Extra, Extra
Biden’s Cancer: “‘Cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.” Joe Biden thanks supporters after his cancer diagnosis. Biden led with empathy. Now he needs ours. But don’t even try explaining that to the MAGA crowd. Probably the worst response came, predictably, from Don Jr: “What I want to know is how did Dr. Jill Biden miss stage give metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup?” Three quick things: First, she’s a doctor of Education. Second, there are four stages of cancer. Third, I don’t think hell exists, but this guy makes me hope it does.
+ Let Them Eat Tariffs: “So with the current Big, Beautiful Bill, we are looking at a massive transfer of wealth from ordinary Americans to those at the top of American society.” Heather Cox Richardson with a solid overview of the budget bill moving through the House. Meanwhile, Trump is demanding that Walmart not raise prices and instead “eat the tariffs” themselves. They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the tariffs.
+ Ven Push Comes to Shove: “The Supreme Court on Monday allowed, for now, the Trump administration to remove legal protections for roughly 350,000 Venezuelans now living in the U.S., under a program that had protected them from deportation known as Temporary Protected Status.” This is from a state dept travel advisory: “Do not travel to or remain in Venezuela due to the high risk of wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure.”
+ Paramount Screws News: “The president of CBS News was forced out of her post on Monday, the latest shock wave to hit one of the country’s most prominent television news divisions amid an ongoing showdown involving President Trump, CBS and its parent company, Paramount.” NYT (Gift Article): Head of CBS News Is Forced Out Amid Tensions With Trump. The interests of news consumers, and the country in general, are not aligned with the interests of media owners. And it’s getting worse. Of course, this bending is not exclusive to news owners. Verizon ends DEI policies to get FCC’s blessing for its $20 billion Frontier deal.
+ Pardons and Payouts: Trump administration to pay $5 million to family of Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbitt.
+ Stalk Photos: “This is the facial recognition technology nightmare scenario that we have been worried about … This is the government giving itself the power to track anyone — for that matter, everyone — as we go about our lives walking around in public.” WaPo: Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras. (For what it’s worth, I don’t see much evidence that citizens are all that worried about this kind of surveillance.)
+ Selling You Out: You’re not just being tracked in NOLA. You’re being tracked all over the place. Wired: CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers. “Russell Vought, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has canceled plans to more tightly regulate the sale of Americans’ sensitive personal data.”
