This week, a clear "dignity gap" amidst more botches - war, flu, pools, fans - suggests a faint, nascent shift in momentum back toward we the people. As DC sank into mire, New York came together "as one" - Mamdani: "We find a way" - with a jubilant party for its beloved Knicks, and Chicago marked a dazzling, joyful, Juneteenth launch of an Obama Center with free library, museum, gardens, sledding hill where "hope took root" for the first Black president, and somehow still resides.

Meanwhile, the regime tried to sell a fragile Iran deal deemed "the worst foreign policy blunder in decade" that achieved none of their goals, prompted Iran to claim "total victory," and led Andy Borowitz to report the Ayatollah had named Trump "Employee of the Month." Now a newly empowered Iran will control the Hormuz Strait, levy new fees, see sanctions lifted, get a $300 billion infrastructure fund that makes Obama's 2015 pay-out pale, and be free to keep building its nuclear stockpiles and repressing its people, all at the cost of thousands of lives including 175 Iranian schoolgirls and global economic mayhem. The surreal bonus: In "the greatest diplomatic troll" ever, France's Macron got Trump, stunned by gold and ignorant of history, to sign the MOU at Versailles, where World-War-I Allies forced Germany to sign "one of the most famous surrender documents in history.”

With it all, a still-homicidal, hold-my-beer Israel continued bombing and killing civilians in Lebanon, and US-Iran talks were (again) cancelled. Other fails, less lethal, often cringey, kept coming. Again playing the buffoon on the world stage at the G7 summit, where he appeared dazed and confused before chatting leaders, he claimed Italy Premier Giorgia Meloni had “begged me to take a picture with her!" Meloni, fed up, swiftly retorted on social media that she was "astonished" by a claim that was "completely made up" (America nods wearily), she has no idea why he "behaves like this," and "Italy, and I, do not beg." Then Italy's foreign minister cancelled an upcoming trip here, noting Trump, "whether out of intent or ineptitude," has managed with "his inappropriate outbursts," to make the U.S. "unpopular across the entire European continent" - "no easy feat." Sigh. Too much winning.

A flu outbreak hit 150 recruits training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas weeks after manly dry-drunk Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth, declaring "Your body, your faith and your convictions are not negotiable," said he was “restoring freedom" by ending mandatory flu vaccines, ”absurd overreaching mandates (that) weaken our war-fighting capabilities." New viewership data for the Freedom 250 cage fight - Trump: ”one of the most exciting days in the History of our fabled White House“ - were not, as predicted, ”Super-Bowl numbers“ of 125.6 million, or Rubio’s giddy billion, but a sad 17 million. Their latest attempt to "make friends" with MAGA hats and cookie bribes to kids in Greenland, home to Make America Go Away hats, was met by scowls and fingers. After Congress shut him out, Trump stole $352 million from the Secret Service for his ballroom. Then he was defeated by a Medal of Honor.

And in the running debacle of his $14 million redo of the Lincoln Reflecting pool, surging algae is worse than it's been in years - “Now that the bottom is nice and dark, the algae grows better" - and peeled-off chunks of his "American-flag blue" paint are floating to the surface, loosened by chlorine-neutralizing hydrogen peroxide hapless workers are dumping into it. The historic kicker: The same thing happened - creation of a swamp-green guac pool - at the 2016 Rio Olympics; it made global headlines, easily recalled. But nope, not by all-knowing "Nero on the Potomac." The pattern repeats: Claim something needs improving, ignore experts, screw it up big-time for too much money, blame someone else when it crashes. It will end, God willing, in humanity's "oldest political ritual" - Rome's "condemnation of memory" wherein evildoers' names are chiseled off, statues toppled, their faces hacked, unmade by history.

Until then, we get by on whatever slivers of hope, good cheer, good trouble we can find or make. Thursday saw not just a parade but "a jubilee" in New York, a vast, messy, blue and orange spectacle of two million exuberant fans descending on a packed city to salute the dogged Knicks, NBA champions after a 53-year wait. The staggering turnout for their first ticker-tape parade ever, one of the largest for a sports title celebration, caused mostly glad mayhem in lower Manhattan. For a 10 a.m. parade start, thousands camped out overnight, paid others to hold them a place, took red-eye flights, arrived at dawn, inched forward; many more got turned away when viewing pens filled up before 8 a.m and had to settle for watching on TVS in overflowing bars. Buses shut down, subways blocked exits, people caught rides on garbage trucks and crowded friends' balconies.

Over 10,000 cops, some with Knicks jerseys under their uniforms, circulated amidst thousands of pounds of shredded paper, rivers of toilet paper hung on wires, dozens of floats and checkpoints, miles of barricades and no dedicated public restrooms. Celebrities mounted floats; young people climbed up on scaffolding; kids held up signs bragging they'd skipped school or told reporters their teachers were probably pissed they had; everyone, even dogs, wore Knicks merch, caps, socks, shirts, tutus, sneakers, cheering, grinning: "New York energy. New York love. Everybody’s here for the same reason." Indomitable Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, who led his team from behind in all four wins, rode on a float with his wife and daughter, leaning on the trophy, then he jumped off and walked Broadway with it in his arms, scores reaching out to touch it.

At City Hall, a beaming Mamdani gave each player a key to the city and hailed the unity of a city "overcome by happiness," for once brought together not by tragedy but "pure, unfiltered joy." The bettors and experts and pundits "who watch from far away" do what they do, he said - run the numbers, write the Knicks off, give the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning. "But there's one thing they just don’t get about this city," he said. "It is in that .4% that we go to work...that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible. We find a way. What is New York, if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you?...What is New York if not your back's up against the wall? The Knicks did not just win for New York City, they won like New York City. This is our city. This is our team."

The same day Chicago, also euphoric, commemorated the end of slavery in America with a hopeful, sold-out, star-studded opening ceremony for a privately funded, $850-million Obama Presidential Center on the long-neglected South Side where Barack Obama did community organizing, fell in love, raised a family and entered politics. A decade in the making, set in John Lewis Plaza, the Center sits on a sprawling campus of almost 20 acres. It has a museum, a digitized presidential library and free Chicago Public Library branch full of books chosen by the Obamas, four floors of exhibits, a fruit and vegetable garden, an Eleanor Roosevelt garden, a water terrace honoring Obama’s mother Ann Dunham, and a community NBA-size basketball court and sledding hill because, growing up nearby, Michelle Obama never had one. Inside, there are also 30 original artworks by diverse artists; in the lobby is the first dual portrait of both Obamas by Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili Crosby.

Wrappng around two sides of the top of the Center is an all-caps excerpt from Obama’s 2015 speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday 1965, the march from Selma to Montgomery AL. where police attacked John Lewis and other civil rights marchers. It was chosen, said Obama, because, "There are places and moments in America where this nation's destiny has been decided, and Selma is such a place. The text reads, in part, "You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed." It is meant, he has said, "to honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar." When he finished speaking, he hugged Lewis, a mentor who he's said "gave me a a sense of meaning and purpose," in a now-iconic photo.

In attendance were many pols - Bidens, Clintons, Bushs, Kamala, Pelosi, Pritzker, Newsom, Angela Merkel, Justin Trudeau - celebrities including Tom Hanks and a smiling Stephen Colbert in a tan suit, and A-list musical performers. Chicago-born Jennifer Hudson sang the National Anthem, John Legend sang the civil-rights-era Someday We’ll All Be Free, Springsteen sang Land of Hope and Dreams, Eddie Vedder sang Better Believe with young local musicians of Guitars Over Guns, Stevie Wonder invited all the artists to join in Higher Ground. Thousands of South Side residents watched a livestream of the ceremony from nearby Midway Plaisance Park, re-enforcing Obama's hope the Center serves as a community hub, with a sense of possibility and a belief "we can come together and create the change we seek."

Michelle Obama began her speech by asking the crowd to "indulge me" to "fully sing" her husband's praises. "Barack, you gotta look at me," she said, to which he shook his head no, looked down, grew tearful. "You always gave us the very best within you, and in doing so you reminded the rest of us that we could too," she said. "There are no words to express how proud I am of the way you showed up, and continue to show up every single day...You were doing the people's work." She recalled the racist vitriol he faced: "Eight years in the crucible and not once did you melt in the heat, not once did you let it harden you," take away from his grace, courage, decency, work ethic. In a dig at Trump, she also noted "a lasting legacy" isn't measured by an award or name on a building but by “the difference we make in one another’s lives... carrying each other when we’re weary."

Obama, moved by her speech, argued, "She did me wrong. She wouldn’t let me see her speech. She knew she was going to mess me up, and she did it anyway." Eloquent, stressing the dark times, he focused on affirming "how special and how precious our democracy is...what we can achieve when we embrace our shared responsibilities as citizens." Citing "unfinished business, my own shortcomings and mistakes," he acknowledged democracy's flaws and inefficiencies, quoting from a plaque he kept on the Resolute Desk: "Hard things are hard." "It's tempting to give in to cynicism and even despair,” he said, “but I do not believe that is the story of America that prevails in the end.” Instead, like Michelle, he indirectly refuted the cruel, stupid, greedy crap of today's national discourse by elevating "the belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people."

The litany went on: His elemental belief "nobody is above the law, nor beneath its protection." His belief in checks and balances, accountability, an independent judiciary, a robust free press, a military and law enforcement with allegiance not to an individual but the people and the Constitution, a peaceful transfer of power after people have spoken in free fair elections. A belief in private qualities, "our greatest inheritance," like honesty, integrity, compassion, a "faith in the decency of our fellow citizens, and the possibility that despite our differences we can see each other (and) make common cause together." The center's exhibits are "not meant to evoke nostalgia for some gauzy bygone era,“ he said. "They're meant to remind us of what’s possible, so we can forge ahead (and) do the work that needs to be done." The multi-hued audience, who needed to hear it all again, cheered.

Andreas Sieber, 350.org Head of Political Strategy said:

“The momentum on fossil fuels was unmistakable. Brazil’s roadmap process on transitioning away from fossil fuels drew significant interest, with the Brazilian presidency reporting more than 100 submissions. That momentum now needs to be carried forward clearly and credibly, including by the incoming Turkish COP31 Presidency, with concrete next steps that turn the global commitment to transition away from fossil fuels into national plans, international cooperation and real-world implementation.”

However, negotiations failed to include a target to triple adaptation finance in the Global Goal on Adaptation by 2035 that was agreed at COP30 in Brazil, exposing a familiar and dangerous gap, with developed countries focusing much of the discussion on technical processes under the Global Goal on Adaptation to avoid commitments to scale up finance.

“The Global Goal on Adaptation cannot be implemented without finance. For communities already facing floods, droughts and extreme heat, adaptation is not an abstract exercise in measurement. It is about whether homes can be protected, crops can survive, health systems can cope, and lives can be saved. Countries on the frontlines already know much of what needs to be done. The question is whether they will receive the finance and support required to do it.”

Rukiya Khamis, 350.org East Africa Programme Manager said:

“The gap between climate ambition and climate implementation remains the defining challenge of our time. As attention now turns to COP31, expectations are high. Parties must shift from dialogue to delivery, from commitments to implementation, and from ambition on paper to action on the ground.

The message from Bonn is unmistakable: the world is running out of time. COP31 must deliver results that match both the urgency of the science and the realities faced by African communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis.”

• Read the Letter

Convened by Demand Progress, the letter is signed by SEIU, Center for Biological Diversity, Common Cause, Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, Young People’s Alliance, UltraViolet Action and many more. Demand Progress has also been leading a campaign opposing previous congressional efforts to pass an AI moratorium.

“Obernolte and Trahan are trying to give Big Tech CEOs what they desire most: a federal ban on state laws that could prevent them from unleashing unfettered AI on everyone,” said Demand Progress Education Fund AI Policy Advisor Colin McGlynn. “AI has flirted with children, pushed minors towards suicide, created pornographic deepfakes of countless women and girls, and are being used to make life or death decisions about our health, our jobs and even our military. The Obernolte-Trahan bill would recklessly stop state laws that are the only legal safeguards we have against these threats.”

“Right now, states are the only enforcers in the country doing anything to protect the public from AI harms,” stated the letter. “In the process they’ve not only passed legislation, but carefully worked to not create the patchwork that industry warns of. The exceedingly small number of regulatory bills that have passed are intentionally harmonized, not conflicting. This bill would freeze all of that work for three years over the fear of a patchwork that has not materialized at the very moment the technology is moving fastest and the stakes are climbing.”

“At the Bonn climate talks close, countries cannot ignore the devastating consequences of continued fossil fuel reliance. Across the world, fossil-fueled wars drive destruction and human suffering, while volatile oil and gas prices push up energy and food costs, making life unaffordable for millions.

“That is why countries need energy transition roadmaps. If designed well, these plans can protect economies from fossil-fueled volatility, ensure energy access for all, reduce energy bills, and build jobs, peace, and green industrialization. Countries can either double down on fossil fuels and get caught up in the next fossil fuel crisis, or they can choose economic and energy sovereignty by planning for a just transition. The right choice is obvious.

“The next stop is COP31, where countries must bring their concrete plans to the table. Building a safe, renewable future requires planned, government-led transitions backed by regulations, public funding, and international cooperation. Rich countries must phase out fossil fuels first and fastest, equip the new just transition mechanism with funding, capacity, and rights-based principles, and support reforming outdated global debt, tax, and trade rules to make the energy transition possible and fair for the most climate-vulnerable countries.”

Andreas Sieber, Head of Political Strategy at 350.org said:

“The oil and gas industry is draining billions from people and businesses on the back of a war that has killed thousands and pushed millions toward poverty and hunger. Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens tomorrow, we should expect prices to remain above pre-crisis levels. We witness not only a massive fossil fuel crisis but a vast upward transfer of wealth built on instability of fossil fuel markets and pain. Governments should tax these excess profits now and use the revenues to protect people, cut bills and rapidly deploy renewables that make households and small businesses less vulnerable to the next fossil fuel shock.”

Oof, so many fails. An abject purge from the Kennedy Center, a tatty Iran deal, a brackish Reflecting Pool. And at the People's House, pay-per-view bloodsport rife with jingoism, fireworks, flyovers, honor guards for Nazi thugs, grift vast and brazen, the crass smear of an iconic woman in the name of "a permission structure made visible" emboldening "the worst people in the world." The result: "The cringiest collapse of a nation in real time."

For many appalled observers, the grotesque state of the Republic (if you can keep it) summoned the tawdry antics of President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho in Mike Judge's infamous Idiocracy - "Welcome to AOL Time Warner Taco Bell US Government Long Distance," "Welcome to Costco. I love you" - the portrait of a dystopian American future after "mankind became stupider at a frightening rate." His deranged, AR-15-wielding State of the Union: "I know shit's bad right now, with all the starvin', and the dust storms, and we're running outta french fries and burrito coverings. But I got a solution. We got this guy Not Sure, and he's so smart, he's gonna fix everything in a week."

And so to a pricey Iran "deal” maybe (or not) ending an inept illegal war that fails on all fronts - military, political, economic, moral - and strengthens Iran’s hand as a regional power. Where are we, asks retired Major General Paul Eaton after "a war with no plan, no strategy, no achievable objective, no definition of what victory even looked like, and no plan for day 2." His response: "Thirteen dead. Years of lost readiness. Higher prices in every American home. All to arrive back at the starting line, weaker than when we left it." Meanwhile, the cost of his fucking ballroom that nobody asked for has soared 50% to $600 million, more than half to be paid by us, not imaginary "generous American patriots."

In another weekend fail, symbolic but gratifying, hundreds of real patriots gathered - and thousands watched a livestream - to see the vile name stripped from the Kennedy Center after US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled it illegal. Alas, the crowd waited all day and night in humid heat - bearing flags, "You're No JFK" signs, hope to see "a horrible scar" vanquished - only for Friday's midnight deadline to come and go as workers built endless scaffolding and Center lackeys filed last-ditch appeals. Rumors flew, chants grew - "TAKE IT DOWN," "Rest in Shame," "Tear down that wall," "More Cow Bell" - as drag queen Tara Hoot blew bubbles and Rep. Joyce Beatty declared, to cheers, "We cannot be silenced."

The approach of midnight brought breathless countdowns - "30 minutes!“ "Five minutes!" "No pressure - you’re doing great!” - then angry charges of "a cover-up in real time" when it passed. People sang This Land is Your Land, thunderstorms halted work (and extended the deadline), and when a miraculous double rainbow emerged, people huddled under awnings to sing God Bless America and give thanks: "And the angels sang...Mother Nature Understands The Assignment...Just think what She'll do when he leaves the White House...Well-played, universe." One worker in a lift could have quickly done the job; instead, 13 hours later, the final scaffolding went up - to hang a tarp, met with boos, to hide a snowflake's shame.

Around 4 a.m, the Center later told the judge, the 18 odious letters of “The Donald J. Trump and" had been removed. For the public, it's hard to tell: The tarp's still up. To Andrew Flanagan, it confirms "how deeply insecure & pathetic" is the guy who's usually a "big redaction fan" - for the Epstein files, Mueller report, Jan. 6 transcripts, any form of accountability. "Nothing says 'stable genius' like illegally slapping your name on a cultural landmark, then hiding your name getting ripped off behind a bedsheet like a toddler who broke a vase," he wrote, adding, "Sheet was probably stolen from a hotel." Still, the action offered a modest "preview of Independence Day," what one resident called "this little splash of hope in the rain."

Not so his vaunted, likely illegal, American-flag-blue do-over of the Lincoln Reflecting Pool: Because everything he touches dies or stinks, it has joined the Resistance by swiftly reverting to its previous brackish green. After the "expert builder" removed a state-of-the-art filtration system installed by Barack Hussein Obama, used a darker paint that draws heat and algae, boasted its"CLEAN, BEAUTIFUL WATER” would "SPARKLE magnificently...for 100 years," and insisted the rogue algae was just a “residual part of the normal startup process," the $1.5 million job that became a no-bid $14.2 million has in mere days proved an algae-beset bust. Now National Park workers are frantically dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into it. Is it great yet?

There was also Paige, the four-ton elephant bedecked with a "Unity Drives Victory" banner the Texas GOP brought into its annual convention in Houston, a promised "larger-than-life surprise" who abundantly peed at the feet of the faithful just as Greg Abbott finished his keynote speech - what Dems called a "perfect metaphor for the Texas Republican Party." While it's unclear how much Dear Leader is to blame for that fiasco, he's totally, shamelessly, smirkingly responsible for the simultaneous atrocity unfolding on the White House Lawn: An impossibly base, blood-spattered cage fight, "crass display of toxic hyper machismo," and "bar fight making millions for the Epstein class" that "flaunted the absolute worst of America."

UFC Freedom 250, the besmirching of a staid White House lawn long reserved for dignified welcomes to foreign leaders, careful displays of statesmanship and the occasional Easter egg roll, began in May with the construction of a massive, hulking, $60 million cage called "the Claw." For weeks, up to 900 workers from seven federal agencies, including DHS and FAA, labored on our dime to build a gaudy monstrosity for 14 mixed martial arts fighters to beat and pummel each other bloody - at a "House that has hosted Churchill, Mandela, the Apollo astronauts...(that) sits at the center of the constitutional republic a generation of Americans bled for in places whose names their grandchildren cannot pronounce."

Trump "sees everything and everyone in terms of dominance or submission," notes Robert Reich. Choosing to mark his fucking big boy birthday by wrapping it in the pretext of the country's 250th anniversary and planning what's been likened to a "human cockfighting" spectacle on the White House Lawn, Reich adds, is "seeking to project an America like the winner of a cage match" - cheap, crude, violent, and so brazenly tasteless that even Republicans who once freaked out at Michelle Obama's vegetable garden there joined the vast 84% of Americans who denounced the event. Implausibly, impressively, the damning consensus reached Fox News viewers. "Tacky as hell," declared one. "Trump is a white trash president."

He is also history's most corrupt president, so no surprise his "gift to Americans" proved, per a failed lawsuit, "a volcano of corruption" and a “private, commercial, corrupt use of our most sacred national monuments," with Trump at its greedy core. He invested heavily in UFC owner TKO; his World Liberty Financial crypto business, earning billions on paper, was an “official sponsor"; so was Truth Social - "Download Truth Social today!"- and TrumpCoins.com - "Limited quantities available now!" Melding corporate and political grift, fighters were "paid" crypto bonuses, ads and logos were everywhere, fights in a Bud-Light-adorned ring had to be watched with a subscription to Paramount Plus, sponsorships cost up to $1.5 million per person.

The flagrant profiteering and Hunger Games optics were so "tone-deaf to the struggles of the American people” even some UFC fighters objected. "I don’t give a fuck to fight in front of some fucking billionaires and rich people," said one; added middleweight champion Sean Strickland, "To go hang out with people on the Epstein list? I'm good, dog.” (He was reportedly banned for criticizing Israel and the Epstein cover-up; he turned up anyway that night and was later escorted out by security for causing "disorder.") All in all, in a "celebration of American strength and exceptionalism" featuring guys clearly not quite princes among men, it was less than surprising things regularly descended into cruder, meaner, more vicious territory.

Bantamweight Sean O’Malley, "a nasty little shit" in all red, white and blue, the color scheme for everything in sight - has publicly defended cheating on his wife because rapist and human trafficker Andrew Tate said it was okay: "If I get a little puss on the side - I got status, so I can." After he beat Canada’s Aiemann Zahabi to raucous chants of "U-S-A!" he thanked his fans, offered a tribute to UFC's Dana White - "Dana’s a fucking gangster," and threw up several straight-armed "Sieg Heils" to Trump. The team of four accommodating announcers - who rapturously praised the event's "unbelievable" energy, spirit, patriotism that gave them "goosebumps...How special is it to be here?" - called them "salutes to the troops."

Like all the fighters, O'Malley had earlier walked through the lofty Lincoln Memorial to a scuffling weigh-in where thugs jousted - "Don't act like a fucking animal" - and a press conference. Like the others, he later dressed in an opulent White House "locker room," aka the historic Indian Treaty Room, and made his cinematic way to the Claw flanked by an honor guard - a veteran, first responder or Medal of Honor recipient - cleverly obliging every service member to salute as he walked past. Lincoln, Eisenhower, Paul Krugman weep at the "unspeakably vulgar" debasement. The ancient philosopher Seneca, on the rise and fall of a Roman Empire that also boasted extreme inequality and gladiatorial games: "The way to ruin is rapid."

Sean O'Malley walks from the White House to his fight with an Honor GuardPhoto by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Before the actual bloodshed, there were weeks of other grotesqueries: Screaming promos - "Are you ready?!" - with an AI, shirtless, oiled, ripped fantasy Trump next to other oiled guys grappling; a $1-million-a-plate fundraising "candlelight dinner," probs akin to this one, at Trump's D.C. golf club; a barbed, garbled panel of all 14 fighters, adding more insult to injury to the Lincoln Memorial. The big bellicose day started with Trump and White marching (or waddling) out to their own color guard, a flyover by the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds, and the incongruous sight of Nitro Circus motocross riders on dirt bikes flying through jumps and spins in front of the White House. Best comment: "OMG ffs we just want health care."

Despite a hilariously sinister weather forecast - lightning, downpours, wind gusts, possible swarms of mosquitoes in the heat - fights were only delayed an hour, with no rain. The waiting crowd, less than a predicted 4,000 ringside and 80,000 at the Ellipse watching on huge screens, were treated to a Department of War (sic) recruitment video touting "peace through strength," songs from American Pie to Sex on Fire, "ring girls" in sexy "patriotic motifs," UFC fights projected onto iconic buildings - including rapist Conor McGregor on the Washington Monument - and protesters chanting, “Whose house? Our house!" alongside a makeshift cage filled with puppets of regime lackeys "to show them behind bars where they belong."

Ultimately, all seven fights ended in knockouts or TKOs, many brutal. Former lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, in his first fight since he and his ex-wife reached a settlement after she accused him of domestic abuse, lost to Justin Gaethje in a TKO that left Topuria's face so bloodied a doctor nearly stopped the bout; the crowd chanted "U-S-A!" and “Let them fight!”, he did, and Topuria was later found to have suffered orbital fractures in both eyes. Lightweight Michael Chandler, 40, was "destroyed" by upstart Brazilian Mauricio Ruffy in Round 1. Fans urged Chandler to "Retire, please"; through a translator, Ruffy asked his girlfriend to marry him "since we're right here at the White House," and urged fans to, "Give your life to Jesus."

The fights, and the graphic accounts of their pummeling, were savage: "Ruffy stung Chandler with a spinning heel kick, hurt him with an uppercut and whipped a horrific body shot into his midsection, ripping a nasty liver punch...Chandler shoots for a takedown, but Ruffy sprawls. OH! Another spinning heel kick! Down goes Chandler!" Etc. Later, at a post-fight press conference with most of the fighters - except Topuria, in the hospital - Dana White celebrated an event with "no political agenda." “I believe that if you are an American, no matter where you sit politically, tonight was just a proud night,” he said. "Hopefully, we created some unity in the country and the world, and brought in some new fans."

Diego Lopes celebrates defeating Steve Garcia in their featherweight bout. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Still, all the disingenuous violence paled before the barbarism of heavyweight Josh Hokit, a self described “100% transphobic" who called a Black fighter "a human gorilla," tried to sic ICE on his Mexican mother, and theatrically staggered wasted into the weigh-in pretending to puke from a night of drinking because "a giant black man wants to knock me out." After taking down aforementioned black man Derrick Lewis, Hokit offered Trump ringside a gaudy pendant and a shout-out "for having the balls to put something like this on." Then he giddily proclaimed himself "the beast that's ready to feast," thanked "my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” and added, "Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?"

The crowd gave a modest, sickening roar. The president said nothing in response, nor has he yet, because the "short-fingered vulgarian" is not celebrating a birthday or a nation's anniversary so much as he is "flipping off all of it, and all of us, by desecrating every American temple that presidential authority touches." "The bar has been on the ground for so long we have stopped noticing we are crawling," writes Tom Wellborn of "what the man in the cage chose to do with the microphone at the White House." Hokit spoke with "the full confidence of a man in a room that told him his worst instincts were welcome," and where "the culture of the room tells you cruelty is the entry fee."

Hokit "read the room," he goes on, "with attention to what the environment rewards and what it punishes, and what the environment rewarded was the ugliest thing a person could say. He knew the environment would punish nothing, because the man whose birthday it was has built his entire career on the same calculation...The president got another night of the only thing he has ever wanted - the performance of dominance in a room full of people who will never tell him no." But that night, people also gathered in another room on another planet, where Robert De Niro welcomed "all of you who couldn't get tickets to the White House cage fights," urged them to say not just no but "Shut the fuck up," the sane response to an insane historic moment, and they did.

After the greatest comeback in NBA finals history - 29 points! - "the greatest shot in Knicks history" - Anunoby's last-second tip-in - some divine intervention - a Pope Leo jersey - and a smudging to erase the vile Trump stench, the New York Knicks are in sight of their first title in over 50 years. "Bedlam at the Garden!" ESPN exclaimed. And across the city, now a jubilant, unified sea of orange and blue watch parties, viral chants, rare hope against hope. One fan: "The city feels alive. Thank God for the Knicks."

The Knicks had won a remarkable 13 straight playoff games, last losing in April, before the seven-game finals against the San Antonio Spurs; of those, they won the first two, only to fall to Trump Disaster Syndrome - everything he touches dies - in the third. In Wednesday's nail-biter of a Game 4, they began their historic rally in the second half, chipping away at a seemingly hopeless 29-point deficit, gaining ground in the 4th quarter and, with a stunning 1.2 seconds left, taking it 107-106 after OG Anunoby gently tipped in a Jalen Brunson shot that ricocheted short. The epic win leaves the Knicks within one game of a championship they haven't won since 1973, when their city looked like this. Now, residents say, it's "electric."

The Knicks' success has created frenzied joy in a city beset by high prices, traffic snafus and years of sports heartaches - amidst which long-suffering Knicks fans, says one, "have endured, a specific species of human that should be studied." They also present a unified front in a city split between baseball's Yankees and Mets and football's Jets and Giants. New Jersey will host this year's World Cup finals, but its tribute to "the beautiful game," long plagued by scandal and corruption, is already marred by a racist regime hassling, interrogating or barring players, officials, journalists and fans from Somalia, Senegal, Haiti, Iraq, Iran and other dark-skinned locales, with a looming threat of ICE goons in attendance.

In contrast, the come-from-behind Knicks have done what sports at their best should: bring people together. New York's rush hour has become a vast sweep of blue and orange caps, jerseys, hoodies, with a “Please win before I die” t-shirt from Old Jewish Men. Strangers on streets and subways do a peculiarly New York call-and- response: “Let’s go Knicks!” to “Knicks in five!” Bar and neighborhood watch parties pop up, some using bedsheet screens. One was just held at a Brooklyn funeral home - "If things go wrong, there's room for grief" - with a poster board for fans to write the names of those they're missing, "just like the the guy down the street and the lady in the bodega...so people know they're not alone.

The finals have given a boost to legit pan-sports nerd - "New Yorkers can smell a phony" - Mayor Zohran Mamdani. A rabid Arsenals fan, he's heavily promoted the World Cup - choosing Morocco to win in The Guardian's Bracketology game - "The heart wants what it wants" - offering $50 tickets to 1,000 New Yorkers, celebrating the vision of Brazilian, German, Ecuadorians who will "watch together, celebrate together, shout at referees together - respectfully." With the Knicks, he's likewise praised how Knick fever has "lit this city up" and relished his role as head, albeit ambivalent, cheerleader against a common sports foe. Asked in April about a possible win, he said, "As a New Yorker, I can't wait. As the mayor? Absolute chaos."

Like New Yorkers didn't hate him enough already, Trump's random, clueless attendance saw watch parties cancelled, hours-long lines, bags banned, fans and even players (understandable, given most are black) TSA-wanded, and a blocks-wide, NYPD-enforced "frozen zone" that turned the area outside Madison Square Gardens from "a showcase of unbridled humanity to a post-apocalyptic wasteland" - all for him to be thunderously booed as he smirked, saluted and promptly fell asleep until his granddaughter poked him awake. It probably didn't help when those who'd waited in line for hours also got to see fucking Jared Kushner, "patron saint of failing upward," respectfully, infuriatingly escorted in by police.

Before Wednesday's game, a fan thoughtfully burned sage outside the Garden "to remove the sulfuric stench and bad vibes" from Pres. Poopy-Pants' visit. The Knicks also reportedly got help from on high: From the three "Nova Knicks” - Brunson, Hart, Bridges - who graduated from Catholic Villanova, and Pope Leo XIV, who earned a math degree there in 1977. To ensure his blessing, die-hard Knicks fan Spike Lee had earlier worn a custom Knicks jersey - "Pope Leo #14" - he'd had "P🏀PE LE🏀" sign at the Vatican last year. Thus, the surreal 29-point comeback, and "the most iconic shot in the history of New York basketball" - per OG, "right hand from God." The Nation's Dave Zirin: "With the Trump Stench Gone, the Knicks Make History."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

What Ben Stiller courtside called “the most insane comeback I’ve ever seen” left astounded fans and MSG staff roaring, leaping, open-mouthed with joy and shock. Within minutes of the buzzer, thousands of blue-and-orange-bedecked fans had surged into the city streets, chanting "Knicks in five!" and, in a few feral instances, "Fuck you Wemby!" A Knicks robot chased some Spurs fans, cops arrested a few rowdy fans, the Empire State Building glowed in orange and blue. The New Yorker's David Remnick couldn't sleep after "the greatest Knicks win ever" and OG's "most astonishing shot in franchise history"; he got up at 3 a.m. to grimly doomscroll on "the truth machine to see if this had really happened," and finally "realize it was true."

"Curb your enthusiasm," he warned, and yes, Larry David was courtside, thrilled. "At least a little." Remnick noted that Saturday is the fifth game, and anything can still happen. Fandom, he added, "is complicated, also mostly a matter of patience. Real fandom is about endurance and waiting." Likely nothing that MD Ahnaf Hossain, a 23-year-old Knicks fan and TikToker with smart marketing skills, doesn't know. Reveling in a moment of sportsmanship "bringing a type of love we haven’t seen in the city for a long, long time,” he created a hip-hop, Haiku-like anthem to celebrate its unity in toxic, racist, divisive times. “I grew up with Jews, Muslims, Haitians, Pakistanis, Bengalis,” Hossain said. “I just had to bring everyone together.”

His first "pure New York City poetry" came after the Knicks lost the third game. He wrote and recorded, "My mayor Muslim/My bagel’s Jewish/My Christian Dior/Knicks in four." It got over 7 million views. After Wednesday's impossible win, he filmed an updated version: "My mayor still Muslim/My bagel’s still Jewish/The pope’s on our side/Knicks in five." Meanwhile, his mayor, Mamdani, posted his own response to the win: “SPEECHLESS. LFGK,” aka "Let's fucking go Knicks." He also made a brief, giddy video. "The energy in our city is incredible," he said. "Time and again, people have doubted the Knicks. Time and again, the Knicks have proven the doubters wrong... I have just three words for my fellow New Yorkers. Knicks in 5."

After Trump’s announcement, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he has “great respect” for Clayton and Rep. Jim Himes (D-NH) said Clayton’s record “will make him a terrific DNI.” Both Warner and Himes have worked with Republican leadership to hand Trump warrantless surveillance powers through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“No Democrat should find solace in the fact that Trump has once again named a partisan hatchet man to be the nation’s top spy. Just as Trump asked Bill Pulte to investigate Letitia James and Adam Schiff, he also has asked Jay Clayton to investigate Democrats’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The fact that Sen. Warner and Rep. Himes would gush so effusively over Clayton shows their clear desire to sabotage a deal on FISA privacy reforms and hand President Trump the unfettered surveillance powers that he is asking for. Both Pulte and Clayton have already shown that they will carry out Trump’s directive to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Putting either of them at ODNI at a time when Trump is asking for warrantless surveillance powers through FISA is too big of a risk.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here. An explainer on why FISA won’t actually “go dark” on June 12 can be found here.

• The 88 corporations that paid no federal corporate income tax in 2025 spent nearly $852 million on political spending over the last three election cycles. This total includes $712 million in lobbying and $140 million in campaign contributions.
  
• Comparing the taxes the corporations saved against the cost of their political spending, they collectively made a 3,000% return on investment.
  
• Coinbase Global spent the most of any company ($89 million) followed by CVS Health ($66 million), Honeywell International ($56 million), American Electric Power ($47 million), and Duke Energy ($35 million).
  
• On average each year, these companies together have sent 1,119 lobbyists to influence the federal government, including on tax issues and legislation that changed the tax code in favor of corporate giveaways.
  
• Since the beginning of 2025, these companies have collectively laid off at least 21,200 workers and announced plans to lay off thousands more.

Of the $126 million in grants awarded to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, over 80% of the awards have gone to build out a politicized series of events, at the public’s expense, according to the report. Among the recipients of the federal grants are entities controlled or influenced by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita, and Meredith O’Rourke, Trump’s former presidential campaign finance director.

Trump has spent the first years of his second administration turning the 250th celebrations into a celebration of his supporters and of himself — as evidenced by this weekend’s White House lawn cage match fight on Trump’s birthday.

After an unsuccessful attempt to take over the bipartisan, Congressionally-authorized America 250 nonprofit, the Trump administration bypassed the entity, creating a new, opaque organization known as Freedom 250.

Freedom 250 displaced America 250 as the Trump Administration’s preferred partner in the 250th anniversary celebrations, a preference made clear by actions like linking to Freedom 250 at the bottom of the White House’s landing page.

Freedom 250 is also gaining financial support from a host of large corporations. Among the donors to Freedom 250, corporations that face major federal regulatory issues, including ExxonMobil, Oracle, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, and United Airlines have contributed undisclosed sums with no oversight.

Freedom 250, for its part, has been directly allocated at least $79 million in federal funds, with one $10 million grant dispensed to the National Park Foundation to support a “Freedom Trucks” mobile museum exhibit created in partnership with conservative PragerU and Hillsdale College, a Christian university in Michigan. Another $5 million grant was originally obligated to the organization in December to support “A250 Events,” but increased to $68.3 million in obligated funds in March of 2026.

“This Trumpified version of the 250th anniversary is mostly about lionizing Trump and catering to his political base,” said Alan Zibel, research director with Public Citizen. “The 250th anniversary of the country should be a moment to reflect on the values of the nation. Apparently, the Trump administration is replacing those values with grift, self-dealing, and enriching friends with taxpayer dollars.”

“Donald Trump has spent his life obsessively scarring everything in his path with his likeness, his name, and his gaudy, dictatorial taste in faux gilding,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, program director with the Revolving Door Project. “Ultimately, the rings of ethical impropriety cascading from Trump’s Freedom 250 contracting scandals are just another manifestation of elite impunity. The Trump administration has once again found an avenue to tilt the scales in favor of corporate interests even as millions struggle to believe in the dream of America 250 years after the signing of the Declaration.”

Under the law, any exchanges of wildlife refuge lands must result in net conservation benefits to both the individual refuge where land will be exchanged and the wildlife refuge system as a whole. The wildlife habitat that SpaceX has sought to take ownership of has been degraded by SpaceX’s expanding operations and failed rocket launches. In its decision last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to give those lands to SpaceX in exchange for fewer acres of private lands, the majority of which will be added to a separate wildlife refuge.

This land deal resulting in the loss of more than 700 acres of a national wildlife refuge is one of the largest exchanges of land in the refuge system’s history outside the state of Alaska.

“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers. We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”

Today’s lawsuit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 by taking action that will permanently reduce and degrade the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. In approving the transfer, the Service also violated the National Historic Preservation Act by giving away hundreds of acres of a National Historic Landmark. The transfer approval also violated the National Environmental Policy Act.

Congress created this wildlife refuge in 1979 to protect its diverse wildlife, including rare species like ocelots, aplomado falcons, and migratory birds such as piping plovers, red knots, green jays and Altamira orioles. The refuge protects some of the best remaining habitat in the United States for the endangered ocelot.

In 2014 SpaceX chose the nearby Boca Chica area as the location of a rocket launch site and a test site, and it has rapidly expanded its operations and activities in the area. This included numerous rocket launches, some of which have resulted in catastrophic explosions that have propelled debris for miles onto refuge lands, including concrete and metal.

“Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands. There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville native, and co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Our community opposes these latest hostile land grabs by SpaceX of our wildlife habitat and Boca Chica beach. This habitat land is meant to be preserved for future generations, not for billionaires to find later and destroy.”

In the years following SpaceX’s arrival, it has vastly expanded its operations around the wildlife refuge, increasing manufacturing facilities and adding a second launch pad. In 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to conduct 25 Starship launches per year — a fivefold increase from the previous limit. Launch failures have triggered explosions and wildfires on refuge lands and scattered chunks of concrete and metal more than 6 miles from the launch pad.

Post-explosion surveys have revealed environmental damage to nearby lands on the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. A 2024 study found that after one launch every single monitored shorebird nest near the launch site suffered egg damage or loss. Instead of taking any enforcement actions or working with SpaceX to reduce or eliminate its harm to the refuge, the Service accepted the damage to the lands and now points to the supposed lowered conservation value as justification for the land exchange.

The refuge lands being transferred to SpaceX also include significant portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, which is the site of the final battle of the Civil War. Even though the site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a historic landmark, these historic lands would be privatized and SpaceX could choose not to preserve their historic values or limit public access to the battlefield.

“The refuge is a national public treasure with immense ecological and cultural value. The tract being swapped to SpaceX, whose arrival here has been an unmitigated disaster, will permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979,” said Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV. “This corridor, running along the Rio Grande River, is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal. This will be a huge loss. The federal government should protect our public land for future generations, not turn them into hellscapes for soon-to-be trillionaire corporate interests.”

The proposed land exchange was first made public in March 2026, but records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show internal agency planning began as early as April 2025. In those discussions with the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Service developed “the most expedited schedule possible” for completing a transfer and recommended hiring additional staff to meet what they described as an “optimum timeframe.” This request came when Musk was leading his Department of Government Efficiency and publicly threatened to fire federal workers who failed to justify their jobs to him.

“SpaceX has been a nightmare of a neighbor to the Lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife refuge for years, callously harming wildlife that call these special places home,” said Jordahl. “It’s shameful and insulting that this sweetheart deal has been rammed through just to placate another billionaire in Trump’s orbit. We’ll fight this outrageous sell-out of our public lands with everything we’ve got.”

“This refuge is sacred to me and to the Carrizo/Comecrudo People,” said Juan Mancias, member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas. “Our ancestors have lived with this land, these waters, and these migration pathways since time immemorial. We are not separate from this place — we are of this continent, and our connection to it cannot be bought, exchanged, or erased. The transfer of these sacred lands to SpaceX continues a long history of colonial dispossession and tribal erasure. We have survived centuries of colonial genocide, and we will continue to resist every attempt to erase our existence, our culture, and our responsibilities to the land. We are still here, and we will continue this fight for as many years and generations as it takes.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network.

Plaintiffs are represented by Center for Biological Diversity attorneys Marc Fink, Brandon Jones-Cobb and Ivan Ditmars.

• Visit AI Money Watch

Leading the Future is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars on elections to kill regulatory safeguards for AI. They are doing this by spending money to support anti-AI safeguard candidates and attacking pro-AI safeguard candidates. AI Money Watch uses public FEC filings to show how much Leading the Future is spending on elections across the nation and lets Americans spread the word on X and Instagram. The website also flags which candidates have been endorsed by Leading the Future.

“AI Money Watch cuts through the dark money blizzard and shows you how some of the biggest names in AI are trying to buy politicians who will kill AI safeguards and attack anyone who dares to fight back,” said Demand Progress Action AI Policy Advisor Colin McGlynn. “AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this. With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop and how much they are spending.”

“This is the first Social Security trustees report that begins to take Donald Trump’s second term policies into account: A tax bill that largely benefited the wealthy, economy-wrecking tariffs, a needless war with Iran, and hostility to immigrants. All of these have reduced the amount of money going into Social Security, weakening the system’s finances.

Despite Trump’s damaging policies, Social Security remains fully affordable if the wealthy are required to contribute their fair share. Congress has only two options to address the projected shortfall: Bring more money into Social Security, or cut benefits. Any politician who refuses to raise revenue, including by making the wealthy pay their fair share into Social Security, is telling us that they support benefit cuts.

The American people, including Republicans, are overwhelming in their opposition to even a penny of benefit cuts. Support for means-testing and other benefit cuts (even if paired with revenue increases) is a betrayal of the American people.

Social Security’s future is on the ballot. Any of the U.S. Senators elected this November could become the deciding vote. Accordingly, all of them should tell the public how they would vote.

This is particularly important for Republican candidates, given that Speaker Mike Johnson just announced plans to ‘adjust and fix’ Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid next year. That’s DC-insider speak for ‘cut benefits.’ Outrageously, Johnson claims this is necessary to reduce the federal deficit — even though Social Security is an earned benefit that doesn’t add a single penny to the deficit!

As the Trustees Report plainly states, if there is insufficient revenue, Social Security benefits will be automatically cut. Johnson’s ‘solution’ is to cut them sooner (and likely by a larger amount) instead of making his billionaire donors pay their fair share. Sen. Ted Cruz and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are more specific than Johnson, saying that the Republican plan for Social Security is privatization, handing Social Security over to Wall Street. Do Republican House and Senate candidates agree with Johnson, Cruz, and Bessent?

Ultimately, the Social Security shortfall is cause for action but not for undue alarm. Congress has acted to avert such shortfalls before and will again. When members of Congress act, they should listen to their voters who overwhelmingly value Social Security, not their ultra-wealthy donors who want to steal their voters’ hard-earned benefits out from under them.”

The report states that the Social Security Trust Fund is able to pay full benefits and expenses until 2032, while the Medicare Trust Fund is projected to remain solvent until 2033. If Congress does not make any changes, the Social Security Trust Fund will only be able to pay 78% of scheduled benefits to all current and future beneficiaries.

“The new Social Security Trustees Report serves as a warning. Congress must act to increase revenue into the Social Security system. This will prevent current and future beneficiaries from losing roughly $500 a month in Social Security benefits they have earned over a lifetime of work in just six years.

“The wrong response is to continue down President Trump and congressional Republicans’ path: passing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that undermine Social Security's finances, and implementing tariffs and policies that harm our economy and put Americans out of work, while laying the groundwork to gut the program through benefit cuts, a higher retirement age, and privatization.

“The right solution is simple, has broad support from the majority of Americans, and would fix Social Security's finances for the next 75 years. Today the wealthiest Americans benefit from a loophole that lets them stop paying Social Security tax after the first $184,500 they earn while the rest of us pay on every dollar we make.

“This loophole is indefensible. Millionaires and billionaires should pay into Social Security at the same rate as everyone else. Closing this loophole would mean a strong, solvent Social Security for the next 75 years.”

“A bankrupt Social Security system is not inevitable, and Americans should reject these scare tactics. However, any politician who refuses to make the wealthy pay their fair share is actively supporting cuts to earned benefits.”

“We also urge Congress and the Administration to strengthen Medicare’s finances by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices for more prescription drugs, holding Medicare Advantage insurance corporations accountable, and cracking down on practices that increase corporate profits without improving patient care.”

Bad Men Behaving Badly Chap. 746: 'Cause it's not awful enough we have to endure the racist crap spewing from our home-grown jackasses, the rest of the world just bore grim witness to it as dunk-tank Christofascist Pete Hegseth chose a D-Day remembrance to flip the script on World War 2, trash European allies for not being fascist enough, and liken (good-guy) Allies landing at Normandy to an "invasion" of brown people "with "dangerous ideologies." Fact: "This is repulsive and confused, unless you're a Nazi."

Speaking of: Last week, under cover of darkness, "shameful" Senate Republicans pushed through a "Secure America Act" (sic) gifting yet more billions to keep out more of the swarthy hordes Pete's so scared of. Without making any of the reforms Dems had demanded, they added to last year's obscene $191 billion gift to DHS another $75 billion for ICE and $65 billion for CBP, 4 to 7 times their previous budgets, with most allocated to expand detentions, deportations, facilities, goons - not, as it could, to fund free childcare for over a million kids, groceries for over 10 million households, a year of SNAP benefits to 31 million people, health care tax credits for a year etc etc ad nauseum. Their wise leader, meanwhile, was throwing tantrums on TV - "Dude is losing his shit" - because a reporter dared ask for evidence of his flood of unhinged claims.

And greasy "Secretary of War (Crimes)" Pete lurches along on his quest to turn America into a white nationalist theocracy. A buffoon of a warmonger though (because?) he never saw combat, he posts klutzy videos of himself working out; in one, he prances in a “This Is War” t-shirt. (No, this is reality TV). Sporting Crusader tattoos - Deus Vult, but whose God? - he stripped 180 unholy faiths from those the military recognizes despite a First Amendment ensuring "the free exercise of religion for everybody" - a religious purge dressed up as paperwork (telling) thousands of service members their beliefs don’t matter to the government they’re risking their lives to protect.” (After outrage, he restored the Mormons.) He cut dozens of female and Black Navy officers from leadership-approved promotions, dissing “historic so-called firsts” that make the military “less lethal.”

And to mark this weekend's 82nd anniversary of the June 6, 1944 D-Day landing of Allied forces on the beaches of Normandy - perhaps the most pivotal moment in a long bloody fight to defend democracy against fascism - he gave a pro-fascism speech, embracing a Great Replacement theory that calls for a return to the racial ideology on which fascism is based. Speaking at the American Cemetery in north-west France where about 9,400 are buried, he'd barely recalled the courage of Allied Forces from multiple countries wading ashore in history's largest amphibious operation to liberate Europe before pivoting to warn "their legacy requires our active vigilance." European leaders may have grown too "comfortable," he said with the chutzpah of the deeply ignorant, and they may have somehow "forgotten that freedom is not free."

"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different, dangerous ideologies," he intoned. "On beaches in Spain, Italy, Greece and Bulgaria, boats and men arrive....When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Is it too late? I pray not, and I believe not." What a pompous asshole. So: On D-Day, Ugly Americans hawking xenophobia. Equating brown-skinned migrants who want to feed and keep safe their families with "dangerous ideologies." Also: Equating anti-fascism with "dangerous ideologies"? Wait, weren't the Allies the good guys? And wait, so the Nazis were...? Americans were horrified by so much repulsive and confused: "Sewage," "straight-up white nationalism," "a cheap suit full of hate and racism - what an evil shit," "Crystal Meth Rumsfeld strikes again," "We get it, dude. Just come out and say you hate black and brown people."

Especially in Europe, critics did not hold back, and we are here for it. English historian Simon Schama decried Hegseth's "special kind of loathsomeness, a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance...As if the little people’s rage against immigration somehow is superior to the war against the 3rd Reich, and entitles this comic-book nobody to lecture the actual heroes." Others blasted "something profoundly ugly happening" in our right wing..."and on D-Day, D-Day!" and "an obscene desecration" of the memories of those who fell. Like many, French P.M. Sébastien Lecornu rightly paid tribute instead to the "3,000 men, barely 20 years old," who died, offering "the breath of their youth and the sacrifice of their lives."

Europeans also called bullshit on the faux drama and utter hypocrisy of Hegseth's angry claim that, after a united D-Day era when "each nation bled," Europe is not "standing with" a U.S. now run by a lying, racist, narcissistic, war-mongering toddler who does nothing but abuse them. "America will lead and we must, but capable allies must be Right. There. With Us...In the Breach. When It Matters," he bloviated. "The men who fought and died here restored freedom to Europe,. Now freedom must be maintained by this generation of leaders and war-fighters...We stand by our allies, and we expect our allies to stand beside us." "So much nonsense," retorted Swedish economist Anders Åslund. "'We stand by our allies!’ No you don’t. You just attacked them. Immigration policies are internal matters... Doesn’t Hegseth know the most unreliable ‘ally’ by far is the US?”

And now, in the name of their mythical, bigoted, white, male, Christian Republic, the US - Hegseth, Trump, Vance et al - have the audacity to be hectoring their European “allies” to “up their white supremacy game” to stop an “invasion” of what Trump has called the brown and black “vermin” who once flocked to our “shining city on a hill,” now a beacon of hate. Hamlet's ghost: “O, what a falling-off was there.” Last weekend, in France, Hegseth didn’t even stay for the international ceremony at the cemetery where so many are buried - per Trump, all those suckers and losers. Pete likely didn’t know the denizens of a nearby village had weeks earlier asked that his visit be cancelled. "It seems to us," they said in their request, "that this man does not share our democratic values." We feel your pain.

The letter is led by Public Citizen, National Nurses United, People’s Action Institute, Social Security Works, Physicians for a National Health Program, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, and Healthcare-NOW. Other signatories include Indivisible, MoveOn, and several prominent labor unions, including UAW, APWU, IFPTE, AFA-CWA, UE, Actors Equity, and more.

Medicare for All is overwhelmingly popular and commands majority support nationwide, with 63 percent of all voters in favor, including 90 percent of Democratic voters. In Congress, more than half of the House Democratic Caucus now supports Medicare for All, and Senate legislation has added three co-sponsors since the last Congress.

Some D.C. insiders are urging members of Congress and health care advocates to think small and prioritize incremental health care tweaks. This letter is a clear warning that half-measures will not meet the scale of the health care crisis. As health care costs soar, affordability is top of mind for American families, and it's a particularly important kitchen table issue ahead of the 2026 midterms. The American people need, and demand, Medicare for All.

The letter reads, in part:

“We may face a once-in-a-generation opportunity to legislate on health care in 2029. We need to rally behind the boldest possible reform, Medicare for All, that brings together the broadest possible movement. Now is not the time for overly complex incremental measures that prop up the same systems we’re seeing fail under the weight of attacks by Trump and Republicans. The American people are hungry for bold ideas that will transform fundamental institutions that have failed them for too long. And they are looking for leaders who will take on powerful interests and fight for working people.

Now is the time to organize and inspire! Support for Medicare for All grows daily in our communities and in Congress. It’s our best path forward, and it’s rooted in real promise: everybody in, nobody out. A small minority of skeptical health care policy wonks may try to convince us to scale back, that structural change isn’t winnable.

The reality is that alternate proposals don’t move us towards Medicare for All, complicate our already broken system, and allow corporations to continue profiting off the sick.”

Check out the full list of organizations here.

"The massive momentum for Medicare for All should serve as a wakeup call to all who profit from our broken health care system and those who do their bidding," said Public Citizen Health Care Policy Advocate Eagan Kemp. "Everyday Americans are tired of watching the pigs at the health care trough gorge themselves day after day while hundreds of millions of people in the wealthiest country in the world suffer from inadequate access to care, delays and denials, and crushing medical debt. Medicare for All would end the ability of corporations to put greed ahead of people's needs and would finally guarantee than everyone in the U.S. can get the care they require. The movement for Medicare for All is growing by leaps and bounds because the people are demanding change. It is time those in power meet the moment and fight for the health care system we need and that the people are demanding, Medicare for All."

Exciting news, patriots! After cancelling his OG concert, Dear Leader will now celebrate our 250th birthday with "the Greatest Rally, EVER!" featuring the "fabulous" 83-year-old Lee Greenwood and “a fine and highly dignified gentleman," himself. Also, for some reason, "prune-face" Bruce Springsteen and a gazillion A-list performers are holding two concerts to honor America's "songs that shaped us." Reviews call it "a rare gift" in music history, but they're all losers and lunatics.

Taking time off from nodding off (again) in a meeting, Trump as predicted has finally cancelled his much-hyped “Freedom 250 concert of has-beens and never-weres after almost all nine acts bailed; poor Vanilla Ice, reportedly the only, desperate act still ready to go on. The concerts were set to kick off his equally-fab-sounding Great American State Fair, a "once in a generation...State Fair like no other" - "Dive into the fun and feel the energy" - hosting carnival rides, "hands-on partner activations" from each state, and daily workshops with titles like Land & Prosperity, Family Life and Community Support, Everyday Health and Well Being with MAHA Monday, and Faith, Values, and Inspiration.

Trump was his usual chivalrous self in defeat after the concert went down in tacky flames. "We don't want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep," he wrote. "We’ve told them all to stay home." Instead, he giddily announced “a Rally to end all Rallies!" in "magnificent Washington D.C, now totally beautified." Because, "All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played, the same Music you have listened to for years!" it will feature die-hard Lee Greenwood (again), with "one of the Greatest Hits of All Time," his 1984 God Bless the U.S.A, after which he will introduce "a fine and highly dignified gentleman known as President DONALD J. TRUMP!”

There's more: The "amazing" opera singer Christopher Macchio, who has just 571 listeners on Spotify, will join in. "Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice!” bragged Trump, though Pavarotti’s family has protested his use of the opera great's songs by arguing, "The values of brotherhood and solidarity which Luciano Pavarotti expressed throughout (his) artistic career are entirely incompatible with the worldview offered by Trump.” Also, the U.S. Army Band, Armed Forces Choir and "The President’s Own United States Marine Band" will perform “all your favorite Hits." Observers say the gig "sounds lame as fuck," but MAGA fans who go to every rally "like Deadheads with less weed and more racism" will probs love it.

Amidst other glad fails - even UFC fighters have trashed him with Star Wars rants of "Darth Vader gonna get took (sic) down" - many deem a more apt celebration of America's birthday the June 4 and 5 concerts in New Jersey by Springsteen and many fellow musicians. The guest list is so vast and illustrious - among them, Bon Jovi, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Kenny Chesney, Tom Morello, Gary Clark Jr., Dion, Dropkick Murphys, Shemekia Copeland, Keb’ Mo’, Nils Lofgren, Valerie June, Darlene Love, Public Enemy, David Sancious, Tony Trischka, Sister Sadie, Mavis Staples, Trombone Shorty, Steve Van Zandt, Jimmie Vaughan, the New Breed Brass Band - it's assumed Bruce called in favors: "They were beckoned, and graciously agreed."

Springsteen and the E Street Band just wrapped their Land of Hope and Dreams Tour - "No Kings" plastered below - in Philadelphia. Celebrating "hope over fear," it featured his most fiery political songs: Born in the USA, Death To My Hometown, No Surrender, Darkness On the Edge of Town, Streets of Minneapolis, Dylan's Chimes of Freedom. The two new concerts, titled Music America: The Songs that Shaped Us, are likewise unabashedly rabble-rousing. Held in Springsteen's Jersey backyard at Monmouth University, they will also launch the new Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music, which aims to preserve the Boss' legacy and offer "a journey through American music history" with ongoing exhibitions, archives and workshops.

This week's concerts, says Robert Santelli, "reflect everything the Center stands for" - the power of "a rich and diverse treasury of American music (to) bring people together (and) the inspiration to think about our shared history in divisive times." Casting a wide and joyful net, artists perform landmark songs from American music - blues, bluegrass, Native, rock, hip-hop, folk, jazz, country, gospel. Tickets are reasonably priced for an intimate venue, and brief narration before each performance offers context to the artist, song, and genre. Thursday night reviews praised "a magical, once-in-a-lifetime moment in music history" and a nod to "how powerful music is in telling our nation’s story." Both concerts sold out.

Bruce and the Dropkick Murphys' rousing rendition of American Land, based on a 19th-century poem by an immigrant steelworker, which asks and celebrates those "who will make his home in the American Land." In brief, all of us.

The McNicholases, the Posalskis, the Smiths, Zerillis, too
The Blacks, the Irish, Italians, the Germans and the Jews
They come across the water a thousand miles from home
With nothing in their bellies but the fire down below.

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The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“Sen. Warner’s opposition to Bill Pulte masks the fact that he is still the Democrats’ chief advocate for handing over unchecked spying powers to the Trump administration. Pulte obviously must go, but he’s also proof that this administration is eager and willing to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as a weapon. If Trump pulls Pulte, he can easily appoint another eager goon to fill the slot. By focusing on Pulte and not broader reforms, Sen. Warner is not standing up for Americans or the Constitution, he is disguising his work to engineer warrantless mass surveillance against us. We know this because he’s been doing it publicly for months. An unprecedented, bipartisan movement is demanding privacy reforms but Sen. Warner’s machinations threaten to derail this progress and hand Trump the surveillance powers he needs to threaten Americans and democracy itself for the rest of his administration.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here.

Anne Jellema, Executive Director of 350.org, said:

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern , but its impacts are now being intensified by human-driven climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. As global temperatures rise, El Niño events are becoming more dangerous, amplifying heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires, and putting lives and livelihoods at greater risk around the world.

El Niño is not new , but the conditions we are experiencing today are. Fossil fuel pollution is loading the dice, turning a natural climate cycle into a far more dangerous force. Now is the time to prepare. But preparedness alone is not enough. We must urgently tackle the root cause by phasing out fossil fuels and holding polluters accountable.

A permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies could help countries protect lives and livelihoods as climate impacts intensify. This is also a moment for global cooperation , because no country can face this crisis alone.”

350.org is calling for urgent global action to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, scale up support for climate adaptation, and ensure those most responsible for the crisis contribute to the solutions.

Amidst the ongoing awful, we take wary solace in the modest routs newly inflicted on our wannabe Great Dictator. He lost yugely in multiple courts as judges reopened his bogus IRS suit, froze his slush fund, ripped his name from a D.C. landmark and, in Kenya, told him to take care of his own. Meanwhile, his trashy shitshow of a 250th celebration has devolved into "red-meat-for-the-rubes" blood sport and a dud of a concert after most of the low-rent performers bailed because, "Nobody wants the stink."

The buffoon who would be king keeps trying and flailing to rise to the authoritarian task in a spiraling presidency in free fall. Seeking to regain control of the narrative, he continues lashing out in increasingly deranged ways: After months of courts blocking his efforts to get state voter lists to steal elections, his Postal Service has proposed a Hail Mary move of only sending mail-in ballots to voters registered with the feds; he's proposed sweeping changes that would allow his toadies to kill NIH and other grants vaguely not "aligned with" his "priorities"; fighting for the dubious right to go after enemies like sacking James Comey's daughter from a New York U.S. Attorney’s Office, he's argued he has the power to fire anyone, even for pure political malice, which the latest court to shut him down called "a novel and breathtaking theory" about presidential power.

To deflect from the stubbornly enduring issue of pedo bestie Epstein, he's reflexively pivoted to his once-winning scapegoat of immigrants with maybe the most racist and "lamest shit ever": A website declaiming, "THEY WALK AMONG US" of "millions of illegals who have arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society." Complete with "alien arrest map” and more AI slopaganda - a UFO lifts a man over a wall as YMCA plays WTF - the text hisses that, for years, "Aliens (have) shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes (and) and lived seemingly normal human existences. With one exception — They do not belong here," all until when one "bold" bigot had "the courage (to) call out the real danger Aliens pose" to every American family and community. Alas, notes Dem. Gov. Ned Lamont, "We are still looking for intelligent life in the White House.”

Other horrors go on. Agriculture Sec. Brooke Rollins - net worth $15 million - boasted thanks to $186 billion in long-term cuts they’ve “lifted” 4 million hungry people off SNAP benefits so they can now achieve “the American Dream”; though cuts were in the name of “fraud,” she admitted they “don’t have actual data” (in reality zilch) got people “kick(ed) down the elevator shaft.” "Testifying" before the House, Pam Bondi threw her deputy under Epstein's bus, refused to answer questions and argued it was "not appropriate" to acknowledge survivors standing behind her. Bald mini-Nazi Stephen Miller sneered Texas' James Talarico (cis, straight, meat-eating) was the Dems' "first transgender Senate candidate." When Dems retorted, "Shut up you ugly fuck,” Miller's wife blasted "violent rhetoric." Chill Talarico: "I'm an 8th generation Texan - I've been eating BBQ since before Ken Paxton's first indictment."

Sadist Greg Bovino crawled out of his fetid cave to tell Nazis at a “Remigration Summit” in Portugal he is now “in battle” against MAGA cowards who have “lost their will” to deport brown people: “Mullin’s a great plumber...But a hundred million illegal aliens is not a leaky faucet.” Vietnam has had to exhume bodies from ancestral gravesites to make room for a shitty new Trump golf course and hotel supposedly at another site; one 72-year-old is “outraged” the U.S. paid him just $2,660 compensation for the grievous removal of his son and parents. Always classy, Trump also just posted more AI garbage, literally: He throws Colbert into a dumpster and portrays Obama’s presidential library as a giant trash can. And displaying their usual lofty priorities, Minnesota Republicans at their state convention held a moment of silence to honor...George Floyd's killer Derek Chauvin.

In glad contrast, many judges are holding the line against the darkness and stupidity. The law, and the justice it can bring, inevitably moves more slowly and quietly than the atrocities we're daily bombarded with. But it is moving, and last week several judges took the ball and damn near ran with it toward MLK's blessed arc of justice. In perhaps the least substantive but most killingly symbolic move, Judge Christopher Cooper of the U.S. District Court in D.C. ruled the boy-king can't just slap his name on the Kennedy Center when his fragile ego needs a boost. Rejecting a final, desperate board "argument" the removal of the world's most despised name would render the Center "financially nonviable" (add many LOLs here), Cooper found "no competent evidence" and ruled the Center's statute "makes crystal clear" no name can be added to it without Congress' approval.

In his decision, a response to a lawsuit brought by much-abused Dem ex-officio Board member Rep. Joyce Beatty after Trump brazenly hijacked the Board and chairmanship in 2025 - prompting pretty much any sensible performers to abandon it - Cooper ruled the foul Trump stain must come off everything - building facade, website, materials - within two weeks. An unexpected cherry on top: Cooper also found the Board was "derelict in discharging (its) responsibilities to the Center” when it voted to close it for two years of Trump's suddenly announced "renovations," and no they can't exclude Dem members, like Beatty from decisions, because democracy. Kennedy niece Maria Shriver offered a "Translation: "Due to the name change...no one wants to perform there any longer, so it's best to close it and build a new one so everybody will stop talking about that."

Ever gracious, the world's worst loser responded with a fuming, whining, 700-word tantrum. "There has never been a (boy-king) treated so unfairly by the Courts as I,” he wailed. "Unless I am free to do what I do better than anyone else, and bring this failing Institution" - rust, rot, rats oh my! - back," he has "no interest" and will transfer said empty shell back to Congress. He also attacked both "Trump-Hating Barack Hussein Obama Judge Cooper" and his wife, a former Dem federal prosecutor, who "probably told him to do so!" Cooper "has a total Conflict of Interest," he raved, "and should be brought up on charges for not revealing these facts." God, still a prince among men. Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III: JFK "would remind us it is not buildings that define the greatness of a nation. It is the actions of its people and its leaders...and our commitment to the rights of all.”

Now judges are also coming down hard on his "felon-to-felon" slush fund. A federal judge in Virginia just froze its scuzzy $1.8 billion until a June hearing; Judge Leonie M. Brinkema barred any action “pursuant to (its) creation or operation" because "taxpayer dollars should not reward blind, and sometimes violent, loyalty to a single politician." Her ruling came as Democracy Forward filed another legal challenge charging "blatant abuse of power." Too bad, so sad: Now MAGA cronies, including dozens of convicted Jan. 6 thugs since charged or convicted for serious new crimes - child sex abuse, rape, burglary, home invasion, death threats against officials, fatal DUI crashes - may have to wait for their payouts. Even then, state Dem lawmakers - New York and New Jersey Assembly members, Gavin Newsom et al - plan to slap 100% taxes on them, with the House and Senate to wisely follow suit.

Digging even deeper in the Southern District of Florida, Judge Kathleen Williams just re-opened Trump's bullshit $10 billion lawsuit against himself - his DOJ vs IRS - after three dozen bipartisan retired judges filed a motion against his "fraud on the Court." Friday, Williams ordered Trump to respond to charges his suit, from which he laundered his billion-dollar-plus payout and lifetime audit immunity, was "premised on deception" to "avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit collusive from the start." Even Kenyan courts are rejecting his outrageous schemes. After gutting international aid and facing an Ebola outbreak in DRC that's killed hundreds, Trump moved to simply bar immigrants or Americans who might have it and send them to...Kenya? As they scrambled to replicate in days care the US built over decades, the day the clinic was set to open a Kenyan court blocked a plan that, like all his others, "raises grave constitutional concerns."

Other woes, born of his boundless incompetence, beset him: At a DOJ rapidly spiraling down, the lead prosecutor for the absurd James Comey Seditious Seashell case just withdrew; experts agree it'll never make it to court. His grifty, flaking, no-bid paint job on Lincoln's Reflecting Pool - from sober grey to tacky motel pool blue - has soared from $1.8 to $13.1 million skimmed from National Park entrance fees and is getting trashed. Five countries from his Board of Peace (sic), which promised 20,000 troops to help "ease Gaza’s transition to a peaceful Jared Kushner theme park," has delivered no troops, no money, nada. His beloved gazillion-dollar ballroom remains a rubble-strewn hole in the ground amidst "a busted-ass trash palace" after another judge ruled "no statute comes close" to giving him the authority to build it. And Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket exploded on its Florida launchpad; NYT Pitchbot warns of new layoffs at The Washington Post.

Finally, whaaa, nobody wants to come to his birthday party and "testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary" with the lamest, trashiest, most corrupt and barbarous show on earth, even though after heedlessly turning the White House environs into a hoarders' trailer park he then plastered the city with banners proclaiming, "We are making D.C. safe and beautiful" Maybe the whole, crude debacle, "our latest national concussion," stems from the fact - just hear us out - a Malignant-Narcissist-In-Chief has made America's anniversary "about one hideous thing - himself." Starting with the grotesque call to mark the date by "watching men beat each other senseless in a cage on the same grounds where Lincoln walked." It's gladiatorial bread and circus - food and fun to dispel questions about empire - but "he's keeping the circus and taking away the bread."

His UFC match, with day-trading on the side, will feature combatants pummeling each other often to bloody pulp in a "sport" so violent John McCain called it “human cockfighting"; many states banned it at its inception, though its almost non-existent rules now prohibit gouging out opponents' eyes. It's an unsettling but unsurprising choice from a long "violence-curious" (except in Vietnam) bully who weirdly wears more makeup and hairspray than your average drag queen while urging supporters to beat up protesters, joking about extrajudicial killings, and injecting inane bing-bong noises into descriptions of missile strikes. Decades ago, he tried to create a mixed-martial-arts brand with a brutal fighter named Fedor the Russian: "His thing is inflicting death on people." It became Affliction Entertainment - really - but crashed after two fights, because everything he touches, even that, dies.

As a ghastly arena rises on the White House lawn, Trump is clearly hyped by the approaching blood-fest: "I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets.” So is his wife-slapping accomplice and $3-million donor UFC CEO Dana White, who admits, "It’s really big for the brand." About 4,000 supporters will watch in person, with Trump as usual likely close enough ringside to be splattered by blood and sweat. Another 85,000 can watch on giant screens from the Ellipse, home to the Jan. 6 "rally." The Pentagon is reportedly recruiting hundreds of troops to attend in uniform, but no fatties please; they must meet height and weight requirements to "look good on camera." They also have to pay for their own travel. In another classy move, sharp-eyed observers note that renderings of the event show an American flag with just 48 stars.

At last count the other big event, a Freedom 250 concert kicking off a 16-day "Great American State Fair," will feature just two stars - or more accurately two bargain-bin, has-been-or-never-were performers, the only survivors of nine originally announced of which seven quickly dropped out. (Oof. Was it something/everything he said?) They were Young MC, Flo Rida, Bret Michaels, Morris Day & The Time, The Commodores, Vanilla Ice, "real” Milli Vanilli Fab Morvan, Martina McBride and Freedom Williams of C+C Music Factory. Full Disclosure: We haven't heard of any of them. Michaels evidently won Celebrity Apprentice in 2010, McBride's a four-time CMA Award winner who's sold 23 million albums and performed for multiple presidents, Morvan's the surviving member of a pretty pair of guys brought low by a lip-syncing scandal. Honestly, we dunno who the others are.

Within 48 hours of them being announced, most had cancelled. They cited “misleading information,” “divisive” or partisan politics, miscommunication; a couple said they’d never been contacted in the first place. Reportedly remaining are Flo Rida, Fab Morvan and possibly Freedom Williams, or, per Dean Blundell, "one nostalgia rapper, one lip-syncer with intellectual-property issues, and a guy ranting from a toilet" - that would be Williams, who filmed a seven-minute rant about "niggers," "motherfuckers," and how he doesn't give a fuck about Trump or the rest of us but after the Internet told him to bail he thought he'd fuck them all and play. Despite a broad consensus that watching the entire show as planned would be akin to "staring into a septic tank for hours," MAGA was pissed at the drop-outs, especially McBride, the headliner, railing she'd even performed for "the Obama regime."

Trump was gracious about the changes. Just kidding. In "prime wallow," he railed against "these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists'...getting the yips," and said he's thinking instead about "bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar...the man who some say is the Greatest President in History" to give a speech at a "wild MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY" with "Only Great Patriots invited." While even supporters griped another speech instead of a concert would be "lame and boring," nobody knows what latest chaos will befall the event. What many of us do know is that all the detritus of this shameful historic moment - the names, arches, gimcracks, breaches, endless cruelties of a tyrant's resolve to "impose himself on the world" must go. With a nod to Walter White, we look to Ozymandias, a poem "to outlast empires," for hope and guidance.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The right to strike is under attack throughout the world, including in the United States. Labor strikes are currently forbidden or restricted in the majority of countries.

Now, in a landmark 43-page advisory opinion issued May 21, the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) has determined that the right to strike is protected under the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise.

“At a moment when workers’ organizations face sustained attacks around the world, this opinion reaffirms that the freedom to withhold one’s labor is not a privilege granted by the powerful, but a fundamental human right grounded in international law,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement.

The ILO is the United Nations agency that sets global labor standards. It has 187 member states and has adopted 191 conventions since its founding in 1919. The ILO considers Convention No. 87 to be one of its 11 fundamental conventions.

In 2023, the ILO asked the ICJ to settle an internal dispute about whether Convention No. 87 gives workers the right to strike, which is not specifically addressed in the convention. Although advisory opinions of the ICJ are not legally binding, many courts accept them as authoritative legal decisions.

The ICJ ruled in its 10-4 opinion that a strike “is one of the main activities engaged in and tools used by workers and their organizations to promote their interests and improve conditions of labour, thereby ensuring the effective exercise of the freedom of association protected under Convention No. 87.”

The Court found “that protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided for in Convention No. 87.”

In reaching that conclusion, the Court considered provisions in two 1996 Covenants that contain relevant rules of international law regarding the right to strike. Both refer to Convention No. 87.

Article 8, paragraph 1 (d) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) expressly protects the right to strike, if it is exercised in conformity with domestic laws.

Article 22, paragraph 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides for the right to freedom of association. The ICJ noted that for more than 25 years, the Human Rights Committee — which monitors the implementation of the ICCPR — has considered the right to strike to be encompassed in the protection of freedom of association.

Due to the high degree of overlap between the states parties to the ICESCR and ICCPR, and Convention No. 87, the ICJ determined there was a common understanding among them on the right to strike. The Court thus concluded “that an interpretation taking into account the relevant rules of international law contained in the ICESCR and the ICCPR indicates that the protection of the right to strike is encompassed in the protection of the freedom of association provided by Convention No. 87.”

No Right to Organize Without the Right to Strike

“For generations, working people have understood a simple truth: The freedom to join a union means nothing if you cannot withhold your labor when bosses refuse to listen. Now, the world’s highest court has affirmed that truth,” said Jeffrey Vogt, director of the International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW) Network, which issued the call for the ILO referral of this case to the ICJ.

The ICJ decision “affirms decades of judicial precedent and what workers around the world know: there is no right to organize and bargain collectively without the right to strike,” Shuler said in her statement. “When workers are barred from taking collective action on the job, they cannot defend their rights and demand the workplace conditions and contracts they are owed. The freedom to join a union becomes an empty formality.”

“This is an important day for the International Labor Organization [ILO], and for its continued relevance in the world of work. However, the significance of this opinion extends well beyond the institutional context in Geneva,” the ILAW Network wrote in a statement.

The ICJ advisory opinion came “at a moment of acute pressure on the international labour rights system,” ILAW stated. “Across the world, the right to strike is under sustained attack — through restrictive legislation, expansive judicial interpretation of essential services, the criminalisation of trade union activity, and the use of dismissals, injunctions, and damages claims to deter collective action.”

Legal restrictions on the right to strike are increasing. In 2022, strikes were outlawed or stringently restricted in 129 of the 148 countries tallied by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), one of the six organizations with consultative status at the ILO Governing Body.

The ITUC, which represents 191 million workers in 169 countries and territories, is dedicated to trade union democracy and independence. It has regional organizations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The ICJ decision “is important not only for workers and trade unions, but also for governments and responsible businesses,” ITUC stressed.

This decision “will serve as a powerful interpretive tool before national constitutional and labour courts, before regional human rights bodies, and before the ILO’s own supervisory bodies,” ILAW noted. “It strengthens the hand of every worker and union challenging strike bans, broad essential-services designations, criminal sanctions against strikers, prohibitions on solidarity and political strikes, and the dismissal and blacklisting of workers who exercise this right.”

Ruling Will Affect Tens of Millions of Workers

In October, 18 countries and five international organizations, including the ILO, presented oral testimony before the ICJ, and other nations filed written contributions. The majority of participants supported the right to strike, which is guaranteed in most European countries.

Harold Koh, who represented the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) before the ICJ, told the judges that the case would “affect the real rights of tens of millions of working people around the world.” If the Court ruled that the Convention didn’t protect the right to strike, Koh warned, “National employer groups would contest the right to strike country by country, focusing first on nations with compliant courts, weak civil societies and ineffective media.”

Jeffrey Vogt worked with the legal team of the ITUC on the briefs and oral arguments presented to the ICJ. Vogt’s co-authored book, The Right to Strike in International Law, provided a legal roadmap for the case.

Vogt told Truthout that “the written view of the US (under the Biden administration) was to support the right to strike, albeit on narrower grounds than what we had argued. When the Trump administration came in, they withdrew the Biden era brief but fortunately did not appear for oral arguments and take a contrary view.”

“The decision deals with the right to strike in the abstract — does the convention protect it — but does not go into the modalities,” Vogt added. The Court wrote that its “conclusion that the right to strike is protected by Convention No. 87 does not entail any determination on the precise content, scope, or conditions for the exercise of that right.”

“That was a conscious decision,” Vogt noted. “We did not want the court to attempt to define the scope, especially since we believe that is the proper role of the ILO supervisory system.” Vogt said that “the ICJ gave ‘great weight’ to the views of the supervisory system, which is helpful.” And although “the ILO has supported secondary strikes,” in which workers strike in solidarity with other workers at a different employer, the ICJ decision didn’t opine on that specific issue.

The Right to Strike in the US

“The right to withhold one’s labor, inherent in the right to strike, belongs to all workers, but it has been restricted,” Jeanne Mirer, a labor lawyer in private practice working with the International Commission for Labor Rights, told Truthout. “Many unions have agreed never to strike while a collective bargaining agreement is in effect.”

Most private sector workers in the US have the right to strike under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employees, including international and undocumented workers, cannot be fired or disciplined for participating in a lawful strike.

“Those exempted from the NLRA, such as agricultural and domestic workers, are not restricted in the right to strike but have no protections against discharge if they strike and do not have the power to prevent such retaliation,” Mirer added.

Some states have their own laws granting protection to domestic workers and 14 states guarantee farmworkers collective bargaining rights.

Railroad and airline workers are not covered by the NLRA, but they come under the Railway Labor Act, which has several limitations on the right to strike.

In recent years, Congress and the courts have narrowed the definition of “protected concerted activity” under the NLRA. Union membership is dropping. Nevertheless, strike actions in the US increased by almost 50 percent in 2022, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

In 2023, the US Supreme Court weakened the legal protections for striking in Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, making it easier for employers to sue unions in state courts. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing, “The right to strike is fundamental to American labor law.” She noted:

Workers are not indentured servants, bound to continue laboring until any planned work stoppage would be as painless as possible for their masters. They are employees whose collective and peaceful decision to withhold their labor is protected by the [National Labor Relations Act] even if economic injury results.

The NLRA’s protections for private sector workers don’t extend to public sector employees. “Public employees in the United States have been restricted in many ways from striking,” Mirer said.

Federal workers are legally prohibited from striking. Thirty-six states prohibit public sector workers from striking. Three other states that haven’t addressed the issue would likely outlaw public sector strikes as well. In the 12 states where strikes are not per se unlawful, various preconditions must be met before workers can engage in strikes.

The World Federation of Trade Unions, which played a decisive role in the creation of Convention No. 87 in 1948, applauded the ICJ’s decision:

[I]t is clear that the existence of a class-oriented and militant trade union movement is the essential, decisive, and irreplaceable factor to ensure that the right to strike, as well as conventions, collective bargaining, labor laws, and workers’ achievements, are not merely empty words on paper but are implemented in practice. The WFTU reiterates its call for struggle in every country, sector, and workplace to safeguard the sacred right to strike in practice.

“It is up to workers and their organizations to build on the ICJ decision to ensure the right to strike can be an effective tool to build worker power,” Mirer said.

This article was originally published at Truthout

“Right now, Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are being expelled from their homes through a coordinated campaign of state policy and settler violence. In East Jerusalem, families are being harassed and attacked while the developers hosting this event build luxury developments available to Jews only.

“The municipality of Jerusalem is directly involved in imposing and administering discriminatory apartheid policies, and should not be hosted anywhere in the city.

“As Jewish New Yorkers, we condemn the sale of stolen Palestinian land and we condemn racist housing practices that discriminate based on race, religion, and national origin. New Yorkers know the importance of fair housing practices and reject these racist events. We, along with Palestinian New Yorkers, know that apartheid practices have no place in New York City.”

Background
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion

The Mayor of Jerusalem will be in attendance at today’s event. He has publicly stated his intention to oversee the construction of at least 100,000 new housing units in Jerusalem, as part of a “Judaisation plan” for Jerusalem.

Illegal annexation in the West Bank

Israel is illegally annexing the West Bank at an unprecedented rate, resulting in over 50 attacks of settler violence and displacing nearly 1,700 Palestinians in the first three months of 2026 alone. The number of Palestinians displaced in early 2026 surpasses the total displaced in all of 2025. Land sales in New York City further contribute to this annexation.

The Center is suing the Florida Division of Emergency Management over substantial, unpermitted pollution from diesel generators and other air-polluting equipment that have supported the facility since operations began in June 2025.

“Governor DeSantis continues to shamelessly pollute the fragile wetlands and pristine air critical to the health of Big Cypress while refusing to publicly commit to shutting down the facility,” said Ryan Maher, a staff attorney at the Center. “Every day this facility continues to operate is another day of harm to people, endangered species and the delicate wetlands that sustain life in the Everglades. We’re going to hold the state accountable until every dirty diesel generator is removed from the site.”

The lawsuit follows reports from vendors at the facility that the detention center will close in June. Despite these reports, the Florida Division of Emergency Management’s executive director, Kevin Guthrie, recently stated that he has not received a timeline for closure and that the facility could potentially be open for two years, or “maybe even longer depending on the needs of the federal government.”

On Tuesday, following an inspection of the facility, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost reported that there were still 655 people detained inside. He said he was told that after the facility is empty it could take 15 to 30 days to remove infrastructure from the site. Government officials have made no public commitment to close the facility.

Today’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, says the state is violating the federal Clean Air Act, which requires the agency to obtain an air permit for the equipment and activities that produce harmful air pollution. A fleet of industrial diesel generators powers the detention facility, including around-the-clock air conditioners, flood lighting and a staff village for up to 1,000 workers. The generators release dangerous air pollutants that harm human health and the environment, including benzene, formaldehyde, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, on a site encircled by Big Cypress National Preserve.

These violations could lead to civil penalties for Florida of up to $124,426 per day of violation, which would be paid to the U.S. Treasury.

The Clean Air Act violation adds to other significant environmental violations Friends of the Everglades and the Center identified in their June 2025 lawsuit, joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, and the two groups’ July 2025 legal notice.

The detention center is surrounded on all sides by Big Cypress National Preserve, one of America’s first national preserves, which protects ecologically sensitive wetlands and a dozen endangered and threatened species, including Florida panthers, Florida bonneted bats and Everglade snail kites.

The reported plan to close the site by early June would be just days before the conservation groups and the Miccosukee Tribe can resume their June 2025 lawsuit against the Trump administration. The lawsuit had been stayed by a federal appeals court. In addition to violations of the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act and state laws, the plaintiffs also notified the defendants of their intent to challenge violations of the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act and National Park Service Organic Act.

In the original June 2025 lawsuit, Friends of the Everglades and the Center, represented by Paul Schwiep, Scott Hiaasen, Earthjustice and Center attorneys, sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Miami-Dade County to stop the project as it was being hastily built with zero environmental review. The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, which has villages close to the unpermitted immigration detention facility, joined the lawsuit.

Gov. Phil Scott (R) signed the landmark legislation after the state Legislature passed it with strong bipartisan support. The new law makes Vermont the first to enact a statewide prohibition on the toxic weedkiller.

“We applaud Governor Scott and the champions in the legislature that made this moment possible that will protect all Vermonters, including farmers and children, from being exposed to this dangerous chemical,” said EWG Legislative Director Geoff Horsfield.

“With Vermont leading the way, states across the country now have a clear path to end the use of one of the most toxic herbicides still on the market,” said Horsfield. “This is a turning point in the effort to protect public health from a chemical that has been tied to devastating neurological harm.”

State Rep. Esme Cole (D-Windsor) and state Sen. Martine Gulick (D-Chittenden-Central District) championed their chambers’ versions of the bills.

EWG would also like to thank the leading organizations that supported the bill, including Vermont Public Interest Research Group, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, Parkinson’s Foundation, the American Parkinson Disease Association, the Vermont Natural Resources Council and others.

Paraquat is banned in more than 70 countries yet remains widely used across U.S. agriculture.

Vermont’s action is expected to intensify pressure on state policymakers throughout the country to restrict or eliminate use of the herbicide. Lawmakers in the nearby states of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are currently debating similar proposals.

“We urge elected leaders in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other states to move forward with their respective plans to ban the toxic weedkiller and build momentum to push more states to take action,” he added.

Several other states have introduced bills to ban paraquat, and California is considering new regulatory restrictions. These efforts are clear signs of escalating concern over the chemical’s well-documented health risks.

A growing body of research links exposure to an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, with additional evidence pointing to other serious health harms, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia.

“OPM continues its efforts to silence federal employees. This proposed NDA is another attempt by the administration to purge the civil service of nonpartisan career employees and replace them with loyalists who won’t speak out against waste, fraud, and abuse. Federal employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they accept federal employment, and the public has a right to know about this administration’s abuses.

“OPM claims the form will be ‘optional’ for agencies to use and merely restates existing law. We know that will not be true. OPM will pressure agencies to make the NDA mandatory and then fire employees who refuse to sign it.

“Moreover, federal agencies already have extensive policies and procedures in place for preventing the unauthorized release of classified or privileged information. This proposed rule sweeps in an extraordinarily broad category of information, extending restrictions to the very material the public relies on to learn when an administration is causing harm. AFGE will submit comments on the proposed rule and urges OPM to withdraw it.”

Another Memorial Day: boasts, insults, "self-defense strikes," cheap clichés from a "Secretary of War" prattling about dead boys "delivered from the battlefield into the arms of a loving Lord and savior." Spare us. And maybe revisit the war to end all wars, which didn't - its "infinity of waste" and trenches with skulls in the sides where "he who had a corpse to stand on was lucky." Pat Barker: “A society that devours its own young deserves (no) unquestioning allegiance.”

"Happy Memorial Day to all," babbled our ever-unseemly Idiot-In-Chief, "including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year," because obviously the best way to honor the dead is to not acknowledge their sacrifice but to denigrate half the ravaged country they died defending. Also, at Arlington National Cemetery, the infinitely hollow, "Wherever the American soldier (falls), he does it for the destiny of a nation like no other - there’s never been anybody like you." Also, noted Private Bone Spurs, 18,000 Williams, over 20,000 Johns, and other names fell, but "not too many" Donalds. Huh.

Adding to the day's eloquence with a much-needed "monster truck rally vibe" was inexplicably non-veteran, Hegseth bestie, tawdry aging rock star Kid Rock. Because "Tokyo Rose wasn't available," he was chosen by the Pentagon to honor American service members' ultimate sacrifice in a hoodie, fedora, gold chain and sunglasses, looking like "a creature you’d expect to hiss at you from the dank depths of a garbage bin" and intoning, "We are remembering the sacrifice and service of so many who are not with us today...It’s a special day. We’re thinking of them... Keep on Kid Rocking in the free world."

Then there was bombastic, dime-store-cliché-spouting Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth urging we "remember our republic was forged and purchased with blood, American blood," evidently only male according to his pronouns. Ever a fatuous buffoon, he declaimed "the sacred names of bygone eras to the 13 souls of Epic Fury (who) answered the call when it mattered the most (and) gave the last full measure of devotion," even when he failed them in an Iranian strike in Yemen: "They stood against the darkness of the world wearing the breastplate of righteousness (and) raced to the brink so we could walk in freedom and prosperity (and) may almighty God bless our warriors." Jesus weeps.

It remains unclear how many of the up to 22 million dead, both military and civilian, and over 20 million wounded, "the butcher's bill" of World War One, came to be blessed by almighty God, especially in its Western Front's godforsaken trenches teeming with sludge, rats, mud, blood, water and disease. The war's "inconceivable loss" and "purposeless waste of a generation" is perhaps best exemplified by the Battle of Verdun, where the French, set upon by German forces, adopted a "They Shall Not Pass” mantra that in the end saw over 700,000 dead on both sides - ultimately, vast "heaps of bones."

For many, the horrors of "the greatest conflagration the world had seen" live on through the searing literature, both prose and poetry, that emerged from them. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est epitomizes the bitter, bloody tone that often prevailed amidst its "guttering, choking, drowning" victims - Hegseth's benighted "warriors." "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," cursing, gargling, limping bootless through sludge, "blood-shod...deaf even to the hoots/Of gas-shells dropping softly behind," they reject, "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."

Siegfried Sassoon lived the privileged life of a British country gentleman, writing poetry and fox hunting, until the start of World War 1, when he served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in France. He was awarded a Military Cross, was later wounded in action, and refused to fight any longer to protest "a senseless slaughter." On June 15, 1917, he wrote "A Soldier's Declaration" as "an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."

"I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust," he wrote. He was protesting, he made clear, "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed...against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."

His letter was read before the House of Commons and printed in The London Times. He expected to be court-martialed; instead, he was declared "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Dr. William Rivers was charged with restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. The story of their real-life encounter, wherein Rivers came to diagnose war's "shell-shock" and share Sassoon's view, is powerfully told in Pat Barker's historical novel Regeneration, the first in a trilogy about the psychological carnage of war. "It (was) the Great White God de-throned. We assumed we were the measure of all things," Rivers says. "(But) nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing."

Siegfried Sassoon's 1918 Suicide in the Trenches mourns "a simple soldier boy/Who grinned at life in empty joy" until he goes to war: "In winter trenches, cowed and glum/With crumps and lice and lack of rum/He put a bullet through his brain./No one spoke of him again./ You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go." Too many of those young lie in a cemetery near Ypres, where one Inscription stands out in a sea of "For King and Country" headstones. It was written on the grave of Arthur Young by his father, a diplomat wiser than any vacuous Hegseth: "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war."

After months of intense pressure, Chair Ken Martin and the DNC finally caved and released their 2024 autopsy report. To call the report a disgrace would be an understatement. The report focuses extensively on ad spending and fundraising, without discussing the Democratic platform, policy positions or political context of the 2024 election. The word "affordability," arguably the most important issue in the 2024 election, appears twice in the 129-page report. The report makes no mention whatsoever of Gaza or Israel — neither word even appears in its text.

Now, Martin and the DNC are trying to wash their hands of the report and its contents. In a hasty, almost amateurish markup, the DNC has gone out of its way to poke holes in the legitimacy of the very report it commissioned. The report is full of factual errors, poorly supported conjecture, and misguided ramblings, many of which the DNC itself is eager to point out. While Martin may feel that this absolves him of the responsibility to answer for this pitiful document, it should only intensify scrutiny of his leadership of the DNC.

Martin recruited the author to write the report. He presumably provided the author with resources and access to party officials and functionaries. The DNC has a responsibility to turn in a report that truly grapples with the mistakes of the past so that the Democratic Party can learn from those mistakes and emerge stronger in its fight against Trumpism. The DNC has utterly failed in that respect.

The only serious autopsy so far remains the one that RootsAction published: https://democraticautopsy.org/

“This outbreak is unfolding amid devastating cuts to global health and humanitarian assistance in the DRC that have weakened disease surveillance, strained already fragile health systems, and reduced the capacity to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks,” said Thomas McHale, SM, public health director at PHR. “Physicians for Human Rights has documented how abrupt U.S. foreign aid cuts disrupted frontline health services and infectious disease programs in conflict-affected eastern DRC, leaving communities more vulnerable at precisely the moment sustained international public health engagement when it is needed most. ”

The current Ebola outbreak, which the WHO declared a “public health emergency of international concern,” involves the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or targeted treatment. Cases have already been identified in and around Bunia, Goma, and Bukavu in eastern DRC as well as in Kampala, Uganda, which are densely populated urban areas, and health workers themselves have become infected. The crisis is unfolding with the rapid and unchecked spread of infections and the sharply rising death toll, with 139 confirmed deaths reported to date.-A devastating set of emergencies are converging in eastern DRC, where ongoing armed conflict, attacks on civilians and health facilities, and mass population displacement have already pushed fragile health systems to the brink. Violence in and around Ituri and Goma, where several cases of Ebola have been detected, has severely disrupted humanitarian access and public health operations precisely as Ebola is spreading rapidly through affected communities.

PHR’s network of medical and humanitarian partners in DRC are reporting mounting tolls from the outbreak and scarce resources to confront the emergency. A doctor in an Ebola-affected area of DRC tells PHR that “…this outbreak is occurring at a time when we are no longer truly able to carry out proper epidemiological surveillance because of the disruption in USAID funding. To continue this surveillance, we are forced to rely on our own personal resources, including purchasing phone credit, fuel, and paying transportation costs. This is extremely difficult given the current level of need.”

Health workers in DRC told PHR that they need support for disease surveillance, materials to support safe disposal of bodies, including body bags, access to laboratories to process samples quickly, and infection prevention and control supplies, including masks, protective suits, face shield and other personal protective equipment to allow health workers care for Ebola patients safely. The same doctor told PHR that “…without rapid support, surveillance, case confirmation, the safe management of bodies, and the protection of health care workers all risk being seriously compromised.”

U.S. global health funding cuts have contributed to the global health emergency posed by the Ebola outbreak. Decades of U.S. investment helped build the disease surveillance systems, laboratory infrastructure, trained workforce, community outreach networks, and emergency coordination mechanisms necessary to detect and contain outbreaks early before they spiraled into regional and global crises. But those systems are now being hollowed out. The Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to U.S. global health funding in January 2025 have undermined public health efforts around the globe, resulting in impacts such as disruptions to HIV and TB prevention and treatment programs, the elimination of services for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and undermining critical disease monitoring. U.S. funding cuts are degrading public health response capacities in eastern DRC, across Africa, and globally at a moment when rapid response care and robust international coordination is urgently needed.

Public health experts have expressed alarm that the latest outbreak of this rare strain of Ebola likely went undetected for two months, allowing the virus to spread further and losing critical opportunities to trace, isolate, and treat individuals who were exposed or infected.

“The outbreak of Ebola in DRC is another example of the failures of the America First Global Health strategy,” said McHale. “At its best, U.S. global health leadership can help identify, address, and prevent infectious disease outbreaks before they spiral out of control. But this outbreak comes at a time when the United States has shuttered USAID, slashed CDC funding and work force, cut resources for humanitarian response in DRC, including disease surveillance capacity, and hampered the ability of health care workers on the ground to respond to the emerging Ebola crisis.”

PHR’s recent report, “Wasted Investments, Looming Crisis,” documents how reductions in US support for global health have dismantled research platforms, surveillance infrastructure, and frontline health systems that are essential not only for HIV and TB programs, but also for responding to future outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases. A research brief by PHR (“Abandoned in Crisis”) documented the early impacts of U.S. aid cuts on health services in DRC.

“Due to the Trump administration’s cuts, we no longer have the full measure of global coordination and operational capacity needed to rapidly track transmission, monitor cross-border spread, support frontline clinicians, and swiftly identify and treat people who may have been exposed,” said McHale. “In the conflict-affected regions of eastern DRC, where insecurity and displacement are accelerating disease transmission and limiting access to care, these losses are especially dangerous and further deepening the polycrisis. Global health security depends on sustained international cooperation — not retreat.”

As world leaders gather at the World Health Assembly in Geneva this week, governments must urgently promote a rights-based Ebola response that is grounded in science, transparency, and respect for human dignity, while ensuring affected communities have access to timely, evidence-based care and information. Immediate support is needed to protect frontline health workers through the provision of adequate personal protective equipment and infection prevention and control supplies, as health workers remain at heightened risk of exposure. World governments should urgently scale support for epidemiological surveillance, laboratory testing, contact tracing, safe clinical care, community engagement, and dignified and safe burials, including the provision of body bags and other essential supplies for the safe management of the deceased, and essential personal protective equipment for health care workers. Sustained investment in supply chains, local response capacity, and research into Bundibugyo-specific diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines are essential to preventing further spread and protecting the right to health.

The United States should also strengthen coordination with the WHO and fully disburse congressionally-appropriated global health funds to support an effective response to the Ebola crisis, including urgent measures to track and protect exposed individuals and communities, and strengthen frontline response capacities to prevent further spread of the virus. All parties to the conflict in the DRC, including occupying forces, should uphold existing ceasefire agreements and guarantee safe and unhindered access for health care workers and humanitarian personnel to support populations in areas affected by violence. This should include enabling the immediate reopening of Goma International Airport so that life-saving medicines, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid can reach at-risk communities.

If working families manage to get through the holiday weekend within budget, their summer travel plans may still be out of reach. Airfare prices are up 26% and expected to keep rising this summer, while gas prices are hovering around $4.50 nationally. As Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wraps up his family’s seven-month, all-expenses-paid road trip, working families are wondering whether they’ll be able to afford traveling at all this summer. All in, reports find that the Duffy’s corporate-sponsored vacation would cost at least $900 in fuel expenses – and that’s not including the luxury cruise the family was given to cap off their trip. Trump and his Cabinet couldn’t be more out of touch with working families this Memorial Day weekend.

Groundwork’s Chief Economist, Breyon Williams, released the following statement:

“Trump’s senseless tariffs and illegal war are robbing American families of their relaxing summer vacation. From the ticket counter to the cookout, consumers are scaling back and going without in the face of Trump’s summer sticker shock.”

Janelle Jones, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation, shared her response:

"Prices are rising because of tariffs and the war—two decisions the president made and can undo whenever he wants but by his own admission he doesn't spend any time thinking about Americans' financial situation. Families are getting squeezed on the price of everything and leaders in Washington don't seem to be paying attention."

Eat Up: Barbecue Essentials More Expensive Thanks to Trump

• Beef, hot dog, and bratwurst prices are through the roof (up 20%, 12%, and 28% respectively) as consumers consider firing up the grill this holiday weekend.
• Fresh produce prices have increased under Trump thanks to higher fertilizer prices and a struggling farm economy. Tomatoes cost 22% more, while corn prices have increased 98% and lettuce is up 19%.
• Trump’s war in Iran has also driven up the price of plasticware popular at cookouts: disposable plasticware prices are up about 20% compared to last year due to the unrest in the Middle East. These price impacts will last beyond summer barbecue season.

Flights, road trips, and even staycations will cost more this summer

• A family of four can expect to pay an extra $300 on plane tickets this summer as Trump’s war drags on. All major U.S. carriers have announced price hikes of about $10 per checked bag heading into vacation season, on top of skyrocketing airfare.
• Budget airline Spirit shut down this month partially due to unexpected increases in jet fuel costs while airline CEOs anticipate passing higher operating costs onto consumers via price hikes.
  • Southwest Airlines CEO Andrew Watterson revealed to shareholders in a recent call that there have been five industrywide fare hikes so far this year, and he anticipates more on the way.
  • United CEO Kirby also admitted prices will not come down, saying “The longer consumers pay these prices and airlines get used to this revenue stream, the more likely it is [to hold].”
• Flyers who can afford higher prices will be crammed onto smaller planes with fewer flight options.
  • Airlines have cut over two million seats and 12,000 flights worldwide in late April and early May, an unprecedented level of cancellations.
  • United Airlines has removed over 21,000 flights from its summer schedule, while Delta and American cut nearly 12,000 combined.
• Gas prices are at the highest level since 2022, hitting around $4.55 nationally, up more than 50% from $2.98 before the president’s war in Iran started.
• Working families looking forward to a restful staycation at home may find it more difficult as temperatures rise: Trump’s tariffs have driven up the cost of HVAC systems, and his administration has ended tax credits Americans relied on to upgrade their air conditioning.

To talk to a Groundwork expert about rising prices and the economic fallout of Trump’s agenda, email press@groundworkcollaborative.org.

In retrospect, Sunday's taxpayer-funded blasphemy fest to "rededicate" America as a Christian nation though it's not and never was looks ever more obscene amidst an unholy regime's mounting crimes and abuses. Its sectarian circus - ICE milled, vendors urged "WIVES SUBMIT," zealots screeched "We welcome Jesus!", speakers attested God is eager for the ballroom - just queasily re-shaped a 250-year-old America into the kind of country it once sought freedom from.

"Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving," a "constitutional abomination wrapped in layers of blasphemy and demagoguery," sought to proclaim America "One Nation Under God," but only a white male evangelical God; Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, commies, Jews, atheists, agnostics, black, brown, queer, Native people and even mainline Protestants need not apply. As such, it attacked what Jefferson deemed an unalienable right of conscience "which lies solely between Man & his God," defied the core constitutional tenet of separation of church and state, and "torpedoe(d) the best of American traditions - inclusivity and diversity" with, essentially, "a Jubilee of Christian Nationalism."

Its state-sponsored, right-wing fever dream marked the successful MAGA hijacking of Congress’ bipartisan, 2016 America250 commission, meant to honor the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and its core values of equality and agency before the law. Instead, Trump concocted his own Christo-fascist Freedom 250 to celebrate a racist, corporate, jingoistic narrative of America, rewriting history to create an imaginary, monolithic, jingoistic, white, male, Christian national identity that celebrates "God’s presence in our national life throughout 250 years of American history," and what is this inequality or oppression of which you speak?

Freedom 250 swiftly collected most of the $150 million appropriated by Congress, along with support from patriotic sponsors like ExxonMobil, Mastercard, Palantir, Amazon, Coinbase. Year-long festivities have included a weekly America Prays initiative; a series of Interior Department events celebrating “the triumph of the American spirit” plastered with flags, logos, Trump National Park passes; a fleet of nationwide “Freedom Trucks,” mobile museums offering right-wing takes on US history created with PragerU; a national Freedom 250 Patriot Games - Hunger Games anyone? - competition for high school athletes; a revamped Great American Farmers Market in DC with a "MAHA Monday."

On social media, meanwhile, DHS has begun declaring itself "One Homeland Under God," complete with image of church and cross and highlighted Bible verse; for April 19, it urged, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." The Washington Monument was transformed into “the world’s tallest birthday candle," with projections celebrating historic achievements by white men like Christopher Columbus and Henry Ford, with no black, Native, female people in sight. To re-enforce the white-centric narrative, organizers have also promised a Summer Surge of thousands more ICE and DHS thugs to make the nation still whiter.

Sunday's Jubilee continued the rebrand of a newly pristine, godly history, with 14 of 15 speakers Christian, arched stained-glass windows and a looming white cross all "glorifying the name of Jesus over our nation’s capital." "Our nation more than any other was shaped by the idea that faith brought freedom," said Marco Rubio in a prerecorded speech. "This is who we are." Virginia pastor Gary Hamrick concurred, but added the imaginary threat of a "spiritual war," perhaps best personified by the scary scattered signs of protesters urging, “Celebrate Democracy, Not Theocracy.” "This is a battle in our day between good and evil," he said. "Our hope is built on Jesus' blood."

Also, Jesus merch. As the faithful braved three-hour lines in the heat and prayed, arms lifted to the sky, vendors handed out "Jesus Saves" bracelets and buttons that said, “WIVES SUBMIT, HUSBANDS LOVE, CHILDREN OBEY.” There were "Thank you Jesus!" signs, a huge "Jesus Make America Godly Again" banner, $47 Freedom 250 baseball caps, t-shirts that read, "God Guns Family Freedom" and "Forever In Our Hearts, Charlie Kirk." "We welcome Jesus into this place!" declared one speaker. Another noted, "It's hard to believe it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom to stand where it needs to stand." (Jesus.)

Pete Hegseth,on video, was typically unshy about praising Jesus. He dubiously zeroed in on The Prayer at Valley Forge, a 1975 painting by Arnold Friberg of George Washington praying in the snow widely deemed a romanticized legend, not fact. Historians argue Washington was a deist and freemason who rarely mentioned God or Jesus, whose favorite Biblical quote - "But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid" - symbolizes peace, safety, religious freedom, and who always prayed standing. Still, Hegseth ran with it: Washington "did not lose faith," and "let us pray as he did...without ceasing...on bended knee, for our Lord and savior Jesus Christ."

Trump took an even more sketchy approach: He went golfing and sent in a slurry, pre-taped Bible reading recycled from the last fake Christian event three weeks ago. Then, moments after it aired, the self-described peace president went on a frenzied, genocidal social media spree, posting on his crappy app over 30 times in two hours. He threatened Iran: "The Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them." He posted bizarre, AI, warmongering images: Manning a spacecraft, firing away with massive explosions and mushroom clouds, personally arresting an alien, a real one. Say what? Praise Jesus.

Still, spineless, smarmy, unholy Mike Johnson was the worst. Having already whined about "naysayers" who view Christian Nationalism as "a derogatory term," he gave a long hollow prayer about his task to "bring us straight to the Lord, whose mighty hand has been upon our (freest and most benevolent) nation since the very beginning." But now "sinister ideologies sow confusion among our people," attacking our history as "one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure." So "grant us the moral clarity to rise above partisan differences," says the guy who keeps shutting down Congress to block Dem policies. Finally, unconscionably, he prayed for “mercy upon our land.”

Mercy. He seeks mercy.

Mercy for the hundreds of people in the Congo and elsewhere dying of an Ebola outbreak after Trump gutted USAID and its dedicated outbreak response team because it helped people who aren't white, thus triggering what could be over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030?

Mercy for those killed at San Diego's biggest mosque amidst a Trump-fuelled rising tide of Islamophobia? Mercy for those ripped off or otherwise betrayed in a rabid mob by a $1.8 billion slush fund, or "pardon on steroids," in the "most brazen act of presidential corruption this century."

Mercy for the estimated 145,000 U.S. citizen brown children who had a parent detained by ICE and are now scattered across the country, or the 22,000 who lost both parents? Mercy for the woman, a domestic violence victim, detained and deported whom ICE is now blaming for the murder of her own child by her ex-partner?

Mercy for the 21-year-old Honduran with no criminal record just arrested and detained by ICE outside a New York immigration court less than 24 hours after a federal judge's ruling such arrests are illegal, because, as one ICE thug responded when shown the ruling, "We don't care"?

Mercy for 18-year-old, Chicago-born, Mexico-raised Kevin González, being treated in Chicago for metastatic stage-four colon cancer when his health began failing? His parents in Mexico sought emergency visas to travel to the US to say their final goodbyes; when DHS denied them, citing “previous unlawful entries into the US," in desperation they tried to cross the border without permission and were detained by ICE in Arizona. Kevin pleaded in vain for their release; ultimately, he checked himself out of the hospital and flew to his grandmother's home in Mexico to be with family at the end. Finally, in Kevin's last hours, a judge in Arizona ordered their release. They arrived at his bedside on the afternoon of May 9. His sobbing mom called him, “Chiquito," "little one”; his father knelt by his son's bed, asking for forgiveness if he ever let him down. Kevin died the next day.

Mercy? Does Mike Johnson want mercy for Kevin and his parents?

Fuck Mike Johnson and all his fucking odious cohort. Fuck their prayers, and their Jesus, and their cruelty, and their fucking despicable hypocrisy, which knows no bounds. What would Jesus do? Not this, any of it.