Freedom of Spirit

Today is Independence Day, when we’re free to celebrate our opposition to the tyrant who oppresses us. 

When we’re free to celebrate all those who have stood against this tyrant for over a decade now.

Happy Fourth of July. 

Celebrate our resistance in every form it takes.

Join it going forward.

HEADLINES:

• How Trump took over America’s 250th (Politico)

• What If We’d Never Broken Away From the Brits? (Bulwark)

• Massive Crowds Gather in Tehran for Khamenei’s Six-Day Funeral (WSJ)

• U.S.-Iran Latest: Slain supreme leader’s coffin on display as Iran gears up for dayslong funeral, with peace talks paused (CBS)

• U.S. warned Iran about Israel’s aims to assassinate leaders (WP)

• These Justices Are Not Impartial (Atlantic)

• Unemployment dipped, but more people left the workforce: What’s going on in the job market? (Yahoo)

• Trump returns to Mount Rushmore after years of hinting he belongs there (WP)

• Ukraine proves it can hit Russia almost anywhere (Axios)

• Turkey blocks American LGBTQ+ cruise from docking, citing ‘moral standards’ (CNN)

• A cascading crisis was presented to more than 370 government and military officials during an exercise in central Taiwan this week, part of President Lai Ching-te’s push to harden the island’s ‌war preparedness as Chinese military pressure grows. (Reuters)

• Extreme heat wave threatens U.S. power grids and July 4 travel (CNBC)

• Finding freedom from the heat on July 4th will be a challenge in eastern US (AP)

• The growing dangers of record heat waves like the one engulfing July 4th celebrations (PBS)

• Trump Jr's 'Amazon of guns' could make millions under new proposed firearm rule. (Reuters)

• Social Media Lawsuits: What Parents Should Know to Keep Kids Safe Online (Legal Standard)

• How software engineers really feel about AI coding (BI)

• A top Goldman Sachs economist says AI will displace the jobs of 15 million US workers (Yahoo)

• Police Suspect Gunman’s Motive Was To Kill Bunch Of People (Onion)

 

Divided We Stand

So it is finally here, or almost here. Tomorrow will mark our 250th birthday as a nation.

Some will attend public displays marking the Fourth of July. There will be hot dogs, beer, speeches and fireworks.

Some will stay home, where there will be hot dogs, beer, arguments and fireworks.

Trump will give another of his bloated, narcissistic excuses for a speech to “We the People,” the vast majority of whom oppose his actions to dramatically increase wealth disparity, halt progress on climate control mitigation, wage war on a variety of smaller, weaker countries, and alienate the U.S. from the rest of the world.

This year besides that semiquincentennial and all of its mixed messages, France will play a key game in the World Cup, this time in Philadelphia. There is enough historical symbolism in that to make my high school history teacher drool.

My French-American grandchildren are in Philadelphia this weekend for that game.

I’m here with the dog and the rabbit; none of us are fans of beer or fireworks. But we’ll celebrate the Fourth in our own ways.

They’ll be treats for the pets and the World Cup game for me.

I’ll be rooting for France.

HEADLINES:

• Iran sends a defiant message to Trump with colossal funeral for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (CNN)

• Powerful Iranian general seen in public amid preparation for supreme leader’s vast funeral (NBC)

• U.S. Dangles Rewards for Opening the Strait of Hormuz. Iran Isn’t Budging. (WSJ)

• Iran warns of ‘forceful response’ if tankers don’t use approved Strait of Hormuz routes (The Hill)

• The U.S. healthcare system is in crisis. A Supreme Court ruling could make things worse (NPR)

• Postal Service’s proposed restrictions on mail-in voting blocked (The Hill)

• Olympian Is Indicted After Arrest at Washington’s Reflecting Pool (NYT)

• Trump wants to ditch his signature trade deal. It’s not that easy (CNN)

• Why the expected fight over the North American trade deal never kicked off (BBC)

• F.B.I. Assigns Scores of Analysts to Examine Election Records in Georgia (NYT)

• Following High-Court Victory, Bayer Separates Roundup Business (WSJ)

• The Unprecedented Profiteering Revealed by Donald Trump’s Financial Disclosure (New Yorker)

• Ross Gerber Says Trump’s $1 Billion Crypto Windfall Is Why ‘Bitcoin Went Down and Isn’t Going Anywhere’ (Benzinga)

• Trump’s wealth grew on a scale without modern presidential precedent (WP)

• June jobs report: US payrolls rose by 57,000, missing expectations (Yahoo)

• Russia Bombards Ukrainian Capital With Deadly Wave of Attacks (NYT)

• Catholic Church says 6 bishops from ultra-conservative SSPX society excommunicated as decades-old feud reopens (CBS)

• California Bans ‘Sell By’ Labels, Hoping to Cut Food Waste (NYT)

• Onetime MAGA loyalist and staunch Trump supporter Tucker Carlson has announced his next move in the wake of his messy breakup with the GOP. [HuffPost]

• 4 surprising (and evidence-based) health benefits of drinking coffee (WP)

• Elon Musk says AI is the only way to fix the $40 trillion U.S. debt crisis—but a new study says even the most optimistic scenario won’t fill the hole (Fortune)

• Can You Embrace A.I. Without Layoffs? This Company Says It’s Trying. (NYT)

• Agriculture Department Puts Trump’s Face On Soybeans (Onion)

Trump's Party of One

That “other” war is heating up, the one Trump thought he could end in a day but that has instead dragged on for years now. Russia has lost a staggering number of troops, an estimated 450,000 with up a million others injured. 

Ukraine has shown remarkable ingenuity despite heavy casualties of its own. It’s become in one sense of war of drones, which carries significant implications for the future of war everywhere.

And as the conflict in the Middle East also continues to simmer, Trump is back to one of his obsessions — worrying about crowd size. He is preparing his speech for the Fourth of July, two days from now.

But with temperatures in Washington, D.C., soaring to near 100 degrees, it’s uncertain how big his MAGA crowd will be. Or how much the rest of the world will be listening, either.

HEADLINES:

• Explosions Rock Ukraine’s Capital (NYT)

• Kyiv attacks death toll rises to 20 as Russia warns it will ‘continue to increase pressure’ on Ukrainian capital (Guardian)

• Russia launches massive strike on Ukraine as Poland scrambles jets, Finland restricts airspace (CNBC)

• Bloodier than Stalingrad: Number of casualties in Russia’s war on Ukraine reaches 2 million (CNN)

• How severe is Russia’s energy shortage because of Ukrainian strikes? (Al Jazeera)

• Trump refuses to renew USMCA trade pact, toppling one of the last pillars of stability in global trade (NBC)

• Trump’s Anti-Patriotic Trap (Atlantic)

• Trump Takes Maiden Flight on Qatari-Gifted Air Force One (WSJ)

• ‘Technical’ talks under way in Doha as Tehran demands action (Al Jazeera)

• Iran’s top negotiator says country ready for war as peace talks inch along (CBS)

• Trump ‘livid’ over crowd size at National Mall state fair, report says: ‘Who thought this was a good idea?’ (Independent)

• U.S. auto industry faces increased uncertainty without extension of USMCA trade deal (CNBC)

• The divided Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision exposes sharp rifts among justices (AP)

• The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship ruling hands the U.S. economy a $7.7 trillion win (Fortune)

• Immigrant Arrests Surge to 10,000 in 5 Days as ICE Clamps Down (NYT)

• ICE’s arrest of nun heading to church fuels bipartisan backlash in South Texas (WP)

• Everything to know about Trump’s student loan overhaul (BI)

• Modern neuroscience is rediscovering an idea Freud had 130 years ago (ScienceDaily)

• In the United States, Every World Cup Team Is a Home Team (NYT)

• The price tag behind Taylor Swift’s rumored wedding bash at Madison Square Garden (CNN)

• Two People Climb Needle of Empire State Building (NYT)

• They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain. (WP)

• UN launches “AI for Good” commission (Axios)

• Harvard Faces Pressure To Fire Confederate Generals (Onion)

 

White House Inc.

The pay-as-you-play Trump administration is making the President and his family very rich.

The Post reports: “President Donald Trump’s reported income soared to more than $2.2 billion in 2025, as the president took in more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency, digital tokens and related partnerships, according to his latest financial disclosure forms."

“The 2025 disclosure includes $635 million in royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins; at least $525 million in proceeds from token sales by World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency project founded by Trump and his sons; $65 million in proceeds from World Liberty Financial’s equity sale; and $196 million in net proceeds from a stablecoin transaction.”

From the Times: (N)ever before in American history has there been anything like Donald J. Trump, a president who in his first year back in office has collected about $1.4 billion in new revenues from cryptocurrency businesses that directly benefited from his actions as president.

“Presidential historians said they could identify no other president in American history who entered into new business enterprises just before moving into the White House, and then continued to personally profit from them during his term.”

Indeed, in our 250 years as a republic, we have never seen corruption on this scale at the White House. It is pure, unapologetic greed.

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, grocery prices keep going up, home ownership has become an unreachable dream for our children, and AI is replacing them in the workforce increasingly controlled by billionaires like Trump.

Is there any wonder why Democratic Socialists are starting to win elections across the land?

HEADLINES:

• Trump’s income topped $2 billion in 2025, boosted by crypto, coin ventures (WP)

• Trump’s Moneymaking Run: Unrivaled in Presidential History (NYT)

• Speaker Johnson abandons floor agenda, sends members home early amid GOP rebellion (CNN)

• Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits (AP)

• Poll: Americans split on whether being U.S.-born is important for being ‘truly American’ (NBC)

• Supreme court rules states can exclude trans athletes from female sports (Guardian)

• Supreme Court strikes down coordinated campaign spending limits (CBS)

• Left-Wing Insurgent Ousts 15-Term Congresswoman in Colorado (NYT)

• Iran’s leverage over Strait of Hormuz snarls Trump’s push for a deal (WP)

• US envoys in Doha to meet mediators but not Iranians, Qatar says (BBC)

• Trump’s Obsession With Executive Power Will Cost Him (Bulwark)

• Inside the Great American State Fair’s carnival of contrasts (Axios)

• Trump now ‘hates’ his own trade deal. But he’ll have a hard time killing it. (Politico)

• Venezuela’s earthquakes are a somber warning for US preparedness (The Hill)

• Putin Faces Increased Pressure as Moscow Is Again Attacked by Drones (NYT)

• As war stalls, Putin concedes he never cut a deal with Trump in Alaska (WP)

• Melania Trump calls for US to support both transgender athletes ban, LGBTQ+ rights (The Hill)

• LeBron James to play record 24th NBA season, but not with Lakers (NYT)

• ‘Humanity has chosen to become idiots’: This Brown professor switched to take-home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating (Fortune)

• How A.I. Is Changing the Way Politicians Run for Office (NYT)

• Delivery Robots Abandon College Campuses Like A Failed Military Occupation (Jalopnik)

• A chess grandmaster on what AI visionaries don’t understand (WP)

• We’re Only Starting to Grasp the Pitfalls of Using A.I. at Work (NYT)

• Supreme Court Upholds Temporal Gerrymander That Would Cost Democrats 1932 Election (Onion)

 

Almost Real

The world’s problems lie just below the surface of the conviviality of the World Cup but that is one aspect that makes the global competition meaningful.

For example, as Morocco defeated the Netherlands yesterday, its team featured three Moroccan-Dutch players who grew up in the Netherlands but competed for the team of their parents, as opposed to that of their citizenship.

Racist comments on the Dutch side reported before the game suggested that those three were not good enough to play for the Netherlands team.

The Morroccans answered on the pitch, winning an exciting match on shootouts. 

Many of the athletes at the World Cup have roots in more than one country and somehow they have made the choice of which country to represent, which national anthem to sing, which fans to embrace.

It’s almost if they have to find a way to compete against themselves, at least partially, and in that there might be a lesson for all of us.

HEADLINES:

• Supreme Court Upholds Mississippi Late-Arriving Mail-In Ballot Law (NYT)

• Trump laments ‘tremendous loss’ on mail-in ballots at Supreme Court, doubles down on voter-ID bill (CNBC)

• Supreme Court expands Trump’s power over the federal bureaucracy (WP)

• Supreme Court rules Trump cannot fire Fed member Lisa Cook; grants him more power over other independent agencies (NBC)

• Liberal supreme court justices condemn ‘destabilizing’ ruling that expands Trump’s power to fire regulators (Guardian)

• U.S. and Iranian officials to resume talks, Trump says, after clashes test ceasefire (CBS)

• Iranian, Qatari officials to discuss MoU, frozen funds (Al Jazeera)

• Israel and Lebanon’s fragile truce (Economist)

• Iran’s president says $6B in frozen assets in Qatar to be released as US talks challenged (AP)

• Europe Goes Its Own Way (Foreign Affairs)

• Russia is grinding its way into Kostiantynivka, a key stronghold in Ukraine's eastern “fortress belt” long coveted by the Kremlin, even as its gains across the rest of the front line have largely stalled. (Reuters)

• Around 145 million at risk as U.S. braces for holiday week heat wave; wildfires continue to rage in the West (NBC)

• Trump Cut a Billion-Dollar Mining Deal. His Sons Stand to Profit. (NYT)

• Who Is Natalie Harp? Trump’s Most Ardent Aide, Explained (New York)

• Venezuela earthquake aftershocks reignite fears as survivors seek answers (CNN)

• Native American Tribes Came Together to Secure Their Rights to Colorado River Water. Four States Are Stalling the Deal. (ProPublica)

• Wendy Schmidt: Three centuries of science is something to celebrate (Fortune)

• CBS Ratings Continue Nosedive Under Bari Weiss (TechDirt)

• Supreme Court says police need a warrant to obtain Google location data (WP)

• How Domo went from a $2.8 billion darling to fighting for its survival (BI)

• Morocco win shootout to send Netherlands home from World Cup (ESPN)

• Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown University: ‘Academic integrity is at risk’ (El Pais)

• Chinese AI’s Sputnik Moment (National Review)

• Travis Kelce Reserves Seat At Reception For SpongeBob Just In Case (Onion)

 

What Future, CNN?

Back in 2013, media critic Brian Stelter published a book “Top of the Morning,” that was later adapted into the dramatic 2019 television series, “The Morning Show.” 

These days, Stelter appears as an occasional guest on CNN as part of that network’s attempt to cover another drama — the ownership change that has thrown its future into doubt.

Tech billionaire David Ellison, a close buddy of Donald Trump, is close to completing the merger that would bring CNN under his control.

The much smaller and less profitable CBS already is controlled by Ellison and the result has been disastrous, from a journalistic perspective.

But there is far more at stake wit CNN than simply the survival of a media company. More than any other network, CNN has provided critical, consistent, accurate coverage of the Trump era — much to Trump’s dismay.

According to the New York Times, “Mr. Ellison has not publicly detailed what he has in store for CNN. But the network’s newsroom is wary of his conspicuous coziness with Mr. Trump and the prospect that he may assign some oversight of CNN to Bari Weiss, his pick to run CBS News after he bought Paramount last year.

“Anderson Cooper, the channel’s biggest star, has told colleagues at CNN that he does not want to work for Ms. Weiss, two people familiar with his remarks said. Mr. Cooper, who overlapped with Ms. Weiss at CBS as a correspondent at “60 Minutes,” left that show this spring after 20 years.

“As the merger approaches, the 18th-floor Manhattan office of Amy Entelis, the CNN executive in charge of on-air talent, has turned into something of a psychiatrist’s couch for anchors and correspondents, who often drop in to air their anxieties about the looming changes.”

What is at stake here, of course, is not only whether CNN will remain free to accurately report on Trump’s push for authoritarian power. 

It is freedom of the press, one of our few tools for stopping this existential threat to our democracy.

HEADLINES:

• Trump says the U.S. and Iran will meet in Qatar after weekend attacks (NPR)

• U.S.-Iran ceasefire could go up in flames (Axios)

• U.S., Iran Carry Out New Strikes, Testing Fragile Ceasefire (WSJ)

• Israel’s military and tech industry race to counter Hezbollah’s latest threat (CNN)

• With time running out, Trump digs in on changing midterm election rules (WP)

• Postmaster general’s remarks on mail ballots stoke fears among voting rights advocates (The Hill)

• Trump allows dairy farms a path for migrant labor, upsetting anti-immigration camp (WP)

• A ‘heat dome’ is driving dangerous heat across the U.S. into the July 4 weekend (NPR)

• Biden calls Trump ‘a loser’, portraying him as incompetent, corrupt and vain (Guardian)

• America split from monarchy 250 years ago. Trump’s presidency is testing how far it’s come (AP)

• Dean Cain Hits Back After His State Fair Photo Sparks Low Attendance Claims (Newsweek)

• If you think China needs to dethrone U.S. dollar, you don’t understand how it is waging global currency war (CNBC)

• Venezuela Is Desperately Searching for 50,000 Missing After Earthquakes (WSJ)

• Two boys rescued from Venezuela earthquake rubble after days of being trapped (BBC)

• Three Firefighters Die as Wildfires Ravage Utah and Colorado (NYT)

• Why the nation’s founding document is barely legible (WP)

• What news reports from 1600s tell us about life in Mughal India (BBC)

• ‘Tech firms are losing the public’: social media age bans near tipping point (Guardian)

• AI jitters meet a jobs report and falling oil prices: What to watch this week (Yahoo)

• German World Cup Fan Can’t Believe How Different Real U.S. Is From Depiction In Pixar’s ‘Cars’ (Onion)

Democracy

 

                                                         

HEADLINES:

• Chaos Came to CBS News. What’s in Store for CNN? (NYT)

• Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes and threatens to halt talks to end the war (AP)

• Iran hits targets linked to the U.S. (Reuters)

• US-Iran tensions flare over the vital Strait of Hormuz (CNN)

• Mideast Fighting Widens With Attacks on Bahrain, Hormuz Tanker (WSJ)

• Deal with Trump hands Iran economic lifeline as leaders eye postwar gains (WP)

• UK maritime agency raises Strait of Hormuz threat level after oil tanker reports being struck (Euronews)

• Venezuela earthquake death count rises (Reuters)

• Window Narrowing to Find Survivors as Quake Death Toll Surpasses 1,400 (NYT)

• Can J. D. Vance Serve Both God and Donald Trump? (New Yorker)

• Trump taps Lance Schroyer to lead ICE, agency at center of deportation campaign (WP)

• Has America Lived Up to Its Founding Promise? (Reveal)

• Trump’s pick is favored in Louisiana. Her opponent is betting on a grassroots revolt. (Politico)

• S.F. police, marchers clash on Market Street during Trans March (SFC)

• The man who wants Netanyahu’s job (Reuters)

• Yale Seeks Trump Administration Deal as It Faces Sprawling Investigation (NYT)

• Trump tries out midterms message that focuses on ‘communists’ (WP)

• Rage Against the Machine (Journal of the Plague Years)

• How Shepard Fairey Created TIME’s ‘Our America’ Cover (Time)

• Scientists Think They’ve Uncovered the 15-Million-Year-Old Origin of Laughter (404media)

• The hidden cost of AI coding: workplace paralysis (BI)

• Anthropic Thinks Its Own Success Is Key to Making AI Safe (Wired)

• The Three Chatbot Behaviors That Can Drive Humans to Delusional Thinking (WSJ)

• The U.S. government will decide who gets to use the latest American AI technology (WP)

• Prize Hog Drops Out Of Great American State Fair Due To Event’s Political Nature (Onion)