Week of Freedom Celebration
Big Bad Bill, Medicaid Slashes, Tariff Costs, ICE Expansion (Budget Explosion), Immigrant Alligator Camp

Key rejection:
And now, on the verge of our 250th anniversary, we have put the reins of power in the hands of a babbling loon who wants to deport anyone with a skin color less pasty than his own, who has just passed a bill that slashes the social safety net and enriches millionaires even more, all while his allies shred education and science in this country.

Key hope:
No upward curve is perfectly smooth. There have always been setbacks along the way — we’re living through one with the current presidential term, though not one of the more serious ones by historical standards. Yet the overall trend of that 249 years is clear.

For the 4^th, he contrasts the direction our level of freedom seems to be heading with that currently experienced in the country from which we declared our independence.

Key alarm:
In a stunning case of unintended consequences, the six conservative Supreme Court justices inadvertently ruled that their jobs no longer exist, legal experts revealed on Monday.

She contrasts the exclusive focus on the minor (which is to say misdemeanor) criminality of undocumented immigrants with the serious (which is to say felony) criminality of a president.

She sees a pattern with the Supreme Court gifting Trump legal immunity from lawless acts in office and the new funding by Congress of what has become a secret ICE police force, whose original legal mandate was purely to target foreign sponsored terrorism.

The sum is a series of giant advances toward authoritarianism.

Trump is enthusiastically traveling way beyond even those expanded boundaries.

Key legal precedent:
It was exactly a year ago today, on July 1, 2024, that the United States Supreme Court decided Donald J. Trump v. United States. The court’s majority overthrew the central premise of American democracy: that no one is above the law.

Key additional step:
Today Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman of the New York Times reported that a former FBI agent, Jared Wise, who was charged with telling the January 6, 2021, rioters storming the Capitol to kill police officers, is working with the task force in the Justice Department set up as a way for President Trump to seek retribution against his political enemies.

Key future aim:
Once a new system of detention facilities and ICE agents is established and the idea that a Republican president can legitimately attack his political opponents is accepted, a police state will be in place.

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

As Trump tours Alligator Alcatraz, Laura Loomer (the Laura on whom Trump relies for policy advice) speculates, in cheerful hope, on how alligators might be fed future captives.

Journalist Arturo Dominguez clarifies just whom she is targeting, (and why):

Key historical point:
Folks at Fox News might not have realized they were echoing a dark and sinister past in the American south when Black Americans were once used as actual bait for alligators according to researchers at the Jim Crow Museum.

More detail about the object of Fox hilarity is covered in her podcast version.

But he presents a separate category for the Bubblegum Crucifix Award,

the very best exercise of the week in religious bigotry.

…this week’s award going to Laura Loomer (yeah, the same Loomer):

Key spiritual hatred:
So I think too, what’s gonna happen if we start witnessing synagogues and churches get firebombed by Black Lives Matter and antifa and Muslims, right? Like Palestinian rioters? Zohran Mamdani is gonna stand with those people…

Key quality:
His willingness to put bigger matters ahead of his own near-term political aspirations cuts a huge contrast with Democratic members who grab political office only to play it safe and, in so doing, boost the broken status quo.

Key view (quoting Brad Lander):
I don’t think the line right now is between progressives and moderates. I think the line is between fighters and fakers.

Key concerns:
As an experienced organizer, these are the three things I would talk about on repeat in rural communities: Medicaid and schools and jobs.

Key delay, by Trump:
He’ll carry the lie forward, and seek to discredit his critics, because, as written, the Medicaid cuts he’s lying about will not take effect until after next year’s midterm elections. For the day and week and month and year after the bill passes, most Medicaid beneficiaries won’t be displaced. Many of them won’t know what’s coming.
 
Then millions will lose their insurance en masse.

tengrain explains, ever so patiently, why that is a physical, financial, practical, mathematical, 100% for sure impossibility.

In the wake of the Republican One Big Beautiful Bill, The Onion, goes into a grim sort of humor, reporting the average American’s retirement plan now involves Richard Gere falling for them after paying for sex.

Key headline:
Trump ends trade talks with Canada, resumes trade talks with Canada, ends trade talks with Canada, demands to know which European country is Canada

A CNN host speculates on the obvious connection between the two.

Tommy Christopher follows the exchange as Trump melts down and CNN’s Abby Phillip responds with a bit of fun at Trump’s expense.

mr Trump (hi octane melt):

Ms. Phillip (low key answer):

The result of this instance of poor impulse control may turn out to be more dangerous than is commonly reported.

…as the evidence keeps coming in that Trump’s bombing really bombed. Unnecessary and ineffective.

Key national deficit:
I realized that amid the unthinkable criminality, staggering overreach, and human rights rollbacks we’re living through, perhaps the most tragic loss this nation has experienced, is that we have lost the reality of a president who, as Joe Biden has always done in challenging and painful moments: calls us to the best of who we are as a people, appeals to our better angels, and invites us to be agents of goodness.
 
It will be a long time until America can again look to its President for a compassionate response to other people’s pain; to see someone willing and capable of caring, weeping, and feeling.

News Corpse covers the latest as Paramount – owner of CBS – caves to Trump extortion, paying $16 million dollars to settle a lawsuit that was transparently bogus.

Key Biblical practice:
Granted, after church, many of those Bibles will be returned to the front dash, back window, or underneath the seats of their automobiles. Some members “store” their Bibles in their car trunks — safe and secure, ready for the next Sunday.
 
What most members DON’T do is regularly read/study the Bible. In fact, most Evangelicals haven’t read the Bible through once, yet they are “people of the Book?”

Key peril:
Here’s the most dangerous thing Evangelicals can do: READ THE BIBLE FROM COVER TO COVER. Take every book of the Bible as written. The Bible is not a univocal text. Careful readers of the Bible will quickly learn that it contradicts itself, justifies immoral behavior, and is littered with mistakes and errors.

Key hopeless ending:
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Julian presents the addendum Orwell included as hidden in plain sight: not exactly a happy ending, but an ending with a touch of hope.