🌻 Liza

Psychologist (Ret): I love my big family, Ozarks, Buffalo River, democracy, and #Quakers.

"Keep calm and carry on."

🦋:

[🌻 Liza @YesQuake]

"If you are going through hell, keep going."

~Churchill

[🌻 Liza @YesQuake]

"If your voice held no power, they wouldn't try to silence you."
~ Ruth Bader Ginsberg
#NoKingsInAmerica

[Iraqi Christian Foundation @iraqschristians]

Very disappointing that President @realDonaldTrump appointed Epstein-associate Tom Barrack as Special Envoy to Syria and Iraq. Barrack has consistently sided with jihadists against ancient Middle East Christian communities. Trump used the vote of the Chaldean Catholic vote to win Michigan and then betrayed us with these moves.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

Israeli PM Netanyahu has called for a “hard line” against ultra-Orthodox protesters after demonstrations outside Israeli Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg’s home over military service rulings, his office says.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/H3lVjN1syO

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

Hello! Here’s what you need to know at this hour:

1️⃣ Russia attacked the Kyiv region. In the Boryspil district, a fuel tanker driver was injured. Emergency crews are currently working to extinguish a fire at an industrial facility.

2️⃣ Three people were killed in an overnight Ukrainian strike on Simferopol, according to local authorities.

3️⃣ Marco Rubio said he is unaware of any official US delegation attending SPIEF, despite earlier claims by one of Putin’s aides.

4️⃣ A major Russian ammunition depot was destroyed in the occupied part of the Donetsk region.

5️⃣ Scientists have discovered previously undocumented species of insects and arachnids in eastern Angola, CNN reports.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

A new challenge for Hezbollah’s future as Lebanon pushes for disarmament and opens direct talks with Israel for the first time in decades.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem reports.

[Foreign Affairs @ForeignAffairs]

“The war is taking its toll, and the Russian military effort is in trouble.” @Jack_Watling argues that a cease-fire is now a real possibility in Ukraine:
https://t.co/k5hzwxrTtu

[AFP News Agency @AFP]

Tech giant Meta calls Australia's bid to make social media companies pay for news "grossly unfair".

Australia wants big tech companies to compensate local publishers for sharing articles that drive traffic on their platforms

https://t.co/00Musp5Ikp

[Al Jazeera Breaking News @AJENews]

BREAKING: Israeli drone strike targets vehicle in southern Lebanon

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/HQrorq0u72

[NEXTA @nexta_tv]

🤣 The official American at SPIEF turned out to be not so official after all

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he knows nothing about the American delegation to the St. Petersburg forum that Kremlin officials had been talking about.

And there was so much hype...

[🌻 Liza @YesQuake]

"Limits of ceasefire are tested by latest U.S.-Iran clashes in the Gulf region."

https://t.co/EhiJbjB8ts

[Trevor Noah @Trevornoah]

Why do attitudes toward immigrants seem to change when the economy gets worse?

[The Daily Show @TheDailyShow]

Trump is breaking up with the Iran talks before they can break up with him

[🌻 Liza @YesQuake]

@TheDailyShow His office said there's "no cameras where Tom Kean is." Where is this guy? Isn't NJ worried about him?

https://t.co/mx7rYJl0mq

[The Daily Show @TheDailyShow]

How is it we have more photos of Bigfoot than Tom Kean?

[🌻 Liza @YesQuake]

He's afraid of the American public.

[Jonathan Lemire @JonLemire]

“The White House complex can be thought of as the new Green Zone. The 18-acre site is laced with fencing, sensors, jammers, cameras, armed guards, bunkers, drone interceptors, and surface-to-air missiles” https://t.co/xj9K5mDhSL

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

The deputy director of the Secret Service said the threat increase is no longer linear - it's exponential. Three shootings in four weeks. Lafayette Square closed. The Ellipse closed.

Forty years of a peace vigil dismantled because the president called it an eyesore. Surface-to-air missiles where tourists used to stand.

The Green Zone didn't start as a metaphor either.

[Jonathan Lemire @JonLemire]

“The White House complex can be thought of as the new Green Zone. The 18-acre site is laced with fencing, sensors, jammers, cameras, armed guards, bunkers, drone interceptors, and surface-to-air missiles” https://t.co/xj9K5mDhSL

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Three times in four weeks, gunfire has broken out near the White House. The Secret Service has investigated 40 percent more cases this year than the same period last year. Seven times more cases involving people with mental health issues. The deputy director of the Secret Service told the Atlantic the increase is no longer linear. It has gone exponential.

The White House is now ringed by titanium fencing that goes deep into the ground. Surface-to-air missiles. Drone interceptors. Snipers on the roof covering 1,000 yards in every direction. Lafayette Square - where a peace vigil ran continuously from 1981 until this year - is closed. The Ellipse is closed. The east approach is blocked by the construction hole where the East Wing used to be. You cannot get close from any direction.

The People's House is the Green Zone.

The piece draws the Iraq comparison carefully. The criticism of the Baghdad Green Zone was that it created a false sense of tranquility - Americans inside, protected and air-conditioned, detached from the war on the other side of the gate. The White House has always risked its own version of that bubble. What's different now is the scale of the fortification, the frequency of the attacks driving it, and a president who responds to each shooting incident by calling for faster construction of the ballroom.

Melissa Hortman was shot in her home in Brooklyn Park. Josh Shapiro's family was asleep when someone set the Pennsylvania governor's mansion on fire. The Capitol Police investigated nearly 15,000 threats in 2025 - up 60 percent. The violence is not only at the gates of the White House. It is distributed across every level of democratic governance.

The 13-foot fence and the surface-to-air missiles are symptoms. The political climate that made them necessary is the disease. And the president whose presence requires all of it has dismissed the economic hardships driving the anxiety as unworthy of his attention, preferring to focus on the UFC cage going up on the South Lawn.

[Marc E. Elias @marceelias]

Here is what Democracy Docket is tracking today:

Active Voting Rights Cases: 154
Active Redistricting Cases: 44
Active Anti-Voting Cases: 76
Active Pro-Voting Cases: 73
Active DOJ Lawsuits: 28

https://t.co/8iFP5fL7em

[Reuters @Reuters]

The NAACP asked a federal court ‌to block the US Postal Service's proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, arguing they violate a settlement that required expedited mail-in ballot handling https://t.co/GYdaskiuiZ

[Tommy Vietor @TVietor08]

BRUTAL indictment of @bariweiss by Scott Pelley:
"For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified." Then it gets worse...