Rachel

[Democrats Deliver @DemzDeliver]

🚨 James Talarico releases new ad SLAMMING Elon Musk for bankrolling Ken Paxton.

Talarico is running to overturn Citizens United.

[Military History Now @MilHistNow]

A Ukrainian soldier serving in Iraq in 2003. Ukraine deployed more than 6,000 troops to the U.S.-led Operation Iraqi Freedom; 18 were killed and 40 were wounded.

[восхищённый болгарин™ @dedzaebal]

The first photo shows New York after 9/11. The second photo shows Bakhmut after russia’s invasion.

In the first photo, terrorists were at work. In the second, humanitarians.

Don’t get them mixed up.

[Mykhailo Rohoza @MykhailoRohoza]

“Why do some British people dislike Donald Trump?”

Nate White, an eloquent and witty English writer, gave this magnificent answer:

Trump lacks certain qualities that the British traditionally value.

He has no nobility, no charm, no composure, no gravitas, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour, and no grace — qualities with which, strangely enough, his predecessor, Mr Obama, was abundantly blessed.

Although Trump may be ridiculous, he has never said anything ironic, amusing, or even remotely funny — not once, ever. I do not mean this rhetorically. I mean it literally: never. To the British, a lack of humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it is a fact. He does not even seem to understand what a joke is. To him, a joke is a crude remark, an illiterate insult, an act of casual cruelty.

Trump is like a troll: he never laughs or enjoys himself; he merely squeals with delight or derision.

And the most frightening thing is that he does not merely utter crude and stupid insults: he actually means them. His mind is nothing more than a robotic algorithm of petty prejudices and instinctive malice.

There is no irony in him, no complexity, no subtlety, no depth. Everything is superficial. What we see is a man without an inner world, without a soul.

In Britain, we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are courageous underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither courageous nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite.

He is not even merely a spoiled rich boy or a greedy fat cat. He is more like a giant white slug, a privileged Jabba the Hutt.

And, worse still, he is a bully.

When he finds himself among other bullies, he suddenly becomes a whining lackey.

He punches down — something a gentleman should never, could never, and must never do — and every blow he delivers is below the belt. He particularly enjoys attacking the vulnerable or the voiceless, and he kicks them when they are down.

That is why the fact that a substantial minority — perhaps a third — of Americans watch what he does, listen to what he says, and then think, “Yes, he seems like my kind of guy,” is a source of bewilderment and profound distress to the British.

After all, it is impossible to read a single tweet of his or hear him utter a sentence or two without staring into the abyss. He turns shallowness into an art form. He is the Picasso of pettiness, the Shakespeare of shit. His flaws are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on to infinity.

There have always been stupid people in the world, and villains have never been in short supply either. But rarely has stupidity been so evil, or evil so stupid.

He makes Nixon seem trustworthy and George W. Bush seem intelligent.

If Frankenstein had decided to create a monster composed entirely of human flaws, he would have created Trump, and the remorseful Dr Frankenstein would have cried out in despair, “My God, what have I created?”

If an idiot were a television show, Trump would be the entire set.

[Caolan @CaolanReports]

Trumps team just described the people who bombed the Mariupol theatre as humanitarians

The word children was written outside

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

This is what billionaire ownership of the media means:

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta shut down the No Kings account for hours during the height of their protests.

Meta suppressed accounts supporting Brazil President Lula da Silva in the recent election.

Larry Ellison’s TikTok blocked advertising for a documentary criticizing Elon Musk.

Fight back. Defeat oligarchy. Preserve democracy.

[WW3finalboss @WW3finalboss]

TWO PRESIDENTS, TWO VERY DIFFERENT MOMENTS WITH AMERICAN WAR HEROES 🇺🇦🇺🇸🇫🇷

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Melvin Hurwitz, an American World War II veteran, the elderly soldier reached for his hand and attempted to kiss it. Zelenskyy gently pulled his hand away, lowered himself to the veteran’s level and embraced him instead.

What followed was a deeply moving exchange.

Veteran: “You’re the savior of the people!”

Zelenskyy: “No, no, no. You saved Europe.”

Veteran: “You bring tears to my eyes. You are my hero.”

Zelenskyy: “No, no, you are our hero.”

Veteran: “I pray for you.”

The encounter offers a contrast with controversies surrounding Donald Trump’s remarks and treatment of American military service members.

During a 2018 visit to France marking the centenary of the end of World War I, Trump cancelled a planned visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where 2,289 American military personnel are buried. According to accounts published by The Atlantic, Trump privately questioned why he should visit a cemetery filled with “losers” and referred to fallen Marines at Belleau Wood as “suckers.” Trump has denied making those remarks.

The soldiers who died at Belleau Wood were fighting Germany in World War I, not the Nazi regime of World War II.

In 2024, Trump also attracted criticism for comparing the Presidential Medal of Freedom with the Medal of Honor. He called the civilian decoration “much better” while noting that Medal of Honor recipients are often severely wounded or awarded the distinction posthumously.

In 2025, Trump was criticised for playing golf in Florida rather than attending a dignified transfer ceremony for four fallen American service members, although presidential attendance at such ceremonies is not mandatory.

Zelenskyy’s exchange with Hurwitz was a simple moment of mutual respect between two men from different generations, both shaped by wars in Europe.

Neither wanted to be called a hero. Each insisted that the other deserved the honour.

[Nick Young @nickofnz]

I did want a flying car—when I was seven.

Now I want a stable climate, clean drinking water and for kids to not live in fear of being bombed.

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

"This is about geopolitics, it's about economics, it's about the power of a nation, and not just about a football club", says @jonsopel

Is the Man City funding controversy Andy Burnham's 'dirty little secret'?

[wavy @wavygooner]

Arsene Wenger and 08-11 Arsenal are the biggest victims of this. City took Nasri, Toure, Adebayor & Clichy in their prime from Arsenal, which had a ripple effect that led to Cesc & RVP leaving too, which in turn meant Arsenal never competed again for years

[Farrukh @implausibleblog]

Friend's mum passed away this morning.

She worked her whole life, and in the absence of council support, they strung together £5k+ a month to place her in a residential care home for dementia.

It's not that we don't need an Assisted Dying Bill, we absolutely do.

But before this, we should have a fully comprehensive social and palliative care system in place, so no one ever feels their only path is the former and not the latter.

[Kay Burley @KayBurley]

RNLI volunteers involved in Sunday’s rescue have reportedly had their names and home addresses shared online.

Nigel Farage shared, then deleted, Ant Middleton’s post calling for the RNLI to be defunded.

Middleton, once an RNLI ambassador, is not fit to shine the wellies of today’s RNLI heroes.

My piece 👇

https://t.co/nqKChSAsKt

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

The doctor who delivered Dolly Parton in a one-room Tennessee cabin in 1946 was paid with a sack of cornmeal. Her father farmed other people's land and could not read or write. Eighty years later, the reading program she built in his name has mailed more than 300 million books.

She wrote "I Will Always Love You" on the same afternoon she wrote "Jolene," as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, and released it in 1974. Elvis wanted it. The night before the session, Colonel Tom Parker called and said Presley would only record it if they got half the publishing, meaning half of everything the song ever earned. She had been in Nashville ten years by then. She said no, and cried all night. Whitney Houston cut her version in 1992, held number one for fourteen weeks, and Forbes later put Parton's royalties from it near $10 million. She put some of that money into an office complex in Nashville and called the place the house that Whitney built.

Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge in 1986 because she wanted paychecks in the county she came from. Around 4,000 people work there now. Three million visitors come every year. The University of Tennessee put its economic impact at $1.8 billion, and it is the largest employer in Sevier County. Since 2022 the company has paid tuition, fees, and books in full for every worker from their first day, seasonal hires included.

Wildfires tore through those mountains in November 2016, killing fourteen people and destroying more than 2,400 buildings. Her foundation was handing out money within 48 hours. Every family that lost a home got $1,000 a month for six months, regardless of income. The final check was $5,000. Total delivered: $8.9 million.

In April 2020 she sent $1 million to Vanderbilt for coronavirus research. When Moderna's vaccine results ran in the New England Journal of Medicine that November, her fund appeared in the footnotes.

Carl Dean, her husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025. The note she wrote to fans afterward ended with the same five words she wrote for Porter Wagoner back in 1974. She died in Nashville today. Her family asked that instead of flowers, people give to the Imagination Library, which still mails 3.4 million books a month to children who will never get to meet her.

[Dr Helen Fry | WWII Historian @DrHelenFry]

I revealed to Dame Harriet Walter her mother Xandra Lee’s leading role in Naval Intelligence.

As head of Section 8K, she assembled the complete intelligence picture of the Normandy coastline for the Admiralty ahead of the D-Day landings.

She took her wartime role to the grave.

[Linda Hill @bulldoghill]

At 9:23 this morning, the White House abruptly dismissed the press traveling with the president of the United States while he was away for the weekend at his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. With the cameras now gone, just three hours later at 12:32 p.m., Donald Trump would share the first of 42 posts on Truth Social in a span of less than 3 hours and 15 minutes. The president’s public meltdown began when he posted his disappointment with one of his appointees, “I don’t know what she was thinking?” before he jumped straight into more delusional and dangerous images. Among the flood of posts, he shared an AI-generated image of himself kissing Jesus on a golden crucifix. He shared a “TRUMP 2028” campaign poster, a fake image of himself walking beside a handcuffed alien on a military base, and a renewed threat to invade Greenland.

He didn’t stop there. He posted a painting of himself as the commanding general, leading Revolutionary War soldiers into battle with his mouth open in a battle cry, while flames consumed the battlefield behind him, and a battered American flag flew overhead. This is how he sees himself. Not as a president spending the weekend at his golf course, but as a warrior king leading his nation into battle, one he would have never had the courage to actually fight in. That fantasy is not harmless, because right now he is leading us deeper into a real war where real people have died.

He also shared a fake image of his face merged with President George Washington’s, split straight down the middle, under the words “250 Years / In God We Trust.” It was a deliberate attempt to place himself alongside the founder of the American republic. Because he sees himself as his equal and inseparable from the nation itself. He’s saying he is Washington and he is the republic.

He posted a map of South America with Venezuela filled in as an American flag and labeled “51st State.” He shared an actual photograph of himself stepping out of a golf cart, hunched forward, a white USA hat in his hand, looking every single day of his eighty years, but with the caption “President Trump ages in reverse!”

Then there was the created image of himself as Elvis Presley in his iconic white rhinestone jumpsuit, with a deep V-neck and with his chest exposed, and a bald eagle embroidered across his heart. In it, Trump, masquerading as Elvis, stands in front of a microphone as though he is about to perform for a waiting crowd. And I couldn’t help but think about the irony of Trump choosing Elvis in this moment, knowing that he spent his final years overmedicated and isolated, surrounded by enablers who told him what he wanted to hear while his body and mind deteriorated. And how Elvis died alone in a bathroom at Graceland while the people closest to him pretended everything was fine. If Trump was trying to choose a metaphor for where he is right now, he could not have picked a more accurate one.

He just kept going. He posted an image of himself as a young man in a military school uniform, seated across a table from present-day Trump, with the caption “Same Guy. Even more energy now!” Present-day Trump is staring adorably at younger Trump. But what the image actually shows is the distance between who he was and who he has become. The young man in the uniform is upright, sharp, but not too far away from bone spurs and draft deferments. The man sitting across from him is eighty years old, and struggling. The fact that he felt compelled to post this, to insist publicly that nothing has changed, tells us everything about what he is afraid of. People who are fine do not need to prove they are fine. People who are declining do.

[Night Sky Today @NightSkyToday]

JUST IN🚨: Colombia bans all new oil and mining in its Amazon rain-forest. The protected area is the size of Sweden and covers 42% of the country.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Data centers don’t “need” water. Billion-dollar corporations just need the cheapest cooling method available and apparently your town’s drinking supply is cheaper than redesigning the damn system.

[amante2 @AmeliaBee7]

You can’t credibly hold an international sporting event in a country that has no respect for law, decency or integrity and is run by a convicted felon whose only experience of achievement in life has come from cheating and lying

FIFA World Cup is a sick joke

[Ben Jacobs @JacobsBen]

🚨 BREAKING: RBFA issues a new statement accusing FIFA of making their appeal "inadmissible" adding they have no choice but to "challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match".

"After learning through media reports of FIFA’s decision to lift the automatic suspension of player Balogun, the RBFA sent a letter to FIFA requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations.

"As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.

"For an appeal to be admissible, FIFA’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, FIFA itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible.

"All of this occurred while FIFA simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests.

"Furthermore, during the match coordination meeting, FIFA deliberately removed the section concerning the automatic suspension of players from its presentation. This topic had nonetheless been part of all such meetings before each of the previous four matches. The RBFA questioned FIFA, both orally and in writing, about the reasons for this change, yet once again received no response.

"To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from FIFA regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match.

"Regardless of the sporting outcome of this match, the RBFA is deeply saddened by the course of events and will continue to fight in the coming hours, days and months in defence of the fundamental principles of ethics, fair competition, and the interests of football as a whole."

[Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600]

Trees. Trees. Trees. They matter. Plant them. Protect them.