Rex Branson 🇺🇦

Midwest 🇺🇸 Now serving in NAFO

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Overnight, the Russians used 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions against our energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region, and Kharkiv. A targeted Russian ballistic missile strike specifically against energy infrastructure – the very infrastructure covered by the ceasefire announced by the American President. The strike was entirely deliberate and demonstrative in its scale – Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States. Russia does not consider the American President’s statements strong. Unfortunately, at least 600,000 people are now without power. Outages could become even more widespread. Unfortunately, there is significant damage to facilities and equipment – at 26 facilities of our power system and four facilities in the oil and gas sector. I am grateful to the repair crews, all Ukrainian energy workers, and the personnel of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine for all their efforts to address the aftermath of this Russian strike. Tragically, there have been fatalities and injuries.

We ask America and EVERYONE in the world who does not turn a blind eye to reality to respond – and to respond forcefully. Russia has squandered the opportunity for de-escalation and has clearly chosen to continue its insane war of annihilation. We ask President Trump to impose STRONG sanctions on Russia, especially since the Lindsey Graham bill, which was recently passed and signed into law, authorizes and regulates such measures. The American President has all the effective and necessary tools to bring peace closer through strength, justice, and pressure on the aggressor. We ask for additional packages of Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine. It is entirely fair for us to tell the United States, Europe, and all our partners that no country in the world should be left alone to face such a deranged and pro-war actor as Russia. I am grateful to everyone who helps Ukraine! Peace can only come through strength, and we ask America to remember this principle of Reagan’s. Glory to Ukraine!

[Rex Branson 🇺🇦 @JRagsOP]

@NiallHarbison Thank you Niall. We appreciate you.

[Rex Branson 🇺🇦 @JRagsOP]

@sacredtree9 @HolgerLinius 😎

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s pardons have cost crime victims a staggering $1.7 billion in restitution while wiping away penalties for wealthy fraudsters and political allies, according to a new congressional review.

The full findings are damning: https://t.co/kO0pyGe4Zk

[Covie @covie_93]

They moved on from lindsey graham's death so quickly you'd think he died in a school shooting.

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

Russia wants to receive another 30,000 troops from North Korea. Since June, preparations have been underway in Russia’s Voronezh region to receive them. North Korea is also preparing to transfer additional launchers for ballistic missiles to Russia.

This is a threat not only to Ukraine. Russia is helping North Korea learn how to wage war, improve its weapons, and gain real combat experience in using them. All of this is a threat to everyone in Asia who is within range of North Korean missiles.

From the evening address. (2/3)

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.

The reality: By going more than 90 days without congressional authorization @SecWar IS BREAKING THE LAW and must be held accountable.

[Keith Edwards @keithedwards]

If Mitch McConnell's staff want me to take this down, no problem. Just have the Senator call me and ask me to do it himself.

[Ilan Goldenberg @ilangoldenberg]

I’ve worked on Iran for nearly 20 years. Our options are never great, but I’ve never seen things this bad. For the first time in my career, I’m at a loss.

When this war began, I warned that Iran would likely emerge weakened but more aggressive and risk-tolerant—leaving the region trapped in a cycle of military clashes and chronic instability. That has happened. What I underestimated was the leverage Iran would gain through its stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz.

For a moment, the MOU offered a possible way out. It was deeply flawed, but better than the alternatives. Then vague terms and shoddy negotiating caused it to collapse: Iran believed it could retain some control over the Strait; Washington believed the Strait would reopen to international shipping.

But the fundamental problem wasn’t the negotiation. It was Trump’s catastrophic decision to go to war in the first place.

The result: higher oil prices, economic shocks, depleted US missile-defense stocks, immense regional damage and civilian suffering, alienated allies and very little achieved in return.

So what now?

We could pay Iran off through sanctions relief, oil exports and access to the international banking system. But after surviving forty days of war, Tehran is angry, distrustful and convinced it holds the stronger hand. Its price is so high – and so humiliating – that Trump will never accept it.

We could escalate militarily, which is what the US is doing. But bombing has not produced meaningful Iranian concessions, and Trump appears unwilling to bear the costs of the maximalist alternatives. More pressure means an expensive, dangerous and potentially endless war, with serious risks to US forces and the entire region as we tragically saw this weekend. And it has little chance of success.

Or we could encourage the Gulf states to negotiate a regional arrangement. That may ultimately be the most promising path, but the Gulf states are divided, this remains fundamentally a US-Iran conflict, and any agreement will require major American concessions while leaving Iran strategically stronger than it was before the war. So this isn’t very appealing and hard to get to as well.

The likeliest outcome is therefore that we are looking at a new normal: recurring US-Iran clashes, periodic American or Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian control over the SOH, higher oil prices and a larger, longer-lasting American military presence in the Middle East. But since the costs of all out escalation are too high both sides try to keep it from going there, though there is always a risk.

Iran’s leverage will eventually depreciate as countries build pipelines, diversify energy supplies and establish alternative trade routes. But that could take years.

Eventually, exhaustion may produce a deal. Iran may decide that controlling the Strait while living under blockade is unsustainable. Washington may accept that it must offer more. The Gulf states may finally unite around a workable diplomatic framework. But not soon.

Trump took a situation in which better options plainly existed, started an unnecessary war and produced a strategic disaster that will take years to unwind.
For now, we are all stuck with this mess.

[Desirée Townsend @DesireeReports]

Thank you Robert! Here is how to reach Senator McConnell’s office to voice your concerns on his disappearance and lack of transparency.

[Victoria @victoriaslog]

I always tear up when defenders who were considered missing FOR YEARS finally come home alive and remove their photos from the Wall of Hope.

For years, their families didn’t know whether they were dead or alive. All they had was hope, and they never let go of it ❤️

📍Chernihiv region, Ukraine

[National Press Club @PressClubDC]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. released the following statement:

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I know @realDonaldTrump and family did.

250 years ago we declared independence from a king who ran the colonies as a family business. In just 18 months the Trumps have made King George look like an amateur.

A $620 million Pentagon loan, the largest in the program’s history, to a company Don Jr.’s firm bought into three months before.

An Air Force drone contract to a startup the princelings took public through a golf course company they own a piece of.

The Army’s largest drone motor order ever, to a company where Don Jr. sits on the board and holds millions in stock.

A $24 million Pentagon robotics contract to the company that employs Eric as Chief Strategy Advisor.

A stake in the largest undeveloped tungsten deposit on earth, in Kazakhstan, backed by $1.6 billion in US government support.

Jared’s fund seeded with $2 billion from the Saudi crown prince, now $6.2 billion, 99% of it foreign money from Gulf governments. Over $110 million in fees collected from the Saudis alone. He negotiates American foreign policy with the governments that pay him.

$2.3 billion from crypto ventures their father regulates. More than a million people bought in and lost $2.3 billion. The money didn’t grow. It simply moved from the subjects pockets to the crown’s coffers.

And the next one is already drafted. A proposed ATF rule that will allow guns to be shipped straight to your front door. The government’s own estimate is 3.3 million home gun deliveries a year. Don Jr. sits on the board of the online gun megastore built to cash in. He holds 300,000 shares.

And that’s only the fraction they’ve allowed us to see. Not one subpoena served. Not one search executed. Why hide anything when you own the investigators?

Me? They searched a laptop for six years. Federal prosecutors. Grand juries. Subpoena power. Congressional hearings. They found nothing. I made about $200k a year selling paintings when my Dad was President, and they made my paintings part of an impeachment inquiry.

For six years they’ve asked Where’s Hunter? What about the laptop?

Wrong questions. The right one is 250 years old. Does America belong to a family?

They’ve given their answer. Long live the King.

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Chasiv Yar: Before and after the Russian arrival.

​Three years of defense. A city we once saw full of life, now a burning desert. Three years of brutal combat, losses, resilience, and triumphs. — 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade, who made the video, says.

Watching this is physically painful. So many lives lost, so many dreams destroyed. An entire community gone. This is what Russia means by "liberation", nothing but total destruction.

[Rex Branson 🇺🇦 @JRagsOP]

@DrobotunVitalii Toonie sent. Good luck to the heroes. Slava Ukraini.

[Drobotun Vitalii 🇺🇦 @DrobotunVitalii]

🚨ONLY 2 HOURS LEFT

We are still looking for 6,542 kind people who can donate $2
Or 262 nicknames on the car

Can we do this? I’m sure that yes

Let’s try to do our best! We can help our heroes!

We need your extra Toonies!
We need your help!

[KY Painter @ky_painter]

Another one happening

[ᗰᗩƳᖇᗩ @LePapillonBlu2]

Did you guys see this?? There are projected images popping all over D.C. adding to the swamp theme. 🤣

[Mgeli 🇺🇦 🇬🇪 @dmitryshchipkov]

Friends, I’m asking for a RT. Please, don’t be indifferent.

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

Good lord the most brutal community note ever. Quoting the MOU directly