nikki b

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

"Every one of these children had a name. They had dreams, loves, and futures. Their lives were as valuable and special as your child’s or mine. They were loved, and somewhere, their families grieve for them."
https://t.co/ieKhd1eArA

[Emoluments Clause @Emolclause]

#BREAKING: MTG: “…I want to calm this out. This really irritates me. Republican Party is all campaigning against communism right now. What about @ElaineChao? Elaine Chao flew to China and met with the Vice President just a few days after #MitchMcConnell practically died…so when are we gonna call out a possible communist Chinese spy right there?” 

TMZ: “You are calling his wife a possible Chinese spy?”

MTG: “Yes. Yes. Yes. 100%…” 😳

[Eddie S. Glaude Jr. @esglaude]

This story must remain in the headlines until we find out what actually happened. A healthy dose of skepticism is warranted at this point.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

After two Americans were killed by federal agents, David Streever wrote an email to ICE. Then, DHS agents came to Streever’s home.

Civil liberties experts said the visit is part of a broader campaign by DHS of tracking and intimidating its critics. https://t.co/hcBH9EqBhY

[SAVE A SEAT FOR ME (Simon & Schuster, 2026) @NewBlackMan]

Emmett Till would’ve been 85 this year. A Bronzeville exhibit reflects on his legacy.
https://t.co/1KIVqvYcSn

[Amber Woods @AmberWoods100]

Day 199.

Survivors are still waiting.

Congress ordered the remaining Epstein files released.

The Department of Justice has yet to comply.

Millions of records remain hidden from the people they belong to: the survivors and the public.

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

Not only did Belgium mock Trump on the field by doing his stupid dance, but they also did it in the locker-room after the World Cup victory.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

George Johnson, a hair-care magnate who rose from a sharecropper’s cabin to found the first Black-owned company listed on a major American stock exchange, and who made a fortune on products like Ultra Sheen and Afro Sheen, died has died at 99. https://t.co/zGYqxwquBM

[Jo @JoJoFromJerz]

What the literal fuck is wrong with Republicans?!?!?

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

In full uniform, Maj. Jason Watson walked up the Capitol stairs on Wednesday carrying a sign saying “Impeach. Convict. Remove.”

He held it up for three minutes before he was arrested.

Read the full story here: https://t.co/U4FMH04mie

[Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance]

DOJ is ignoring a court order. The Judge should act swiftly here, since there is simply no excuse. As we’ve said before, a party that doesn’t like an order can appeal it. But they can’t just ignore it. https://t.co/BKUIvE2ncu

[Amber Woods @AmberWoods100]

Assistant State Attorney Lanna Belohlavek asked a 14-year-old Jeffrey Epstein victim:

“You are aware that you committed a crime?”

The child replied:

“Now I am. I didn’t know it was a crime when I was doing it.”

That’s from the unsealed grand jury transcript.

[Social Security Works ❌👑 @SSWorks]

Billionaires LOVE that Social Security’s “ghost offices” are technically still “open” but lack the staff to actually function.

Why?

Because it’s a part of their scheme to wreck Social Security so they can rob us of our earned benefits!

[Rolling Stone @RollingStone]

A new PBS documentary, 'Woody Guthrie and the Ghost of Tom Joad Today,' revisits his work in the 1930s and 1940s and shows how it's connected to today's aggressive ICE enforcement under President Donald Trump.
https://t.co/i1De7IhH9q

[NoelCaslerComedy @caslernoel]

“On the Fourth of July the Trump administration ended all subsidies for new solar and wind projects in the U.S.A., this heinous and regressive move will cause untold suffering and economic hardship for millions of Americans. One has to only step outside this broiling holiday weekend to see how the fossil fuel industry is destroying our planet.

To turn our back on sustainable energy projects in the midst of an existential climate crisis is akin to throwing your parachute out first before you leap from a plane.

The astronomical profits the fossil fuel companies, such as Exxon (who helped bury climate science and research for decades), are making are enough to bribe Trump and his ideological henchmen like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, to cancel all sensible environmental initiatives in favor of graft and servitude to the oil and gas industry.

It also allows us to fall far behind China in building a national infrastructure for renewable energy. It should be viewed as a national security issue but instead Trump frames environmental sanity as some sort of ‘woke ideology’ and covers up common sense conservation efforts with pablum like ‘unleash American energy’ - which draws cheers from the mindless hordes still laboring under ignorance and denial.

To say this planet is warming is no longer up for debate, to ignore it in this moment is absolute insanity and feeds into the same moronic mindset MAGA has been exploiting for over a decade.” https://t.co/Ez4vvXwIg7

[Billie Jean King @BillieJeanKing]

51 years ago today, on July 5, 1975, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win a #Wimbledon singles title.

I won the Wimbledon women's singles title the same year, and we shared a dance together at the ball.

📷: Alamy

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

In the past week, the Reflecting Pool, usually a backdrop to selfies and the Capitol’s dramas, has shifted to the foreground. After Donald Trump spent close to $15 million in taxpayer funds on sandblasting and resurfacing the pool in “American Flag Blue,” the project was thwarted by algae, which turned the water a Mountain Dew shade of green. Then strips of the blue coating floated to the top of the water, and Trump accused “vandals” of slashing it. But Trump’s critics saw only corruption and incompetence.

“For every landmark the President tinkers with, he seems to create an equal and opposite sight: an anti-monument,” Jesús Rodríguez writes. “With his stalled renovations, Trump may have given rise to a new kind of sightseeing, one animated not by reverence but by perverse curiosity.” Read more: https://t.co/ZQi06ZIrXX

[Stereogum @stereogum]

Julian Casablancas expanded on his recent Zionism comments in a speech at the Oxford Union.

When the Strokes frontman appeared on SubwayTakes a few months ago, he said “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people but talk like they are Black people during slavery.” He continued, “Just for the people that are going to be like, ‘Hamas, October 7th.’ Yes, bad. But Native American rebellions didn’t mean it was okay to do what we did. Slave rebellions that were violent didn’t mean that slavery is not bad.”

In late May, Casablancas appeared at the Oxford Union (the debating society where he previously spoke in 2021) and expanded on those remarks.

His speech began with an argument about the power of words and the need for more precise political language. He said capitalism, communism, socialism, and libertarianism have been bent and stretched to the point of losing their meaning. Then he brought up Zionism and argued that the word has become too broad to be useful, proposing more specific categories “to help avoid future discord.”

Casablancas said Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians but identified himself as a “green liner,” someone who accepts the 1967 Green Line borders. He contrasted that position with “expansionists” — “the good old settler types just shooting at Palestinians and taking homes daily.”

[Gianl1974 @Gianl1974]

BRAVERY 💖 In 1991, attorney Anita Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when he was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and she worked there as an adviser to him.

Hill's testimony was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before at a Supreme Court nominee hearing: a committee of 14 white men, chaired by then Sen. Joe Biden, grilled her in a televised live hearing.

The Senate ultimately confirmed
Thomas' nomination in a 52-48 vote (then, the smallest margin in Supreme Court history), and Hill went home to a new life — condemned by many and facing death threats.

Nevertheless, she has no regrets about stepping forward.

"I had important information about an individual who was picked to sit for a lifetime appointment on our country's highest court," she says. "It was not just a professional duty as a lawyer, but 1 believed it was my ethical responsibility to come forward in the best way and the most effective way that I could - and that's what I did."

At the time of the hearing, Hill felt isolated. But afterward she was flooded with stories of other people who had similar experiences.

"Hearing from them, just realizing that I was not alone in facing this kind of scrutiny and actual hostility, was affirming," she says.

The testimony brought sexual harassment to the forefront of national conversation, leading many organizations to re-examine their policies, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Clarence Thomas still sits on that court.

[The Bulwark @BulwarkOnline]

"The fact that the more-or-less-trillionaire owner of a major social media platform is cosplaying a James Bond villain obsessed with brown invaders and 'white genocide' really should scare us all." ICYMI @CathyYoung63:
https://t.co/d1ktsqubVA