June 27, 2026
Environment
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that air pollution limits tightened by the Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden should remain in force, thwarting efforts by the Trump administration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups to vacate that standard and return to a previous one.
Polls
Pew Reseach - Across
36 countries surveyed this spring, a median of 76% of adults say they lack
confidence in President Donald Trump to do the right thing regarding world
affairs. Overall ratings for the U.S. are also largely negative. And the share
of people who see the U.S. as a reliable partner is down in many
countries since 2022, by anywhere from 17 to 52 percentage points.
Over 5 million Texas kids to be taught Christianity in public schools
MS
NOW - Texas State Board of
Education on Friday approved a new required
reading list for more than 5 million K-12 public schools that includes
stories from the Bible.
The list will
affect every grade level. Elementary students will be required to read
picture-book versions of “David and Goliath” and “Daniel and the Lion’s Den.”
Middle school students must read passages from the Sermon on the Mount from the
Bible’s New Testament, while high schoolers must read about Adam and Eve and
the parable of the prodigal son.
The changes will impact 5.5
million public school students in the religiously
diverse state, according to enrollment data for the 2024-25 school year.
The reading list, which received preliminary approval in
April, drew criticism from parents and educators who decried the infusion of
religion in public school curriculum. Critics of the list, including religious
freedom groups and other faith groups, argued it centers Christianity in public
school instruction, raising concerns about the separation of church and state
enshrined in the Constitution.
The required list will take effect in 2030.
Trump regime
NY
Times - The Trump administration is conducting a far-reaching
investigation into whether Yale University’s admissions practices violate
anti-discrimination laws, prompting one of the country’s most elite schools to
pursue settlement talks with the government, according to three people briefed
on the matter.
The Justice Department last month accused Yale’s medical
school of giving illegal preferential treatment to Black and Hispanic
applicants. But the department’s review is reaching beyond the medical school,
the people said, encompassing undergraduate and law school admissions as well.
The expansive inquiry demonstrates the aggressive approach
the Trump administration is taking to enforce its interpretation of the Supreme
Court ruling that effectively banned race-conscious admissions three years ago.
It shows the administration’s intensifying focus on admissions and represents a
new front against Yale, which has largely been spared in the White House’s
effort to punish elite colleges and reshape academia.
Yale’s quick moves to try to reach an agreement with the
government suggest it does not want a high-profile, drawn-out fight similar to
the one involving Harvard University. The status of a potential agreement was
unclear on Friday, but Yale recently offered a proposal to the government,
according to the three people briefed on the matter. The people, who have ties
to the Trump administration or to Yale, spoke on the condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Health
Hartmann
Report - Senate Democrats noticed that traditional Medicare is
the only insurance in America with no limit on what it can cost you, and
decided to do something about it. Sen. Ron Wyden and 14 co-sponsors introduced legislation Thursday — the Medicare Cost
Cap Act — to put a $5,000 annual ceiling on out-of-pocket spending for seniors
in traditional Medicare. Right now, beneficiaries owe 20% of their medical
bills with no upper bound, which means a cancer diagnosis or a long hospital
stay can run into tens of thousands of dollars; that terror is precisely
why 43% of enrollees shell out for separate Medigap
policies whose premiums keep climbing each year. (As I document in shocking
detail in The Hidden History of American Healthcare, that 20%
hole was put in there by Southern conservatives to keep Black people from using
the system.) Every other corner of the insurance world — employer plans, the
ACA — already has a cap. Wyden framed the coming fight as Democrats trying to
give Medicare patients “a fair shake” while the other side runs interference
for billionaires, and Protect Our Care hailed it as a direct answer to the
Trump-era affordability crisis. Yes, it would cost the Treasury real money —
perhaps $50 billion a year — and yes, the bill is a long shot in this GOP-run
Congress. But that’s the whole point: it draws the line in bright paint heading
into November. Following Reagan’s old “Two Santas” strategy, a
Republican-run government that found trillions for billionaire tax cuts
suddenly developed a “steely concern for the deficit” the moment a middle class
grandmother with cancer might benefit. That reflex, too, is a 45-year-old GOP
inheritance…
Oil nearing pre-war prices, gas stations leaving charges up
The
Hill - Oil is nearing its prewar price after
the U.S. and Iran agreed to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) intended to end
the conflict, but gasoline prices remain significantly elevated. While President Trump has blamed Big Oil for
price “gouging,” analysts say it’s individual gas station owners that are slow
to lower fuel prices.
“The public is
mad at the major oil companies because gasoline prices have not fallen as fast
as the price of crude oil. … Their anger is misplaced,” Andy Lipow, president
of Lipow Oil Associates, said in an email to The Hill. “The oil companies own
less than 5% of the service stations but their brands are sold at most of them.
They should be mad at the local gasoline service station owner. They are making
lots of money,” he said.
Trump threatens Europe with possible 100% import tarrifs
The
Guardian - Donald Trump has
threatened to place a 100% import tariff on any European country that imposes a
tax on digital services from US companies.
Writing on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said that “numerous
European countries” had been discussing putting a digital services tax on
American companies and that “some of these countries are close to actually
doing this”.
“Please let this statement serve to represent that any
country that imposes such a tax will immediately be met with a 100% TARIFF on
any and all Goods sent to the United States of America,” Trump continued. He
added that the tariff would be immediately imposed and supersede any other
prior trade deals that existed with the country.
The threat could set off another saga in Trump’s global
trade war, in which he has placed drastic tariffs on countries and economic
blocs at once. If Trump followed through on his warning, it could set off a
larger trade war between the US and EU if the 27-country economic bloc felt
compelled to retaliate to the tariff hike.
Effect of miscounting the Census
Project
on Government Oversight - In this report, POGO examines how census
accuracy impacts critical federal funding for children aged 0–18 and the
services needed to support a wide range of areas that shape their lives,
including health, education, housing, economic development, and more.
Many people may not realize how influential the census is in
determining how much federal money gets allocated to different geographic
regions across the country. Census-guided programs serving children deliver
funds either directly to communities or to state agencies. The census
influences funding distribution in myriad ways: Depending on the program, it
may use census data such as location, population, household income, age, school
districts, and school enrollment to determine state eligibility and distribution.
The deficit or surplus of federal funding a state may
receive stemming from inaccurate counts can directly impact children’s
educational and economic outcomes and more. An undercount could mean fewer
dollars, thereby fewer resources. An overcount could result in a state
receiving more federal funds than its population warrants; for programs with
fixed appropriations, this may proportionately reduce the share available to
other states.
The U.S. Census Bureau released an analysis documenting the
undercount of children aged 0–4 in the 2020 census: This age group was
undercounted more than any other demographic, with approximately 1 million of
the young children going uncounted in the 2020 census. They acknowledged that
children have historically been miscounted, potentially leading certain states
to lose out on significant funding and critical resources for them.
Donald Trump
Axios - In a blistering speech to religious conservatives yesterday, Trump warned that "communists" are taking over the Democratic Party and "they want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life."....Trump spent much of his speech to the coalition's annual "Road to Majority" conference railing against the far-left victories.
- He joked that he'd be the "greatest communist in history" — by giving everyone free rent, free food, free everything. "The problem is, after two or three years, the country is a disaster area," Trump said.
- "The Democrat Party is in big trouble, because this isn't stopping with New York," he went on. Share this story
Middle East
The Hill - Iran launched a drone attack against Bahrain early Saturday, hours after the U.S. military carried out strikes on Iranian military sites. Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, said it was attacked by a number of Iranian drones and condemned the latest strikes as a blatant violation of its sovereignty. It accused Tehran of “destabilizing security, exporting chaos and undermining regional stability.”
There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties in the Gulf state. Hours later, a shipping monitor run by the British Navy — the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center — said a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unidentified projectile. The ship’s bridge was damaged, but no injuries were reported.
The attack appears to be in retaliation to the U.S. Central Command operation on Friday, which zeroed in on Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar locations. The strike was a response to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Thursday attack on a Singapore-flagged container ship, Ever Lovely, near the coast of Oman as it was exiting the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump, in justifying the operation, said Iran had “foolishly” violated its ceasefire agreement.
June 26, 2026
Polls
Time - President Donald Trump and his allies have touted the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as a victory, but recent polls suggest that Americans are skeptical that the U.S. is in a better position as a result. Just 24% of Americans think that the war with Iran was worth the costs, according to the latest poll from Reuters/Ipsos. Half of the respondents to the poll said the conflict was not worth it.
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom - When 10% of the people in this country own two-thirds of the wealth, when we have minted the first trillionaire in human history, and yet your wages have stagnated, and your healthcare costs have skyrocketed, something is fundamentally broken. It's time for a national billionaires’ tax and a new social compact.
So where do we go from here?
A national billionaires’ tax. A true minimum tax on billionaires — a modern Buffett Rule — that ensures the people at the very top pay at least the tax rate their own workers pay.
End the “tax-free lifestyle loan.” It's the gimmick that lets the ultra-wealthy borrow against their stock portfolios while reporting no taxable income, and then pass the appreciated assets to their children with the gains untaxed.
Rewrite our inheritance rules. If we do not act, that transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth, with all the political consequences the founders warned us about.
Return to pre-2017 corporate tax rates. Record corporate profits flowed into stock buybacks and executive compensation. Workers’ real wages stagnated, and vibrant middle-class communities were hollowed out.
Ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund. It’s clear that we are entering an entirely new economic paradigm. Automation could create unfathomable growth, but who benefits from that wealth? We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy.
We are nearing the 250th anniversary of this country’s revolution. The system America’s founders built was designed to prevent the concentration of power in a few hands, but we have allowed that concentration to happen anyway, slowly, in plain sight, over decades. We can reverse it together, as a country.
Immigration
Washington Post - Immigrants began making plans to sell or rent their homes, secure bank accounts and figure out thorny issues like child custody arrangements. Business owners started calculating how many days they can continue to employ workers whose legal status is set to expire. And nursing home leaders warned they would have fewer beds to offer if health aides are forced to leave the country.
Panic rippled through communities from Florida to Ohio and beyond in the hours after the Supreme Court cleared the Trump administration Thursday to strip humanitarian protections from Haitians and Syrians — and potentially all 1.3 million immigrants from over a dozen countries who had been previously shielded from deportation.
“The residents will be losing caregivers that they really have become attached to,” said Colin O’Leary, executive director at Laurel Ridge Rehabilitation & Skilled Care Center in Boston. Managers at the facility were racing to figure out how much longer staff members from Haiti with temporary protected status could continue taking care of patients. “That’s a lot for our residents to handle.”
Attorneys said Haitians and Syrians could lose work permits in little more than a month, but the deadline remained unclear because lower court judges must issue orders to implement the decision. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told reporters Thursday that Haitians and others with temporary protected status should be detained and deported once they lose the benefit.
Wikipedia co-founder permanently banned from site
The Free Press - Twenty-five years ago, Larry Sanger co-founded what is arguably the most important encyclopedia in human history. Wikipedia, which now has millions of entries on every topic imaginable, was designed to be a hub of free and unfettered knowledge, built by and open to the public.
So why was Sanger, earlier this week, permanently banned from the site he helped found? He tells that story for us today. It’s one that starts back in 2001, with the admirable, game-changing goal of democratizing information. But after Sanger left the project in 2002, he “watched in dismay as the site I’d created began to drift from its founding mission.”
Ideological bias took hold; pages were whitewashed; left-leaning outlets came to dominate sourcing; and a small group of administrators grew “beholden more to each other than to any constitutional framework.”
Last week, Sanger launched an effort to reform Wikipedia from within—only to be met with a coordinated effort to ridicule, discredit, and undermine it, culminating in a lifetime ban on Monday. “I knew Wikipedia’s disciplinary processes were bad—but I had never experienced them myself,” he writes.
John Bolton pleads guilty
Headline USA - Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton pleaded guilty on Friday to illegally retaining classified information, sealing a deal with federal prosecutors that could allow him to avoid a prison term.
Bolton is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 28 by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Bolton, 77, pleaded guilty to a single count of illegally retaining national defense information, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. His plea agreement with the Justice Department may enable him to avoid time behind bars, but the judge ultimately will decide his punishment.
Mail-In Voting
Bowers News Media - Yesterday, in response to a lawsuit brought by a group of Democratic states, a federal district court judge blocked Donald Trump's most recent executive order on mail-in voting. This is the executive order from March 31, 2026, that would require states to submit their lists of approved mail-in voters to the United States Postal Service (USPS) in order for the USPS to deliver mail-in ballots to those states.
While is an important win, the fight is far from over. Not only is the Trump administration expected to appeal this ruling, but four weeks ago a different federal district court judge allowed the mail-in executive order to stand. Democrats are and civil rights organizations are appealing that ruling.
....Whether or not states will have to submit an approved list of mail-in voters to United States Postal Service in order to conduct mail-in voting this year will be determined in the courts. On the one side will be the Trump administration, and on the other side will be, primarily, Democratic elected officials like state attorneys general and secretaries of state.
Middle East
The Hill - Iran on Friday asserted its authority over the Strait of Hormuz, warning that safe passage can only be guaranteed for ships that coordinate with Tehran. The statement comes after President Trump accused Iran of hitting a commercial vessel sailing close to the coast of Oman with a one-way attack drone. The British military said the vessel was transiting through a United Nations-approved route.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi posted on the social platform X that passage through the strait must be coordinated with Iran and that attempts to subvert Tehran could lead to “the suspension of the designated parallel route.” “Safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, with ambiguous arrangements, parallel routes, or decision-making outside of Iran’s considerations as the coastal state, cannot be guaranteed,” he said.
DOJ joins Catholic nuns in case
Prime Chronicle - Federal officials have stepped into a New York case that puts Catholic conscience rights on a collision course with gender ideology rules. The Justice Department has moved to join a lawsuit filed by Catholic nuns against New York’s long-term care rule.
The sisters say the state is forcing conduct that clashes with Catholic teaching on rooms, bathrooms, names, pronouns, and training.
New York says the law protects residents from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The dispute now pits religious liberty and family values against state enforcement power in a nursing home setting.
The Justice Department’s decision to join the case raises the stakes fast. Federal involvement usually signals that a dispute has moved beyond a local licensing fight and into a broader constitutional clash. In this case, the federal government is backing the sisters against a state rule that New York says protects residents from discrimination, while the nuns say it burdens religion and speech. That makes the case more than a culture-war headline. It becomes a test of how far states can go when they regulate faith-based health care providers.
Why we're late
Sam Smith - Undernews comes to you from a small town in Maine right next to a state park. Thanks to yesterday's weather we went without electricity for quite a few hours yesterday and without internet connection until just a few minutes ago. Turns out a tree in the park fell on the electric and internet wires and cut off our service.
Flotsam & Jetsam - The gadfly thing
Gadflies are
only barely further along in the evolutionary chain of things than maggots and
slugs. They are frequently found resting placidly on a pile of excrement. As
readers well know, I never am at rest sitting on a pile of shit.
Being called
a gadfly is a little like being bitten by one. It’s also, notes Jon Rowe, like
Ralph Nader being called a "self-styled consumer advocate." Where,
Rowe wonders, does one go to get a license to become an properly appointed
consumer advocate? To the
People in
Players tend
to be quite insecure which is why they need such an elaborate support system,
including the Washingtonian magazine, the Gridiron Dinner, the Washington
Post Style section and the Diane Rehm Show. Players consider
themselves serious; gadflies not. Russell Baker, a serious man, addressed this
matter best in a column in which he pointed out the difference between being
serious and being solemn. Baker observed that children are almost always
serious, but that they start to lose the trait in adolescence.
Gadflies, on
the other hand, are usually serious. A gadfly tends to be someone with ideas,
energy and a modicum of talent but who lacks a PR firm, ghostwriter and a
proper flair for networking. A gadfly is someone who actually wants to get
something done, but often can’t -- largely because of all the players in the
way.
EF
Schumacher once said, "We must do what we conceive to be the right thing,
and not bother our heads or burden our souls with whether we are going to be
successful. Because if we don't do the right thing, we'll be doing the wrong
thing, and we will just be part of the disease, and not a part of the
cure."
Gadflies
would agree. They think for themselves. But in
When
gadflies feel like using a bovine analogy, they think of themselves as
mavericks -- animals whose only sin has been to wander off from their
colleagues. Mavericks also, as they say in Texas, drink upstream from the herd,
which if you know anything about cattle is not a bad idea.
Take a
run-of-the-mill gadfly such as myself and then some average players -- say the
editorial board the Washington Post -- and compare their records over a
couple of decades. The gadfly approach to freeways, urban policy,
June 25, 2026
Donald Trump
 |
| Hoodlum - John Thune is 6’4”. The White House released the results of Trump’s physical stating he is 6’3”. That’s a pretty big inch. |
Guns
Independent - Gun owners with concealed-carry permits may freely bring their firearms onto private properties that are also open to the public, such as gas stations, restaurants or stores, the Supreme Court said Thursday in a ruling that strikes down a Hawaii state law.
In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority said the Hawaii law - that required gun owners to obtain permission from an owner before bringing a gun onto their private property - imposed “a new and significant burden” on the right to bear arms.
While the ruling adds further Second Amendment protections for concealed-carry permit holders, it's unlikely to have a sweeping impact across the country because most states don't have a law like the one in Hawaii and allow concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns onto private property with no prior permission. The states impacted will include New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California.
Middle East
Republicans against Trump - In a major blow to Trump, the Senate voted 50–48 to approve a resolution ordering the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of military force. Republican senators Collins, Cassidy, Murkowski, and Paul voted yes. Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote no. Senators McConnell and McCormick did not vote
Voting rights
Newsbreak - A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump’s administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban...
"The Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” she wrote.
Among other proposed changes, Trump’s order would have required people to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, prevented mail ballots from being counted if they arrive after Election Day, even if they were postmarked by then, and punished states that failed to comply by withholding certain federal money.
NYC's lesson for the Democrats
The Hartmann Report - On Tuesday night, the establishment wing of the Democratic Party got a message it would prefer to pretend it didn’t hear. In New York, Mamdani-backed progressives swept the congressional primaries, ousting two sitting Democratic congressmen and taking an open seat in a single evening.
Former city comptroller Brad Lander beat Rep. Dan Goldman by more than thirty points. A 32-year-old democratic socialist named Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off five-term Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and state Assembly member Claire Valdez won the seat Nydia Velázquez is vacating. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (a recipient of dark money and AIPAC money) campaigned hard against all three and watched all three win anyway.
As Bernie Sanders put it afterward, the message is pretty clear: Americans are sick to death of a rigged economy and of billionaires buying their elections.
The corporate press and just about every Republican in the country will tell you these candidates are “socialists,” and they’ll spit the word the way you’d say “arsonist.” A little history clears the fog.
When a young public defender in upper Manhattan or a state assemblywoman in Brooklyn calls herself a democratic socialist today, she isn’t talking about Havana or the old Soviet Politburo (the way Republicans and much of the press want you to think). The three who won in New York ran on Medicare for All, affordable housing, stronger union protections, and an end to U.S. military support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.
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