversy, voiding the purported settlement that would have created a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” ...

"It should not be so difficult to convey the real contrast between a flawed but decent pro-democracy party...and a depraved 'blood and soil' fascist movement reliant on scapegoating, lies, and violence devoted to propping up the most corrupt presidency in history." open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

1/2 "Americans overwhelmingly believe corporate taxes should go up — yet they keep going down. Why? Part of the answer is campaign finance...even before Citizens United unleashed a tsunami of billionaire money.... Another part of the answer is corruption....

"If the rule of law means anything, the Judiciary Committee should not send Blanche’s name to the Senate for confirmation. And under no circumstances should the Senate confirm Blanche as attorney general." open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

Today in HCR's newsletter: some ways Trump Admin is failing us: Cyclospora, screwworm, Strait of Hormuz, mistreatment of our wounded soldiers, ... oh, and Lindsey Graham died, who said in 2016: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

"It may take a generation to undo the damage Trump and his lackeys have wrought, but it will be done. We will prevail." open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

1/2 "former Time magazine editor Rick Stengel: 'The reporting that the Times journalists have been subpoenaed for is exactly the kind of journalism the First Amendment is designed to protect: matters involving national security and taxpayer dollars....

"Presumably afraid of investigations into his actions, President Donald J. Trump appears to have abandoned all pretense of governing for the good of the country and is focusing on rigging the 2026 election to keep Republicans in power." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

1/2 "You might think that because horror stories about mass deportations have mostly faded from the headlines that Donald Trump has eased up on his draconian immigration policy. He has not. And what happened in Houston on Tuesday brought ICE and its immigration crackdown back into the spotlight....

"At the time [1987], Bork’s supporters expressed outrage at what they insisted was Kennedy’s smear campaign, for surely the right-wing attack on protections of the 14th Amendment would never so completely undermine modern society. And yet in 2026, here we are." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

1/2 "Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, climate change is going to impose large economic costs, some of which are already baked — and I mean baked — in. But the Trump administration’s rejection of both science and basic energy economics,...

1/2 "[Trump] isn’t immoral. He’s amoral. It’s hard for most of us to conceive of living in a Trumpian world without standards, norms, rules, or laws — a world composed only of transactions and calculations in which the only test is what’s in it for me and at what cost....

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker: “Donald Trump is suffering from dementia. Someone needs to step in before it’s too late.” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

1/2 "As far as I can tell, our erstwhile allies are now treating Trump as the senile uncle who says crazy, outrageous things, but shouldn’t be taken seriously....

"Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether he would travel to Moscow, prompting Zelenskyy to quip, 'It is difficult. There are lots of Ukrainian drones there. It’s dangerous.'" open.substack.com/pub/aaronpar...

1/2 "[T]he big difference between establishment politicians like Schumer or Stevens, and those who are trying to build something bigger like Bernie Sanders, AOC and El-Sayed? It’s never been about the candidate. It’s about the people they are fighting for and the movement they are building....

1/2 "NATO is the most effective alliance in human history. It is also a defensive, not an offensive, alliance.... The alliance is effective because it calls for collective defense. Article 5 of the treaty requires every nation ...

1/2 "On one hand, it is easy to be depressed by Americans’ folly in entrusting our precious democracy to Trump and his pack of moral, political, and intellectual dullards. On the other hand, the Pope’s ability to connect anew with millions of Americans on a plane that transcends politics...

"Republicans have disqualified themselves from holding power. It will be up to Democrats to reassert Congress’s role as a critical constitutional player in matters of war and peace — and deal with the consequences of the loss of freedom of navigation...." open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

1/2 "The president of the United States pressuring the president of FIFA to change the rules for his favored player perfectly represents the way Trump thinks about the rule of law in the United States....

1/2 "When someone you love votes for a candidate who has promised, in plain English, to do something cruel and unconstitutional and historically catastrophic, and then he does exactly that, and they still defend him, the relationship isn’t being broken by your refusal to overlook it....

1/2 "Communists call for the end of private ownership of the means of production, giving the state control of private enterprises. In today’s America, it is actually Trump, himself, who is taking government stakes in private enterprises. Democratic Socialists are not communists or socialists....

To my Belgian friends & family: So sorry our corrupt president is poisoning today's match. As much as we might want to win, decent Americans want it to be a fair match with the same rules applying equally to all.... makes me want to cheer for your team.

"Claiming that 'nobody cares' about Khanenei’s funeral, Trump said he expects the turnout at his funeral to set records, noting, 'Every day, people say to me, ‘Sir, I can’t wait for that day to come.’'" open.substack.com/pub/borowitz...

"Patriotism can mean different things to different people. For me, patriotism is a deep love for one’s country, rooted in civic pride and duty, coupled with a commitment to uphold America’s foundational ideals, chief among them freedom and liberty." open.substack.com/pub/steady/p...

"On this July 4, the 250th anniversary of America, we must recommit ourselves to real patriotism — the hard work necessary to make American democracy survive." open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

"But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

"Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"the adoption of the Lee Resolution [on July 2, 1776] marked the delegates’ ultimate conviction that a nation should rest not on the arbitrary rule of a single man and his hand-picked advisors, but on the rule of law." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

"On June 23, 2026, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) outlined the 'unprecedented corruption of [the] Trump White House' in the first 500 days of the president’s second term. 'This is a national crisis,' Murphy said, 'and we should start acting like it.'" open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

"Trump is throwing himself a party for America his own scientists say requires a respirator to attend. The Interior Dept did not respond to questions. If you are anywhere near DC on Sat, this is information Trump’s govt calculated, wrote down, & did not tell you." open.substack.com/pub/reallyam...

"Ensuring this country’s future for the next 250 years & beyond means staking a claim to a proud legacy that goes back to July 4, 1776. Do not cede it to demagogues and extremists. Recognize that if you have something to lose, then you have something to fight for." open.substack.com/pub/thenextm...

"Our ability to preserve democracy requires that we cultivate and elevate public virtues (e.g., honesty, empathy, self-restraint), without which we never would have gained and sustained our independence." open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

1/3 "Even for an agency created by Congress with a specific mandate and responsibilities, Trump is now free to direct that agency to do something completely different, to fire any civil servants who don’t do whatever he wants, or to completely gut it so that it is unable to serve its function....

🇺🇸 As we approach the 250th Anniversary of the USA, I'm posting this video so we NEVER forget what Trump's Patriots did on J6. Instead of honoring our Constitution's Peaceful Transfer of Power, seditious Donald unleashed a deadly MAGA MOB on our Capitol to overthrow our fair & just election results.

1/2 "Pundits eager to declare a new movement or sound the alarm about socialism are having a field day. But they’re wrong. Voters who have supported these candidates haven’t done so because they’ve been particularly attracted to the idea of Democratic Socialism....

"Today [SCOTUS] upheld birthright citizenship. But, as [The Bulwark] notes, SCOTUS should never have taken this case.... Although the court’s decision simply upheld conditions in place for more than a century, MAGA is treating it as a dramatic & dangerous change." open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

Read this and repost. We need to take back our country from the tyrant and his cronies & enablers. open.substack.com/pub/borowitz...

"As with any Trumpian production featuring pretensions of grandeur, this has become another ode to his incompetence and cultural cluelessness. There is something particularly feeble about the MAGA cult leader...." open.substack.com/pub/contrari...

Greg Sargent (The New Republic): “Trump constantly and explicitly holds up his naked corruption *as a badge of honor* that his supporters are supposed to thrill to (and see benefit for themselves in). He thinks corruption is the highest form of winning.” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...