Weather

Independent -   A widespread and dangerous heat wave is building across the U.S., with triple-digit highs expected in the Southwest and Great Plains this weekend before spreading eastward under a dome of high pressure that meteorologists say could trap oppressive temperatures for a week or more.

Forecasters are advising people to stay hydrated and find places to cool off, warning of temperatures 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 14 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal in many areas, including at night — especially bad for people's health because their bodies won't have a chance to recover. The heat dome is expected to affect as much as two-thirds of the continental United States.

….The National Weather Service predicts that more than 90 U.S. local temperature records will be tied or broken through Wednesday — with two-thirds of those being overnight heat records. Temperatures won’t drop below 80 F (27 C) at night in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Miami; Tampa, Florida; Galveston, Texas; and Charleston, South Carolina, according to the forecast.

Headquarters -  The Trump admin has appointed Matthew M. Wielicki to oversee the National Climate Assessment. Wielicki is a climate change denier with zero training as a climate scientist.

Alcohol

NY Times - A government alcohol study published on Tuesday concluded that the health risks of alcohol start at a single drink a day. The report was caught up in controversy after drawing the ire of the alcohol industry.

For people who have one drink a day on average, the researchers found, there was an increased risk of premature death from an illness or injury directly attributable to alcohol, though it was small — one in 1,000 people. But the risk of premature death jumped to one in 25 for those who had two drinks a day, a level long considered safe for men, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Immigration

Bowers News Media  -Two weeks ago, the Trump administration announced the cancellation of its plans to create mass detention centers for undocumented immigrants by purchasing warehouses around the country. The warehouses the Department of Homeland Security purchased will be sold, and DHS will instead rely on existing facilities to house detained immigrants.

Not coincidentally, this comes as courts around the country have continued to rule against the Trump administration's policy of denying bond hearings to undocumented immigrants who are in detention and awaiting deportation.

The number of rulings against the Trump administration on this policy are stunning. According to Politico, there have been over 15,000 rulings against the Trump administration on this policy, compared to only 2,200 in favor. Of the 518 district court judges to rule on this policy, 464 have ruled against the administration, with only 54 ruling in favor. Even a majority of Trump-appointed judged have ruled against the administration on this blatantly unconstitutional policy of denying undocumented immigrants who are in detention and awaiting deportation their day in court.

The change in how we perceive socialism

Jeffrey Anvari-Clark, The Conversation  - I’m a social work professor who studies how people manage their money and their well-being….

 The way Americans perceive socialism is apparently undergoing such a transition. Whereas before, socialism has largely had a negative stigma associated with it, many Democrats and independent voters are now increasingly viewing socialism as a system with a strong safety net and a way of bringing harms of the free market under control.

The word is now being viewed more positively than it used to, according to pollsters – especially among Democrats. It is associated with being able to afford life’s necessities and the kind of strong economic rights found in Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

Given how poorly many Americans are faring under capitalism, I think that the growing openness to democratic socialist candidates makes sense.

The number of people who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet reached 9.4 million in November 2025, the highest level since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking that indicator in 1994. Meanwhile, support for capitalism fell to 54% in 2025, from 60% four years earlier.

Maybe that has something to do with the fact that U.S. median wages are not rising fast enough to keep up with the increase in the cost of living; or that Americans are mainly seeing the promises of capitalism delivered to their nation’s richest people.

Meanwhile, most workers find themselves on the hook to fund more of their own retirement than their parents did and to pay more for their healthcare and insurance coverage, hindering their efforts to save for retirement. Many service sector workers find that they only get shifts when an algorithm says their labor is required – leaving their schedules and earnings unpredictable.

For those who have joined the workforce since the Great Recession, an economic downturn that lasted from late 2007 until mid-2009, financial insecurity has largely defined their economic experiences. Millions of American families are left needing to pay more and more to cover their bills, and with less disposable income.

Trump regime issues subpoenas for several NY Times journalists

Philadelphia Inquirer - The Trump administration issued subpoenas Friday to several journalists for the New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Donald Trump's new Qatari-donated Air Force One.

The subpoenas - which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in New York on Wednesday - were an extraordinary escalation in Trump's efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.

In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters' homes. The Times denounced the administration's actions.

"The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects," David McCraw, the Times' top newsroom lawyer, said in a statement Friday evening.

"Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public's right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used," McCraw wrote. "This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs."

Trump reverses decades of environmental protection of endangered species

CNN - The Trump administration reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species on Friday, opening up sensitive habitats of those protected species to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development.

The change, finalized by the Interior and Commerce Departments, redefines what constitutes “harm” to endangered species and habitats under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. The longstanding law had long prohibited “habitat modification or degradation” because it could harm or kill endangered animals by impacting their ability to breed and find food or shelter. That definition of harm was upheld by the US Supreme Court in a 1995 ruling.

The Trump administration called the previous definition of harm “outdated” in a statement released Friday, arguing its move “returns the interpretation of the ESA back to its actual text and original intent, which will end years of federal overreach.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement that the law’s approach had “turned routine activity into a regulatory trap, drove up costs that impacted people’s lives, and expanded federal authority beyond what Congress intended.”

National Debt

Headline USA -   Only nine months into fiscal year 2026, the U.S. government has already borrowed $1.4 trillion, surpassing the entire federal deficit of the previous fiscal year. The federal government collected $4.2 trillion over the past nine months and spent or lost a total of $5.5 trillion, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report.  During the month of June alone, the nation added $126 billion to the over $39 trillion national debt.

How do Hispanics describe themselves

Pew Research - Today, Hispanics in the U.S. use a variety of labels to describe their identity, from pan-ethnic ones such as Hispanic and Latino to ancestry-based ones like Cuban American or Mexican. Some Hispanics use “American” on its own. Importantly, many Hispanics have used each of these terms at least once in their lives to describe themselves, highlighting the layers of U.S. Hispanic identity. At the same time, some terms are used more than others, reflecting the ways Hispanics understand and express who they are.

To better understand how Hispanics use, prioritize and think about identity labels, Pew Research Center conducted a bilingual survey among 4,923 Hispanic adults in October 2025. We asked respondents:

Which labels have they used at least once in their lives to describe themselves? Large majorities of Hispanic adults say they have ever used a pan-ethnic term such as Hispanic or Latino (84%) or their country of origin or heritage on its own – for example, Puerto Rican (80%) – to describe themselves.

Which label do they use most often to describe themselves? Hispanics do not point to a single dominant choice. However, the labels they use most often include their place of origin or heritage, either on its own (35%) or combined with American (18%) — for example, Salvadoran or Dominican American.  

Which pan-ethnic term – Hispanic, Latino, Latinx or Latine – do they prefer to describe people of Hispanic or Latino origin or descent? When labeling the entire U.S. Hispanic population, a majority say they prefer the term Hispanic (54%) over Latino (30%). Few say they prefer the terms Latinx or Latine, while 14% say they have no preference.

In addition, we asked respondents if they consider themselves “a typical American.” Hispanics are evenly divided on this.

Canadian lawyer and author says fascism is live and well in America

Alternet -  Canadian lawyer and author Omer Aziz is warning Americans that fascism has not only arrived, but it's also been alive and well in the U.S. for some time. The real chore is in ending it before it goes too far.

In his book Shadow of the Republic, Aziz explains that it appears the pro-fascist group “is using the machinery of constitutional government in a partisan way to make it subservient to the political party and then to turn it against ordinary citizens, dissidents, free thinkers, journalists."

It's something that horror writer and anti-fascist activist Stephen King explained, "should be an alarm bell announcing that the American house is on fire."

Speaking to Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan, Aziz walked through America's long flirtation with fascism that is too often glossed over in a history that prizes American exceptionalism above reality.

“By the time the fascists are building the camps, it’s already too late and we have lost," Hasan read from the book. It prompted him to ask just how close the U.S. is.

Aziz said that currently, Trump likes to "cosplay as a fascist," using things like his "weaponization fund" and "the prosecution of political enemies" as examples. Republicans dismiss such claims as hyperbolic and symptoms of the imagined "Trump derangement syndrome" or "paranoid liberals."

But Aziz said there is "substance" to the claim.

"I think when you look at Trump's rhetoric around poisoning the blood of immigrants and some of the language he has used and his team has used, they're clearly drawing from this common wellspring of influence and inspiration. At the same time, I would say, he is an opportunist. I think he likes the idea of himself thinking of himself as a Mussolini or someone of a strongman character. But in terms of the rabid ideology, I don't think he has that."

He explained that it's important to understand that the emergence of fascism is different from every society. Germany, for example, was very different from Italian fascists and American fascists are also different. For Trump, his fascism is "particularly American."

….The more dangerous part of fascism, he said, isn't the obvious ones waving Nazi flags in the street. Aziz called the "fascists in suits" far more of a threat to American ideals, because they are the ones using that machinery of government to subvert the citizenry, just as Italy and Germany did with journalists and dissidents.

One group he talks about in the book that Hasan said he found particularly interesting is the younger spectrum of voters who are growing more attracted to fascism, Nazism and white supremacy.

Trump sues newspaper for poll that was wrong

Alternet - The attorney for President Donald Trump argued in court Friday that while he has no evidence to support a claim that a 2024 pre-election poll constituted fraud, the president’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and its pollster should be allowed to proceed.

The president has claimed in court that the opinion poll, published just three days before the November 2024 election and showing him trailing his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, by 3 points in Iowa, was fraudulent. He is suing the newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer, alleging consumer fraud and citing the fact that he ultimately beat Harris in Iowa by more than 13 points.

The Register and Selzer recently filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that an election poll, regardless of its results, does not fit the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act’s definition of a commercial transaction, and that the lawsuit is also barred by the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

In written briefs filed with the court this week, Selzer’s attorney, Robert Corn-Revere, called the legal claims made by the president and his attorneys “not just wrong — they are ridiculous.” He asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that even if all of the president’s factual assertions were deemed true, there’d still be no legal basis for the lawsuit.

On Friday, a Polk County District Court judge heard oral arguments on the motions to dismiss.

Middle East

The Hill  - President Trump late Friday threatened to “decimate and destroy” Iran if it carries out a reported assassination plot against him, saying he has already directed the U.S. military to be prepared to respond. “1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Todd Blanche

Over 100 Judges Can’t be Wrong: Why Todd Blanche is Unfit to be Attorney General

Graham Platner

Financial Times -  “Graham Platner is what happens when pundits ignore obvious red flags . . . and sell voters an idealised version of a candidate who does not actually exist,” said Jessica Mackler, president of Emily’s List, a group that recruits and trains women as Democratic candidates.

“The lesson here is that we always have to be looking at these races and primaries through the lens of what it takes to win a general election, and that is what went horribly wrong in this situation.”

Under Maine state law, the Democratic Party now has just over two weeks to find a new candidate to take on Collins — a five-term incumbent with a record of defeating well-funded challengers — in November. State party officials have said they intend to pick Platner’s replacement at a nominating convention to be held later this month.

Your constitutional right to be furious

A New York man wrote an angry email to former ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons in the days following the shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. Months later, federeral agents showed up at his house with a warning, accusing him of “criminal activities” and directing him to “discontinue” his behavior. It’s a chilling attempt to intimidate a concerned civilian into silence. In this country, we’re allowed to criticize our government — and they have to hear you when you do.  The man is now suing the Department of Homeland Security.  More

Meanwhile. . .

Inside Climate News Wildfires are tearing through southern France and parts of Spain, Portugal and Greece, forcing thousands of people to evacuate from their homes.

Congressional Insider -  Two crucial columns inside a massive Midtown Manhattan tower buckled and left several floors sagging, turning one of New York’s biggest luxury conversion projects into a sudden warning sign about how far profit-driven development can push aging buildings before something snaps.

Shortly before midnight, Trump published a post on his Truth Social account referring to the Iranian threats against him.  Trump said he has already given orders to the U.S. military "for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran." He ended his post with: "PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!" Share this story.

TALES FROM THE ATTIC: Our real subcultures

 Sam Smith, 2022 – Starting with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, America began to turn its back on the New Deal and Great Society and develop two powerful subcultures. One consists of the destructively dominant, those who have the money and strength to gain power while ignoring the needs of others. The other is the dysfunctionally decent, those who, though large in number, lack the skill or heart to organize and create meaningful reforms.

The destructively dominant are symbolized by the collapse of labor unions and the rise of Donald Trump. Their basic goal – their own success – was strengthened by a misleading argument on behalf of capitalism and individual achievement that ignores the role of cooperation and sharing common values in a community.

The dysfunctionally decent  are symbolized by the collapse of institutions formerly leaders in moral and mutual achievement, symbolized by the decline in social and political importance of universities,   the growing subservience of the media to the most powerful, the decline in church attendance and the increasing indifference to community issues – rather than just personal goals.

Because the destructively dominant are guided only by power, their control of institutions such as the media and politics have led the larger public to increasingly accept behaviors that were once considered intolerable. As one example, the attempted coup of January 6 was the most traitorous activity since the Civil War, yet even the Democratic led Congress and Justice Department are treating it more like just another complicated legal matter with slight  public recognition of its historical status. We have also been taught to accept the massive dishonesty of the powerful, even their cleverly revised statements when found in error, with the gap between strength and honor growing ever greater. The lies of a Donald Trump are just more colorful examples of, say, efforts  to convince rural Americans that liberals want to ban beef or take their land under eminent domain. It would be hard to find another time when lies played such a major role in our society.

At the other end, the dysfunctionally decent are either scared or unprepared to react effectively against the falsehoods and other excesses. Once much stronger voices from colleges and universities are now either afraid of endangering their own careers or being ignored by the media. Colleges and universities have themselves drifted into the corporate mode. The students, that in the 1960s were redefining their nation, are stunningly weak in their words and actions. Churches that during that same decade provided haven for the active, now settle on faith rather than the causes that exemplify it. There is not only no lively underground press, local media of all sorts has greatly diminished.  

One way to deal with this mess is to think differently about our society and how it functions. Accept for now that the powerful will betray and lie to us while offering few meaningful solutions. And recognize that the answer, oddly as it will seem to many, with our smaller communities.

As noted here before, over a thousand environmental laws were passed at the local and state level before the first national legislation.  And it was some fifty years before the federal government caught up with the wisdom of many on handling marijuana

I have been blessed by having lived in places where the local held its own against national misdirection. For example, Capitol Hill in the 1960s was a dramatically more decent and positively active place to be than in the nearby great white structure referred to in its name.

And now I live in a small town in Maine where I haven’t heard a substantive lie in decades. Where 8000 people donate enough goods to their local community services organization that its thrift shop earns over $300,000 a year. Where the police respect citizens, and the latter return the favor. Where a volunteer fire department will not only be there on time, but with a lot skill.

I can’t imagine Donald Trump or the staff of Fox News serving in our fire department or on any local committee. It is another world.

The challenge before us is strengthening the power of the dysfunctionally decent. Creating an alliance of those working with cooperation and community against the selfish, dishonest and destructive.. Our numbers are there, just our strength and strategies need help.

A good place to start  could be for middle and lower class blacks and whites to discover and act upon what they have in common – like labor organizing, healthcare and education issues. It could be Internet news sites where communities could share their information, problems and solutions. It could involve a campaign to push public schools to teach local civics and getting along with other ethnicities. It could get churches to open up for activist meetings. It could involve gatherings at which those involved in community efforts explain their work.  And it  could involve creation of a nationwide organization of neighborhood and community leaders.

Above all, we need to give strength to our local  goodness, stop paying so much homage just to national power and give communal decency a new prominence in what we do and say.  We have the power; we just have to come together and act on our hidden strength.

Word

Houses

Newsweek -   Maine has the nation’s highest vacancy rate at 20.6 percent, with 154,717 vacant homes, followed by Vermont with 19.4 percent (65,626 homes) and Alaska with 17.6 percent (57,958 homes).

Health

Newsweek -   A coalition of 25 states and Washington, D.C., is suing the Trump administration over new Medicaid work requirements they say could cause eligible low-income Americans to lose health coverage and unlawfully limit protections for vulnerable recipients.

The legal challenge targets an interim final rule released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in June that would require many adults with Medicaid expansion coverage to prove they are working, studying, volunteering or completing other approved activities for at least 80 hours a month in order to keep their health insurance.

The lawsuit highlights a familiar fault line in American politics: the tension between expanding access to government benefits and imposing conditions on their use.

Climate change

Independent -  Most of America’s Lower 48 states is bracing for an "unusually large, strong and long-lasting" heat dome, which the National Weather Service warns will drive temperatures to "significant and dangerous" levels.

The severe heatwave is set to begin this weekend and persist for at least a week, with some regions experiencing its effects through the end of the month, according to meteorologists.

Temperatures are forecast to soar 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 14 degrees Celsius) above normal across many areas, including during nighttime hours. Elevated nighttime temperatures pose a particular threat to human health and complicate efforts to manage an already active wildfire season.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, described the impending event as "pretty remarkable." He added, "This is going to be a long duration, widespread and high-intensity heat event that’s going to affect millions of people for over a week."

Ukraine

Alternet -   Trump has openly expressed his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin on many occasions. When he returned to office, Trump initiated a sharp break from the policies of his predecessor Joe Biden. The U.S. now sends less military aid to Ukraine, although U.S.-made arms continue to flow to the country thanks to European funding. A promised US$400 million military aid package has not yet been released.

Trump famously chastised Zelenskyy in a 2025 Oval Office meeting and has pressured the Ukrainian president to give up land to satisfy Putin’s territorial desire for all of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Yet Washington continues to provide Ukraine with intelligence, which is used by Kyiv for targeting its middle- and long-range drone strikes inside Russia. Washington also still enforces significant sanctions against Russia, including Moscow’s oil exports, although it has granted specific waivers of late.

To understand what Ukrainians make of all this, we asked them a direct question about Trump: Is he a friend or an enemy of their country, or a bit of both?

The results showed that only 17% of Ukrainians surveyed consider Trump a friend. More than double that consider him an enemy of Ukraine. Almost a quarter say he’s a bit of both, with a similar percentage responding “don’t know.”

Word

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Via James Tate

Donald Trump

ClassicRockReview

Polls

InteractivePolls

@IAPolls2022

2028 National GOP Primary Vance: 51% (+4) Rubio: 15% (-3) DeSantis: 9% (=)

Middle East

NPR  - After two days of intense strikes, fighting between the U.S. and Iran appears to have paused. The U.S. says it hit 170 targets in Iran. Iran says it targeted U.S. military bases in the Gulf. The fighting coincided with a weeklong funeral for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and four of his family members killed on the first day of the conflict.

Democratic socialists want to reshape the economy. Here’s how.

ICE

Thom Hartmann  -   Tuesday morning in Houston, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo did what he’d done nearly every morning for 35 years. He woke at 5 a.m., kissed his wife goodbye, loaded his van, and drove off to pick up his construction crew in Magnolia Park, the neighborhood that’s anchored Houston’s Mexican American community for a century.

He’d raised three sons in that city; they became a teacher and two engineers. He had no criminal record, and he was partway through the legal process of getting a work permit, biometrics and fingerprints already done.

By 7 a.m. he was lying face down on Canal Street with a bullet in his abdomen, crying out for help in Spanish while a federal agent knelt over him talking on the phone. He died at Ben Taub Hospital, the same hospital where two of his sons were born. The Harris County medical examiner has ruled the manner of his death a “homicide.”

ICE says he rammed their vehicle and “weaponized” his van to run down an officer, who fired in self-defense. His family says he almost certainly thought the unmarked cars tailing him were thieves after his work tools, because the men following him wore no insignia identifying them as law enforcement.

The League of United Latin American Citizens says photographs of the vehicles show little visible damage, which is a strange thing for a van that supposedly rammed a law enforcement vehicle hard enough to justify lethal force. David Bier of the libertarian Cato Institute reviewed newly surfaced footage and concluded it appears to show ICE initiating contact with Salgado Araujo’s vehicle, not the other way around; Norm Ornstein looked at the same evidence and called it “cold-blooded murder.”

The Guardian- Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a man killed by federal immigration agents during a traffic stop in Houston this week, was not the intended target of the “enforcement operation”, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were reportedly seeking two people from Guatemala when they attempted to stop Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who had lived in the Us for 35 years.

Salgado Araujo, who was on his way to work early on Tuesday morning, was driving three other people in a white van. After the shooting, the three men were taken into custody. One of the three men has been identified by advocates as Victor Hugo Salgado Araujo, the brother of the victim. It was reported that he was still in an immigration detention center.

Trump fires all Democrats on Election Assistance Commission

The Hill -    President Trump fired the remaining Democratic members of the independent Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, the White House confirmed to The Hill.  Trump fired the remaining Democrats on the commission, Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, while Republican Christy McCormick resigned.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted,” said a White House official in a statement.

“The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so,” the official said, referring to the Supreme Court decision last month that determined the president has the authority to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission.

“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” the official added.

…..It’s unclear what will happen next with the commission, or if Trump will appoint new commissioners, which would need to be confirmed by the Senate. Democrats were quick to slam the firings.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed that staffers would “fight this power grab at every turn,” while Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said the move “should concern every American, regardless of party.”

Additionally, the commission is in charge of “maintaining the national mail voter registration form developed in accordance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993,” according to its website

Climate change

Airline passengers trapped for seven hours

Newsworthy  - Hundreds of United passengers say they were locked in “airplane purgatory” for seven hours in Newark while storms raged outside and regulators stayed quiet, capturing how weather and weak oversight now trap ordinary people between the sky and a broken system.

• United Flight 661 sat on the Newark tarmac about seven hours during severe storms and ground stops.
• Federal rules clearly limit tarmac delays, yet the flight was canceled only after passengers spent the night stuck on board.
• Past administrations hit airlines with record fines, but current Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has issued none for long tarmac delays.
• Climate change is driving more extreme weather delays, while airlines and regulators struggle to protect passengers caught in the middle.