Andrea

[Clinton Foundation @ClintonFdn]

Democracy doesn't sustain itself.

Speaking at the 2025 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, Secretary Hillary Clinton reflected on the role each of us plays in strengthening our communities, defending democratic institutions, and turning concern into action.

As America marks 250 years, her message is a reminder that democracy depends not only on our institutions, but on citizens who choose to participate, serve, and lead where they can.
@America250 #America250

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

Accepting the 38th Liberty Medal from the U.S. National Constitution Center, Pope Leo prayed that the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States would be an occasion for a solemn recommitment to the fundamental ideals on which the country was founded, especially life and freedom.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Those who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea are victims both of decisions that were made and of decisions that were not made. Indifference to the common good and corruption in their countries of origin; a global economic system that generates poverty and exclusion; fear that fuels prejudice and contempt; the belief that such problems do not concern us; the criminal calculations of those who profit from the suffering of others; the slow and difficult transition from mere emergency management to the development of comprehensive and shared policies. #PastoralVisit #Lampedusa

[Ford Fischer @FordFischer]

NOW: Hundreds of veterans and their supporters chant “freedom over fascism!” as they prepare for anti-Trump March here in Philadelphia on America’s 250th birthday.

[Rich Raho @RichRaho]

Powerful moment in Lampedusa today as the Pope Leo climbs to the highest rock overlooking the Mediterranean where thousands of migrants drowned while seeking a better life.

[Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan]

Free speech! Free speech! Free speech! Free sp-oh.

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

DOGE deletes itself on July 4th. It will be remembered as a hugely destructive failure.

Musk promised $2 trillion in savings.

What we got, by DOGE’s own unverified math, was $215 billion. Even that number was never proven.

The costs were atrocious. Nearly 140,000 federal workers pushed out. Veterans waiting longer for care. USAID dismantled while people died overseas as a direct result. 20-year-olds with Red Bulls and no college degrees rummaging through Americans’ most sensitive data.

Musk, the world’s richest man, a federal contractor with billions in government business, auditing the government that pays him, accountable to no voter anywhere. 

Even Musk now says he wouldn’t do it again. The guy who ran it calls it a mistake.

Government reform was there for the taking. Both parties know federal technology is outdated. Both parties know waste exists. Fixing it required serious people working with career civil servants who know where the problems actually are. Instead we got a chainsaw, a photo op, and years of lost expertise we now have to rebuild.

Now Trump’s budget director says there will be no final accounting or receipts. They promised transparency and they’re closing up shop in the dark.
They’re counting on us all to forget.
https://t.co/LhgbGUY2Ca

[Reuters @Reuters]

Pope Leo urged Americans to uphold the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, praising the country's long tradition of welcoming immigrants in his first major address to the United States https://t.co/zLPDluiCf1

[CantStopPoppin @CantStopPoppin]

1/2 Debbie Wasserman Schultz's surprise visit to Miramar ICE exposed the nightmare: a "processing center" turned death camp in the making. Men crammed 75+ into spaces for 56. Women in 7x14 rooms with one exposed toilet. One bottle of water. Microwave slop. No privacy. No dignity. This is state-sanctioned dehumanization on American soil.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA who spent his days keeping veterans alive. On January 24, he stood on a public street with a phone in hand, watching federal agents work an immigration operation, when an agent shoved a woman down. Pretti moved to help her. He was pepper sprayed, tackled, and shot while pinned under multiple agents. He held a legal carry permit. No video shows him reaching for that weapon.

Within hours, Stephen Miller called him a domestic terrorist and would be assassin. Kristi Noem said he wanted to massacre law enforcement. Gregory Bovino said he wanted to inflict maximum damage. None of them had seen the footage that would later surface and get verified by Reuters, the Times, and every major network covering it.

The administration's account has since collapsed under that footage. Miller now says agents may not have followed protocol. That is the closest anyone in Washington has come to admitting what the video already showed: a man reaching to help a stranger, killed, then slandered by his own government before the truth caught up.

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

Zohran Mamdani: "We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world — one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands — those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone. And we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few."

[Erin Burnett OutFront @OutFrontCNN]

Rep. Adam Smith, Ranking Member of the Armed Services Commitee, on the U.S. Air Force Major who was arrested after calling for Trump’s impeachment at the Capitol: “[President Trump] is ruling like a dictator. That needs to be called out publicly in as many ways as possible, so I applaud the Major for doing that.”

[Kyle Clark @KyleClark]

Nothing quite captures the spirit of America 250 like promising a century of single party rule if only one party can change election laws.

[Middle Eastern Affairs @OpsHQs]

US active-duty Air Force Major Jason Watson was handcuffed and detained on the steps of Congress for holding an anti-Trump protest in uniform, making global headlines.

[James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki]

They're trying to give a guy 10 years in prison for ripping a piece of already-peeling sealant, after pardoning people who beat cops and stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn a democratic election. What a screwed-up administration.

[Acyn @Acyn]

Mamdani: The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit.

How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. 

At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics, and the cheapest. But time and again-including 250 years ago-those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.

And yet today, too many of our leaders do not believe in a vision of this nation as an asylum for the persecuted-but rather as one that persecutes those seeking asylum.

As we mark 250 years, what do we see? 

We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world— one where children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more. We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans. We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands —those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone —and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

State ownership of companies is communism.

Shocking to me how passive Republicans have reacted to these Trump actions. I thought they believed in capitalism, free enterprise, and the like.

[Andrea @impishhern5]

@ActiveRetirees What’s wrong with taxing billionaires more so people don’t have to work longer to collect Social Security?

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

Some donors who intended to give to the bipartisan, congressionally chartered America250 initiative were instead steered to the partisan, Trump-backed Freedom 250, according to a new report from House Natural Resources Democrats.

The report says that could amount to "potential wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud." https://t.co/gKmF7ypX8p

[Steve Rattner @SteveRattner]

The June jobs report was worse than expected.

Employers added just 57,000 jobs — the weakest in months and less than half the early-spring pace.