u/Shizzilx

The tech billionaires will consume all the critical minerals on earth and then they will pretend they can do it in space next.

*This is a hit-piece from The Atlantic by Jonathon Chait. It is the full article, and I am posting it to show the community what we are up against*

The DSA was formed in opposition to the very thing it has become.

The general idea that Democratic Party loyalists seem to have about members of the Democratic Socialists of America is that they’re a lot like Democrats, but perhaps a bit more passionate. Voters in New York City are “not afraid of the term democratic socialism,” Joy Behar recently said on The View, to applause. “Social Security is democratic socialism. Partly, unemployment insurance is. The people who pick up your garbage, the people who take the fire out at your house—all of these things are democratic socialism.”

It’s true that the DSA has areas of ideological overlap with the Democratic Party, and would at least directionally support classic Democratic policies such as a higher minimum wage, defending social spending, and opposing the Trump administration. But the DSA’s version of democratic socialism goes far beyond routine public functions such as garbage collection and Social Security (which most Republicans, not to mention Democrats, support), or even aspirational policies such as Medicare for All.

The DSA, in fact, seems to despise the Democratic Party. Darializa Avila Chevalier has called Joe Biden a “rapist” and wrote “Fuck Kamala Harris” on social media. She proceeded to be nominated for a House race in New York last week by Democratic voters who presumably do not all share those feelings. The DSA now includes a growing caucus of supporters in Congress, has mayoral candidates well positioned to win in several big cities, and has plans to throw its weight behind a yet-to-be-determined presidential candidate in 2028.

The DSA’s feelings about Democrats encompass not only the party’s leadership but also the philosophical commitments that have guided it since the New Deal: a mixed economy undergirded by democratic values. Chevalier, for instance, joined a post–October 7 celebratory rally and portrayed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a defensive response to Western “bullying.” She previously called for seizing land and the means of production and has repeatedly praised communism.

These positions are not holdovers from the idealism of youth or a bygone “woke” era. They are a by-product of the DSA’s core ideology. The DSA has become a force in Democratic Party politics even as it has grown more hostile to the party, more illiberal, and more dogmatic.

A tragic irony of history is that the Democratic Socialists of America was formed in opposition to the very thing it has become.

The writer and activist Michael Harrington helped found the DSA in 1982. His goal was to build a socialist movement that would eventually pull the Democratic Party toward more humane domestic and foreign policies. He believed that a commitment to freedom of speech, elections, and other democratic norms was an absolute requirement for any socialist organization. And generations of bitter experience taught Harrington and his allies that socialist organizations had failed because they allowed communists to infiltrate them and take control of their organizing structures. Its founding bylaws accordingly permitted the expulsion of members who were “under the discipline of any self-defined democratic-centralist organization,” a slightly jargonish way of describing communists.

A decade ago, the excitement generated by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign on the left and the frightening rise of Donald Trump spurred an influx of tens of thousands of young members. Some of the new recruits were Marxist-Leninist organizers who saw the DSA’s growing membership as fertile ground.

Sectarian conflict broke out among rival factions vying to steer the group’s suddenly growing membership. In 2018, some of the DSA’s older activists formed the North Star caucus, an internal group to defend Harrington’s antiauthoritarian principles from its newer authoritarian-minded entrants. “Principles of liberty and equality are indispensable to the self-government of a free people,” the new caucus proclaimed. “Denial of them renders a government a tyranny. While authoritarians on the Left dismiss this foundation of democracy as bourgeois, we defend it.” The North Star socialists grasped that the organization was in danger of surrendering its commitment to democratic principles. In 2021, eight founding DSA members similarly warned that far-left factions were attempting to gain control of the group.

The communist influx threw open the question of whether the DSA would support authoritarian parties and states around the world. Communist organizers, as Harrington feared, began to reshape the DSA as an ally of any anti-Western force, even the most murderous and oppressive. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the DSA opposed the invasion but blamed it on “the expansion of NATO and the aggressive approach of Western nations,” and opposed any military aid to allow Ukraine to defend itself.

The break point occurred after October 7, 2023. Many pro-Palestine student-activist groups endorsed the Hamas attacks, and the DSA’s International Committee as well as multiple local chapters followed suit. On the day after the attacks, the New York City chapter of the DSA affirmed the Palestinian “right to resist” and joined a rally to celebrate them.

The DSA’s posture toward terrorism, which ranged from equivocation to outright support, drove away many of the organization’s remaining advocates of liberal democracy. Two dozen prominent old-line members announced their resignation the next month, conceding that “today’s DSA has driven itself beyond redemption” and had become “entirely wanting in its dedication to the moral principles that are the foundation of democratic socialism.”

Militant anti-Zionism became a wedge that the group’s more radical activists used to drive away critics of authoritarianism on the left. In 2025, the group’s convention voted to officially remove its founding language allowing for the expulsion of members who worked for communist cells, and added a provision calling the Palestinian “right to resistance” a central tenet of the DSA. Having dismantled the guardrails that Harrington built to exclude communists, the group established new guardrails to exclude anybody opposed to Israel’s destruction. “Michael Harrington’s DSA is dead,” a dispatch from the proceedings gloated.

The DSA’s Red Star caucus was formed the year after the North Star caucus, in an apparent rebuke. It writes that nearly half of the members of the National Political Committee, the DSA’s highest leadership body, “openly identify as communists.”

These left-wing factions have realigned the organization in firm opposition to liberal democracy. In 2021, the DSA joined the São Paulo Forum, a communist-led international network—a move that would, one DSA member protested at the time, “support authoritarian governments who systematically violate the basic tenets of democratic socialism.” It proclaimed its solidarity with Venezuela under the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, and with Cuba under that of the Castro brothers. The DSA now locates its vision of the ideal society in the world’s most despotic regimes.

The organization is still called democratic socialists, of course, but the term does not necessarily mean “liberal democracy” as Americans have traditionally defined it. Many socialist thinkers define what they call “true democracy” as a system in which capitalism has been overturned and the proletarian classes have seized political power through their representative vanguard (that is, them). Totalitarian states such as the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) accordingly labeled themselves “democratic.”

This is not, obviously, how the group sells itself to the broader universe of left-leaning, mostly Democratic voters it is trying to attract. During the New Deal era, Stalinist organizers pitched themselves as “liberals in a hurry.” The Progressive Party, which ran Henry Wallace for president in 1948, was secretly run by Communist Party loyalists, but it appealed to standard liberals by touting themes such as civil rights, economic justice, and an end to the Cold War.

The DSA employs a similar formula, drawing voters in by denouncing oligarchy and genocide and promising to expand health insurance. Chevalier’s campaign, like those of other DSA candidates, has focused on affordability, fighting corporate greed, and similar progressive themes. When she was asked by MS NOW if she is a communist, she replied, “I’m not. I’m a democratic socialist,” and called questions about her adherence to totalitarian ideologies “a distraction.”

Hassan Piker—who, as one of the DSA’s most influential advocates, has campaigned for several of the candidates it has endorsed—said recently at an event, “I wish they’d stop calling me a radical. None of these people,” he said, gesturing to the crowd off-screen, “are radical. They just want health care. They want to end American militarism. They want to spend money on roads, on infrastructure, on schooling, on health care, rather than bombs overseas.”

Yet Piker himself has followed the DSA’s militant line, repeatedly praising authoritarian regimes such as China’s, Cuba’s, and Russia’s, as well as terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. He has said that his closest existing model for an ideal society is China—which does not have progressive social values or an especially generous welfare state but does have a Communist ruling party.

The DSA’s long-term strategy is to exploit the Democratic Party’s ballot access and reservoir of voters to build its following, and then, after it gains enough power, break off to form its own party, after which the husk of the old Democratic Party would wither and die. This gambit is called the “dirty break,” a term coined by a 2017 article in the left-wing magazine Jacobin.

Not all DSA officials agree on the dirty break. Some still cling to Harrington’s vision of pushing the Democrats leftward. Others favor an immediate split into a third party (a “clean break”). But as Peter Sterne, a onetime DSA member who now reports on New York politics, has written, “The DSA’s current strategy is a ‘dirty break’: gradually build up the necessary partylike infrastructure to eventually break away from the Democrats entirely, while still running candidates in Democratic primaries for now.”

In the meantime, the organization has displayed patience. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the movement’s most valuable political asset, has moved cautiously in office and avoided dramatic policy changes, building political support that he has spent on backing DSA challenges to mainstream Democrats.

In the face of this threat, the Democratic Party’s establishment has wrung its hands. Yet its main concern appears to be that DSA challengers are threatening the jobs of loyal party regulars and dividing the base against itself. “Instead of us making sure we put all of our resources to fight Republicans and to fight Donald Trump, we’re using it to fight each other. It just doesn’t make common sense to me,” Representative Gregory Meeks complained to CNN. New York Attorney General Letitia James told CNN, “All of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party. But you don’t blow it up. That’s what MAGA has done.”

DSA supporters see internal division not as a risk but as a historic opportunity to seize power. As Ross Barkan, a writer and former candidate whose state Senate campaign Mamdani managed in 2018, wrote, “The establishment Democrats who revile Mamdani so much should understand 2028 is going to look like 2026. There will be more races to be run, more incumbents to replace. For a century, since successive Red Scares squelched socialism in this country, the left has been in a defensive crouch. Only now can the socialists hit back.”

The conflict is asymmetrical. One side is concerned with taking control of the Democratic Party, while the other just wants everybody within it to get along.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a DSA member, recently appeared on MS NOW, a favorite network for normie liberals, where she blamed Democratic members of Congress for discord with new left-wing nominees. “You,” she said, addressing her incumbent colleagues, “are creating the antagonistic dynamic that we do not need. These are two young, talented, intelligent women that got elected against all odds, against millions of dollars. Perhaps there is something we can learn from them.”

The norm that AOC is trying to create is a ratchet that pushes the Democratic Party ever leftward. The DSA is permitted to excoriate the party, but non-socialist Democrats cannot respond in kind. Moderate Democrats are permitted to exist, at least for now, but the ideological pressure runs in one direction.

At the most superficial level, the DSA influx has associated Democrats with a series of kooky beliefs and statements. Although Democratic voters approve of the DSA, voters as a whole do not. A national poll found the group’s approval at 21 percent, and 48 percent disapproved. (The same poll had 36 percent approval of the Democrats.) Its specific platform components are if anything less popular. The DSA’s leadership has approved a platform, set to be ratified at its convention next month, calling for “abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state,” opening borders, moving to public ownership for the largest corporations, establishing a 32-hour workweek, and defunding the Pentagon.

The DSA’s disproportionate strength in New York City, the headquarters of the national media, means that its positions will have outsize weight in the national debate. Republicans will also, obviously, do everything they can to magnify them.

The DSA has little incentive to minimize this collateral damage. To the contrary, the smaller the Democratic Party, the more power the DSA wing can wield inside it. And it probably hasn’t escaped the movement’s attention that it has enjoyed its strongest growth during periods of Republican rule, but that its membership stagnated during the four-year Biden interregnum.

Under Republican presidencies, the DSA thrives on frustrated Democratic voters feeling that their party’s leaders aren’t fighting hard enough. During Democratic presidencies, which the DSA mostly spends denouncing the occupant of the Oval Office as a sellout, Democratic loyalists have less patience for factional complaints. Perversely, if the DSA’s slew of police-abolitionist, Hamas-apologizing candidates were to cost Democrats Congress in 2026 or the presidency in 2028, the group’s goal of discrediting and replacing the Democratic Party’s leadership would get easier, not harder. One can easily imagine a feedback loop in which DSA influence makes it harder for Democrats to win back moderate and Republican-leaning voters, causing the party to lose, causing its base to grow more distrustful of the party’s leaders, thus making them more likely to nominate DSA candidates.

But even to conceive of the DSA’s entry to the party as mainly an electoral setback, as some glum liberals appear to be doing, is to miss the deeper significance of the group’s influence. The costs of an alliance with the DSA are moral as well as political. The Democratic Party is waging an existential struggle to save democracy, the rule of law, and liberal norms. The DSA’s vanguard does not merely believe that its defense has faltered. It holds those values themselves in contempt as resistance-wine-mom frivolity.

What the DSA demands of the Democrats is not merely to advocate more generous social policies, or more cautious foreign affairs, but to welcome, or at least accept, authoritarians as their coalition partners. Democrats are likely to face the same kind of pressure that Republicans confronted with MAGA’s hostile takeover: first to ignore their allies’ sinister goals, and then to rationalize and eventually justify them.

As authoritarian elements gain strength, they become more essential to the success of a political coalition, and the price of confronting them rises. The Republican Party has long since passed the point of no return. The easiest time to draw clear moral lines against the encroachment of illiberalism within one’s own camp is at the beginning.

The article originally misidentified the office that Chevalier was nominated for. It is a U.S. House seat.

*By Jonathan Chait*

Source:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/dsa-communist-socialist-democrats/687756

Rome — The Vatican announced Thursday that six bishops associated with the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) have been excommunicated following the unauthorized consecration of four new bishops the previous day in Écône, Switzerland.

The consecrations were carried out without the approval of Pope Leo XIV. Under Catholic canon law, only the pope can authorize the consecration of new bishops.

The Vatican said the two consecrating bishops and the four newly ordained bishops — including one American — had incurred "latae sententiae" (automatic) excommunication. The Church further declared that the consecrations constituted a "schismatic act," representing a formal break in ecclesial communion.

Excommunication is one of the most serious penalties that can be imposed by the Catholic Church's leadership. It bars a Catholic from receiving any church sacraments such as baptism, communion or marriage.

Going even further, the Vatican warned members of the SSPX that those who knowingly and formally align themselves with the society place themselves outside full communion with the Church.

The Holy See also revoked the faculties previously granted to SSPX priests to validly celebrate the sacraments of confession and marriage, meaning those sacraments are no longer recognized as valid when administered by SSPX clergy.

On the eve of the consecrations, Pope Leo made a final appeal for unity, writing personally to the Society's Superior General.

"I plead with you and ask you with all my heart: please turn back!" wrote Leo, the first-ever U.S.-born pontiff.

The SSPX was founded in the 1970s by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in response to the liturgical and theological reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. The society sought to preserve the Traditional Latin Mass and what it regards as the historic teachings of the Catholic Church.

Although initially established with Vatican approval, relations with Rome steadily deteriorated as the SSPX rejected key aspects of the Council, particularly its teachings on religious liberty, interdenominational unity and episcopal collegiality - or the principle that bishops collectively share responsibility for Church governance.

The current schism echoes events from nearly four decades ago, when, in 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal approval, resulting in automatic excommunication.

Pope Benedict XVI lifted the personal excommunications of the surviving bishops in 2009 as part of an effort to foster reconciliation, but the society's canonical status remained unresolved.

Over the past five decades, the SSPX has grown into a global movement with an estimated 600,000 adherents. It operates seminaries, schools, retreat centers and hundreds of chapels worldwide.

In the United States, SSPX is headquartered in Kansas and it operates the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Dillwyn, Virginia, serving a network of chapels and schools across the country.

The society says it has 25,000 adherents in the U.S.

An estimated 15,000 people gathered Wednesday in Écône to witness the episcopal consecrations.

While expressing sorrow over the rupture, the Holy See said it continues to pray that members of the SSPX will one day be restored to full communion with the Catholic Church.

*excerpt from Anna Matranga's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/catholic-church-sspx-excommunication-bishops-vatican-feud

This is Anok Yai, the daughter of South Sudanese refugees. Born in Egypt and raised in New Hampshire, she’s now the face of Vanity Fair‘s July 2026 issue celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. The last two photos are from her recent British Vogue cover story with her parents.

In 2017, she was a biochemistry student at Plymouth State University when a photographer snapped her photo at Howard University’s homecoming. The image went viral overnight, changing the course of her life. That’s the 2nd photo.

Just four months later, she made fashion history by opening Prada’s runway show, becoming the first model of South Sudanese heritage and only the second Black woman after Naomi Campbell to do so.

Today, she’s walked for Versace, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton, appeared on multiple Vogue covers, was named Model of the Year in 2023, and this year landed the covers of Vogue, British Vogue, and now Vanity Fair.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is facing fierce backlash from conservative lawmakers and pundits after voting to uphold birthright citizenship, serving a severe blow to a core pillar of President Trump’s immigration agenda.

Barrett joined Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices in striking down Trump’s Day 1 executive order restricting birthright citizenship — but she’s taken the brunt of the conservative outrage in the ruling’s aftermath.

Much of that criticism has been overtly sexist, while other attacks have carried more subtle gendered undertones, prompting some conservative legal figures to defend Barrett and urge critics to focus on her jurisprudence rather than her gender.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) responded to the ruling with a call to “impeach rogue, activist judges,” adding, “We’re looking at you Amy Coney Barrett.”

She then took aim at the female justices on the court, suggesting they’re misunderstanding the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.

“The 14th Amendment was written for freed slaves. Not for birth tourism. The men who wrote it knew the difference. But apparently the female justices on the Supreme Court do not,” she wrote in a post on the social platform X.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also appeared to mock Barrett’s vote, writing, “If a woman gives birth at the Supreme Court, is her baby entitled to automatic status as a justice?”

Far-right journalist and Trump ally Laura Loomer singled out Barrett for the court decision, writing on social media that by voting against the president’s birthright citizenship executive order she was “effectively sending our country to the grave.”

The College Republicans chapter of Barrett’s law school also laid blame for the ruling at her feet.

“Barrett is an absolute disgrace to the Notre Dame name. We apologize on her behalf to all who will suffer the devastating consequences of infinity third-world migration,” Notre Dame College Republicans wrote on X.

Elsewhere in conservative circles online, the sexism has been more explicit.

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh called Barrett a “DEI hire, little better than Kentanji Jackson” and lumped her in with the court’s three liberal justices, all of whom are female.

“The worst Supreme Court Justices of all time have all been women,” he wrote on social media, in response to a photo featuring the four female justices. “That’s just a fact. Republican presidents should take the hint.”

Right-wing Arizona pastor Dale Partridge said on X that the Garden of Eden shows that women “by nature” are “more easily deceived” and that “men are designed to rule.”

“No more women judges or politicians,” he concluded, alongside a picture of Barrett.

Some of the criticism has touched on Barrett’s role as a mother, including of two Black children adopted from Haiti.

“Because of an interracial family, my grandchildren may not get to have a country,” right-wing Christian nationalist Joel Webbon wrote in a social media post, adding, “The real problem is that women make great mothers, not civil magistrates.”

However, a number of mainstream conservative voices have come to her defense, with some even calling out “Barrett Derangement Syndrome” to refer to far-right critics who are turning on Barrett.

“What’s fun about Barrett Derangement Syndrome is that last week she was told how awful she is for her position in the TPS case *despite* having a Haitian child and now she’s told how awful she is in the birthright case *because* she has a Haitian child,” National Review senior writer Charles C.W. Cooke wrote on social media, referring to last week’s temporary protective status (TPS) decision.

Advancing American Freedom senior legal fellow Amy Swearer — whom Justice Clarence Thomas cited in his dissent in the birthright citizenship case — shot back at critics who she suggested were singling out Barrett because of her gender.

“Justice Barrett is wrong about the Citizenship Clause,” she wrote on X. “But some of ya’ll out here acting like … a man didn’t write the majority opinion.”

She went on to say that Barrett hasn’t been solid on many issues, including other opinions released on Tuesday.

“Grow up. Control your emotions,” she added.

Andrew Walker, associate professor of Christian ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, repudiated critics attacking Barrett’s position “on the basis of sex,” saying doing so denies “the equality of the sexes as made in God’s image.”

“Disagree with Justice Barrett’s jurisprudence all you want—that’s your prerogative. But discrediting her reasoning by appeal to her sex or her status as an adoptive mother—as some on the populist right now do—is a category error,” he wrote on X.

Roberts, who authored the majority opinion, did not emerge unscathed from the MAGA backlash, though most attacks focused on his legal reasoning rather than his personal characteristics.

Conservative talk show host Mark Levin accused the chief justice of authoring a “deceitful” opinion, noting Thomas provided several quotes to back up his argument that the citizenship clause “doesn’t apply to aliens,” but “none of that is cited by John Roberts or the majority.”

“Why? Because they are lying to the American people,” Levin said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

Kavanaugh did not join the majority decision but still voted to strike down Trump’s executive order, basing his decision on a 1940 law that codified the conventional understanding of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause into the federal statute.

Still, his position drew far less criticism from the right despite also invalidating Trump’s order.

In his narrower view, lawmakers could “pass constitutional muster” by amending the statute or enacting new legislation that creates exceptions to automatic birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens who are either in the country illegally or temporarily.

Some conservatives read Kavanaugh’s concurrence as a legislative roadmap for Republicans.

“Kavanaugh is telling Congress they can pass a bill to fix birthright citizenship and it wouldn’t violate the 14th Amendment,” alt-right political activist Jack Posobiec said in a social media post.

“Just add this to the SAVE Act and pass it all,” he wrote, referring to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, a bill that would require providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote and the presentation of photo ID when casting a ballot.

Roberts wrote that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil, even those born to parents who are in the country illegally.

Thomas as well as Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented and sided with the Trump administration’s view that children born to parents who are in the country temporarily or illegally are not automatically entitled to citizenship under the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause.

*excerpt from Sophie Brams' article*

Full Article here:

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5950325-conservative-outrage-barrett-ruling/

Just a screen I took from the shook Faux "News" Entertainment from Hasan Stream earlier and thought I'd meme it, I'm a numbers guy, but I didn't Grok it.

Democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated 15-term Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on Tuesday, delivering one of the biggest shocks of the Democratic primary season amid a growing streak of wins for the insurgent left.

Kiros’ win in the contest for Colorado’s 1st District topples a 68-year-old representative who had held the seat since before her 29-year-old challenger was born.

It's a victory that echoes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) stunning 2018 upset over 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York, and delivers democratic socialists fresh momentum.

DeGette's loss, after representing the district since 1997, seemed unthinkable in the state just months ago, but Kiros rode the same anti-incumbent wave that swept through New York's Democratic primaries last week, where Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Dan Goldman were ousted in a dramatic show of the left's growing strength.

The defeat is a stunning one for the Democratic establishment, though warning signs had been building for months inside DeGette's campaign, with allies privately acknowledging the race was tightening and the representative’s team spending weeks urging national Democrats and allied groups to come to her aid.

Kiros launched her campaign nearly a year ago, framing it from the outset as a generational reckoning with the Democratic establishment. She cast DeGette, a longtime progressive who served as an impeachment manager against President Donald Trump, as a corporate-backed incumbent who was out of step with her constituents, and called for a new era of progressive leadership in Congress.

Kiros’ campaign drew major outside support from progressive leaders, including endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Working Families Party, as well as backing from the candidates who upended New York's Democratic delegation last week.

Her win marks the seventh primary victory this cycle for Justice Democrats, the progressive group that recruited and backed her, making 2026 the organization's most successful primary year to date.

"We are so proud to be sending Colorado's first Justice Democrat to Congress," said Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats. "Melat built a movement that inspired Denverites to remember they themselves have the power to transform what kind of Democratic Party they want to be represented by. Melat and our candidates continue winning this cycle because Democratic voters are finally getting leaders acting on their demands."

Down the final stretch of the campaign, DeGette’s allies scrambled to hold off Kiros’ rise, with outside groups pouring roughly $2.3 million into the race over the final month, including $1.3 million in the race's final days. DeGette's side held a nearly three-to-one spending advantage down the stretch.

DeGette also secured last-minute endorsement videos from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and progressive Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who like DeGette was a manager of Trump’s impeachments. Still, that wasn’t enough to help her keep her seat.

The new class of hard-left members of Congress could prove a tough group to wrangle for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), particularly if Democrats win a narrow majority in the House this fall.

“If the day comes to vote and he continues taking corporate PAC money, I won’t be voting for him,” Kiros said in an interview prior to Tuesday’s win.

*excerpt from William Steakin's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/01/kiros-wins-colorado-house-primary-00983237

I am somewhat new here but, I love the community and enjoy making memes and buying in on 401Jk every week now, for some reason I buck everything I was ever told about investing in memecoins and just going with it. 🃏✌️🪙💰💵📈

As attendees were escorted out of the Great American State Fair on Sunday because of inclement weather, guests noticed an unfortunate typo displayed on a digital billboard at the National Mall.

"This event is postponed. Go to Freeedom250 social media for more updates," the billboard read, misspelling "Freedom."

The error drew immediate attention given that the fair is organized by Freedom 250, a White House-backed public-private partnership.

For critics of the Trump-aligned initiative, the typo quickly became a symbol of broader complaints about the event's organization and execution. The fair has already seen a series of setbacks that include cancellations from artists on the lineup, sparse crowds, electricity issues and even melted ice cream.

Organizers had urged attendees earlier in the day Sunday to monitor conditions closely as forecasts called for the potential of severe thunderstorms across DC. By mid-afternoon, announcements were made directing guests to exit portions of the National Mall as a precautionary measure, with fair programming halted.

Despite the warnings, some attendees said the weather that ultimately arrived was far less severe than expected, prompting confusion among visitors.

'Freeedom' typo ridiculed on social media

The misspelling was met with laughter and sarcasm from many social media users, including one who compared the fair to the infamous Fyre Festival.

"They can close the Fyre Fair because of the weather, but they’ll never take away our FREEEDOM or typos," the social media user said.

"Let 'FREEEDOM' ring. Can you say spellcheck???" another said.

The moment added to a string of small but visible missteps that have defined parts of the 16-day fair’s early run.

*excerpt from Mike Stunson's article*

Full Article here:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2026/06/30/was-freedom-really-spelled-wrong-at-the-great-american-state-fair/90752922007/

Russia’s oil crisis can no longer be ignored. Videos shared on social media show Russian citizens expressing their anger at the fuel pumps and fighting in the streets over access to fuel. Some videos show women breaking down in tears, with one explaining that she had waited so long in line for fuel that her car battery died. Regular Russian citizens are now feeling the impact of the war, and that’s precisely what Kyiv set out to do when it announced the ongoing 40-day campaign.

Tim Murry, a foreign threats compound contractor, drives a T-72 battle tank into position to serve as adversary targets for a joint service exercise, Emerald Flag, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Nov. 30. Emerald Flag is a multi-service exercise aimed to unify information sharing across joint domain platforms. (U.S. Air Force photo/1st Lt Karissa Rodriguez)

For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the latest long-range strikes – which he describes as a “long-range sanctions” campaign – are the best chance yet at raising the cost of the war and forcing Putin to come to the negotiating table.

And while Putin has yet to agree to anything other than a full Ukrainian surrender, there are signs that things are beginning to change.

Over the weekend, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, publicly acknowledged that long-range Ukrainian strikes are now forcing the Kremlin to take drastic action – including export bans and emergency measures designed to stabilize domestic supplies.

The recent admissions are significant because, up until recent weeks, Putin would not speak openly about the damage being done to the Russian economy.

But now, with the country feeling the pressure, he can no longer pretend it isn’t happening.

What Putin Said

Speaking during a June 28 meeting, Putin admitted that motorists and businesses were beginning to feel the effects of the crisis and that the problem had now expanded beyond certain regions, such as Crimea.

“As for strikes against critical infrastructure in general, and energy infrastructure in particular, of course, these attacks on our infrastructure facilities create problems; that’s obvious,” Putin said.

“Right now, we’re observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical,” he continued.

Putin also attempted to reassure the public that the problem would not persist, saying that damaged facilities are being repaired quickly and that Russia plans to increase fuel imports while accelerating repairs.

The Russian president portrayed the problem as temporary, but it remains to be seen whether it has sufficient air defense capabilities to protect these critical sites across its vast territory. So far, it isn’t looking good.

“As for strikes against critical infrastructure in general, and energy infrastructure in particular, of course, these attacks on our infrastructure facilities create problems; that’s obvious,” Putin said.

“Right now, we’re observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical,” he continued.

Putin also attempted to reassure the public that the problem would not persist, saying that damaged facilities are being repaired quickly and that Russia plans to increase fuel imports while accelerating repairs.

The Russian president portrayed the problem as temporary, but it remains to be seen whether it has sufficient air defense capabilities to protect these critical sites across its vast territory. So far, it isn’t looking good.

Ukrainian Strikes Target Russia’s Oil Industry

Ukraine has spent months expanding its long-range strike campaign, culminating in devastating strikes on the Moscow Oil Refinery earlier this month. Ukrainian strikes now occur on a daily basis, targeting refineries and energy infrastructure as part of a plan to weaken Russia’s ability to finance and sustain the war. On June 28, Ukrainian forces struck two more refineries.

Zelenskyy confirmed that drones hit the Sloviansk refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region, roughly 300 kilometers from the front line, as well as another refinery in the Yaroslavl region, around 700 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.

Production Losses Create National Fuel Crisis

The cumulative effect of a constant barrage of strikes against major oil refineries and infrastructure should be obvious: Russia is facing a fuel crisis.

According to Reuters, Russia has lost approximately 25% of its gasoline production capacity after repeated attacks on refineries, and overall oil refining volumes have fallen to their lowest level in more than two decades.

Those shortages are a problem for soldiers on the front line, but they also impact civilians – and that’s an issue for Putin.

Fuel restrictions have been imposed across Crimea and southern Russia, and in occupied Ukrainian territories and even parts of Siberia. At least 15 Russian regions have officially introduced restrictions on fuel sales, and the number of affected regions continues to grow.

Scrambling to Contain the Problem

The Kremlin must not only solve the problem in the short term but also prevent a long-term crisis by more effectively defending its most critical oil and energy infrastructure. The Kremlin is scrambling to contain an impossible-to-hide crisis, establishing a new government task force to coordinate fuel supplies and take other measures to prevent a full national crisis. Moscow has also approved the production of lower-quality gasoline and diesel for domestic consumption, allowing fuels to be produced and distributed more quickly.

Russia is also reportedly in talks with Kazakhstan about importing 50,000 metric tons of AI-92 gasoline to offset shortages caused by Ukrainian strikes. Kazakh officials say they have yet to receive a formal government request, but multiple industry sources have claimed that negotiations are underway. And it may not be the first request Russia makes to regional allies as Ukrainian strikes escalate over the coming weeks.

Given that Ukraine’s promised 40-day campaign has only just begun, further refinery strikes are guaranteed. What’s not guaranteed, though, is Russia’s ability to defend them. Moscow may be looking for quick and easy fixes now, but without taking drastic action to resolve the problem before the strikes recur, it’s hard to imagine it not getting significantly larger before the end of the summer.

*excerpt from Jack Buckby's article*

Full Article here:

https://nationalsecurityjournal.org/russians-are-now-fighting-in-the-streets-over-gasoline-and-putin-just-admitted-the-crisis-he-spent-months-denying/

A new poll released by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas shows a tight race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico as they compete for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. The poll shows Paxton with 43% support, leading Talarico by a single percentage point, The Texas Tribune reported.

The latest results resemble other recent polls that also showed a closely contested race between the two candidates. Paxton, however, has bounced back after trailing Talarico by 8 percentage points in a survey released in April.

According to The Texas Tribune, 1,200 self-reported registered voters were surveyed in the latest poll. The poll was conducted three weeks after Paxton defeated U.S. Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican runoff election. According to the latest survey, 84% of Republicans shifted their support to Paxton after the GOP primary.

What is the demographic breakdown in the race between Ken Paxton and James Talarico?

While the latest poll showed Paxton leading Talarico among men by 9 percentage points, Talarico was receiving more support from voters younger than 65 and those with a two-year college degree or higher. Talarico also leads by 6 percentage points among women.

Additionally, Talarico leads by 14 percentage points among Hispanic voters. Among Black voters, about two-thirds said they support Talarico. Talarico also maintains a strong lead among independents and moderates, according to Houston Public Media.

What are the results for other statewide races in Texas?

In other statewide races in Texas, the poll found Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, 47% to 40%.

Meanwhile, in the lieutenant governor’s race, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick leads Democratic state Rep. Vikki Goodwin, 43% to 36%, the survey found.

In the race to replace Paxton as attorney general, Republican state Sen. Mayes Middleton holds a 5-point advantage over Democratic state Sen. Nathan Johnson.

Former GOP state Sen. Don Huffines also leads state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt in the race for comptroller, according to Houston Public Media.

*excerpt from Tomas Kassahun's article*

Full Article here:

https://blavity.com/ken-paxton-james-talarico-polls-june-2026

Wait for it.

Iran has sole control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz for the next 30 days, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, after the fragile ceasefire with the US appeared to disintegrate amid a flurry of attacks.

The strait, a vital waterway for global trade, will "once again be placed entirely under Iranian administration within the next 30 days," he told a press conference in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Araghchi reiterated that responsibility for the strait lies solely with Iran. "Any interference or attempt to create parallel structures would further complicate the situation, generate additional tensions and delay the reopening of this strategically vital waterway," he said.

In February, when Israel and the US first attacked Iran, Tehran effectively brought shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to a standstill through threats and attacks, using the strait as leverage in a bid to negotiate an end to the conflict.

The opening of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping is a key part of the framework recently agreed between the US and Iran.

The accord stipulates that Iran may not charge any fees for the passage of ships during the 60-day negotiations.

Iran is set to hold talks with Oman on how to proceed in accordance with international law and in coordination with neighbouring states. Analysts say potential fees could become a sticking point, particularly in relation to international legal obligations.

*excerpt from DPA's article*

*DPA International is a German Media Outlet*

Full Article here:

https://nordot.app/1443911179040211598