Good morning, AlterNet America family, and happy Independence Day.

Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning caffeine with you.

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On this Fourth of July, I want to look to the future. That’s why I’m stuck on some moves Kamala Harris has been making this week. Let’s talk about it.

Kamala Harris Crawls Back to Mamdani as She Eyes 2028 Campaign

You know what takes nerve? Asking for an endorsement from the guy you wouldn’t endorse.

The former vice president privately reached out to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani last week, just days after Mamdani-backed democratic socialist candidates swept three congressional primaries in New York. She’s also been holding closed-door meetings with pro-Palestinian activists and progressive leaders.

The message is unmistakable: Harris is laying the groundwork for 2028, and she wants the left on board this time.

The irony is hard to miss. Less than a year ago, when Mamdani was the Democratic nominee for mayor, Harris could barely bring herself to say his name. Her so-called endorsement on Rachel Maddow’s show was a masterclass in saying nothing: “I support the Democrat in the race, sure.”

She then immediately pivoted to downplaying his significance: “He’s not the only star.” Now that Mamdani is one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, suddenly Harris wants a longer conversation.

This is exactly the kind of transactional politics that cost Harris in 2024. She refused to break meaningfully from Biden on Gaza. She denied uncommitted delegates a Palestinian American speaker at the convention.

Mamdani, a progressive who made Palestinian solidarity a centerpiece of his campaign, was precisely the kind of candidate Harris should have embraced if she meant any of it. Instead she treated him like a liability until he became too powerful to ignore. That tells you everything about where her convictions actually lie.

And more fundamentally, Harris should not run again. She lost to Donald Trump, a candidate who should have been entirely beatable. Nothing about her current maneuvering suggests she’s learned why.

Calling Mamdani after he’s already won isn’t vision. It’s opportunism dressed up as coalition-building. The Democratic Party needs new leadership, not a retread candidacy from someone who only discovers progressive values when they become politically convenient.

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AlterNet America doesn't wait to see which way the wind is blowing before we tell you what we think. We don't soften our positions when they become inconvenient and rediscover them when they become safe. That's the difference between independent and mainstream media. If you value that, become a paid subscriber today.

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The Hottest Fourth of July in History (So Far) Is Here

More than 160 million Americans are under major or extreme heat risk this weekend as a heat dome parks itself over the eastern half of the country.

Central Park hit 100 degrees on Thursday for the first time in 14 years. Baltimore and DC are forecast to approach their all-time records of 107 and 106 degrees. Raleigh (that’s me!) could get within striking distance of 106.

This comes two weeks after a heat wave killed more than 1,300 people across Europe, with France alone recording over 1,000 excess deaths since June 21. Paris logged more days above 104 this past week than in the entire 147-year period from 1872 to 2019.

Heat is already the deadliest form of extreme weather in the United States, killing more people annually than tornadoes, hurricanes, and lightning combined. Heat-related deaths in the U.S. have nearly doubled since 1999, from roughly 1,000 per year to nearly 2,400 in 2024.

The people who die are disproportionately poor, elderly, Black, and unhoused — people without air conditioning in apartments that trap heat like ovens after dark. Not to mention FEMA still has no statutory authority to respond to heat events because extreme heat isn’t classified as a major disaster under the Stafford Act.

The president’s response to all of this was to announce he would give “a really long speech” on the Mall on the Fourth “just to show that I can do anything.” William Henry Harrison also thought he was tougher than the weather.

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America Turns 250 and Most Americans Don’t Feel Like Celebrating

I do. Here’s why.

A Pew survey found that nearly 70% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Gallup says only about half of us are “extremely proud” or “very proud” to be American, a 25-year low. CNN ran a piece this week calling the semiquincentennial “a big blah.”

I get it. The president turned the country’s birthday party into a campaign rally. He created Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned nonprofit that effectively hijacked the celebration from the bipartisan commission Congress set up a decade ago. The State Department announced new passports with Trump’s face on them. The Great American State Fair on the Mall drew such pathetic crowds that White House staffers deleted their own photos.

Trump promised “the most unforgettable birthday party any country has ever seen” and delivered a 30-minute speech about himself in front of half-empty fields.

So why am I still patriotic?

Because patriotism was never about the president. The Declaration of Independence is a 1,320-word complaint about a king. The entire point of the document we’re celebrating tomorrow is that no single man gets to be the country.

And buried in the First Amendment is the thing that still makes this country worth defending: freedom of the press. Not freedom of the press when it’s convenient. Not freedom of the press unless the FCC chairman threatens your broadcast license because a late-night host made a joke. Freedom of the press, full stop.

Most democracies protect the press in some form. But the American version is structurally different. The UK has an Official Secrets Act and can gag publishers before they print. France can pull publications from shelves for “offending the dignity” of a head of state. Germany and Canada have hate speech laws broad enough to give prosecutors discretion over editorial judgment.

In most of Europe, press freedom is a value balanced against other values. In the United States, at least on paper, it is a prohibition on government power — Congress shall make no law.

That freedom is why AlterNet America exists. We don’t soften headlines because a billionaire owner has business before the government. We don’t take editorial direction from people who put their own face on your passport.

We answer to you. And that only works if you show up.

If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, today’s a good day to change that. Become a paid subscriber and help keep an independent press alive for the next 250 years.

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Happy birthday, America. You’re a mess, but you’re still worth it.

—Ryan Rose, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, AlterNet America

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

A former Miss Switzerland now says Ivana Trump funneled women into Epstein’s orbit the same way Ghislaine Maxwell did. Trump is poised to pardon a slate of people convicted of tampering with diesel pollution controls. A Secret Service operator was at his desk Googling a rooftop in Butler, Pennsylvania at the exact moment a gunman opened fire from that rooftop. And Louisiana’s attorney general was indicted on 16 felony counts, and the governor is already promising to pardon her.

Before we get into it: AlterNet has no advertisers, no billionaire owner, and no broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten to pull. We are funded by readers, which is the only arrangement that lets us cover the people who would very much prefer we didn’t. If you want this work to continue, become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Ivana Trump Was Epstein’s Other Madam, Says Beauty Queen

Turns out the scariest part of a 1990s beauty pageant wasn’t the swimsuit portion.

Beatrice Keul, 55, a former Miss Switzerland and Miss Europe contestant said that Ivana Trump funneled young women into Epstein’s orbit at high-end events where his circle could scout and later isolate them.

“Ivana played a major role in this whole cosmos, bringing in women in the same way as Maxwell,” Keul said. “Was Maxwell a madam or an enabler? However you would describe her, Ivana was the same.”

The claims have not been independently verified, and no evidence suggesting Ivana knew of or took part in any crimes has been released. Ivana, the mother of Don Jr., Ivanka, and Eric, died in 2022 at 73 and was never charged.

Keul previously alleged that Trump, then 47, groped her at his 1993 American Dream Pageant when she was a 23-year-old banking executive, and threatened her if she spoke. She also says Epstein once told her she was his intended “prey.”

Trump has denied all allegations, calling them “unequivocally false.” The White House says he “has been totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein.” You’d think a “totally exonerated” man would be racing to release those files, not sitting on them.

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Trump Is About to Pardon the People Who Sabotaged Pollution Controls

Make America Healthy Again, except the lungs.

Trump is poised to pardon a slate of people convicted of emissions and Clean Air Act violations, according to sources familiar with his plans, with Friday’s list expected to be exclusively related to Clean Air Act violations. He was scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to decide based on recommendations from advisers.

Last year, Trump pardoned Wyoming mechanic Troy Lake, who served seven months for disabling air pollution-control equipment on diesel engines. That pardon was helped along by a Wyoming lobbyist who got the case on the White House’s radar.

Meanwhile, Trump is privately weighing clemency for higher-profile figures, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, convicted in 2025 of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs wrote Trump a letter asking for a pardon, but so far neither he nor the other big names were expected on Friday’s list.

Also seeking clemency: Fugees rapper Pras Michel, convicted in a foreign-lobbying conspiracy with financier Jho Low, who is accused of embezzling $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s 1MDB fund. Low is reportedly seeking a pardon too.

Clemency has been a fixture of this term since day one, when Trump granted relief to over 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants. If you’ve been convicted of anything lately, you might want to check your mailbox.

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Secret Service Agent Googled Location of Trump’s Shooter the Moment He Fired

Apparently, Secret Service protocol reads: see something, Google something.

A Department of Homeland Security inspector general report released Thursday found that a counter drone operator was still searching online for the rooftop’s location when Thomas Crooks fired his first shots at the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

At 6:09 p.m., local law enforcement called the communications room warning of a suspicious person on the American Glass Research complex’s roof, just 155 yards from the stage. The supervisor didn’t even recall learning about it, because he’d delegated the matter to the counter drone operator during a “busy time” on the radios.

Instead of asking the officers on the phone where the building was, the operator searched the internet for it. Two minutes later, at 6:11 p.m., Crooks fired eight shots, grazing Trump’s ear, wounding others, and killing one rally attendee.

The report found the agency never established a joint communications room, which meant 102 radio transmissions about the gunman went unheard. One at 5:42 p.m. warned of “a younger white male long hair lurking around the AGR building” viewed “with a rangefinder sighting the stage.”

Trump’s protective detail was never told any of it. The report also found that Trump’s campaign staff waved off Secret Service from parking trucks between the AGR building and the stage. The reason: the trucks would be “too close to [Trump’s] press shot.”

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Louisiana’s GOP Attorney General Indicted on 16 Felonies

Louisiana has managed to combine the indictment and the pardon into a single news cycle, which is impressive even by the standards of this administration.

An arrest warrant for Attorney General Liz Murrill was issued Thursday, minutes after a 16-count felony indictment came down in New Orleans Criminal District Court. Her bond totals $400,000, or $25,000 for each charge.

Murrill, a Republican, is accused of eight counts of malfeasance in office and eight counts of intimidation. A New Orleans grand jury reviewed whether she sought to intimidate local officials, including Mayor Helena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams.

The allegation: Murrill told the officials in May that they had imperiled their jobs by pushing back on a new law to combine the city’s criminal and district clerks of court.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican and a Murrill ally, took to X to call it a “kangaroo grand jury” and pledged to pardon her “as fast as the law allows.” While he was doing that, Murrill was reportedly dispatching law enforcement to the doorsteps of the very people who charged her.

Nothing like proving your innocence on an intimidation charge by intimidating people.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

Every story in today’s edition is one somebody with power would rather you not read closely. The accusers, the pardon list, the search history from Butler — these are the details that get buried when a publication answers to advertisers or a boss who golfs with the subject.

AlterNet doesn’t have that problem. There’s no FCC license for anyone to threaten, no billionaire who can buy us out and quietly change the coverage, no ad department deciding which facts are too inconvenient to print. There is only you.

If you believe this reporting should keep landing in your inbox at 5:30 every afternoon, the math is simple. Become a paid subscriber today. You are the only owner this newsletter will ever have.

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Democratic Socialists of America Are Seeing a Surge in Membership. Ahead of November’s midterms, DSA chapter leaders say they’re seeing a wave of new energy on the heels of primary wins by Mamdani-endorsed candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier, Claire Valdez, and Brad Lander in New York. New York City’s chapter gained roughly 500 members in the weeks after the primary, where it ran 10 races and won nine. In Colorado, DSA-backed Melat Kiros unseated a 15-term incumbent in a Denver-area district with a campaign that grew to more than 6,500 volunteers who knocked on over 100,000 doors and made more than 500,000 calls.

Chuck Schumer Popularity Plummets Amid Calls For New Senate Leadership. Chuck Schumer is now the least popular Democratic Senate leader since pollsters started asking the question in 1985, which is impressive given the competition. His own party is openly shopping for replacements — AOC would beat him by 21 points in a hypothetical primary, DSA-backed candidates are winning races across the country while he insists Democrats are “a great united party,” and his recruits keep having to distance themselves from him just to stay competitive. At this point, the only thing uniting Democrats is the belief that Chuck Schumer shouldn’t be leading them.

Virginia Becomes First State to Make Dangerous Drivers Use Speed-Limiting Technology. Virginia just became the first state to let judges install GPS-linked speed limiters — devices that physically prevent the vehicle from exceeding the posted limit — in the cars of convicted reckless drivers. The system taps into the car’s throttle control, cross-references GPS with a speed limit database, and simply says “no” when the driver’s foot says “yes.” Tampering with it is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, so pulling fuses or shielding the antenna is just trading one conviction for another. Think of it as a breathalyzer, but for people whose addiction is being late and loud about it.

New HIV Treatment Could Let People Safely Stop Daily Medication. A major clinical trial led by researchers at Imperial College London found that broadly neutralising antibodies enabled three quarters of participants to safely stop standard antiretroviral therapy for at least 20 weeks, with a small proportion staying off treatment for up to two years. The trial enrolled 68 people living with HIV across the UK and Denmark between 2021 and 2024, and was run with input from the HIV community from the outset. Researchers caution that further study is needed to learn how long the effects last and who benefits most.

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Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The DOJ accidentally handed the sealed Jack Smith report to the very defendant it charged with stealing that report. The Trump administration is stamping “Freedom 250” logos onto Social Security cards issued to babies born through December 31. ICE arrested more than 10,000 people in five days. And a Republican congressman wants to throw a bedsheet over the Statue of Liberty and swap her torch for a stop sign.

Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

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Now, let’s go.

DOJ Charged Her With Stealing a Report, Then Mailed It to Her

The DOJ would like everyone to know that stealing Jack Smith’s report is a serious federal offense — unless the DOJ does it for you.

According to a legal filing published Thursday, DOJ lawyers accidentally released the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s handling of classified documents.

They released it to lawyers for Carmen Lineberger. Lineberger is the person the government charged with stealing that report by emailing it to herself disguised as a cake recipe.

On June 3, DOJ officials handed over discovery items on flash drives. Buried in those files were three documents nobody was supposed to see. On June 9, Lineberger’s own attorneys flagged them and asked the government whether they belonged there.

They did not. DOJ lawyers confirmed the files were copies of Smith’s sealed report. The defense stopped reviewing, deleted what they had downloaded, and returned the flash drives.

Trump fought successfully to keep this report hidden from the public after winning the 2024 election. Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed Smith’s underlying case on flimsy grounds. At this rate, Lineberger might get acquitted on the grounds that the DOJ beat her to it.

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Every Baby Born This Year Gets a Trump-Branded Social Security Card

The Trump administration has found a way to put its logo on Americans before they can walk, talk, or say no.

Babies born in the U.S. from July 2 through December 31 will receive a Social Security card bearing the “Freedom 250” logo, the administration announced Wednesday. Social Security Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said the cards commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary under the leadership of Trump.

The cards are limited-edition. Order a replacement or duplicate in that same window and the logo will not appear. The commemorative version is reserved strictly for the newborns.

Freedom 250 is a group the Trump administration created last year. It is a separate entity from America250, which Congress established a decade ago through an actual act of law to plan these celebrations.

This is not the first federal document to carry a Trump-administration flourish this year. In April, the State Department announced Americans could order passports with an image of Trump printed inside the cover.

A newborn cannot consent to anything. But that’s exactly how Trump prefers it.

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Unlike a newborn, you have a choice. You can read about your government branding infants before they leave the hospital, and you can decide that the journalism catching it is worth paying for. Upgrade your subscription today.

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ICE Arrested 10,000 People in Five Days

The Trump administration has decided the measure of a functioning immigration system is not who you catch, but how many you can catch before lunch.

Within the week after the Supreme Court handed Trump several immigration victories, federal authorities arrested more than 10,000 people, including more than 2,400 in a single day. The surge was ordered directly by the White House.

ICE officials were reportedly told to hit a new standard of at least 2,000 daily arrests. The number of people in ICE detention has climbed past 63,000.

The math was celebrated internally. ICE executive associate director Marcos Charles wrote to agents thanking them for their “extraordinary efforts” and “remarkable operational results.”

Among those operational results: Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, a 56-year-old Catholic nun, arrested on her way to Sunday mass in McAllen, Texas. The Diocese of Brownsville says she is in the country legally and has worked more than a decade at local Texas hospitals.

Meanwhile, ICE agents arrested men from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Guatemala inside Manhattan immigration courthouses this week. The arrests flout court orders blocking exactly that practice. The administration also plans to remove 350,000 Haitians after the Supreme Court let it revoke Temporary Protected Status.

Two thousand a day is not a policy. It is a punch card.

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GOP Rep. Wants to Put a Bedsheet Over the Statue of Liberty

The Republican Party has finally identified the source of America’s immigration problem, and it turns out to be a 305-foot copper woman in New York Harbor.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) has proposed a 10-year moratorium on immigration. Then he proposed silencing the monument that has greeted immigrants for more than a century.

“We gotta put a bedsheet ― a big bedsheet ― over the Statue of Liberty,” Nehls told journalist Pablo Manríquez. “She’s gotta go to sleep for a while ‘cause we’re not letting anybody in anymore. Instead of having a torch, maybe it needs a stop sign.”

The proposal came after the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship, the constitutional guarantee that children born here are automatically citizens. The ruling blocks Trump’s executive order insisting otherwise.

Nehls is a staunch Trump ally. Earlier this year, he wore a necktie covered in the president’s face to the State of the Union. At least we know whose face would be on the bedsheet.

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The Part the Billionaires Hate

Let’s be direct about what is happening.

The government is threatening to pull broadcast licenses from outlets that won’t cheerlead a war. Billionaires are buying up the newsrooms that remain. And the reporters still doing real work are running out of places to do it.

AlterNet America exists to be one of those places. In three months, we’ve launched a whole new brand. Corinne gives you all the morning news. I get afternoons and Saturday coffee with you. We’ve introduced Substack Lives in various topic areas so you can get all your progressive news in one subscription.

The people in power are counting on you to scroll past this and do nothing. Don’t.

If you’ve been meaning to subscribe, this is the moment. The stories we are chasing right now won’t wait, and neither can we. Hit the button below and put independent journalism on the right side of history.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The White House Deleted Its Own State Fair Photos After Trump’s Tantrum. The aerial shots of the Great American State Fair crowd apparently enraged Trump so much that officials simply deleted them. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported Wednesday that the turnout was dismal, with dozens of attendees seen heading for the exits during Trump’s commencement address. Trump had claimed 45,000 people on social media and insisted the event was “packed to the brim.” The fair has been beset by technical difficulties, lame programming, and weather delays. Staff are now reportedly bracing for another meltdown at the Fourth of July rally on the National Mall, where temperatures may hit 100 degrees, coolers are banned, and the fireworks don’t start until 11 p.m.

Trump Can’t Detain Migrants for More Than 90 Days Without a Bond Hearing. A divided 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that ICE cannot hold people longer than 90 days under the mass detention policy without giving them a chance at release on bond. The 2-1 decision could affect thousands of detainees across Texas and Louisiana. Judge Leslie Southwick, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote that the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause “makes no exceptions in providing basic rights to those within our boundaries.” The ruling rebukes the administration’s novel claim that non-citizens already living in the U.S. count as “applicants for admission” subject to mandatory detention.

Planned Parenthood Set To Regain Federal Funding as GOP Ban Expires. Republicans spent a year trying to defund Planned Parenthood into oblivion, and what they got was a one-year timeout. The ban, passed through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, was supposed to last a decade but got trimmed to a single year thanks to Senate rules Republicans apparently didn’t read closely enough. On July 4 — happy birthday, America — Medicaid will once again cover non-abortion care at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. The party that controls every branch of government managed to achieve a policy with a shorter shelf life than a carton of milk.

Fired Air Force Major’s Defense Fund Raises Over $32,000 in Hours. Major Jason Watson, an active-duty U.S. Air Force officer, was arrested Wednesday, July 1, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol while holding an “IMPEACH CONVICT REMOVE” sign. A Spotfund campaign for his defense raised more than $32,000 within hours of launching, reaching $32,814 of a $50,000 goal across more than 829 donations. Watson appeared in uniform and spoke at a press conference, calling for the impeachment of both Trump and JD Vance. He accused the administration of unconstitutional violations, including granting Elon Musk sweeping authority over federal databases and personnel.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

A congressional investigation reveals Trump turned the nation’s 250th birthday into a shadow corporation that sold a “historic photo opportunity” for over $10 million. The FBI is sending 260 analysts into Atlanta to re-investigate an election Joe Biden won two recounts ago. A New Jersey congressman spent four months on fully paid medical leave after spending his career voting against paid leave for everyone else. And a man who begged for his mental health medication at an El Paso detention center was restrained by guards until his body went limp.

Before we get into it: You’ve probably noticed that the news sites you used to count on are getting quieter. Softer. That is not an accident. That is a business decision made by the billionaires who own them. We haven’t made that decision, and we won’t, because we don’t answer to billionaires. We answer to you. A paid subscription to AlterNet America helps keep media independent. Please consider one today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Trump Turned America’s 250th Birthday Into a Pay-to-Play Scheme

Trump swapped the bank accounts between the real charity and the fake one. That’s not politics, that’s the plot of Catch Me If You Can.

According to a congressional investigation released Thursday, Trump staged what House Democrats call a “hostile takeover” of the nation’s 250th anniversary to enrich allies, harvest voter data, and promote Christian nationalist ideology. The interim report is titled “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday.”

When the nonpartisan America250 Foundation resisted turning the celebration into a campaign rally, the White House built a wholly owned subsidiary called Freedom 250 inside the National Park Foundation. That gave the operation a charity’s tax-exempt credibility while dodging government transparency laws.

The report alleges fundraisers gave donors Freedom 250’s banking numbers instead of America250’s, which Democrats say could constitute wire fraud. Sponsorship packages started at $500,000 and climbed past $10 million, culminating in a “historic photo opportunity” with Trump.

Event Strategies, the firm that planned the January 6 rally, was handed roughly $40 million in federal contracts. Then there are the “Freedom Trucks,” a federally funded fleet of mobile museums sent to schoolchildren with content from PragerU and Hillsdale College. One exhibit features an AI-generated George Washington declaring that “our rights are a gift from God.”

Washington never said that. But he also can’t sue, so.

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The FBI Is Re-Investigating the 2020 Election Biden Won

Somewhere, an actual criminal is having the best week of his life.

The FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence has requested “surge support” to Atlanta for what it calls Director Kash Patel’s “priority” investigation into the 2020 results in Fulton County. The memo asks every field office to contribute analysts, aiming for 260 total. Large offices are told to send eight, smaller ones three to five. Each analyst is asked to review 708 records and finish by July 17.

These “tactical intel” staffers normally run license plates, prepare subpoenas, and review subpoena returns for active cases. They are now being pulled off that work to comb through ballots from an election that ended more than five years ago.

Trump has repeatedly alleged without evidence that Fulton County manipulated the count and that dead Georgians voted. Biden’s narrow win in the state was confirmed twice over.

The case was referred to the FBI by Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who previously fought to overturn the 2020 results and now works at the Justice Department. A judge denied Fulton County’s request in May to get its seized ballots back.

So a lawyer who tried to overturn the election got hired by the Justice Department and then asked the FBI to investigate the election. That’s not a referral — that’s a do-over.

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They have the FBI. This newsletter has a subscribe button. Uneven fight, but here we are. Help us level the playing field and upgrade your subscription today.

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Republican Voted Against Paid Leave, Then Took Three Months

Tom Kean took four paid months off for mental health treatment. He has also voted to make that impossible for you.

Rep. Tom Kean (R-N.J.) vanished from Washington in March, citing a personal medical issue. He returned this week to announce he had been hospitalized for clinical depression. He took more than three months off, on his full salary.

During his time in the New Jersey legislature, Kean voted against bills requiring paid leave and backed legislation to bar New Jersey towns from enacting their own paid leave rules. “Our solutions won’t cost taxpayers any extra money,” he said of that 2015 package.

Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) wished him a full recovery, then noted the obvious. “Congressman Kean has opposed these very benefits for all workers that Members of Congress get,” Kim wrote.

Kean also voted for last year’s Republican tax bill and its Medicaid cuts, which could reduce access to mental health services for low-income Americans. The same services, roughly, that he just used four paid months to access.

Heal thyself. Defund thy neighbor.

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ICE Killed a Man and Called It Suicide Prevention

The federal standard for inmates with serious mental illness is to move them somewhere they can get treatment. The facility settled for telling one ICE detainee to “practice coping skills to manage suicidal thoughts.”

Geraldo Lunas Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban immigrant with bipolar disorder and anxiety, repeatedly told staff at Camp East Montana in El Paso that he wasn’t getting the care he needed. He complained about his antidepressant dosage, expressed suicidal thoughts, and once went four days without his medications.

Three months before he died, guards found him with a sheet tied around his neck. Staff discussed moving him to “a higher level of care.” They never did.

On Jan. 3, guards took him to segregated housing after he demanded the medication he’d been refused. The lawsuit his family filed Monday alleges that four guards restrained him, and that even after he yelled that he couldn’t breathe, they “kept restraining him on the ground, putting pressure on his neck and chest until his body went limp.”

Lunas Campos is one of over 20 people to die in ICE custody so far this year. Less than two weeks after he died, another man died at the same facility in what ICE called a “presumed suicide.”

The El Paso County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide by asphyxiation. DHS says that security staff “immediately intervened to save his life,” which is a weird way to describe killing someone.

If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

The outlets that need White House access to survive will find a way to be careful about all of this. The ones with advertisers will find a way to look away from the parts that make their advertisers uncomfortable.

We don’t have advertisers. We don’t have access to protect. We don’t have a billionaire who bought us because he liked the vibes and then discovered he didn’t like the coverage.

What we have is readers, and we work for them. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, there has never been a better time to become one. The people we’re writing about would very much prefer that you didn’t.

Subscribe now

Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The House Voted 414-2 to Let Funds Freeze Suspicious Withdrawals by Seniors. In a rare burst of bipartisanship, the House last week passed the Financial Exploitation Prevention Act of 2025 by a 414-2 vote. The bill would let mutual funds and their transfer agents pause redemption requests from older adults or people with disabilities if financial exploitation is suspected, delaying transactions up to 15 days initially and 10 more if fraud is confirmed. It also directs the SEC to report to Congress within a year on ways to reduce fraud against vulnerable adults. Scams reported to the FTC by adults 60 and older hit $2.4 billion in 2024, and the agency estimates the real figure could be as high as $81.5 billion.

Tillis: SAVE America Act Is ‘Dead’ as Time Has Run Out to Implement New Voting Rules. Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina who co-sponsored the original SAVE Act, is now calling Trump’s number one legislative priority “dead” and “theater,” saying even if Senate Republicans somehow found 60 votes, there’s no chance the election overhaul could be implemented before the midterms. This is the same bill that Tillis, along with Collins, Murkowski, and McConnell, already voted to kill once, and that Trump’s last-minute additions like eliminating mail-in voting “pissed off” enough Republican senators to nearly tank even the procedural vote. Trump’s number one priority has now been defeated repeatedly by his own party.

Another Big Study Finds No Link Between Tylenol and Autism. Researchers analyzing electronic health records from 2001 to 2023 for more than 700,000 mother-child pairs in Hong Kong found no link between prenatal acetaminophen use and autism, according to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine. About 43 percent of the children had been exposed to acetaminophen in utero. The finding refutes claims made in September by Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who told pregnant people to “tough it out” rather than take the drug. Medical organizations had warned that untreated fever during pregnancy is itself known to raise the risk of autism, miscarriage, and birth defects.

Stanford Scientists Regrew Cartilage and Reversed Arthritis in Old Mice. A Stanford Medicine-led study published in Science found that blocking an aging-related protein restored lost knee cartilage in older mice and prevented arthritis after ACL-type injuries. Human cartilage samples collected during knee replacement surgeries also began producing new, functional hyaline cartilage when exposed to the treatment. Osteoarthritis affects about one in five American adults and generates roughly $65 billion in direct health care costs a year, with no existing drug that treats the underlying cause. An oral version is already in clinical trials for age-related muscle weakness, meaning the joint you were told to just replace might one day be something you can repair.

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Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump told a North Dakota crowd he wanted to give the Medal of Honor to himself and his sons and “have a threesome.” Republicans are floating a ban on pregnant foreigners, and one Federalist co-founder suggested sterilizing all foreign visitors. Colorado Governor Jared Polis fired two clemency board members who disagreed with his decision to grant clemency to election fraudster Tina Peters. And Trump is still collecting $77,808 annually from the Screen Actors Guild because he appeared in Home Alone 2.

Before we get into it: We don’t have a network that needs White House access to survive. We don’t have a billionaire owner who’d rather you look away. What we have is readers. Right now, that’s the only position in American media that can’t be pressured into silence. A paid subscription to AlterNet America is a direct bet that independent journalism survives this moment. If you haven’t yet, please consider upgrading yours today.

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Trump Says He and His Sons Will ‘Have a Threesome’

Go ahead and read this section twice. It’s not going to get less weird.

At the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota, Trump spent an hour riffing before landing on the Medal of Honor. He said (incorrectly) that Arthur and Douglas MacArthur were the only father-son pair to earn it in wartime, then looked at his two eldest sons.

“I think I’m going to give one to myself, one to them, and we’ll have a threesome,” he told the crowd. The audience gasped. He pivoted quickly.

None of the three men have served in the military. Trump suggested awarding his sons the medal for their “genius at hunting” and one for himself for “taking on Russia, Russia, Russia.”

It was the second time in a few hours he’d joked about giving the honor to himself. Earlier that day he admitted he’d dropped the idea only after his own sons told him they couldn’t think of a single thing he’d done to deserve it.

Experts note that losing your filter is one of the earliest behavioral signs of dementia or cognitive decline. Neurologists call it disinhibition: the prefrontal brake that keeps most people from, say, making a sex joke at a Medal of Honor ceremony starts to wear out. This has been presented without further editorialization.

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MAGA Considers Banning or Sterilizing Pregnant Foreigners

The party that lectures single women about the falling birth rate has found a group of pregnant women it would like to remove.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding birthright citizenship, the MAGA response was not to accept it. It was to propose banning pregnant foreigners from entering the country at all.

Stephen Miller told Jesse Watters on Fox that Americans must “think very carefully about who you let into your country,” warning about “birth tourism.” Watters, laughing, asked if they were now banning foreign pregnant women. Miller did not say no.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called birth tourism a “booming industry.” Representative Lauren Boebert demanded the State Department “IMMEDIATELY cease to give out visas to pregnant applicants.”

Then it went further. Federalist co-founder Sean Davis floated denying entry to all female foreigners, or requiring sterilization of all foreign visitors before entry.

From “every life is sacred” to “sterilize them at the border” in about one news cycle.

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Colorado Gov. Fires Officials Who Opposed Clemency for Election Denier

The first rule of clemency board is: you do not talk about clemency board.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis fired two members of his clemency advisory board, Hannah Seigel Proff and Azra Taslimi, after they publicly criticized his decision to free election criminal Tina Peters. His office said they “breached the required duty of confidentiality by publicly divulging board members’ votes.”

What they divulged was that the board unanimously voted twice to recommend denial of clemency for Peters. Polis ignored them and freed her anyway.

Peters, the former Mesa County clerk, was convicted of four felonies for giving a Mike Lindell associate access to the county’s voting system. She was sentenced to nine years. Polis commuted it in May, and she was released June 1.

Since her release, Peters has toured conservative media pushing election conspiracies and met Trump in the Oval Office, where he claimed she “caught the Democrats cheating.” Rehabilitation is going great.

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Trump Still Gets $78k a Year for ‘Home Alone 2’

Trump resigned from SAG-AFTRA by telling them “You have done nothing for me.” They are still cutting him a monthly check.

His 2025 financial disclosure shows he received $77,808 in pension funds from the Screen Actors Guild last year, about $6,484 a month. He became eligible in 1992, the year he appeared in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

He also collected an $8,724 annual pension from AFTRA and residuals worth under $201 each for cameos in Zoolander and Sex and the City, among others.

Trump resigned from the union in 2021, right as it moved to expel him over January 6. The union had voted overwhelmingly that there was probable cause he violated membership terms through a “reckless campaign of misinformation” that threatened journalists, many of them union members.

His resignation letter was brief. “Who cares!” he wrote to the disciplinary committee. “I no longer wish to be associated with your union.” Under federal labor law, vested members keep their pensions regardless. So the man who called the union worthless is guaranteed its retirement benefits for life.

Macaulay Culkin, the actual star of the film that made Trump eligible, has endorsed digitally replacing him with a 40-year-old Culkin. The union checks would still clear, but imagine the Truth Social post.

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No Sponsors. No Algorithms. No Billionaires.

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Trump Vows to Give Long July 4 Address Even If It’s 107 Degrees. Trump has promised to deliver a “really long speech” on the National Mall this July 4th despite a forecast of 107 degrees, explicitly because he wants to prove he “can do anything.” The speech is scheduled for 9:45 p.m., pushing the record-breaking 850,000-shell fireworks show toward midnight. Attendees can’t bring coolers, backpacks, or water bottles. Behind the scenes, his own team is worried no one will show up, which tracks, because his State Fair rally last week drew sparse crowds that reportedly infuriated him. He addressed this concern the way you’d expect: “Your favorite president will be speaking. So please show up.” If you don’t think this is a positive story, I have one name for you: William Henry Harrison.

Judge Blocks Postal Service From Imposing Restrictions on Mail-In Ballots. A second federal judge has now blocked Trump’s executive order directing the Postal Service to stop delivering mail-in ballots unless states hand over their voter rolls to the federal government. Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the plan violated a 2021 settlement in which USPS promised to prioritize timely delivery of election mail, a promise that is hard to square with not delivering election mail. The administration’s proposed rule would have let USPS refuse to mail ballots in any state that declined to comply, and required individualized barcodes on every ballot envelope. Trump himself voted by mail in Florida in March. The White House says it is “confident” it will “ultimately prevail.” Courts are currently two-for-two in disagreeing.

New York Transgender Student Athletes Remain Protected After Supreme Court Ruling. The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision allowing states to ban trans student athletes, stemming from laws in Idaho and West Virginia, does not change anything in New York. State law already prohibits discrimination based on gender identity through the Human Rights Law and the Dignity for All Students Act, and New York City policy lets students participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. Christine Clarke, who heads the city’s Commission on Human Rights, said trans students “are as protected today as they were a year ago.” Attorney General Letitia James, who is already fighting Nassau County’s trans sports ban in court, vowed to “continue to fight for trans New Yorkers.”

The Iran War Supercharged the Global Pivot to Renewable Energy. When Iran effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz during the recent war, oil and gas prices spiked. It was the second such shock in four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Rather than return to vulnerable fossil fuel imports, countries like India accelerated their shift to solar, batteries, and electric vehicles for the sake of energy security. Cheap Chinese technology has driven the transition, with battery exports up 69% and solar exports up 84% in March compared to a year earlier. The International Energy Agency actually downgraded its 2025 oil demand forecast from a rise to a decline. The one major economy moving the other way, doubling down on oil, gas, and coal as EV sales fall, is the United States.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump’s Great American State Fair drew a crowd so thin that one youth band reportedly outnumbered its own audience. A MAGA congressman answered a question about affordability by bragging about the lobster tails and ribeyes he planned to grill over the Fourth. Federal agents tracked a Rochester man across the state over a single strongly worded email he sent ICE’s former director. And ocean surface temperatures hit an all-time record on June 21, as scientists warned the planet is entering “uncharted territory.”

Before we get into it: AlterNet America runs on readers, not advertisers, not billionaires, and not a broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten to pull. We answer to the people who fund us and to no one else. If you want this kind of reporting to keep landing in your inbox every afternoon, become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Trump’s State Fair Booked a Band Bigger Than the Crowd

When your youth band has more members than spectators, that’s not a state fair. That’s called a rehearsal.

That is what happened at Trump’s Great American State Fair in Washington, where a youth band played to a handful of spectators. A reporter’s video of the near-empty performance went viral, and the mockery followed immediately — not directed at the entertainment, but at the host.

Democratic Rep. Sean Casten suggested the fair was pulling fewer people than the National Mall draws on a normal day. The visual evidence did not help the organizers’ case, as additional photos surfaced showing wide stretches of open grass.

Freedom 250, the group behind the event, insists more than 150,000 people showed up in the first three days. Fox News reporters helpfully explained that the pictures do not tell the full story. Trump himself declared the fair “packed with happy people.”

Trump has been improving crowd sizes since his first day in office. His inauguration drew visibly fewer people than Obama’s, a fact confirmed by aerial photographs and Metro ridership data. At least that time there were people in the photographs.

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MAGA Rep. Brags About Lobster When Asked About Affordability

The man who was investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for funneling over $25,000 in campaign funds to a company he owns would like you to know that you’re poor because you don’t work hard enough.

Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas was asked on the Capitol steps how House Republicans should make the case that they’re fighting for affordability. He responded by listing the lobster tails and ribeyes he planned to grill in his backyard over the Fourth of July.

When the reporter noted that 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford any of that, Nehls had an explanation ready. “Maybe the 60 percent of Americans don’t work as hard as I do either,” he said.

A May Politico poll found a majority of Americans believe the cost of living is the worst they can remember, and most of them blame Trump. Gas prices were sitting at a national average of $3.84 per gallon, up from $2.98 two days before U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Nehls called the higher fuel prices a “temporary issue” and floated price gouging as a culprit.

This is a man who once wore a tie with Trump’s face on it to the State of the Union and asked the president to sign it. He is retiring at the end of his term to spend more time with his family. And, presumably, his ribeyes.

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Troy Nehls makes $174,000 a year on a government salary and thinks the problem is that you don’t work hard enough. Most of the outlets covering him are owned by people who agree. AlterNet America is not. We don’t have billionaire backers, corporate sponsors, or a congressman’s expense account. We have readers. If you’ve been reading for free, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

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Federal Agents Tracked a Man Across Two States Over One Email

One powerless citizen yelled into the void, and the void sent three federal agents after him.

David Streever, a 45-year-old tech worker in Rochester, sent a single strongly worded email to former acting ICE Director Todd Lyons in January after federal officers fatally shot two people in Minneapolis. Five months later, Homeland Security Investigations agents showed up on his porch while he was on vacation in Finland with his 7-year-old daughter.

The email compared Lyons to a Nazi official and predicted his conscience would torment him. It made no threat of violence.

His wife, an Episcopal priest still wearing her clergy collar, met the agents at home with the couple’s 2-year-old. They left a form reading “WARNING NOTICE” and “YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW.” The same agents handed an identical form to a Syracuse poll worker that same day.

Then it escalated. Hours after Streever landed at JFK, a third HSI agent tracked him to his airport hotel and left a business card at the front desk.

DHS declined to comment on the case, saying it investigates all credible threats against its officers. If you think “your conscience will torment you” is a threat, congratulations — you just proved his point.

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Ocean Temperatures Hit an All-Time High

The highest ocean temperatures of all time, so far.

Two independent services under the European Union’s Copernicus program confirmed that global ocean surface temperatures hit a record high on June 21, surpassing levels from both 2023 and 2024. The Copernicus Climate Change Service clocked 20.86 degrees Celsius; the Marine Service measured 21 C.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, warned this could mark “the beginning of a new phase,” with El Niño on the horizon and more records likely to fall. He said the world could be heading into “uncharted territory.”

The cause is not a mystery. Oceans absorb roughly 90% of Earth’s excess heat.

The consequences arrived on schedule. More than 46 million Americans are under extreme heat alerts heading into the July Fourth weekend, with highs topping 100 F in parts of the country.

In Europe, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said more than 1,300 excess deaths had been recorded since June 21. France alone counted about 1,000 more deaths than expected in a single week.

Tedros noted that the “once-in-a-generation” heat wave now happens nearly every year. “Once in a generation” used to mean your grandchildren would deal with it. Now it means June.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is no FCC license attached to AlterNet America. There is no broadcast affiliate a regulator can lean on, no parent company a billionaire can quietly buy to make the coverage friendlier. When agents leave warning forms at people’s doors over protected speech, that is exactly the kind of story a licensed outlet learns to soften. We don’t have to.

We report to readers. That is the entire arrangement. It’s why we can write plainly about a congressman who thinks 60 percent of Americans just don’t work hard enough, and about a fair whose own band outnumbered the crowd.

If you believe this work should exist without a permission slip from anyone in Washington, become a paid subscriber today. You are the only owner this newsletter will ever have.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

‘Protected First Amendment Speech’: Judge Rules ‘Trump Raped Little Girls’ Signs Are Not Obscene. A federal judge ruled for the third time that protesters near the National Mall can keep flying their “8647” flags and signs reading “Trump raped little girls,” finding that none of it qualifies as a threat, incitement, or obscenity. The Trump administration tried all three arguments and lost all three times. The DOJ first called the signs obscene, then amended its brief to argue they were obscene specifically to minors, which the judge called “bordering on the absurd.” The protest group, Accountability Now, has been running a 24/7 demonstration in Washington since December 2025. The government responded to their constitutionally protected speech by threatening to pull their permits.

Judges Strike Down Trump Administration’s Overhaul of Student Loan Forgiveness. Two federal judges struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to rewrite the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which since 2007 has canceled student debt for people who spend a decade working in government or nonprofit jobs. The administration’s new rule would have let the Education Secretary strip that benefit from anyone whose employer has a “substantial illegal purpose” — defined to include supporting immigration advocacy, transgender healthcare, or what the rule called “chemical castration of children,” by which it meant completely reversible puberty blockers. More than 20 states and a coalition of nonprofits sued, arguing the program was being turned into a political loyalty test. Both judges agreed.

Florida’s 800-Acre Data Center Plan Is Withdrawn After Backlash. The Deltona Corporation, a Florida homebuilder that spent 50 years turning swamps into subdivisions, decided its next act would be turning 800 acres of abandoned phosphate mines in Citrus County into a hyperscale data center. Residents were not charmed. After a nine-hour planning commission meeting, a grassroots opposition campaign, and a unanimous county moratorium on data center rezoning, Deltona pulled its application last week rather than face a final vote it was going to lose. The company had received $2.8 million in state grant money with the expectation it would create 3,800 jobs. Its attorneys told the planning board the data center might bring 100. The math did not go unnoticed.

NYC Approves $1,000 College Savings Accounts for Every Public School Kindergartner. New York City’s next budget, revealed Tuesday, includes $53 million to open $1,000 college savings accounts for every public school kindergartner. Council Speaker Julie Menin, who helped launch the accounts more than a decade ago, called it the nation’s largest universal college savings program. She cited research showing post-secondary education can nearly double lifetime wages. Kindergartners are automatically enrolled unless parents opt out, and the funds sit in tax-advantaged 529 plans usable for four-year college, community college or vocational school. The Council had pushed for $3,000 for low-income children and fell short, so every student now gets $1,000 regardless of income.

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A woman who told the FBI that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was as young as thirteen is now living off the grid, afraid of retaliation. Trump pulled in at least $2.2 billion in his first year back, including $1.4 billion from the family crypto business. Mike Johnson’s own party sank a Pentagon spending bill because he stapled Trump’s voter-restriction bill to it. And Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General and candidate for U.S. Senate, was filmed boarding a flight to Iceland with his alleged mistress.

Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

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Trump’s Accuser Living Off-the-Grid in Fear of Retaliation

If you want to disappear in America, just file a report with the FBI.

The woman identified in the federal Epstein files as “Jane Doe 4” is now living off the grid and fears retaliation from the Trump administration, according to one of her relatives. She told the FBI in 2019 that Epstein abused her in the 1980s, and that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was between 13 and 15 years old on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.

There is no evidence the FBI ever followed up. One of her attorneys, who sat with her through two interviews, said the agents never called back and never handed over the reports that defense counsel normally receives.

In her final interview, she cut off contact with the bureau. She told agents she believed she was being followed.

The White House called her “a sadly disturbed woman.” A federal judge last week ordered the Justice Department to release her interview notes or explain why it can’t.

There are about 2.5 million unreleased government files on Epstein. Some were labeled “duplicative.” That’s a LOT of duplicates.

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Trump Made $2.2 Billion His First Year Back in Office

It turns out the most reliable way to get rich in cryptocurrency is to become the person who regulates cryptocurrency.

Trump reaped at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in the White House, according to his mandatory financial disclosure released Tuesday. That is up from a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024.

About $1.4 billion of it came from the family crypto business. This is a man who once slammed crypto as a haven for “drug dealers and scammers.”

The biggest driver was World Liberty Financial, the firm he built with his three sons. Seventy-five percent of each coin sale was routed to a Trump entity, guaranteeing he made money even if the token cratered. It did crater. He still made about $500 million. His $TRUMP memecoin brought in more than $600 million.

In January, days before his inauguration, an investment firm tied to the government of the U.A.E. bought a 49 percent stake in World Liberty. Soon after, the Emiratis struck a deal with the administration to export valuable AI chips, over the objections of some national security officials.

The White House says there are no conflicts of interest. Trump has noted he is exempt from federal conflict of interest laws, which he brings up a lot for someone with nothing to hide.

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Mike Johnson Tanked His Own Party’s Defense Bill

It takes a rare talent to get Chip Roy, Thomas Massie, and Lauren Boebert to vote the same way as House Democrats. Mike Johnson has that talent.

The House voted 198–224 on Tuesday to reject the rule on the National Defense Authorization Act, in no small part because Trump’s SAVE America Act was bolted onto the Pentagon budget at the last minute. Fourteen Republicans crossed over.

Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, Eli Crane, Randy Fine, Andy Harris, Anna Paulina Luna, Max Miller, Chip Roy, Keith Self, Victoria Spartz, Mike Turner, Massie, and Boebert all voted no. Majority Leader Steve Scalise flipped his vote too, but only so Republicans could try again later.

The defense package normally passes with minimal partisan drama. This time it stalled, exposing exactly how little support Trump’s voter-restriction bill actually has, no matter how many times the White House insists it must become law.

The SAVE Act would require every voter to present documentary proof of citizenship — a passport or birth certificate — just to register. It’s built on claims of noncitizen voter fraud that don’t hold up statistically, it has already gummed up funding for Homeland Security for months, and Republicans eventually had to drop it just to end the gridlock.

Johnson says the House will spend another day and a half on it and try to vote again by week’s end. Say what you will about Chip Roy — at least he figured out which voters are less likely to have a passport.

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Ken Paxton Flew to Iceland With His Alleged Mistress

Ken Paxton believes in the sanctity of marriage so much he’s trying it with two women at once.

The Texas attorney general was caught on video boarding a flight to Reykjavik with his alleged mistress. He and Christian influencer Tracy Duhon, his purported partner of two years, were spotted Saturday at Dulles Airport. He was later filmed rubbing her shoulder on the airport shuttle.

Paxton is still legally married to State Sen. Angela Paxton, who filed for divorce in July 2025 on “biblical grounds” after reports of the relationship with Duhon surfaced. This is the second infidelity allegation against him to hit headlines in two years.

The Texas Democratic Party spokesperson noted that Iceland is one of Europe’s most expensive vacation destinations, and said Paxton was “putting himself first and America last.”

Paxton is running against Democratic State Rep. James Talarico for Texas’ open Senate seat. A University of Texas poll last week showed them virtually tied.

If Talarico wins in November, he would be the first Democrat to hold statewide office in Texas since 1994. Paxton is doing everything he can to help.

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No Billionaire, No Problem

The stories you just read are the kind that get softened, delayed, or quietly killed when a billionaire signs the checks and an FCC chair is dangling licenses. An accuser hiding while her alleged assailant runs the country. An attorney general filmed with his mistress mid-campaign. None of it is comfortable for the people who own most of American media.

We don’t have those people. We have no license to protect and no advertiser to keep happy while independent outlets get bought out one by one. What we have is a readership that pays for this work so it stays honest and stays here.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

House Votes to Force Release of Congressional Sexual Harassment Settlement Records. The House overwhelmingly passed a resolution to force the disclosure of records on confidential sexual harassment settlements involving members of Congress, approving it with 420 votes and a single lawmaker voting present: Nancy Mace. GOP Rep. Thomas Massie forced the vote, arguing that documents already turned over weren’t sufficient and that the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights should clarify whether more records exist. Earlier disclosures revealed taxpayers paid over half a million dollars in confidential congressional sexual harassment settlements dating back decades, and from 1996 to 2018 the office approved 349 awards or settlements.

British Government May Block Paramount’s $110 Billion Warner Bros. Takeover. The U.K. government has indicated it is likely to intervene in Paramount Skydance’s proposed $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, citing concerns about media plurality. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy wrote to both companies on Tuesday to inform them she is “minded to intervene,” worried that Channel 5, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, CNN International, Paramount+, TNT Sports, and HBO Max would all fall under a single owner. The deal has already been cleared by the U.S. Justice Department and regulators in China, Australia, Germany, France, and Saudi Arabia. Nandy gave the parties until July 6 to respond, after which Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority could be asked to investigate.

Pennsylvania Votes to Repeal Big Tech’s $517 Million Data Center Tax Break. Pennsylvania’s House voted 197–5 on June 25, 2026, to repeal a sales tax exemption that was on track to hand Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet roughly half a billion dollars a year by 2030, and the Senate’s parallel bill passed 44–6. The exemption began in 2016 as a capped $5 million refund, but lawmakers uncapped it in 2021, and the cost was projected to balloon from $188.4 million in FY 2026–27 to $517 million annually by decade’s end. Prime sponsor Rep. Greg Vitali argued the break subsidized companies with net incomes above $100 billion and projects that were coming anyway. A December 2025 Emerson College poll found more Pennsylvanians oppose local data centers than support them.

Florida’s 800-Acre Data Center Plan Withdrawn After Backlash. A Florida housing developer called the Deltona Corporation tried to rezone 800 acres of rural Citrus County for a massive data center, and residents responded by forming a group called No Data Center Citrus, printing T-shirts, circulating a petition, and then showing up to a nine-hour planning meeting to make their feelings extremely clear. The planning board recommended denial. Deltona withdrew the proposal days later rather than face the county commission vote, which was shaping up less like a hearing and more like a sentencing. The county had already imposed a one-year moratorium on data centers in May and is now drafting an ordinance to regulate future proposals.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship to virtually all children born on U.S. soil. The same court struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and parties, handing wealthy donors and the GOP a midterm windfall. White House officials secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for Trump’s East Wing ballroom. And 146 Venezuelans were deported from the U.S. on Wednesday, only to be killed or buried hours later when twin earthquakes flattened the building where they were processed.

Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Trump Loses: Supreme Court Upholds Birthright Citizenship

Breaking: the Constitution still means what it said in 1868, despite repeated attempts to ignore it.

In a 6-3 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution guarantees automatic birthright citizenship to virtually all children born in the United States. The decision firmly rejected the executive order Trump signed on the first day of his second term.

That order tried to bar citizenship for babies born to parents who entered illegally or who are here legally on temporary visas. It never took effect, because every lower-court judge who looked at it reached the same conclusion. One called it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

Roberts pointed to the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark, born in San Francisco in 1873 to Chinese immigrants who ran a business there. He was denied re-entry to the country of his birth, sued, and won. The court has not budged since.

The principle held even when the country wanted it not to. During World War II, when Japanese citizens were held as enemy aliens in U.S. detention camps, their newborn children were automatically granted American citizenship because they were born on American soil.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented, with Thomas penning 91 pages in response. The 14th Amendment is one sentence.

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GOP Wins: Supreme Court Lifts Limits on Party Spending

The same day the Supreme Court told Trump the Constitution means what it says, it told the rest of us that money is speech, and there is no limit on how loudly the rich can talk.

In a 6-3 decision split along the usual ideological lines, the court struck down limits on coordinated spending between candidates and their political parties. The majority held that the caps violate the First Amendment.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, called the limits a “severe infringement on First Amendment-protected political speech.” He warned that keeping them would leave parties at “second-tier status” and that “weakened political parties distort the political system.”

The case was brought in 2022 by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, alongside the Senate campaign of a man named J.D. Vance. Trump’s Justice Department declined to defend the law. Democratic groups had to step in to do it instead.

The math favors the people who write the biggest checks. National party committees can accept $44,300 a year from a single donor. Candidates can take $3,500. Removing the cap on coordination hands candidates effective control over the larger pile.

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Trump Hands Out $500 Million No-Bid Contract for White House Ballroom

If you want to spend half a billion dollars without anyone asking questions, file it under “furniture.”

That is roughly what happened. White House officials secretly awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $500 million for Trump’s East Wing ballroom, routing it through the Executive Residence. The office is exempt from the rules requiring competitive bids and public disclosure.

The Executive Residence usually handles routine repairs, entertainment expenses, and the purchase of art and furniture. A 2024 White House memorandum says structural work on the East Wing is supposed to go to the GSA or the National Park Service. Experts agreed those agencies were better equipped to bid out a project this size.

Trump once told the New York Times that Clark Construction offered to build it for free. Clark’s internal projections show the firm expects $65 million in combined profit, overhead and staffing.

Trump promised private donors would cover the cost. The estimated price has tripled since last July, and half is now expected to come from taxpayers.

The official paperwork explains the no-bid arrangement by stating that disclosing the project “would compromise the national security.” The chandelier budget is classified.

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146 Venezuelan Immigrants Dead or Missing After Deportation

Angelo Mejía Meléndez had a job at a Miami pier, a boss who liked him, and a Jet Ski named after him. His family identified his body by a distinctive pizza tattoo on his arm.

Mejía Meléndez was one of 146 Venezuelan nationals deported from the U.S. on Wednesday, landing in Caracas before being bused to a guarded hotel in La Guaira for processing. While they were inside, twin earthquakes struck. The building collapsed.

The plane carried women and children. The Venezuelan agency in charge of the deportees declined to tell NPR how many survived, claiming families had been informed of their loved ones’ status — a claim several families flatly dispute.

Víctor Guanipa Toyo, 32, lived in Pecos, Texas, where he worked construction by day and drove rideshare at night. He had no criminal record and was in the country legally. He was detained at a nightclub on June 12. He is missing.

Daniel Núñez had been in Jacksonville for nearly five years. His mother spoke to him for four minutes after he landed, while he was being processed. He told her they would live in Venezuela together. The earthquakes struck thirty minutes later.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on whether the deportations will continue. It can organize the flight but not a response.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

The Pentagon just reclassified a press office to keep reporters out. The FCC chair has made it clear what happens to broadcasters who step out of line. And across the industry, independent outlets are being bought, folded, or quietly persuaded to look the other way.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Progressive Caucus Leader Backs Amendment to Cut Off Billions in Military Aid to Israel. Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) announced Monday he will vote yes on an amendment to block $3.3 billion in annual U.S. military assistance to Israel. The measure, led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), is expected to reach the House floor as soon as this week during debate over a national security and State Department appropriations bill. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Drop Site she will support it too. Casar cited war crimes in Gaza and Netanyahu’s role in dragging the U.S. into war with Iran, noting a U.N. report last week found Israel deliberately targeted children and wiped out entire families.

Roy Cooper leading Michael Whatley by 14 points in North Carolina US Senate race. Former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper leads former RNC chair Michael Whatley by 14 points in the latest Catawba College-YouGov poll, 48% to 34%, a margin that hasn’t budged since March. Cooper’s lead is being driven by independents, who support him by more than two-to-one. Whatley, who campaigns as a law-and-order candidate with the endorsement of the state troopers’ association, has 14 traffic cases across North Carolina and Virginia, failed to appear in court in at least eight of them, and had two bench warrants issued for his arrest in 2015, making him, if nothing else, the Senate candidate most committed to testing the speed limit in all 100 counties.

D.C. will pay $50,000 to man detained while protesting guard patrol with ‘Star Wars’ song. D.C. is paying $50,000 to a man named Sam O’Hara who was handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes and released without charges after his crime of following an Ohio National Guard patrol down a public street while playing Darth Vader’s theme from “Star Wars” on his phone in protest against Trump’s ongoing military deployment in the district, which began last August and has no clear end date. O’Hara, for his part, said the people who violated his rights should pay out of their own pensions, which is a fair point given that D.C. taxpayers are now funding the world’s most expensive Spotify stream.

Fox News Apologizes After Kevin O’Leary Blames China for His Data Center’s Critics. Fox News and Fox Business aired apologies across four programs over four days after Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary baselessly linked opponents of his Utah AI data center to the Chinese Communist Party. O’Leary’s “Wonder Valley” project — originally a 10,000-acre data center on 40,000 acres near the shrinking Great Salt Lake — is projected to demand 9 gigawatts of power, more than the entire state of Utah currently uses. Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams demanded a 75 percent reduction in the campus size, which O’Leary resisted, comparing it to selling someone a house where they only get to live in the upstairs toilet. He has since clarified in an X post that he has no evidence that the named critics are funded by China.

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Trump calls a bipartisan housing bill “a yawn” and won’t sign it unless Congress first passes stricter voter ID rules. The same DOGE engineers who allegedly exposed millions of Americans’ Social Security data are now quietly running federal websites for passports and voter registration. ICE arrested a Texas nun in her habit as she walked to Mass a few miles from the border. And four states are blocking the largest tribal water settlement in U.S. history.

Before we get into it: Independent journalism survives on one thing, and it isn’t a billionaire who bought us because he “believed in the mission” and then discovered he didn’t like what we wrote. It’s readers who pay for what they read. If you’re one of them, thank you. If you’re not yet, this would be a good morning to fix that. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. We can’t do it without you.

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Trump on Affordable Housing: ‘It’s a Yawn’

Trump has been putting in the work to make the midterms as difficult as possible for his own party.

The president spent Monday hemming and hawing over whether he’ll sign a popular bipartisan measure meant to lower housing costs nationwide. “It’s a yawn,” he said of the bill his own party is begging him to pass on the eve of a tough midterm.

Trump has been sabotaging the bill since Wednesday, when he abruptly pulled out of a signing ceremony set up for him on Capitol Hill. He issued an ultimatum instead: he’ll sign the housing bill only if Congress first passes the SAVE America Act, which would impose stricter voter ID rules and crack down on mail voting.

Speaker Mike Johnson said he still plans to send the housing bill over. Trump said Monday he hadn’t received it yet, and wasn’t sure he’d sign it once he did. “I think it’s so unimportant,” he said.

“It’s a yawn” joins a growing collection of remarks giving Republicans heartburn before the midterms, alongside “I don’t care about the midterms,” “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” and “I love the inflation.”

Trump has demanded Senate Republicans change the filibuster rules to pass SAVE America. He has also admitted it probably won’t happen because four or five Republican senators won’t vote for it.

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DOGE Goons Are Secretly Running Government Websites

The Department of Government Efficiency may be officially dead, but its staff have been quietly rebuilding sensitive federal websites in ways that may break the law.

The agency is called the National Design Studio, established by executive order last August and stocked with former DOGE employees. It operates four federal websites covering passport applications, prescription drugs, children’s savings accounts, and voter registration.

Until The Guardian contacted them, all four ran visitor-tracking software configured to evade traditional privacy tools. They still don’t have the public filings federal privacy law requires.

NDS’s spending isn’t listed on the federal contract database. Its passport site bypasses the State Department’s own, and it has built a copy of vote.gov. In other words, sensitive information about Americans now routes through a system the White House apparently controls, with no oversight.

The agency is led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, who spent six months at DOGE himself. At least two other DOGE alumni work with him, including original DOGE engineer Akash Bobba. Photos and a video on the NDS website also appear to show Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, the young DOGE staffer who allegedly exposed millions of Americans’ Social Security data.

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ICE Arrested a Nun on Her Way to Mass

The party of religious freedom arrested a nun on her way to church.

Sister Leticia Ugboaja was on her way to Our Lady of Sorrows Church in McAllen, Texas, dressed in her habit, when ICE officers detained her on Sunday.

She was a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. She volunteered as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. She is also a registered nurse at South Texas Health System, and worked for ten years as a certified nursing assistant before that.

Parish officials posted about the arrest on social media. The post gained traction, and members of Congress representing South Texas, including Republican Rep. Monica de la Cruz, intervened with federal officials on her behalf.

By Monday, Ugboaja was back home. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have not responded to requests for comment since Sunday.

Trump’s immigration crackdown has reached sensitive sites, including houses of worship. Some faith leaders now encourage online attendance. Others run grocery errands for parishioners too afraid to leave their homes.

Somewhere, a Republican is still very upset about the war on Christmas.

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Four States Are Blocking Water for Native Tribes

In 1908, the Supreme Court said tribes get water. It’s 2026 and four states would like to discuss that further.

The Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement Act is the largest tribal water rights settlement in U.S. history. It would resolve the biggest outstanding claim on the river and provide about $5 billion in federal funding to build the pipes, pumps, and treatment plants the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and San Juan Southern Paiute need.

Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming are resisting. Their objection: the settlement lets the Navajo and Hopi lease water outside their reservations, almost certainly to growing towns near Phoenix. They fear the precedent, so they have stalled.

The tribes made major concessions on volume and lease length. They offered to leave some water in a drought-depleted reservoir to keep levels high downstream. The Upper Basin has not wavered.

A third of homes on the affected reservations lack running water. Marilyn Tewa is 83 and serves on the Hopi Tribal Council, where her duties include working on this very agreement. Her own village of Mishongnovi has no indoor plumbing.

Every other day she loads 5-gallon buckets into her pickup and drives five miles to a windmill built for livestock, which draws untreated water from underground. “That’s what keeps us alive,” she said.

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The Part the Billionaires Hate

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Trump’s Name Comes Down at the Kennedy Center, and the Jokes Go Up. Comedian Whitney Cummings opened Sunday night’s Mark Twain Prize ceremony honoring Bill Maher with a joke about Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, saying the president couldn’t make it because “he got caught in sex traffic.” The gala was the first major event at the Kennedy Center since U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper struck down Trump’s attempt to rename it after himself, ruling in a 94-page decision that “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.” A white tarp still covered the spot where workers had removed Trump’s lettering from the facade.

Nursing Wins Its ‘Professional’ Loan Label Back After a Federal Ruling. Graduate students in nursing, physical therapy, and several other fields will now be eligible for higher federal student loans after U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell blocked part of a Trump administration rule that had excluded them. The Education Department issued a revised rule Monday, taking effect Wednesday, that expands the “professional” list to 29 specific programs, including master of science in nursing and doctor of nurse anesthesia practice. In strictly applying the order, the department also dropped theology to non-professional status. So, future pastors lost the higher cap while nurses gained it.

Mamdani Refuses to Enforce the SCOTUS Ruling Stripping TPS From Haitians and Syrians. After the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling that courts can’t review the Trump administration’s removal of temporary protected status for more than 6,000 Syrians and 350,000 Haitians, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani rallied with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James, telling TPS holders, “New York City is your home. You belong here.” Roughly 115,000 Haitians and nearly 12,000 Syrians live in the city, with TPS in place since 2010 and 2012, respectively. Mamdani has strengthened the city’s sanctuary rules since January, barring ICE from schools, shelters, and hospitals without a judicial warrant.

Texas Engineers Build a Jacket That Pulls Drinking Water From Thin Air. A team of University of Texas engineers has developed a wearable jacket that converts water vapor from the air into drinking water using hydrogel material and solar energy. The technology, called AirGel and detailed in a Science Advances report, produced about 14 to 30 ounces of water depending on humidity. The fabric absorbs moisture, then releases it when heated by sunlight so the water can be condensed and collected. Researchers see uses for soldiers, emergency responders, and disaster relief, noting water scarcity threatens two-thirds of the global population.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

A former Miss Switzerland says Trump told her “bad things can happen if you speak out” after allegedly groping her at the Plaza Hotel. The Supreme Court just overturned a unanimous 90-year-old precedent so Trump can fire independent agency board members at will. Rep. Thomas Massie dodged a question about his alleged affair with Lauren Boebert by interrogating a Fox reporter about gay porn on a public street. And one in five Americans say they won’t celebrate July 4 this year, with two in five doubting the country lasts another 250.

Before we dive in: AlterNet America has no advertisers, no billionaire owner, and no broadcast license that anyone in Washington can threaten to revoke. We answer to readers and nobody else, which is exactly why we can write the stories you’re about to read. If you want this work to continue, become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Beauty Queen Accuses Trump of Groping and Threatening Her

Beatrice Keul kept quiet for 32 years. She says Donald Trump told her to.

Keul, 55, a former Miss Switzerland and Miss Europe contestant, recently accused Trump of threatening her after allegedly assaulting her in 1993. She said he lured her to his Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant in New York when she was a 23-year-old banking executive and part-time model.

Keul alleged an aide brought her to a “private meeting” in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. “He was grabbing and touching my body everywhere he could,” she said. “I was screaming for help, and nobody came.”

She says he then told her to keep quiet, “otherwise, bad things can happen.”

Keul also alleges Jeffrey Epstein cornered her that day, introduced himself as “Don’s best friend,” and told her she was supposed to be his “prey.” Around the time of Virginia Giuffre’s death in April 2025, she says she received an AI-generated audio message: “We know where you are, and we will get you.”

The president’s stated defense to most of these accusations is that he never met the women. The list of women he never met is now at least 28 names long.

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The Supreme Court Is Letting Trump Fire People He Doesn’t Like

The Founders apparently spent two centuries violating the Constitution and nobody noticed until now. That’s the only way to read today’s ruling.

The court’s conservative majority voted 6-3 to uphold Trump’s firing of FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, whom he removed because her views “didn’t align with his agenda.” Federal law says commissioners can only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” Trump cited none of those.

The decision overturns Humphrey’s Executor, a unanimous 1935 ruling meant to insulate independent agencies from political pressure. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the president cannot be “saddled” with subordinates he can’t work with.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing that the Court handed Trump “a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted.”

The logic now extends to the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump has also fired board members. The court carved out one exception: the Federal Reserve, where it said Trump could not remove Lisa Cook.

The agencies regulate nuclear energy, product safety, and labor relations for the entire country. They are now staffed at the pleasure of one man.

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Republican Rep. Interrogates Reporter About Gay Porn

Last month, Rep. Thomas Massie lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger. This week, he lost his composure.

When Fox News Digital’s Nicholas Ballasy asked Massie about claims from Cynthia West, a former staffer who says she dated him, the Kentucky Republican flipped out. West alleged on Laura Loomer’s podcast that Massie pressured her to sign an NDA and bragged about a sexual encounter with Rep. Lauren Boebert after the 2024 death of his first wife.

“It’s all false,” Massie said. When Ballasy pressed, he pivoted. “So let me ask you, I heard that you like gay porn. Is that true?”

Ballasy declined to engage and started walking away. Massie followed him, hollering, “Come back, man! All you gotta say is you don’t like it, that you’ve never been to those websites.”

Massie posted the footage himself the next morning, captioning it about the reporter’s “alleged gay porn watching habit.” Boebert, for her part, had her own confrontation with Ballasy earlier this month and was somewhat more direct.

There are many ways for a congressman to deny an allegation. “I heard you like gay porn” is not among the recommended responses.

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Millions Won’t Celebrate July 4 as Poll Reveals Deep National Pessimism

Nothing says national unity like a 250th birthday party where one in five guests have decided not to come.

As the United States approaches its semiquincentennial, a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1,537 adults found the country deeply split — not just on politics, but on whether to celebrate at all. A quarter of Democrats and 8% of Republicans say they’re skipping Independence Day entirely.

Two in five don’t believe the country will still exist as one nation in another 250 years.

Even the dress code is partisan. 52% of Republicans plan to wear red, white, and blue; 20% of Democrats will. Only 24% of Democrats described July 4 as “a day where I celebrate the United States of America,” compared to 65% of Republicans.

Trump has put himself at the center of it all. His administration created Freedom 250, a public-private partnership, despite the already-existing congressionally chartered America250 commission. Freedom 250’s flagship Great American State Fair launched with a campaign-style rally, and he staged a UFC cage match on the White House South Lawn for his 80th birthday the week before.

He’s scheduled to deliver another rally on July 4, where several musical acts and Democratic-led states declined to participate. The U.S. Mint also plans to issue a 250th commemorative gold coin bearing Trump’s likeness.

Nothing says “all men are created equal” like putting yourself on money.

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No Billionaire, No Problem

AlterNet America has no FCC license to lose, which means there is no permit for any administration to threaten, no frequency to yank, no regulator to lean on. We are not owned by a billionaire who can be talked out of a story over dinner, and we will never be sold to one.

The Supreme Court just made every independent regulator in Washington fireable at the president’s whim. The independent press is one of the few institutions left that he can’t restructure with a Truth Social post. That independence costs money, and it comes from exactly one place: readers like you.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Supreme Court Rejects Trump-Led Attack on Late-Arriving Mailed Ballots. In a 5-4 decision Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that states can count mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The ruling rejects a Republican-led challenge to laws in more than half the states and D.C., sparing election officials from rewriting their rules months before the 2026 midterms. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices, holding that federal Election Day laws “leave open when those votes must be received.” Trump called it a “tremendous loss” and renewed his push for the SAVE America Act.

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Trump’s Appeal in the E. Jean Carroll Case. The Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal in the defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, leaving the $5 million judgment against him intact. None of the nine justices dissented, including the three Trump appointed. The case stemmed from her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in 1996. Trump’s lawyers argued the trial was tainted by the Access Hollywood tape. The court disagreed. A separate Carroll verdict for $83.3 million is still on appeal, bringing his total liability north of $100 million. With the appeal denied, the president must pay.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Detects Possible Signatures of Ancient Life on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover has detected complex carbon molecules, known as macromolecular carbon, in Martian mudstones at the Bright Angel outcrop in the Jezero crater. The material can originate from living organisms, though geological processes and meteorites can also produce it, so it is not proof of past life. The find means NASA rovers have now detected organic-bearing mudstones more than 2,000 miles apart on Mars, suggesting the planet may have been broadly habitable billions of years ago. Definitive answers require lab testing on Earth, but we may have found the clearest hint of life beyond Earth.

Trial Reports Longest Progression-Free Survival Ever Seen in Advanced Lung Cancer. Pfizer published seven-year results from a lung cancer drug trial, and the headline number is remarkable: 55% of patients on Lorbrena were still alive without their cancer worsening, compared to 3% on the older drug. After seven years of tracking, researchers still can’t report a median survival time, because not enough patients have died to calculate one. Pfizer says that’s the longest such result ever reported for advanced lung cancer. Lung cancer is still the world’s deadliest cancer, which makes “we lost track of how long these patients keep living” an unusually good problem to have.

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Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

A little-known American company won access to one of the world’s largest tungsten reserves, and the Trump sons cut themselves into the deal. The North Carolina booth at Trump’s “Great American State Fair” displayed a Confederate flag until a sponsor pulled out in protest. The treasurer of the Republican Party of New Mexico is charged in a fatal hit-and-run that killed a 40-year-old cyclist. And the bipartisan KIDS Act could force platforms like X to verify users’ identities, handing the government a new way to unmask journalists’ confidential sources.

Corporate media is running cover for the powerful. The FCC chair is making sure they know the cost of doing otherwise, all while supposedly liberal outlets are being bought out by billionaires. AlterNet America is the people-powered response: reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, upgrade today.

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Now, the news.

Booth at Trump’s State Fair Forced to Remove Confederate Flag

Nothing says “America’s 250th birthday” like celebrating it with the flag of literal traitors.

The organization sponsoring North Carolina’s booth at Trump’s “Great American State Fair” in Washington, D.C., removed a video display showing a Confederate flag, according to reports. A Spectrum News Washington reporter captured footage of monitors inside the booth showing the current North Carolina flag alongside the Confederate one.

The exhibit was organized by Lorie Khatod, a consultant who once served as chief of staff to Rep. Nancy Mace. North Carolina was one of at least eight states that declined to sponsor a booth, with most citing cost.

“On Friday, we became aware of an unapproved image in a video displayed inside the North Carolina Pavilion,” a pavilion spokesperson said. They said their focus “remains on celebrating America’s 250th birthday and North Carolina’s role in our nation’s history.”

Gov. Josh Stein’s office was not soothed. “This display does not reflect the North Carolina that we love,” the office said. “Glorifying this divisive Confederate symbol does the exact opposite.”

Mt. Olive Pickle Company, one of the corporate sponsors, withdrew over the flag, saying it “stands on values of human dignity, opportunity, and freedom.” Other sponsors included Richard Childress Racing and a vehicle maker called Spevco.

Still losing, 161 years later

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Trump and Lutnick Sons Make Millions From Deal Their Fathers Cut

Bring Your Son to Work Day has really gotten out of hand.

When Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met Kazakhstan’s president at the St. Regis Hotel in New York last September, Trump joined by phone to seal the deal. They won the Kazakh leader’s agreement to give one company access to one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of tungsten.

Ahead of the deal, the Trump administration approved preliminary applications for as much as $1.6 billion in federal financing for the company, now called Kaz Resources, which plans to break ground in rural Kazakhstan.

The fathers handled the negotiations. The sons handled the upside.

Within weeks, investors with Dominari Securities — a firm housed at Trump Tower and partly owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump — joined partners to take a 20 percent stake in a corporate entity tied to the project.

Around the same time, Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment company controlled by the Lutnick family and overseen by sons Brandon and Kyle Lutnick, helped a lead investor on the deal raise $210 million in new capital for a related entity. Such fund-raising typically nets Cantor millions in fees.

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The people making the biggest decisions in this country aren’t on a ballot. They’re in hotel suites and on phone calls, dividing up mineral rights and wiring the profits to their kids. This newsletter exists because somebody has to watch them do it and say it out loud. That costs money, and unlike these guys, we don’t have a billion-dollar backstop. Please upgrade your subscription today.

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Republican Treasurer Charged in Fatal Hit-and-Run

It takes a special kind of commitment to law enforcement to keep the bumper sticker on while you’re allegedly fleeing a man you just hit with your SUV.

Kimberly Skaggs, 54, served as treasurer for the Republican Party of New Mexico until this week. She now stands accused of leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with evidence, according to the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office.

The crash happened late Monday afternoon on North Fairacres Road in Las Cruces. Deputies arrived around 2:46 p.m. to find 40-year-old Andrew Brown, who identified himself before he died. He told deputies he was riding his bicycle across the road when a northbound vehicle hit him.

A witness did the work the driver allegedly would not. She photographed the woman, the vehicle, and the license plate — a black Cadillac Escalade with a “Support the Troops” sticker, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. A Flock plate-reading camera and nearby surveillance footage caught the same Escalade driving fast a few blocks away.

When investigators reached Skaggs’ home, they found an Escalade with front bumper damage, “blood splatter” near a wheel, and a bicycle tread pattern on the bumper. She turned herself in after learning there was a warrant, her attorney said, and maintains she is innocent.

The state GOP scrubbed her name and photo from its website. An archived version still shows her title, image, and email address. “Kimberly Skaggs is no longer affiliated with the Republican Party of New Mexico,” the party said. They declined to comment further on the troops.

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Online Age Verification Law Would Unmask Whistleblowers

The Trump administration has decided the safest way to protect children online is to collect everyone’s government ID, which is a little like fireproofing a house by stacking it with kerosene.

The KIDS Act, a bipartisan bill that could pass the House floor as soon as next week, would fundamentally change how everyone — not just kids — accesses the internet. The mechanism is age verification. And there’s no way to reliably verify someone’s age without verifying who they are.

Here’s the part the bill’s backers don’t mention. The same machinery that checks a teenager’s birthday creates a new pool of data the government can demand when it goes hunting for journalists’ sources.

This week, news broke that the DOJ had unsuccessfully subpoenaed reporters from the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal in a likely leak investigation. Age verification lets the government skip the reporter and ask the platform directly.

The first Trump administration spied on journalists to find out who they talked to. The second has tried to unmask online critics and raided a journalist’s home, seizing the devices she used to reach sources.

The data itself is a liability. Age verification providers have already been breached, leaking sensitive identity data, and some sell or grant access to that data to third parties. That’s a “honey pot” for anyone wanting to intimidate reporters or chill sources.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

The FCC chair is threatening broadcast licenses. Right-wing billionaires are buying up newspapers and quietly rewriting what counts as news. And corporate outlets are learning that the safest story is the one that never runs. That is the environment we publish in.

AlterNet America has no license to lose, no advertiser to appease, and no owner upstairs deciding which facts are convenient. We answer to readers, and only to readers. That independence is the entire product.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Democrats Likely to Impeach Trump if They Win the Midterms. Wilbur Ross, who served as commerce secretary during Trump’s first term, has “no doubt” Democrats will move to impeach the president if they take back the House in November, and that winning the Senate could lead to a conviction. Several top Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump himself, have echoed similar warnings. Polling currently gives Democrats a roughly 71 percent chance of winning the House and a narrower edge in the Senate. Ross said the outcome will depend on whether Trump can get inflation under control. We’re not holding our breath.

Michigan House Votes Unanimously to Free Kids’ Lemonade Stands From Permits. Michigan lawmakers want to make running a lemonade stand legal again. House Bill 6007, introduced by Rep. Cam Cavitt of Cheboygan, would amend state food law to let minors operate a temporary food business on private property, as long as they sell only nonalcoholic drinks that don’t need temperature control and bring in less than $5,000 a year. The House passed it unanimously on Thursday and sent it to the Senate. Cavitt said local children brought him the issue after their health department demanded repeated fees to run their stand.

Pritzker Signs Three Bills Strengthening LGBTQ+ Protections in Illinois. At a Chicago Pride Parade reception on Sunday, Gov. JB Pritzker signed three bills expanding protections for LGBTQ+ residents. HB4834 removes testosterone from the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program and blocks the addition of estrogen, mifepristone, and misoprostol to that database. HB5095 enshrines self-selection of gender markers on Illinois IDs and licenses, allowing “male,” “female,” or “X.” And HB5492 requires insurance companies to cover six months of prescribed hormone therapy.

FDA Approves Drug That Can Slow Type 1 Diabetes in Kids. The FDA approved a drug called Tzield for kids ages 8 to 17 who have recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It’s the first treatment designed to slow the disease’s progression by helping the body hold onto its ability to produce insulin longer. The drug was already approved to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes in people showing early signs, but this is the first time it’s been cleared for kids who already have the full disease. It was fast-tracked under the FDA’s accelerated approval process, and a follow-up study is underway to confirm long-term benefits.

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Good morning, AlterNet America family.

Welcome to the Saturday Wrapup, where I get you the week’s news as I consume my morning caffeine with you.

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Democratic Socialists won big in New York this week, and it should be a wake up call for the DNC. Let’s talk about it.

The Left Is Winning. Democrats Should Join Them.

If the Democratic establishment were a sports team, this week would’ve gotten the coach fired.

The progressive slate backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani swept three congressional primaries on Tuesday night. Brad Lander nearly doubled Dan Goldman in NY-10. Darializa Avila Chevalier knocked off five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in NY-13. Claire Valdez beat Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in NY-7.

All three ran on Medicare for All, housing as a human right, and refusing AIPAC money. All three won decisively.

The Democratic establishment threw everything it had at stopping this from happening. Hakeem Jeffries endorsed Espaillat. Governor Kathy Hochul backed Goldman. Nydia Velázquez and the Working Families Party lined up behind Reynoso. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, poured his own wealth into the race and collected hundreds of thousands in AIPAC-aligned donations.

None of it mattered.

Voters in three of the most diverse, working-class districts in the country looked at the establishment’s preferred candidates, and made their choice in overwhelming numbers. This should be a wake-up call.

Mamdani, speaking at Valdez’s victory party in Brooklyn, framed it plainly. The mayoral race last year wasn’t the end of a political movement. It was the beginning. “Let’s hear it for a politics that will never forget working people,” he said. “For a politics that realizes the old politics that got us to this crisis is not gonna get us out of this crisis.”

The numbers back him up. Lander raised a fraction of what Goldman raised and still demolished him, powered by over 11,000 small-dollar donors. Chevalier beat the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with a grassroots operation and a Justice Democrats endorsement. Valdez won an open seat against a borough president with backing from the Brooklyn political machine.

The usual response from the consultant class is already forming: these are deep-blue seats, the general election is a different animal. But the deepest blue districts should provide the clearest reflection of the Democratic Party’s base.

This response also conveniently ignores the affordability crisis, the housing emergency, and the universal support for universal health care. These issues are not unique to Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan.

Neither is the shift on Palestine. All three winning candidates ran as open critics of U.S. military aid to Israel and as vocal supporters of Palestinian rights. Lander called the war in Gaza a genocide. Chevalier participated in the Columbia protests and featured Mahmoud Khalil in a campaign ad. The incumbents who stood with Netanyahu’s government lost.

The NRCC was quick to call Democrats the party of socialists. Let them. Republicans spent $38 million through AIPAC’s super PAC this cycle, splitting with their own voters. They lost, too.

Democrats have a choice heading into November. They can embrace the energy that keeps delivering blowout primary wins, or they can keep siding with the Goldmans and Espaillats of the world and wonder why turnout is soft. Jeffries, Hochul, and every other party leader who lined up against these candidates owe progressives more than a polite congratulations.

They owe them a seat at the table.

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The Supreme Court and Trump Tag-Team Voting Rights

The right to vote had a rough week. The right to housing had a worse one. Somehow they’re the same story.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear an Arkansas case challenging an 8th Circuit ruling that strips private citizens and advocacy groups of the right to sue under Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. That’s the provision that lets voters with disabilities or who can’t read get help at the polls.

In seven Midwestern states, that right can now only be enforced by the attorney general. The attorney general works for Donald Trump. You can do the math.

The court didn’t write an opinion. It didn’t explain itself. It just let the ruling stand. This is the same court that gutted Section 2 in April, ending federal protections against racial gerrymandering. Republican officials in half a dozen states started redrawing maps before the ink was dry.

Then on Wednesday, Trump canceled the signing ceremony for a bipartisan housing bill that passed both chambers with veto-proof majorities. His reason: the Senate hasn’t passed the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote in federal elections.

Noncitizen voting is already illegal. It virtually never happens. The bill exists to make voting harder, and Trump is holding affordable housing hostage until he gets it.

He called the SAVE Act a “national emergency.” He called the housing bill “of minor importance.” If you’re wondering which one affects your life, it’s the one he doesn’t care about.

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For Once, We Agree with Ted Cruz

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

On June 11, Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden introduced the Justice Against Weaponized Bureaucratic Overreach to Networked Expression Act. It would let Americans sue federal agencies or employees who pressure private companies — social media platforms, broadcasters, AI providers — into suppressing protected speech.

It passed out of committee with bipartisan support. The ACLU endorsed it. So did the Knight First Amendment Institute. That should tell you how bad things have gotten.

Jawboning is the practice of government officials leaning on private companies to censor speech they don’t like. Not by passing a law, which would be subject to judicial review, but by making a phone call.

The Trump administration threatened ABC’s broadcast license after Jimmy Kimmel made jokes about Charlie Kirk. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told networks to pull Kimmel’s show or face regulatory consequences. Ted Cruz, one of the bill’s own sponsors, called Carr’s threat “dangerous as hell” and compared it to “a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”

The bill would also require agencies to publicly log their communications with tech companies and broadcasters, because right now, most of this happens in private. You might never know the government got your post deleted. Under current law, even if you find out, you probably can’t sue.

This is not a story about a bipartisan bill. It is a story about a government that has been quietly outsourcing censorship to the private sector for over a decade, and senators finally admitting it needs to stop.

AlterNet America exists because the outlets that should be covering government censorship are the same outlets that caved to it. We don’t take calls from the FCC. We don’t run stories past billionaire owners. We answer to readers, and readers don’t ask us to soften the story.

If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, this is a good week to reconsider that. Become a paid subscriber today.

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Nice speech you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it.

—Ryan Rose, Co-Founder & Managing Editor, AlterNet America

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

The family of a White House aide is concerned about her “very unhealthy” relationship with Donald Trump. A South Dakota Republican state senator turned himself in after being charged with two felonies related to voter fraud. Newly released emails show Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the CDC to pull flu shot ads already in circulation and to stop promoting the vaccine. And the FCC is considering killing a $2 billion program that connects schools and libraries to the internet, because students get too much screen time.

Before we dive in: AlterNet America runs on readers, not advertisers, not billionaires, and not a broadcast license that anyone in Washington can threaten to pull. We answer to the people who pay for it, and that’s it. If you want this kind of reporting to keep landing in your inbox, the most useful thing you can do is become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

White House Aide Has ‘Very Unhealthy’ Relationship with Trump

There is a man in Nicaragua who found out his sister worked for the president of the United States by reading a Daily Mail article about Trump’s “glamorous new assistant.”

That man is Preston Harp, 38, and he has now told The Daily Mail that his sister Natalie Harp’s relationship with the 80-year-old president is “very unhealthy.” He also called Trump a “national embarrassment” and described his sister as “just like his fan club.”

Natalie Harp, 34, is a former OAN host who joined Trump’s orbit in 2022 with no official role. She has since become his favorite personal assistant. She earned the nickname the “human printer” because she trails Trump with a portable printer, supplying paper copies of emails and articles so the president doesn’t have to read them on a screen.

Before joining the staff, according to the new Haberman and Swan book, she left gushing letters in Trump’s “personal spaces.” One reportedly read, “You are all that matters to me.” Susie Wiles, reading them, reportedly asked herself, “Where am I?”

The Secret Service reportedly once considered her a “potential danger.” Trump considered her something else.

“All of you will go off and make money,” he told staffers, according to the book. “She’ll never leave me.” That is not a job description. That is a hostage note.

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Republican Charged with Two Felonies for Voter Fraud

A South Dakota senator just caught two felonies for rigging an election nobody else was even trying to win.

Republican Tom Pischke, 44, has been charged with two felonies for falsifying party nomination forms. Prosecutors say he submitted 16 forged forms to put candidates on the ballot for county party leadership. The candidates had no idea they were being nominated.

The scheme fell apart fast. Minnehaha County auditor Leah Anderson noticed one nominee’s address didn’t match their voter registration. Then she noticed all 16 forms shared similar handwriting and signatures that matched nothing the candidates had actually signed.

Pischke initially denied forging the forms. Then footage showed his car dropping the papers at the post office, and his DNA showed up on the envelopes. He turned himself in.

Pischke represents a deep-red district near Sioux Falls and ran unopposed in his own primary.

The chair of the county Republican Party, Korry Petterson, believes Pischke was trying to push the party further right and interfere with his more centrist agenda. He wants prosecutors to seek a severe punishment.

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RFK Jr. Ordered the CDC to Pull Flu Vaccine Ads

RFK Jr. put his vaccine conspiracy in an email chain, which is how you know nobody at HHS has watched a single true crime documentary.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday released a cache of HHS emails that show Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pressuring the CDC over its vaccine messaging. Kennedy directed the agency’s vaccine advisory panel to restrict access to vaccines, let researchers access “confidential data” to support the disproven autism claim, and changed COVID-19 shot recommendations for the public without CDC input.

One email shows a CDC staffer told to “pull out of circulation all campaign ad buys related to flu or anything encouraging shots or vaccinations.” The request, she wrote, “came directly from the Secretary.” A separate email from HHS communications director Andrew Nixon confirmed it was “a direct ask from Secretary Kennedy.”

In August 2025, Kennedy’s then-chief of staff emailed CDC Director Susan Monarez about the need for a “political review of major decisions at CDC” so political leadership could sign off before anything took effect.

Less than a week later, Kennedy fired Monarez for failing to rubber-stamp recommendations from the vaccine panel.

Sanders called the firing “outrageous,” requested a bipartisan investigation, and called on Kennedy to resign. Kennedy has not resigned, because that would require listening to medical advice.

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FCC May Kill Program Giving Schools Internet Access

The Trump administration has decided to handle internet access for schoolchildren the way a worried parent handles a tablet at bedtime: by threatening to throw the whole thing out.

The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to advance a proposal that could scale back or eliminate E-Rate, the $2 billion-a-year Universal Service program that gives schools and libraries discounts on telecom services and equipment.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s stated reason is that students get too much screen time. He blamed schools for replacing books and pencils with digital tools and cited data that more than half of students use a computer up to four hours a day.

Carr used the word “reoriented.” The actual draft uses the word “sunset.” It asks for public comment on whether E-Rate should be limited or ended, and whether Congress ever intended it to operate indefinitely.

E-Rate began in 1997 to support basic internet access for educational purposes. Carr says it has “expanded exponentially.” Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s only Democrat, asked Carr’s office to strike the language about sunsetting the program entirely. Carr’s office declined.

Students in rural areas are out of luck. Students elsewhere will still find ways to access the internet — now they just won’t be using it to learn.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is no FCC license attached to AlterNet America, which means there is no license for anyone in Washington to threaten when they don’t like what we publish. There is no billionaire owner deciding which stories get softened before they reach you. There is no advertiser to lose.

That independence only works if readers fund it. When the people who pay for the reporting are the same people who read it, the math is clean and the pressure points disappear. That’s the whole model, and it’s the reason we can keep covering this the way we do.

If you want that to continue, become a paid subscriber today. It is the single most direct thing you can do to keep this newsletter answering to you and no one else.

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

California’s Billionaire Tax Is Officially on the November Ballot. Organizers announced late Thursday that a proposed one-time wealth tax on California billionaires has been certified for the November ballot, surviving an aggressive effort by Gov. Gavin Newsom and billionaire-funded groups to kill it before the June 25 deadline. The measure would tax billionaires’ wealth at 5%, raising an estimated $100 billion to shore up the state’s healthcare system, food aid, and education amid federal Medicaid cuts. Supporters submitted more than 1.6 million signatures, double what was needed. The wealth of California billionaires surged 144% from 2023 to 2025 — they can afford it.

Former Park Rangers Are Teaching the Black History Exhibit Trump Erased. At Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, an old stone building that was supposed to house a long-planned exhibit on hundreds of enslaved people now sits boarded up. It is one of dozens scrubbed from federal land after Trump’s executive order on “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” Elizabeth Kerwin, 58, the former ranger who spent years building it, has joined other ex-rangers organizing as the “Resistance Rangers,” launching a public education campaign on Juneteenth by handing out banned pamphlets to tourists. U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley has ordered the government to stop removals and reinstate 52 items at more than 30 sites before July 4.

Climate.gov’s Former Team Just Launched an Independent Site to Save Climate Science. Climate.us, a new nonprofit built by former members of the team behind NOAA’s popular Climate.gov, launched its full website this week to preserve public access to trusted climate science as federal resources grow vulnerable to disruption. One-third of its funding (roughly $250,000) came from more than 2,500 small donations, and over 80 scientists volunteered as expert reviewers. The site carries Climate.gov’s 15-year archive of news, expert blogs, classroom materials, and restored access to the Fifth National Climate Assessment. As Managing Director Rebecca Lindsey put it, trusted climate information should not disappear when politics change.

Dua Lipa Is Opening a Physical Library for Banned and Censored Books. The pop star, who launched her Service95 Book Club in 2023, has partnered with the Livraria Lello bookstore in Porto, Portugal, to open The Manifesto Library on June 27th, dedicated to books “that challenge power, censorship, exclusion, and dominant narratives.” The collection features one hundred titles that have been banned by school districts for themes of race or sexuality, restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, or, in some cases, cost their authors their lives. Housed in a new cultural auditorium designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Álvaro Siza, the space is conceived as a living venue for reading, debate, and reflection.

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Good morning. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Six people have been arrested over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, while zero have been arrested over the Epstein files. Donald Trump told his nephew to let his disabled son die and “move down to Florida,” according to a new book. The Trump administration is cutting HIV funding to South Africa over a white “genocide” that doesn’t exist. And the Supreme Court just blocked thousands of cancer lawsuits against the maker of Roundup, with the Trump administration arguing for the chemical company.

Before we get into it: Independent journalism survives on one thing, and it isn’t a billionaire who bought us because he “believed in the mission” and then discovered he didn’t like what we wrote. It’s readers who pay for what they read. If you’re one of them, thank you. If you’re not yet, this would be a good morning to fix that. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. We can’t do it without you.

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Now, let’s get into it.

More People Have Been Arrested Over a Pool Than Epstein

It turns out the surest path to federal handcuffs in 2026 is not touching minors. It is touching a puddle.

In recent days, six people have been detained for supposedly “vandalizing” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after the freshly renovated basin turned green with algae and its blue paint began to peel. Trump called the alleged perpetrators “sick and deranged” and floated “years in jail.”

As Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam noted to The Hill, more people have been arrested over the Reflecting Pool than over the Epstein files. The Justice Department released millions of Epstein documents, identified at least 10 additional alleged co-conspirators, and brought charges against exactly nobody.

On Epstein, Trump’s preferred tone is detachment. “I think it’s really time for the country to maybe get onto something else,” he said in February. On the pool, he claims someone slashed the bottom with a knife.

One of the people arrested was Olympian David Hearn, who said he leaned over to touch “a loose flap of coating.” He was in handcuffs before he understood what was happening.

In this town, the shallow end gets all the attention.

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Trump (Allegedly) Told Nephew to Let His Disabled Son Die

The Republican convention spent a week describing Trump as a “very caring and loving” grandfather and family man. His nephew brought receipts.

Fred Trump Jr., Donald’s older brother, died in 1981. His children were effectively disinherited. Fred Trump III continued to receive funds to care for his disabled son, William, until it was cut off in a dispute settled in 2001.

In his book All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, Fred wrote that he called his uncle after Robert Trump’s 2020 funeral to discuss the rising care costs for his disabled son, William.

Trump reportedly sighed and told him “maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”

Fred, who campaigns with his wife Lisa for the rights of disabled people, said he should not have been surprised. At an Oval Office meeting that same year with doctors and disability advocates, Trump appeared “interested and even concerned,” then said of disabled patients: “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

Pro-life from conception to the moment you become expensive.

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Trump Pulls HIV Funding Over an Imaginary White Genocide

When the administration couldn’t find a white genocide in South Africa, it decided to start a real one.

After two decades, the U.S. will end a life-saving HIV-prevention and treatment program in South Africa, where more than 8 million people (12% of the population) live with the virus. The State Department says the country will be removed from PEPFAR for failing “to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration.”

Those requests include repealing land-seizure laws, exempting American companies from Black empowerment laws, not aligning with U.S. adversaries, and stopping an anti-white “genocide” that the government, human rights organizations, and independent analysts all agree does not exist.

South Africa receives $400 million annually from PEPFAR, around 17 percent of its HIV response funding. Last year that money supported over 15,000 nurses, counselors, and pharmacists, plus testing, prevention, and treatment across the 27 districts with the highest infection rates.

Current funding is expected to run out in September. UNAids chief Winnie Byanyima asked the U.S. for a planned transition instead of a sudden cutoff. She said, “Please do not take money away because you are taking lives away.”

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The Supreme Court Sided With Cancerous Chemicals

Make America Healthy Again, unless Bayer’s legal team gets there first.

In a 7-2 ruling Thursday, the Court blocked thousands of failure-to-warn lawsuits against Bayer, maker of Roundup weed killer, after the Trump DOJ filed a brief in favor of the company and urged the Court to block the lawsuits.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that because federal regulators found a cancer link unlikely and require no warning label, states cannot impose one. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Neil Gorsuch, writing that Monsanto could have added a warning without violating federal law.

The case was brought by John Durnell, a Missouri man who developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after more than 20 years as his neighborhood association’s “spray guy” in St. Louis. A jury awarded him $1.25 million. He never collected it.

The World Health Organization classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic” in 2015. The EPA says it’s not likely to cause cancer when used as directed. Roughly 200,000 Roundup-related claims have been filed against Bayer.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has repeatedly said glyphosate causes cancer. The MAHA base is furious, but don’t worry — they’ll still vote for the guy whose lawyers did this.

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The Part the Billionaires Hate

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Judge Orders DOJ to Produce, Unredact Sought After Epstein Files. A federal judge just ordered the DOJ to unredact Epstein files it had blacked out, including emails about a “torture video,” a draft indictment with co-conspirators’ names hidden, and FBI interview notes from a woman who says Trump assaulted her as a minor. Journalist Katie Phang sued, and the government’s defense was essentially “she should have filed a FOIA request,” which the judge noted the DOJ had already denied. The administration that promised to blow the Epstein case wide open is now in court arguing it shouldn’t have to show its work, and a judge just told them they have until July 2 to comply or explain themselves.

Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Passes for 1 Million Units. New York’s democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani just delivered on his signature campaign promise six months in: the city’s Rent Guidelines Board voted 7–1 to freeze rents on nearly a million stabilized apartments for two years, covering about 40 percent of NYC’s rental stock and roughly 2 million tenants. The lone landlord representative on the board who opposed it had already resigned hours before the vote, calling the outcome predetermined. Tenants celebrated in East Harlem with pizza and “We Are the Champions” while landlord groups warned the city is collapsing, which is also what they said last time rents were frozen, and the time before that.

DeWine Vetoes Bill Requiring Photo ID for Mail Voting in Ohio. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced late Wednesday that he had vetoed House Bill 472, a Republican-passed measure that would have extended the state’s strict photo ID requirement to mail-in voting. Republicans had bolted the requirement onto an unrelated bill and passed it in a late-night vote two days later, drawing objections from bipartisan elections officials and the Ohio AARP. DeWine, who in 2023 called election security a “settled issue,” wrote that the remote photo ID process was unworkable and offered no real benefit. Republicans hold 65 House seats — five more than the 60 needed to override him — so this veto may not be the last word, but it stands for now.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Miranda Kerr Help Erase $550 Million in Medical Debt for Californians. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and his wife, model Miranda Kerr, made a multimillion-dollar donation to the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, wiping out $550 million in medical debt for more than 261,000 Californians. The organization buys medical debt in bulk for a fraction of its value: every $10 donated relieves roughly $1,000 in debt. San Diego County residents benefited most, with about $99 million erased for 40,369 people, while Los Angeles County saw $26.7 million erased for 17,466 people. Those who qualify, generally people at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, will start receiving letters in mid-July.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Conservative hard-liners in the House have shut down most floor action until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that migrants have no right to apply for asylum until they physically set foot in the country. Two ICE agents tracked down a Syracuse poll worker on Election Day and tried to make her delete an Instagram post. And Texas is set to make Bible stories required reading for 5.5 million public school students.

Before we dive in: AlterNet has no advertisers, no billionaire owner, and no broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten to pull. We answer to readers and nobody else, which is exactly why we can report stories like this one. If you want this work to continue, please become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Conservatives Shut Down House Until Senate Passes Voting Restrictions

Congress has found a way to do even less than usual.

A bloc of House conservatives has effectively frozen most floor action until Congress moves on the SAVE America Act, which requires proof of citizenship to register and a photo ID to vote. The bill cleared the House but stalled in the Senate over Democratic opposition.

Speaker Mike Johnson needs near-unanimous GOP support to advance any procedural rule, and several hard-liners say they will tank every rule until the Senate acts. Leaders scrapped a rule vote Wednesday and punted two appropriations bills, throwing surveillance reauthorization and a third reconciliation package off course.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote that she will “not be voting to re-open the floor until the Senate gets back to Washington.” The Senate left for a two-week recess on Wednesday.

Trump joined in by canceling a signing ceremony for a popular bipartisan housing package, vowing not to sign it until the Senate passes SAVE America. Johnson floated a reconciliation grant program, which Rep. Lauren Boebert dismissed because blue states would simply opt out.

So the House has stopped legislating to pressure a Senate that is on vacation. Hard to twist arms that are currently holding margaritas.

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SCOTUS Rules Migrants Can’t Apply for Asylum Outside U.S.

To apply for asylum, simply be inside the country you are being blocked from entering.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority ruled that migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border have no right to apply for asylum until they physically set foot in the country. The case turned on immigration law saying any noncitizen who “arrives in” the U.S. must be allowed to apply.

The ruling clears the way for the Trump administration to revive “metering,” a policy that lets agents turn back asylum seekers before they enter. It expanded dramatically during Trump’s first term, leaving people in makeshift camps on the Mexican side and pushing some to cross illegally through the Rio Grande or the Sonoran Desert.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench, a signal of how strongly she objected. “The consequences of today’s decision are predictable. More people will die,” she wrote.

Alito then said he hadn’t known she planned to read from the bench, and would have read more of his own opinion had he known. His main takeaway from “more people will die” was that he should’ve talked longer.

Federal law still says people may seek asylum if they fear persecution over politics, race, or religion. They just have to do it telepathically, apparently.

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The Supreme Court just made a fundamental right unreachable, and most of the media covered it like a footnote. AlterNet America exists to tell you what actually happened, but only because paid subscribers make it possible. If you’ve been reading for free, today is a good day to change that.

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ICE Showed Up at a Polling Place to Police a Woman’s Instagram

ICE has entered the comments section, literally.

Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker in Syracuse, New York, said she got a phone call Tuesday from two ICE agents asking to meet. Not wanting to be alone with them, she invited them into her workplace.

The agents arrived with printed copies of her social media posts and her driver’s license. They handed her a notice saying they were investigating her for allegedly threatening ICE personnel, and instructed her to “remove and/or discontinue” the behavior.

Gonyea believes the trigger was a January post sharing a news article that named Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good. “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted,” she had written. She insists that is not doxing: she never posted his address or phone number.

This is not an isolated incident. In Texas this week, a man received a 30-year prison sentence for transporting left-wing zines — small, handmade artbooks — tied to a protest at an ICE detention facility.

Election law bars anyone but poll workers, inspectors, and voters from entering a polling place absent an emergency. The emergency here was that someone was mean online.

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Texas Is About to Make the Bible Required Reading

Texas is solving education by adding church.

The Republican-controlled State Board of Education is voting Friday on a plan to make Bible stories required reading for public school students. The list runs from “David and Goliath” picture books in elementary school to the Book of Job in high school.

By fourth grade, students would read passages about Jesus. By middle school, several more, including parts of his most famous sermon. The readings lean heavily on the King James Bible and newer evangelical translations.

Last year Texas became the largest state to require every classroom to display the Ten Commandments. It has also allowed schools to hire chaplains and approved a Bible-infused elementary curriculum.

The list includes no texts from any other religious tradition, in classrooms full of Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, and agnostic children. Texas is home to 5.5 million public school students, about 11 percent of the total U.S. public school population.

The required reading would take effect in 2030. If nothing else, making the Bible required reading is a surefire way to make sure kids don’t read it.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is no FCC license on this operation for anyone to threaten. There is no parent company that can be bought, pressured, or quietly persuaded to soften a headline. There is no billionaire upstairs deciding which agencies are off-limits this week. There is just us, and there is you.

That is not an accident. It is the entire business model. When the people in power start treating a social media post as a federal threat, the only press worth a damn is the press they cannot reach. Reader funding is what keeps us out of reach.

If you believe stories like this should keep getting told without anyone’s permission, become a paid subscriber today.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Progressive Democrats Are Winning in Just About Every Corner of America. This election cycle, economic-populist candidates backed by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ro Khanna, the DSA, and the Working Families Party are winning across the country. Abdul El-Sayed is climbing in Michigan’s Senate race, Graham Platner forced Schumer’s pick Janet Mills out in Maine, and Brad Lander won the NY-10 primary after divesting New York City’s pension funds from Israel as comptroller. The DSA now counts over 100,000 members, double what it had in October 2024. It turns out running on taxing billionaires and Medicare for All is not the electoral suicide everyone kept insisting it was.

A Judge Won’t Let Trump’s DOJ Walk Away From Its $1.8 Billion “Slush Fund.” Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled Thursday that a lawsuit challenging the DOJ’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund will proceed, because the department refused to put in writing that the fund is actually dead. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a House committee on June 2 that the fund was “not going forward, period,” but declined to rescind his May 18 memo creating it. The fund, whose total was pegged at $1.776 billion, was designed to compensate purported victims of “lawfare,” including potentially hundreds of people convicted over the Jan. 6 attack. Brinkema gave the DOJ until July 17 to answer.

Senate Democrats Just Proposed a $25 Minimum Wage. Senate Democrats introduced a bill Thursday to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour over five years, a sharp contrast with a federal floor that has sat at $7.25 for 17 years. Sponsors Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal framed it around cost of living, with large employers required to hit $25 by 2031 and smaller ones by 2038. The bill would also eliminate the tipped minimum wage and peg future raises to two-thirds of national median pay. The Economic Policy Institute estimates 66 million workers currently earn less than $25 an hour. The bill has no chance while Republicans control a chamber, which is the point of proposing it before a midterm.

Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” Has Officially Closed. Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that the makeshift Everglades immigration detention center has “served its purpose” and is closed. Built in a matter of days during hurricane season in July 2025, the facility held detainees in tents and chain-link cages where they described worms in the food, toilets that didn’t flush, floors flooded with fecal waste, and air conditioning that cut out in the heat. DeSantis claimed 21,000 people were deported through the site, while advocates said the only winners were the contractors who profited millions. Environmental groups who sued over missing permits say the state cannot simply walk away from the damage.

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A Florida congresswoman who helped pass a six-week abortion ban nearly couldn’t get treatment for her own ectopic pregnancy under it. A MAGA congresswoman filed a national defense amendment description that still contained the words “Claude responded.” Public records show the FBI used Israeli Cellebrite software to secretly extract data from the phones of Spokane ICE protesters, 12 of whom were never charged with anything. And the Postmaster General told senators the USPS would stop delivering mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand over their voter rolls.

Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

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MAGA Rep. Denied Abortion After She Helped Ban It

Rules for thee, hemorrhage for me.

Florida Republican Representative Kat Cammack helped pass her state’s six-week abortion ban. In May 2025, shortly after it took effect, she woke up bleeding heavily at five weeks pregnant with a nonviable, life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

She went to the ER and requested methotrexate, the standard medication for ectopic pregnancies. Hospital staff hesitated. They feared violating the very restrictions Cammack championed and facing professional or criminal consequences.

Cammack pulled up the state law on her phone for the medical staff to read and tried, unsuccessfully, to reach Governor Ron DeSantis’s office. She got the medication several hours later.

The law does technically permit treatment for ectopic pregnancies. The problem is that “technically permitted” does not feel reassuring to a nurse weighing prison time.

Cammack said she asked her husband about 30 times, “What about the women who don’t have a doctor? What about the women who don’t have a car to get to the ER?” Still, she didn’t use the moment to reflect — she blamed abortion-rights advocates. She called their protests against the ban “fearmongering at its worst” and said what she went through “wasn’t an abortion.”

Most people who survive something like that have a change of heart. She didn’t even have a change of talking point.

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GOP Congresswoman Used AI to Write National Security Bill

High schoolers get failed for this. She gets a committee seat.

A description of Representative Anna Paulina Luna’s National Defense Authorization Act amendment appeared on the House Rules Committee website on Wednesday with a tell-tale line wedged into the middle of the text: “11:25 AM????Claude responded.” The language has since been quietly revised.

Luna said her staff used AI only to “spell/grammar check the amendment SUMMARY, not the actual amendment text itself.” Then she asked, “What dork planted this story?”

She added that she loves Claude, but that Elon Musk’s Grok is “way more savage.” Grok’s savagery has included generating nude images of underage girls and espousing Nazi beliefs, which is a curious endorsement for a sitting member of Congress.

In a separate post, she clarified that “NO legislation is ever drafted with AI,” noting House bill text comes from the House Legislative Council, which is prohibited from using it.

Federal judges were accused of using AI to write court orders last October, producing serious factual errors. An Arizona Republican used AI to draft deepfake legislation that got signed into law. At this rate, AI will be writing the bill that bans AI from writing bills.

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The FBI Quietly Copied ICE Protesters’ Phones

A teacher spent ten minutes at a protest. The FBI spent two months with her phone.

On June 11, 2025, Shailynn Bray-Waters joined hundreds outside an ICE field office in Spokane, Washington, after learning two of her former ESL students had been detained at a routine check-in. She did not sit in front of the transport van. Spokane police arrested her anyway on a misdemeanor “failure to disperse,” confiscated her phone, and handed it to the FBI.

A Mother Jones investigation confirms the FBI used software from the Israeli firm Cellebrite to secretly extract data from at least a dozen protesters’ phones. She was one of 23 people arrested that night. She didn’t see her device again until mid-August.

The evidence jacket includes instructions for officers fielding calls about the missing phones: “Do not send them to the FBI or inform them the phone is with the FBI.”

Another owner, Thalia Ramirez, was later indicted in the “Spokane 9” conspiracy case. The other twelve had their charges promptly dismissed and got their digital lives copied for nothing.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that searching a cellphone requires a warrant, even after a lawful arrest. The FBI declined to say whether it obtained warrants here, which should tell you everything.

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USPS Head Refuses to Deliver Mail-In Ballots

The Postal Service has finally found a package it refuses to deliver: your ballot.

Postmaster General David Steiner testified Wednesday in the first public defense of the agency’s plan to carry out Trump’s anti-mail-voting executive order. It was not reassuring.

Under a proposed rule the Postal Service would not deliver mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand their voter rolls over to the federal government. States would have to send USPS a list of voters requesting mail ballots at least 30 days before ballots go out. Voters not on the list don’t get one.

There was also the small matter of approval. Sen. Gary Peters indicated the Postal Service’s Board of Governors never signed off on the proposal. A committee aide confirmed the board did not formally approve it.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon noted the timing. The country is 132 days from a general election, and Minnesota law sets no deadline for requesting a mail ballot, which makes the 30-day rule impossible to follow.

Senate Democrats called it an unconstitutional attempt to build a centralized national voter database with individual barcodes under the President’s control.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is a reason these stories reach you here and not in the places with the biggest budgets. The FCC chair has made it clear that broadcast licenses are leverage. Billionaires keep buying up the outlets that might otherwise ask uncomfortable questions about phone extractions, abortion bans, or chatbots writing defense policy.

We don’t have a license to lose. We don’t have an owner with a wish list. We have readers, and that is the entire business model. If you want this work to continue, the math is simple. Hit the button below and become a paid subscriber today.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Court Rules Against Trump Administration in Michigan Voter Data Fight. The Trump administration demanded Michigan hand over every voter’s birth date, Social Security number, and driver’s license number, citing a 1960 civil rights law that was written to protect Black voters from discrimination. A federal appeals court said no, making it ten losses out of ten attempts across the country. The court noted the administration was trying to use a civil rights law for the opposite of its intended purpose, which is a bit like citing the Geneva Convention to justify a war crime. The DOJ has sued 30 states and lost every single case that’s been decided.

Mike Lindell’s Lawsuit With Dominion Is Finally Dead, With Prejudice. The yearslong legal saga between MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and the company formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems has ended. In a four-page motion filed Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., Lindell and the company agreed to dismiss all claims “with prejudice,” meaning they can never be refiled. The original case began in February 2021 when the voting company sued Lindell for $1.3 billion over his repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged; the complaint argued he kept selling the lie because “the lie sells pillows.”

Republican Behind the Nation’s First School Pride Flag Ban Loses Primary. Utah state Rep. Trevor Lee, who made the state the first in the nation to ban Pride flags from schools and government buildings, just lost his primary by over 30 points. Lee also once threatened to pull public funding from the Utah NHL team for posting a rainbow logo, and was caught running a secret social media account attacking women and LGBTQ+ people. His opponent Bob Stevenson does not mention culture war issues on his campaign site. He talks about housing and property taxes, like someone who has met a constituent.

Louisiana Man Becomes First in His Region Functionally Cured of Sickle Cell. Daniel Cressy, a 23-year-old from Metairie, Louisiana, became the first person on the U.S. Gulf coast to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, completing curative gene therapy at Manning Family Children’s Hospital in New Orleans on Monday. Cressy had dreamed of flying commercial jets, but the FAA would not license him because of his diagnosis. He is now planning a book, a nonprofit for aspiring pilots facing medical barriers, and what he calls “life two.” Cressy’s treatment signals hope for communities in Louisiana, which has more sickle cell cases per capita than any other state.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

Trump canceled the signing of a bipartisan housing bill until Congress passes his restrictive voter ID law. The administration is handing white South African refugees welcome bags stuffed with a children’s book about anti-white racism. Wounded soldiers say the Army classified a man riddled with shrapnel, a concussion, and lung damage as “not seriously injured.” And Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has put more than half a million dollars on a credit card without disclosing what any of it bought.

Before we dive in: AlterNet America runs on readers. Not advertisers, not billionaires, and not a broadcast license anyone in Washington can threaten. We answer to the people who fund us, and that’s the only arrangement that lets us write any of this. If you want this work to keep landing in your inbox, please become a paid subscriber today.

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Trump Won’t Sign Housing Bill Without Voter ID Law

Trump just vetoed his own photo op.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history.” She praised it for cutting red tape and stopping institutional investors from buying up single-family homes. Tomorrow’s signing, she said, was “another promise made, promise kept.”

By Wednesday, Trump had canceled the signing on Truth Social, declaring he won’t put his signature on it until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, the proof-of-citizenship voting bill he’s been demanding for months.

The housing package passed both chambers this week with overwhelming bipartisan support. The problem for Trump’s leverage play: a bill becomes law 10 days after presentation even if the president never signs it. And it passed by well over the two-thirds margin needed to override a veto.

The SAVE Act, meanwhile, is going nowhere. The House passed it in February, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said Republicans don’t have the votes.

So Trump is holding the housing bill hostage, but the hostage is about to free itself.

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White South African Refugees Get PragerU Welcome Bags

There’s a new program for people escaping anti-white racism, and it comes with a tote bag and a PragerU pamphlet.

The Trump administration plans to hand newly arriving Afrikaner refugees a welcome gift in the coming weeks. Inside the bag: copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, plus a packet of literature offering a sanitized, Trump-approved version of history.

The packet includes a PragerU story called “Lwazi’s Hard Lesson,” in which a Black South African protects a white rugby teammate from a Black mob. The text describes Nelson Mandela as a man who “sought to end apartheid with acts of sabotage.”

It warns of “reverse discrimination” and a white “brain drain.” It also cites Elon Musk’s claim that a genocide of white people is underway.

As for American history, the bag contains Trump’s 1776 Commission report, which downplays the role of slavery in the nation’s founding and likens progressivism to fascism. A tucked-in letter from HHS official Alex J. Adams welcomes the Afrikaners and explains that America must “only welcome in those who will assimilate.”

White South Africans still have higher employment, lower poverty, and better wages than their Black counterparts. None of that made it into the bag. Trump’s refugee ban remains in place for everyone fleeing war and persecution everywhere else on earth.

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Wounded Soldiers Accuse Army of Downplaying War Injuries

The Pentagon has a definition of “seriously injured” so narrow that you essentially have to be 72 hours from death to qualify, which is one way to keep your casualty numbers down.

In March, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that “almost 90%” of the 400 service members injured in the conflict with Iran had only minor wounds and had returned to duty. Now some of those wounded soldiers say that was nonsense.

Chief Warrant Officer Rodney Bearman, 57, was at his work station in Kuwait when an Iranian drone slammed into it on March 1. Medical records reviewed show shrapnel throughout his body, a concussion, hearing and vision loss, and lung damage. The Army classified him as “not seriously injured.”

Sergeant First Class Cory Hicks, 37, took severe shrapnel and underwent multiple emergency surgeries at a Kuwaiti hospital. His wife was told the injury was “minor.” He’s now at Walter Reed with a traumatic brain injury and expects to stay at least six more months.

When the Army called Amy Bearman, it told her her husband was treated and released to duty. Two days later he called her from a hospital bed and said, “I can’t go back.”

The Army insists nothing was downplayed and that families are misconstruing “specific definitions.” The definition is very specific. It specifically excludes everyone.

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Ohio Gov. Candidate Put $500k on Campaign Credit Card

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign has spent half a million dollars on a credit card and reported it the way you’d explain a Vegas trip to your spouse — one number, no details.

On the campaign trail for Ohio governor, Ramaswamy has racked up $509,473 in credit card charges without disclosing a single underlying transaction. Since April alone, he put $280,892 on an American Express card and reported only the monthly lump sum.

Ohio law requires campaigns to itemize each transaction and to verify any expense of $25 or more with a receipt or canceled check. The campaign has reported none of it. Records requests filed in April have gone unanswered for eight weeks.

Ramaswamy knows how this is supposed to work. During his 2024 presidential run, his reports itemized everything, down to $1,250 for a junior fife and drum corps in New Hampshire.

The body that once investigated this sort of thing, the independent Ohio Elections Commission, was disbanded last year. Republican lawmakers replaced it with a commission housed inside the office of Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

LaRose, a Republican now running for state auditor, has endorsed Ramaswamy. His office has not responded to questions about whether any investigation exists.

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No Billionaire Owns This Newsletter

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, this is the moment. Your subscription isn’t a donation. It’s the thing that makes tomorrow’s newsletter possible. Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription today.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Federal Judge Permanently Blocks Trump’s Proof-of-Citizenship Voting Order. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper permanently barred the administration on Wednesday from implementing most of Trump’s 2025 executive order, which had required documentary proof of citizenship to register and demanded all mail ballots arrive by Election Day. States that refused would have lost federal funding. Casper noted that only states and Congress can regulate elections, writing that the Constitution “does not grant the President any specific powers over elections.” For context on the fraud he claims to be fighting: a Georgia audit found just 20 non-citizens out of 8.2 million residents on the rolls, 0.00024 percent of the voting population.

Vendors Are Told to Start Dismantling “Alligator Alcatraz.” Crews began tearing down the state-run Everglades immigration detention center on Monday, less than a year after Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis showcased it with near-daily fanfare and an “Alligator Alcatraz” sign. State officials told vendors they could begin “demobilizing” the tents, fences, and trailers, days after DHS said all detainees had been transferred out. The facility cost Florida more than $1 million per day to run, including trucking in water and disposing of wastewater, and the federal government has paid only a fraction of the $600 million it promised. Former Republican state senator Jeff Brandes called it “an expensive failure.”

Pritzker Signs Illinois Law Shielding Abortion Patients’ Medical Records. On the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Records Privacy Act, blocking outside authorities from accessing patients’ digital records to build criminal cases. The law bars sharing such data across state lines without patient consent, and requires abortion information be segregated and walled off from out-of-state entities. Violations give patients the right to sue, and health information exchanges must comply by July 2027. Illinois is the closest abortion-protected state to the banned South, and Planned Parenthood of Illinois has seen a 48% jump in patients since Dobbs.

Judge Blocks Trump From Seizing Minors’ Gender-Care Medical Records. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from obtaining sensitive medical records of minors who received gender identity care at New York City hospitals. U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday barring investigators from getting the records, including through a grand jury subpoena served on NYU Langone demanding six years of files identifying every patient. Failla said she “cannot conceive of a crime” requiring disclosures that broad, and accused the DOJ of recasting “discredited civil administrative subpoenas as grand jury subpoenas from a hand-picked, far-away jurisdiction” in Texas to dodge judicial review.

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Trump’s own $10 billion lawsuit against the BBC could expose him as January 6 records come to light. A White House aide who leaves Trump notes reading “You are all that matters to me” has earned the nickname “the human printer.” More than 130 election deniers have already secured spots on the November ballot in 35 states. And more than five million Americans have lost health coverage since Trump signed the largest healthcare cuts in U.S. history.

Corporate media is running cover. The FCC chair is making sure they know what happens if they don’t. And independent outlets are being bought out one by one. This is the news they don’t want you reading. AlterNet America is the people-powered response to the MAGA billionaire takeover of American media. We are reader-funded, editorially independent, and not for sale. We exist because of you. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please upgrade today.

Subscribe now

Now, let’s go.

Trump Lawsuit Against the BBC Could Expose Him Instead

If you’re going to sue someone for $10 billion over how they edited your speech, you should probably be comfortable with people reading the whole thing.

Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC over its Panorama documentary, which spliced together excerpts from his Jan. 6 speech out of sequence. The BBC admitted the edit “gave the mistaken impression” he had made a direct call for violent action.

Then the BBC’s lawyers did the math. They issued 47 subpoenas of third parties seeking every document concerning the attack on the Capitol following the “Stop the Steal” rally — the same records former special counsel Jack Smith used against Trump in his dismissed conspiracy prosecution.

Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito is now slamming the BBC’s discovery as “excessive and impermissibly broad,” arguing the defense is trying to “conduct a trial as to the events that occurred on January 6th.”

The same morning, in a separate Florida case over the Pulitzer board, a judge reminded Trump he filed the lawsuit and insisted on it proceeding while in office. “He has to follow the rules like the rest of us,” Senior Judge Robert Pegg said. “There’s no exemption just because he’s a president.”

A hearing on the BBC discovery was pushed to July 21. Trump’s team asked for the delay, a bold move for the party that started this.

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White House Aide Left Trump Adoring Notes in ‘Private Spaces’

The president has a favorite employee, and it’s weirder than you think.

Her name is Natalie Harp, a 34-year-old former TV presenter and Trump’s executive assistant, profiled in a new book by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. They report she is so omnipresent at his side, typing his Truth Social posts and printing out online articles, that staff call her “the human printer.”

Harp also leaves admiring notes for Trump in “personal spaces.” One read: “You are all that matters to me.” After the 2020 election, she followed him to Florida and supplied him with positive news stories on the golf course.

Trump, for his part, told staffers Harp “was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids.”

The White House defended her. Spokesperson Kush Desai called Harp “a beloved White House Official” and said the “Fake News Media will never understand what it’s like to be as trusted and admired as her.”

Trump said it plainly to his subordinates: “All of you will go off and make money. She’ll never leave me.” And before you ask — yes, the White House has an HR office. No, it has not commented.

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132 Election Deniers Are Running This November

The people who tried to overturn the last election are now running in the next one.

A tally by the pro-democracy group States United Action found 132 election deniers across 35 states running for statewide or federal office this year. Democracy Docket flagged 19 to watch especially closely. The list reads like a reunion of the people who tried to overturn 2020.

Here’s the scariest part: many are running for governor or secretary of state, roles that wield enormous power over how a vote is counted, certified, and contested.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now running for U.S. Senate, led the lawsuit drafted by Trump’s legal team that sought to throw out other states’ results. Jim Marchant, running again for Nevada secretary of state, took part in Trump’s fake elector scheme. RNC chair Michael Whatley, running for Senate in North Carolina, falsely claimed “massive fraud” took place in 2020 and later insisted Trump played no role in January 6.

Arizona’s Andy Biggs voted against certifying the election and asked Trump for a preemptive pardon. Pennsylvania’s Stacy Garrity stood next to Trump and said, “We know that he won.” Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn just introduced a bill to hand voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.

Whoever wins these races will oversee the next election. Some of these candidates have already told you what they do when they lose one.

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5 Million People Lost Health Coverage Because of the GOP

The good news is that the richest 1% of Americans are getting an extra trillion dollars. The bad news is what happens to everyone else.

Around five million Americans have already lost insurance coverage less than a year after Trump signed the largest healthcare cuts in U.S. history into law. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act slashed nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and CHIP while handing roughly $1 trillion in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.

Medicaid and CHIP enrollment fell to 76.9 million, down from 80.8 million — a decline of more than 3.8 million people. Another 1.2 million lost ACA coverage after Republicans declined to renew the premium tax credits, doubling the average premium.

And the cuts haven’t fully taken effect. Next year, Medicaid recipients will have to prove 80 hours of monthly work activity, which could push 5.3 million more people off coverage by 2034. Another paperwork requirement is projected to add 700,000.

In total, roughly 15 million Americans will lose insurance over the next decade.

Meanwhile, a separate poll found 67% of voters disapprove of the administration’s handling of healthcare costs, and just 26% trust Republicans to fix them. Give it a year.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

There is a reason the stories above are hard to find on a cable network. The FCC chair has made clear what happens to broadcasters who irritate the administration, the major networks have licenses they would prefer to keep, and the independent outlets that might fill the gap are being bought up one at a time.

AlterNet America has none of those vulnerabilities, because it has none of those owners. There is no billionaire, no advertiser, no license. There is only you: the readers who fund this work.

If you want this kind of reporting to survive the buyouts and the threats, the math is simple. Hit the button below and become a paid subscriber today.

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Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you tonight.

POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The Senate Joins the House in Voting to Halt Trump’s Iran War. For the first time since the War Powers Act was written in 1973, both chambers of Congress have voted to tell a president to stop a war. The Senate passed the Iran war powers resolution 50-48, with four Republicans — Rand Paul, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Bill Cassidy — crossing party lines to join Democrats. This was the Senate’s tenth vote on Iran war powers this year. The House passed it earlier this month with four Republican defectors of its own. It’s a concurrent resolution, so it doesn’t go to the president’s desk and its legal force is debatable, but as a political signal, it’s hard to miss.

Brad Lander Defeats Rep. Dan Goldman in the NY Democratic Primary. Former city comptroller Brad Lander defeated two-term incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman on Tuesday for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 10th Congressional District, which covers Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. It is a significant win for New York progressives, powered by endorsements from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Mamdani bucked party leadership to back Lander, whereas Goldman had Gov. Kathy Hochul and Hakeem Jeffries behind him. The race centered on U.S. policy toward Israel, with Lander pledging to be among the Jewish members of Congress “most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights.”

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Policy of Arrests at Immigration Courts Nationwide. A federal judge in California on Tuesday issued a nationwide block against the Trump administration’s policy of making arrests at immigration courts, ending a practice that had seen ICE detain migrants in courthouse hallways, sometimes moments after they pleaded their cases. In a 71-page ruling, Judge P. Casey Pitts found the policy “arbitrary and capricious,” acknowledging its “chilling effect” on noncitizens’ willingness to attend their own court proceedings. For once, showing up to court will not be the thing that gets you arrested.

Justice Department Withdraws Subpoenas That Sought Reporters’ Grand Jury Testimony. The Justice Department issued and then withdrew subpoenas that sought to compel reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury, according to people familiar with the matter. One subpoena targeted Post national security reporter Ellen Nakashima, who has covered the Iran war and U.S. military boat strikes in the Caribbean. The Post called the subpoena “a clear violation of constitutionally guaranteed press freedom.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche insisted “reporters are not our targets.” They were, however, one subpoena away from being witnesses against themselves.

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Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

A 79-year-old mystery man got early access to Eli Lilly’s experimental obesity drug, and the White House would not deny it was Trump. Five anti-ICE protesters in Texas were sentenced to 50 years in prison on terrorism charges. The Supreme Court will soon decide whether Americans under 18 still have First Amendment rights. And Trump’s $14 million Reflecting Pool has killed three ducks and counting.

Before we dive in: AlterNet has no advertisers, no billionaire owner, and no broadcast license that anyone in Washington can threaten to pull. We answer to readers and nobody else. That independence is the whole point, and it only survives because people like you pay for it. Help us keep going and become a paid subscriber today.

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Now, let’s dive in.

Mystery 79-Year-Old Patient Gets Early Access to Obesity Drug

Eli Lilly’s new diet drug isn’t out yet, but a very important 79-year-old already got some. Three guesses who.

Millions of Americans are waiting for retatrutide, Eli Lilly’s powerful new obesity drug. Only one unidentified person has already gotten it early, through the FDA’s compassionate use program, which exists for patients with grave or life-threatening conditions.

A senior NIH clinician requested the drug in April for the unnamed patient, citing refractory obesity with obstructive sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension. The request drew attention from top health officials, which is generally a sign the patient is well connected.

When asked the obvious question — Was the 79-year-old man Donald Trump, who is obese and has publicly mused about obesity drugs? — the White House did not say no.

Spokesperson Kush Desai instead redirected the question to HHS. Asked whether Trump had sleep apnea and pulmonary hypertension, Desai pointed to Trump’s latest medical evaluation and claimed it “covers this.” It does not.

The patient in question was previously treated with tirzepatide and lost only moderate weight. He was 79 at the time of the request, and turned 80 earlier this month. Who else do we know who just turned 80?

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Anti-ICE Protesters Got 50 Years for Fireworks

If you’re in a book club in Texas, maybe skip the next meeting.

Anti-ICE protesters in Texas were sentenced Tuesday to at least 50 years in prison on terrorism charges, in a case widely seen as a test of whether the administration could criminalize dissent over immigration.

Last July 4, activists set off fireworks at a detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Some vandalized cars, slashed tires, and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived and drew his weapon, one person shot him in the shoulder from the woods.

Five protesters got 50 years for providing material support to terrorists. One got 70. The person who fired the shot got 100 years for attempted murder.

Trump and his administration have called the activists an “antifa cell,” even though antifa is not a single group or organization. Most of the protesters barely knew each other, and were connected through a local left-wing book club.

This was the first time federal prosecutors have tried to convict protesters against the Trump administration on domestic terrorism charges. The administration is openly trying to criminalize protest, so it almost certainly will not be the last.

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The Supreme Court Is Deciding If Kids Still Have Free Speech

Turns out the Bill of Rights has a kids’ menu.

Last year, Texas enacted the App Store Accountability Act, which forbids anyone under 18 from downloading any app to a mobile device without a parent or guardian’s permission. It also forces Apple’s App Store and Google Play to verify the age of every user.

This is the same law the Supreme Court already struck down, on steroids. In 2011, the Court rejected a California law barring minors from buying violent video games even with an adult’s permission. Texas’s version blocks young people from downloading any commercially available software at all.

The challenges landed at the 5th Circuit, a far-right court that allowed the law to take effect in an opinion that does not even mention the previous ruling. The cases are now before the Supreme Court on its shadow docket.

The Court’s pro-speech coalition has held when states target adults. In 2024, a 6-3 majority ruled against Texas and Florida laws seizing control of social media content moderation. But the justices could be less protective of people under 18. In 2025, the Court upheld a Texas law requiring porn sites to verify users’ ages.

Think of it this way: in Texas, a 17-year-old can buy a gun at a private sale but cannot download a calculator app.

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Three Dead Ducks Found in Trump’s Reflecting Pool

Another day, another dead duck at the Lincoln Memorial.

Two more dead ducks have been pulled from the water near Trump’s newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. They were found floating in a pond at Constitution Gardens, a short distance from the pool itself. One duckling had already been found earlier, bringing the weekend total to three. The cause of death is unknown.

The renovation, ordered by Trump ahead of America’s 250th birthday, cost roughly $14 million. Despite that, an algae outbreak has turned the water green against the “American Flag blue” paint Trump personally selected. Visitors have reported a bad smell.

The ongoing construction likely disrupted the ducks’ habitat. The birds move between Constitution Gardens and the Reflecting Pool, and could have been exposed to peeling paint, algae, or the chemicals Trump has used in attempts to remove the algae.

Trump has a different theory. On Truth Social, he blamed “Radical Left Lunatics, most likely Dumocrats,” for cutting a 350-foot gash in the pool with “a very sharp knife or razors,” and threatened years in jail. He said six people have been arrested and seven cited.

He did not say whether the Radical Left Lunatics also killed the ducks.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Naming Your Kid ‘Donald’ Has Never Been So Unpopular. The president has gotten his name on buildings, warships, and the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration, but new parents are not cooperating. In 2025, “Donald” hit its lowest point of popularity in U.S. history, ranking 690th, with fewer than 400 Social Security card applications. The name peaked in 1934 with more than 30,400 babies and has fallen almost without interruption ever since, sinking through The Apprentice, a WWE Hall of Fame induction, and two presidential terms. Even in Florida, his home state, parents minted just 21 baby Donalds last year, slightly behind Keanu and Truce.

Michigan Forgives $200 Million in Medical Debt. Michigan announced Monday it would wipe out another $74 million in medical debt for 71,871 residents, the second round of a program launched last year. In total, more than $200 million has been forgiven for roughly 280,000 residents, with the state working through the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, which buys unpaid debt in bulk and relieves $100 for every dollar it receives. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who allocated $4.5 million toward the effort, said it means fewer families must choose between food and medical bills.

A School Refused to Let a Gay Teen Graduate for Coming Out. Now It’s Paying the Price. A Tennessee Christian school found out that one of its students was gay when she posted a photo of herself and her girlfriend on Facebook. It responded by hauling her and her parents into a meeting, banning her from campus, blocking her from her own graduation, threatening to withhold her diploma, and, for good measure, threatening to send her social media posts to colleges. Her family sued. The school settled on Monday for $10,000, which is about what you’d spend on a semester of Christian school, and agreed to stop badmouthing her to universities.

Judge Blocks Trump’s SNAP Restrictions on Soda and Candy in Five States. A federal judge in Washington blocked the administration’s ban on food stamp recipients in Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee, and West Virginia using benefits to buy sugary foods and drinks. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Monday that the USDA lacked the authority to approve the state waivers, which were part of the “Make America Healthy Again” initiative. SNAP provides an average of $190.59 a month to more than 42 million low-income Americans. As Jackson put it, officials may want to encourage healthy choices, but “what they cannot do is violate the law and their own regulations along the way.”

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Trump is threatening to withhold 20 percent of states’ Homeland Security grants unless they end electronic ballots. A Georgia Republican running for lieutenant governor admitted he and friends faked ballot signatures, including having kids sign, to prove fraud. The DEA let at least 1.8 million fentanyl pills hit New Mexico streets while agents sat back and watched. And a $700 million data center is set to rise 320 feet from the Nashville Zoo’s clouded leopard breeding habitat.

Before we get into it: Independent journalism survives on one thing, and it isn’t a billionaire who bought us because he “believed in the mission” and then discovered he didn’t like what we wrote. It’s readers who pay for what they read. If you’re one of them, thank you. If you’re not yet, this would be a good morning to fix that. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber today. We can’t do it without you.

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Trump Threatens to Defund States That Don’t Make Election Changes

Fiscal conservatism is when you spend $2.7 billion to find twelve fake voters.

The Department of Homeland Security is holding millions of dollars in grants hostage unless states agree to stop using electronic ballots and verify voters’ citizenship before they can vote. Trump wants states to run manual election audits at his direction and use his preferred system to confirm citizenship. States that refuse would lose 20 percent of their grant money.

These are the funds that help states prevent terror attacks, protect infrastructure, and prepare for natural disasters. DHS has handed them out for years, no questions asked.

Now the money is conditional on states rebuilding their entire election apparatus, all so the president can keep calling factual results fraudulent ahead of a midterm he is expected to lose.

The nationwide cost of upgrading election equipment has been estimated at $2.7 billion. In Georgia alone, Republican Secretary of State Raffensperger puts the price at $66 million. This means complying could cost states far more than the grant money being held over their heads.

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Georgia Republican Admits He Committed Election Fraud

Apparently, the best way to prove a system is broken is to break it yourself.

That is the method Georgia state Sen. Greg Dolezal, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, described in interviews posted to his own YouTube channel. Dolezal said in February last year he and “a number of friends” intentionally botched their signatures on mail-in ballot applications to see whether officials would catch it.

Dolezal said he had friends who had their kids sign their absentee ballot request form. In every case, the ballots came back. He named Cherokee and Gwinnett counties as places where the scheme was carried out.

He has cited that as proof Georgia’s signature verification doesn’t work.

Dolezal won his runoff last week and will face Democrat Josh McLaurin in November for the state’s second-highest office. He built the campaign on distrust of Georgia’s elections, and on Saturday he proposed an amendment requiring counties to hand-recount the top two races before certifying.

A signature audit by the secretary of state’s office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found no fraudulent absentee ballots in a sample of more than 15,000 envelopes. So, the only confirmed signature fraud in the record is the kind Dolezal admitted to committing.

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Somewhere right now a reporter is writing up Dolezal’s hand-recount proposal without mentioning he forged ballot signatures on YouTube. We’re not that reporter. Upgrade your subscription to paid today.

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The DEA Let Millions of Fentanyl Pills Hit the Streets on Purpose

Turns out the fentanyl wasn’t sneaking across the border. The DEA was holding the door.

According to three current and former DEA agents and government records reviewed by the Associated Press, the agency permitted over 1.8 million fentanyl pills to reach the streets of New Mexico between 2023 and 2025. Agents monitored the shipments. They did not seize them.

The logic was to build bigger cases. Federal prosecutors wanted to take down major traffickers, so agents followed the drugs instead of grabbing them.

In one June 2023 deal at an Albuquerque mobile home park, agents counted 74,000 pills changing hands and let them go. Days earlier, the same ring delivered a spare tire packed with another suspected shipment, also unseized.

The largest fentanyl bust in DEA history, announced in May 2025 by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, seized more than 3 million pills. A former supervisor said the same amount was hitting the streets every month while the case dragged on, and that the organization could have been dismantled six months earlier.

Trump has used fentanyl deaths to justify mass deportations, border militarization, and the designation of cartels as terrorist organizations. Meanwhile, his own government was letting hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills walk onto American streets to pad its case stats.

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A $700M Data Center Is Going Up Next to Nashville’s Leopard Nursery

Somewhere in Nashville, a 12-week-old clouded leopard is about to get a 40-megawatt neighbor.

A permit has been filed to build a data center campus next door to the Nashville Zoo. The property line sits about 320 feet from the breeding enclosure for the clouded leopard, the crown jewel of the zoo’s conservation program.

The campus, planned by Atlanta-based DC BLOX, would include a 69,000-square-foot building and a second one of at least 261,000 square feet, at a cost of at least $700 million. Zoo officials say they learned of the application in early June and reacted with “disbelief.”

Dr. Heather Schwartz, who oversees animal health, said she is concerned about the light and noise the facility would generate, given that animals are more sensitive than humans. The leopards have produced 51 cubs since 1991, including Azi, a 12-week-old born in the enclosure near the property line.

The backlash has been bipartisan and loud. Country star Brad Paisley called it “an absolute nightmare scenario.” Republican gubernatorial front-runner Marsha Blackburn said, “Let’s revisit this placement.” Democratic Mayor Freddie O’Connell backed a temporary moratorium.

A new Tennessee law grants property rights upon submission of a permit application, not approval. In other words, the data center already has more legal protection than the leopards.

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Nobody Owns This Newsletter but You

The business model that kept journalism independent is gone. What replaced it is billionaires, access deals, and quiet understandings about which stories don’t run. The networks are getting phone calls they don’t talk about. The newspapers have new owners who play golf with the people we’re writing about. The FCC is making examples of outlets that don’t play ball.

None of that is happening here, because we don’t have anyone to sell out to. We have readers. If you’ve been reading AlterNet America for free, we’re glad you’re here. But free doesn’t keep the lights on, and the lights need to stay on.

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POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

The Senate Passed a Housing Bill That Tells Wall Street to Back Off. For once, Washington did something about the cost of living. The Senate voted 85-5 on Monday to pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a sweeping affordability bill that makes it easier to build homes and restricts large institutional investors from buying up single-family houses. The legislation was negotiated by an unlikely bipartisan group: Sens. Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, and Reps. French Hill and Maxine Waters. It now heads to the House, which hopes to vote within days before sending it to Trump’s desk. Trump, by his own party’s account, was barely involved, which may explain how it actually got done.

Delaware Governor Signs Parentage Bill in Big Win for LGBTQ+ Families. Delaware Governor Matt Meyer signed a bill modernizing the state’s parentage laws so LGBTQ+ families who use IVF or surrogacy can establish legal rights over their kids without a courtroom battle. The updated law adds gender-neutral language, replacing the old framework of “mothers who produce eggs and fathers who produce sperm” with the more accurate concept of “parents who provide gametes.” It streamlines the legal process and lets some parents skip court entirely with a voluntary acknowledgment form, establishing parentage immediately. Revolutionary stuff: the government recognizing that the kid you planned for, paid for, raised, and loved is your kid.

California’s Sunflower Sea Stars Are Back From the Brink. A keystone species that scientists feared was gone has turned up alive off the Sonoma County coast. Sunflower sea stars all but vanished from California waters after a marine wasting disease swept through starting in 2013, throwing entire ecosystems out of balance as purple urchins devoured collapsing kelp forests. Last summer, a research team including the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, two national marine sanctuaries investigated a cove near Sea Ranch and found 18 of them, the largest group spotted in state waters since the die-off. Crucially, several were large enough to reproduce, which a single isolated star cannot do.

OG Anunoby Won a Title, Then Went to Find Homes for NYC Shelter Cats. Days after helping the New York Knicks end a 53-year title drought, OG Anunoby launched “OG’s Starting Five,” a partnership with Royal Canin, VCA Animal Hospitals, and Animal Care Centers of NYC to find homes for five adoptable cats he personally chose and named. The campaign moved fast, with three of the five cats adopted within days of launch. The ACC noted the buzz drew people in who ended up adopting other cats, too. Adopters get a year of free pet food, unlimited wellness exams, and Royal Canin pledged to donate 50,000 pounds of food valued at $300,000, to shelters nationwide in Anunoby’s name.

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