‘Republicans Created This Crisis on Purpose’: Federal Data Shows ACA Enrollment Plunging

“This coverage collapse was a choice that Congress made. As a result, millions more will end up uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin.”


House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaks during a news conference in the US Capitol on March 17, 2026.
(Photo by Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jun 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Trump administration quietly released data last week showing a sharp decline in the number of Americans enrolled in health insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, a widely predicted outcome caused by congressional Republicans’ refusal to extend subsidies that helped people buy coverage.

The new data, published Friday on the Department of Health and Human Services’ website, shows that 19.2 million people were enrolled in ACA marketplace plans as of February—a decline of more than 5 million since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Last year, Republicans repeatedly blocked Democratic efforts to enact a temporary extension of the enhanced ACA tax credits, whose expiration at the start of 2026 led insurers to jack up premiums, pricing many out of coverage entirely. In focus groups, some Americans facing premium spikes said they would be forced to cut back on groceries or ration their medications to afford coverage.

“This dramatic decrease of millions of Americans losing health insurance is the result of deliberate decisions by the president and congressional leaders—it is what we feared but expected, given the end of the enhanced tax credit and other policies that make it harder to get on and stay on coverage,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA. “As a result, millions more will end up uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin.”

Wright dismissed the Trump administration’s attempt to explain away the coverage losses by claiming the numbers show a decline in “phantom” enrollment and fraud, calling that narrative “an insult to every person who became uninsured or underinsured.”

“These results are real for the millions who faced premiums doubling, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for coverage. The resulting price spikes and coverage losses are real for all who buy coverage as individuals, including gig workers, small business owners, young adults, seniors not quite of Medicare age, and many others,” said Wright. “The consequences are now undeniable: millions dropped from the rolls, and yet another year of double-digit premium increases.”

The lapse of enhanced ACA subsidies—which were established in 2021 during the Biden administration—alongside the roughly $900 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the Republican budget package that Trump signed into law last summer amounts to what analysts, advocates, and Democratic lawmakers say is the largest assault on federal healthcare programs in US history.

“We weren’t being hysterical. We knew this would happen,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in response to the new enrollment figures. “When Republicans passed the Big Ugly Bill and cut funding for healthcare, they literally signed away millions of Americans’ ability to afford health insurance. And now it’s happening.”

According to the Congressional Budget Office, around 16 million people across the US could lose health coverage by 2034 due to the Trump-GOP law, and millions of children have lost coverage since last year.

“Trump and Republicans are engineering the most devastating assault on healthcare in history, and today’s numbers prove it,” Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said on Friday. “They ripped away the tax credits that helped millions afford coverage, gutted funding to help people enroll, and sabotaged the ACA at every turn. They knew exactly what would happen, they chose to do it anyway, and it’s going to get worse.”

“Among the three million who have lost coverage are parents skipping cancer screenings, patients rationing insulin, and families who are now one medical emergency away from financial ruin,” said Dach. “Republicans created this crisis on purpose, and while Americans pay for it with their health and their lives, billionaires are cashing their tax cut checks.”

Journalists Set the Record Straight After Musk Claims ‘Not a Single’ Child Died From DOGE’s USAID Cuts

“Come with me on a reporting trip,” said New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. “You’ll see the dying children themselves.”


Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a state banquet hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on May 14, 2026 in Beijing, China.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jun 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As Elon Musk continues to claim that “not a single” child has died as a result of his foreign aid cuts at the beginning of the second Trump administration, journalists—including ones who witnessed the consequences of the policy firsthand—are correcting the record.

Since being called out by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who cited a journal’s projection that 4.5 million children under 5 could die by 2030 as a result of the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) sudden termination of most of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programs—including an 88% cut to children’s health aid awards—last year, the newly minted trillionaire has repeatedly asserted that the claim that he is responsible for the deaths of kids is “a total lie.”

“There is not even a single dead child!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X last Monday. “If there were, it would be worldwide headline news!”

Multiple journalists have been quick to respond that, in fact, the deaths of children and other people directly attributed to the termination of USAID programs by the agency he headed have been widely documented by major news outlets.

“Independent analyses estimate that your actions to dismantle USAID and drastically reduce lifesaving foreign aid have already killed 700,000 people,” wrote Atul Gawande, the former USAID global health chief and longtime New Yorker writer, who cited models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols.

In a lengthy thread posted on Thursday, Gawande cited nearly two-dozen examples in which news outlets named people who died as a direct result of cuts to health programs they relied upon, including:

Nyagoa, the 1-year-old daughter of Nyajime Duop, who died of cholera after the International Rescue Committee’s mobile health team stopped coming to her village in South Sudan after its grant was terminated, according to a December report from ProPublica. Save the Children said last year that it was forced to either shutter or scale back care at its 27 child clinics in Akobo County, in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. In April 2025, amid a cholera outbreak, the group reported that five children died while walking three hours to the nearest clinic after the one near them closed, which was reported by The Associated Press.

5-year-old Suza Kenyaba in the Democratic \Republic of the Congo, who died on February 19 after shipment of an anti-malaria drug that had already been purchased was left stranded in a distribution warehouse after payments to contractors were frozen by the US government, according to The Washington Post. 

There were more than 600 malaria deaths in the DRC’s Haut-Katanga province in the first six months of 2025, more than the total number in 2024. The Post found that 95% of USAID malaria medication shipments in the first six months of 2025 were either delayed or did not arrive at all.

11-year-old Paciencia in Mozambique died after the case worker handling her treatment for HIV was abruptly laid off along with most others, hospitals ran out of the US-funded antiretroviral drugs she relied upon, and she was given the wrong medication after the data clerks who managed patient information were laid off, according to the South African publication Spotlight. 

The National Association for Self-Sustained Development (ANDA), the US-funded group that handled this HIV treatment, found that at least 16 children died between January and June 2025 in the province of Manica, many more than they had seen before the cuts.

These are just a few of the numerous other examples cited by Gawande, who added that part of the reason verifying deaths has been challenging is that DOGE’s cuts also “destroyed” USAID’s data and auditing systems, which meant that figures and overall mortality effects would take another year to fully tally.

However, he said he and a team of reporters had already compiled individual reports of more than 1,200 people whose deaths can be directly attributed to the cuts.

Even after being presented with direct evidence to the contrary, Musk continued to insist on Sunday that critics of his cuts to USAID “cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the ‘millions’ they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, whose reporting on the impacts of the sudden aid cuts was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, responded that he could give Musk a list of “many, many names of people who have died because of your aid cuts.”He listed the names of just a few of the people whose cases he had witnessed firsthand, which are recounted in greater depth in his reports. As Kristoff wrote:Yamah Freeman was a [21-year-old] woman who died in childbirth because you stopped paying for the diesel for ambulances in her part of Liberia. I talked to her parents and sister in their village.
Gbessey Kiadu, age 1, died of malaria because of your cuts in Liberia. I talked to his mom in her village.

Ibrahim Koroma, an infant, died of AIDS in Sierra Leone after you interrupted HIV supplies. I talked to health workers who cared for him.

Achol Deng was an 8-year-old girl with HIV in South Sudan who died when you cut funding for the health care worker who provided her medicines. I talked to him.

“I could go on and on,” Kristof continued, “In almost every village you go to in South Sudan, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone or other countries I reported in, you find people dying because of aid cuts.”

He issued a “challenge” to Musk: “Come with me on a reporting trip, and we’ll talk to these moms and dads, and you’ll see the dying children themselves. I think if you see the kids whose lives are at stake, maybe you’ll change your mind.”

Fox News issues 'rare on-air apology' after comments from MAGA Shark Tank star

MR. WONDERFUL A CANADIAN IN AMERICAN DISGUISE

David McAfee
June 28, 2026

RAW STORY


Shutterstock


Fox News issued an unusual on-air apology this week following claims made by "Shark Tank" star and prominent Trump supporter Kevin O'Leary during an appearance on the network, walking back comments he made about opponents of his controversial data center project in Utah.

The apology was flagged by media journalist Brian Stelter, who described it as "a rare on-air apology by Fox News" that appeared to come in response to legal threats from people O'Leary had attacked during his appearance.

According to journalist Acyn, who shared video of the on-air statement, O'Leary had appeared as a guest on the network and discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding his planned data center project in Utah, making claims about the opponents of the development.

In its apology, Fox said there was no evidence to support O'Leary's claim that his opponents were working on behalf of China, distancing the network from the assertion.

The data center has drawn significant backlash. O'Leary has backed the development of a large-scale, 9-gigawatt facility on a 40,000-acre parcel of land in Utah, a project that has prompted outrage from local residents and state leaders. Critics, including scientists, have warned the natural-gas-powered facility near the Great Salt Lake could increase emissions, strain resources, and further damage an ecosystem already in decline.

The project has also made O'Leary a target for critics. Former "South Park" writer Toby Morton recently announced a billboard campaign aimed at the businessman, noting that he had purchased a domain matching O'Leary's social media handle to use against him.

On-air apologies of this kind are uncommon for the network, making Fox's decision to publicly disavow a guest's claims a notable moment — and one Stelter tied directly to the prospect of legal exposure over the remarks.

Supreme Court Gives Trump ‘King-Like’ Power to Purge Independent Agencies

“Today’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter takes a wrecking ball to a 90-year pillar of American law,” said House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin.

People rally in Houston for a June 14, 2025 "No Kings" protest against US President Donald Trump's policies.
(Photo by Brett Wilkins/Common Dreams)

Brett Wilkins
Jun 29, 2026

The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld President Donald Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, overturning 90 years of precedent and giving the chief executive what dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor called “a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted.”

Last March, Trump fired Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, the two Democratic FTC commissioners at the time, without cause in what critics called yet another illegal abuse of power by the twice-impeached convicted felon.

Under the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) of 1914, a president may only fire FTC commissioners “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” The Supreme Court’s 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. United States ruling interpreted the FTCA to mean that the president could not remove an FTC commissioner for any other reason, such as a policy disagreement.

The justices shredded that precedent with Monday’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which found that “the FTC’s for-cause removal provision is contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.”

Chief Justice John Roberts joined fellow conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—the last three appointed by Trump—in the majority, while liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Delivering the court’s opinion, Roberts wrote that the “Humphrey’s framework, in short, has not withstood the test of time.”

“We long ago abandoned the notion that there are some powers that are only partly executive,” the chief justice asserted. “Forty years have now passed, in fact, since we recognized that the FTC exercises executive power—and did so even in 1935, when Humphrey’s was decided.”

Slaughter and officials at independent executive agencies, Roberts wrote, “exercise the president’s power, not their own, and thus must be responsible to him.”

“At this point, all that is left of Humphrey’s is its observation that an agency that ‘exercises no part of the executive power’ need not fall within the rule of presidential removal,” he added. “If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it.”

As she did last week with Mullin v. Al Otro Lado, a 6-3 ruling that affirmed Trump’s deadly policy of blocking people legally seeking asylum from entering the United States, Sotomayor took the rare step of reading her dissent in Slaughter from the bench.

“Today, this court undoes centuries of political practice and concludes that all three branches of government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time. Its conclusion is wrong,” she asserted. “The text of the Constitution, along with its history, the long-standing practices of the political branches, and the precedents of this court, make clear that Congress may limit the causes for which the heads of commissions like the FTC can be removed by the president.”

“In holding otherwise, the court gives the president a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws,” she continued.

“If nothing else, the doctrine of stare decisis, which today’s decision cursorily dismisses, should have made this a profoundly easy case under Humphrey’s,” Sotomayor added, referring to the Latin legal term for “to stand by things decided,” or precedent.

Responding to the ruling, Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said that “today’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter takes a wrecking ball to a 90-year pillar of American law and to Congress’ power to create independent expert agencies that serve the will of the American people as expressed in federal law rather than the whimsical political agenda of one president.”

“In overturning Congress’ authority to prevent the president from removing the leaders of independent agencies at whim, the court’s right-wing majority has given President Trump sweeping new power to purge Senate-confirmed commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission and other independent agencies for no reason other than personal loyalty, political obedience, or refusal to bend the law to the personal will of the president,” Raskin added. “This decision invites presidential domination of the independent agencies Congress created to protect the people against corporate fraud, financial corruption, attacks on workers’ rights, and other abuses of concentrated economic and political power.”

Numerous civil society groups and constitutional experts also expressed alarm over Monday’s ruling, which follows the high court’s previous affirmations of expanded executive power in cases including Trump v. United States. Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority in that 2024 case that the president enjoys prosecutorial immunity for all “official acts”—which Sotomayor said in her dissent made him “a king above the law.”

“Independent agencies are the guardians of American consumers, workers, and investors,” Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said of Trump v. Slaughter. “They have held wealthy corporations that rip off hardworking Americans accountable and forced dangerous products from the market. Having stripped most independent agencies of their independence, President Trump is already politicizing and weaponizing them, including agencies such as the FTC and the Federal Communications Commission, to the detriment of everyday Americans.”

At Issue One, a group dedicated to reducing the influence of money in politics, vice president of advocacy Alix Fraser said that “today, the Supreme Court greenlit further abuses of presidential power and stripped independent commissions of their independence.”

“The ruling opens the floodgates for more governing decisions based on the president’s whims and self-interest,” he added. “This ruling not only subverts the Constitution’s clear guardrails against executive overreach, it also breaks from the court’s historical precedent to uphold the FTC removal provision.”



Leah Greenberg, co-executive director at the pro-democracy group Indivisible, issued a statement calling the ruling “shocking, but sadly not surprising.”

“John Roberts and the MAGA majority are willing to set fire to history, precedent, and any consistent constitutional principle in order to give Trump more power with less oversight,” she said. “This brazen, undemocratic partisanship and corruption must be investigated, the justices must be held accountable, and the court must be reformed to disempower the current anti-constitutional majority.”

Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and affairs at the anti-corruption watchdog Stand Up America—which said the ruling “opens the door to king-like powers for Trump to fire independent watchdogs and install loyalists throughout government”—lamented that “the MAGA Supreme Court just overturned a century of law to give more power to Donald Trump.”

“Trump couldn’t find a lawful reason to fire a member of an independent agency, so he ignored the law, fired them anyway, and turned to his allies on the Supreme Court to reward his gross abuses of executive power,” he continued. “His lackeys on the court obliged.”

“Today’s ruling hands Trump sweeping power to purge independent watchdogs and install loyalists throughout the US government who will answer to him alone,” Edkins added.

Republicans have long sought a repeal of Humphrey’s. Project 2025—the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a far-right overhaul of the federal government—calls for the ruling to be overturned.

Trump welcomed Monday’s decision with a post on his Truth Social network claiming that he personally “won” the ruling.

Monday’s decision means Trump will now be able to fire at will leaders from agencies including the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, National Labor Relations Board, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and US Postal Service.

But not the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. That’s because in a separate but related ruling released on Monday, the justices rejected Trump’s attempt to oust Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook, finding 5-4 in Trump v. Cook that his bid to fire her did not comply with the Federal Reserve Act’s for-cause removal protections.

“The court’s decision in Slaughter is all the more peculiar in light of... Trump v. Cook,” Raskin said in his statement.“There, the court rightly rejected President Trump’s lawless attempt to fire Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook without adequate cause, due process, or judicial review.”

While acknowledging that “central bank independence matters immensely to the American economy,” Raskin contended that “Congress’ constitutional judgments about the necessity of institutional independence should matter just as much at the FTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, and the many other important independent agencies Congress has created to serve the interests of the American people.”

Indivisible’s Greenberg said that “the carveout for the Federal Reserve only shows how grossly political” the Slaughter decision is.

“Apparently, independence only matters when financial markets are at stake,” she added, “but not when agencies are protecting consumers, workers, or the public from corporate abuse.”

Trump's 'earthquake' Supreme Court win shocks legal experts: 'There's no sugar-coating it'

Travis Gettys
June 29, 2026

 RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts (R) as Melania Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump look on after being sworn in during inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo


A U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued Monday will end 90 years of court precedent that limits the president's power over independent agencies.

The conservative majority voted 6-3 to overturn a landmark 1935 ruling in the Humphrey’s Executor case that had found the president unlawfully fired a member of the Federal Trade Commission, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that her colleagues had essentially concluded "all three branches of Government have been acting in open defiance of the Constitution all this time."

The Trump v. Slaughter case focused on the president's March 2025 firing of Rebecca Slaughter, the last remaining Democrat on the FTC, explaining by email that keeping her as a commissioner would be “inconsistent with [the] administration’s priorities."

The court ruled 5-4 in a separate case that Trump lacked the authority to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, and legal experts puzzled over the pair of diverging outcomes – each penned by Chief Justice John Roberts.

"There's no sugar-coating Slaughter," sighed Georgetown law professor Steve Vladek. "It's an enormously important ruling (far more important than the other three decisions #SCOTUS handed down today). It's a huge win for Trump/the executive. And it's going to have massive ramifications for the functioning of the government long after Trump is gone."

"Welcome to the 'Majority overrules Humphrey’s Executor' phase of our descent into fascism," declared civil rights lawyer Joshua Erlich. "If something has been done a certain way for a hundred years and now it's suddenly unconstitutional, that really should require an amendment to the constitution. Otherwise what are we doing here."

"There's no real difference between the FTC and the FED other than Roberts likes the Fed," opined The Nation's Elie Mystal.

"Slaughter is an earthquake," warned Slate's Mark Joseph Stern. "SCOTUS has overturned a 90-year-old precedent that facilitated much of modern governance by granting many agencies meaningful independence from the president. Now SCOTUS crushes that independence ... for seemingly every agency except the Federal Reserve."

"SCOTUS will allow Donald Trump to wreck separation of powers and the rule of law, but they draw the line at wrecking capitalism," noted attorney Adam Bonin.

"This is the most transparently absurd set of twin decisions in Cook and Slaughter," marveled constitutional law professor Anthony Michael Kreis.

"American democracy has just been Slaughter-ed and Cook-ed," cracked Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch.

"It's pretty clear they don't want Trump messing with the fed because it has the power to destroy capital if mishandled," stated Harvard law instructor Alejandra Caraballo. "The FTC protects consumers against corporate malfeasance so of course the commissioners can be fired. It's so transparent whose interests are protected by this court ... These decisions are filled with such swiss cheese logic and there are wildly disparate concurrences and dissents for each."

'Chaos will follow': Sotomayor blisters court as Trump is given 'power unknown' to kings

David Edwards
June 29, 2026 

RAW STORY

Justice Sonia Sotomayor. (Commonwealth Club/Flickr)

Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the Supreme Court of giving President Donald Trump "power unknown even to the English Crown."

The 6-3 ruling Monday in Trump v. Slaughter wiped out a 91-year-old precedent that let Congress protect the heads of independent federal agencies from being fired at will.

"In holding otherwise," Sotomayor wrote in dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, "the Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws."

"Perhaps worst of all, the Court today forgets its place," she continued. "Today's majority, however, decides that it knows better: better than even Hamilton, Story, Webster, Holmes, Brandeis, Frankfurter, and Rehnquist."

"Today, the majority replaces 90 years of proven, workable practice with a half-baked theory of executive power that is simultaneously all encompassing yet also subject to necessary but undefined exceptions," she wrote. "The one thing that does appear to be clear going forward is that chaos will follow."

The ruling guts the independence of more than two dozen federal agencies — including the bodies that police Wall Street, protect workers, and regulate airwaves. Trump can now fire their leaders for any reason, or no reason at all.

"In granting the President this unbridled authority, the Court upends its precedent, misconstrues our history, and sheds any pretense of judicial modesty," Sotomayor wrote, calling the decision "egregiously wrong."

The court issued a separate 5-4 ruling the same day, preserving the Federal Reserve's independence, for now.

America’s moral rot and open betrayal of basic decency on display at Trump's fair

David Dewitt,

 Ohio Capital Journal
June 26, 2026 

A woman on a horse carries a flag past the U.S. Capitol building during a rodeo at the opening of The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington D.C., U.S., June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

America greets our 250th birthday not as the last, best hope of Earth, but under a noxious cloud of broken promises, betrayed ideals, hateful discourse, public corruption, and petulant, petty public leaders peddling horrendous lies without shame.

A great bulk of everyday people are sinking in a quicksand of endless struggles, feeling desperate, helpless, hopeless, while our feckless, egomaniacal, careless, reckless ruling class showers itself in gaudy, self-obsessed, look-at-me excess.

The most vile aspects of our national character and the worst of the American stereotypes crash around our public space chewing up people’s lives and hawking them into the spittoon of our collective historical shame:

Loud, loudly wrong, ignorant, excessive, might-makes-right, cruelty, armed-to-the-teeth, strutting and striding, bullying, and oh-so-tough.

Oh, so weak.


So very very weak.


So insecure, and so obviously so insecure.

Deluded like children playing at action heroes in their movie-minds, with no care or concept of the depth and breadth and complexity of actual human life in the very real world.

Except children have the capacity for growth and wonder and curiosity impossible for these calcified so-called adults running the country.


The callous selfishness of, Greed-is-good and I’m-gonna-get-mine-so-who-cares-about-anybody-else.

The cowardly myopia of, It-doesn’t-affect-me-so-what-do-I-care.

The chilling ignorance, lack of empathy, lack of humanity, lack of compassion, and lack of historical comprehension spewed in the eternal American sins of continued shameless racism and discrimination being enacted once again as a matter of brutal public policy.


And they think they’re being clever.

They especially think they’re being clever when the courts that they’ve vandalized, radicalized, and politicized officially excuse their atrocious behavior.

This time the pathetic fools declaim, Racism-is-actually-over-it’s-reverse-racism-that’s-the-problem, as they follow the timeless playbook.


And this debased ignorance becomes sanctified in the decisions of the nation’s highest court, to roll back civil rights, voting rights, human rights.

The sick, fetishized cruelty of, Good-I’m-glad-those-people-are-being-hurt-they-deserve-it.

The stone-cold pathological depravity of, Empathy-and-compassion-are-actually-bad-things.


America faces our anniversary as the world’s oldest democracy not as a celebration but a reckoning.

We must now take stock of our situation and decide whether we shall snuff out the remaining embers of our constitutional republic in sacrifice to the egomania and moral rot of the age.

A free people may vote their way out of freedom; that is a free choice, but it is also a robbery of future generations who would never then have any such choice.


This betrayal of future generations steals their birthright, the “apple of gold,” as Abraham Lincoln called it, the “political religion of our nation” enshrined in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and never yet fully realized, now being betrayed once again.

Consider the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence in full.

In full is key.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”


It begins with our fundamental equality as human beings — and therefore deserving of the same exact natural rights and dignity no matter who we are, all of us included, nobody left out, all of humanity.

The second sentence does not end at the individualistic “pursuit of happiness,” a common mistake.

It ends much later, not on the note of individualism in the introductory clause, but on the collectivism, collective interest, and supremacy of the people over the government found in its concluding lines.


Because all of this — all of our government, everything you see — is meant to be for the safety and happiness of the people, all the people. Full stop.

That’s so far from reality right now it’s a joke, and that’s where we’ve gone so catastrophically wrong.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The introduction about the individual under the laws of nature is an extension of Lockean thought based on Thomas Aquinas based on a synthesis of Augustine of Hippo and Aristotle:

This fundamental idea that we are all, by our nature, indeed born free in nature, in the full bloom of our individual righteousness of diversity, and we only bind ourselves together voluntarily in what Rousseau called the social contract.

The Declaration acknowledges the greater truth of that bond, and its basis in both our individual natural rights and our free choice of social contract, by proclaiming that all governmental power is derived “from the consent of the governed.”

This is the contract for our collective good, where we recognize that our own narrow self-interest must have limitations to protect the interests of others and our collective interests now and into the future — even and perhaps especially for our ideological opposites — because that’s how we ensure the protection of ourselves, and aspire to liberty and justice for all.

Moreover, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends” — destructive of the people’s natural rights to life and liberty, meant to be secured in the bond of self-government — the people further reserve the right of supremacy over our government to do as we wish to effect our collective safety and happiness.

Put simply, all power is inherent in the people and politicians are nothing but public servants. Do not worship them, ever. They are your employees, nothing more. Hold them accountable, relentlessly.

And if politicians are only serving themselves, if they are only serving their own greed and lust for power and the moneyed elites who plunder and profiteer, and they sacrifice the public good at the altar of power and greed and ego, then they have betrayed the public trust and they are of no use to our self-government in their positions.

Past Americans spilled their blood for the rule of law now being ignored.

Past patriots gave their lives for the freedoms, liberty, and protections now being betrayed.

The birthright of future generations is at stake.

We can continue on in a hateful mess of chaos and destruction, or we can heal and build together.

That decision is before each and every one of us right now, and every day.

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

'Did the rapture happen?' Mockery ensues as Fox News broadcasts from empty Trump event

Nicole Charky-Chami
June 29, 2026 

RAW STORY


A smaller replica of President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot ‘Triumphal Arch’ stands in the rain during The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

The internet had a hilarious response to the low attendance at President Donald Trump's Great American State Fair on Monday.

Reporters broadcast live from the sparsely-attended fair commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, marked by bad weather that canceled rapper Vanilla Ice's performance, power outages melting ice cream, a Confederate flag display that ignited a firestorm and lackluster reviews from attendees.

Journalist Aaron Rupar commented on a Fox News reporter's live report from the celebration.

"Did the rapture happen overnight? Fox & Friends is broadcasting from a completely empty Trump state fair on the National Mall," Rupar wrote on X.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) described a similar scene.

"I went to the Great American State Fair this weekend…and it really was as empty as reported. **And where did the rest of our taxpayer dollars go?" Stansbury wrote on X.

Another D.C.-based reporter questioned the turnout, sharing an aerial video view from the Freedom 250 Ferris wheel.

"The Great American State Fair on Saturday at 2:15pm. What do you make of the crowd?" Jon Michael Raasch, The Daily Mail's White House correspondent, posted on X.

Strategist Christopher Webb responded to reporting from MS NOW at the location.


"The Great American State Fair was really just the remaining MAGA faithful refusing to admit it’s over," Webb wrote on X.

Lawyer David Lurie joked about the situation.

"Confused attendees thought they were supposed to invade the Capitol," Lurie wrote on Bluesky.

'Ouch': MS NOW's Mika cringes at Fox News coverage of Trump's thinly attended festival

Travis Gettys
June 29, 2026 

RAW STORY


Mika Brzezinski/MS NOW

President Donald Trump has boasted about the crowds flocking to the Great American State Fair, but photos show the semiquincentennial celebration has been thinly attended.

The 80-year-old president claimed last week that 45,000 people attended the fair's kickoff celebration, although independent reporting estimated a far smaller crowd, and MS NOW's Mika Brzezinski mocked the misleading coverage over the weekend on Fox News.

"President Trump is touting crowd size at the American State Fair, claiming at least 45,000 people attended his speech kicking off America's 250th anniversary festivities. In Washington, D.C.," Brzezinski said. "But reports from the ground tell a different story. NBC News puts the crowd closer to 1,000 people, writing, quote, 'based on,' there you go, 'estimates by our team on the ground, nowhere near. 45,000 people were present.' The Washington Post reports, quote, 'the crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings,' and the New Republic writes, quote, 'dozens of attendees Wednesday were seen flocking toward the exits in the middle of Trump's address,' which was meant to kick-start the two-week event."

"Despite the paltry crowd size, one news station insisted that there were more people attending that event than met the eye," she added.

Producers played a clip of Fox News hosts covering the event live insisting there were more attendees than what appeared to be dozens of people milling around behind them on the National Mall, with one broadcaster claiming "a wash of people" were present – presumably just out of frame.

"Oh my God," Brzezinski said, cringing. "Ouch."

Trump lashes out at Obama amid widespread State Fair mockery: 'Packed with happy people'

Alexander Willis
June 29, 2026
RAW STORY

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One while flying from Joint Base Andrews to Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, U.S., June, 5, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard

President Donald Trump took to social media Monday to lash out at former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden amid widespread mockery of his Great American State Fair, an event he insisted was “packed with happy people” and loved by all – despite ample evidence to the contrary.

“Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” Trump asked on his social media platform Truth Social. “Ask yourself this simple question, ‘DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?’ THE ANSWER IS NO!”

Organized by the Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the fair got off to a rough start last Thursday after most of the artists previously slated to perform at the event backed out after learning of its connections to Trump. The fair has also experienced power failures that melted perishable foods and stalled a Ferris wheel, and has been ridiculed over what appear to be near-empty fields and booths.

Trump-Netanyahu Debacle: A World of Collateral Damage

Sunday 28 June 2026, by David Finkel

PERHAPS DONALD TRUMP was misunderstood: When he promised that the war with Iran would end in “Unconditional Surrender,” we didn’t realize that it meant “surrender” would be by him.

But seriously, amidst the swirling uncertainties about whether the war is really over and what comes next, there are some things we need to be clear about. First, this was a hideous imperialist war with horrific global consequences, a whole world of collateral damage.

Second, once having launched the war, it was essential that the United States and Israel be defeated in their aims of total regional conquest. We have to say out loud that this was not only “Trump’s war of choice,” as many Democrats do, but that it deserved to lose.

Third, we say this with no sympathy for the murderous Iranian regime with its record of mass murder and executions of its own population for decades, including this year while Trump was issuing empty noise about “help is on the way.”

Fourth, the angry split between the gangster administrations of Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu is real, and tactically important for the Palestine solidarity struggle.

Strategically, however, the U.S.-Israeli partnership remains intact — and may be disastrously enhanced by a proposed “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” in the draft 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, to essentially fuse their military-industrial operations.
Anatomy of a Debacle

Trump and some of his advisers are furious with Benjamin Netanyahu for suckering the U.S. president into launching the war on the absurd promises of instantaneous military victory, rapid Iranian regime collapse, and installation of a client government on the Venezuela 2.0 model.

In the end, Trump surrendered to reality, achieving nothing of what he arrogantly promised at the outset of “Epic Fury.”

Part of the MAGA base is furious with Trump for starting the war; many pro-Israel neocon hawks and even some “pragmatic centrists,” including Democrats, are angry that he failed to continue and “finish the job”; financial markets verged on panic of world economic hemorrhage if the war continued; and most decisively, the U.S. population was staggering under the war’s inflationary surge for what people correctly see as having no constructive purpose.

Inside Israel — where the majority of the Jewish population since October 7, 2023, has become tragically inured to the genocide in Palestine and catastrophic suffering in Lebanon — when the war began Trump’s popularity surged well past their own prime minister’s.

With the U.S.-Iran “Memorandum of Understanding,” Trump’s political standing in Israel has slumped. As for Netanyahu, he needs permanent war to preserve his coalition of far-rightists, religious fundamentalists, and essentially neonazi settler pogromists, and to keep his own corruption trials suspended. And the ostensible main opposition in Israel is denouncing Netanyahu not for starting the war, but for accepting the U.S.-dictated “humiliation” of the ceasefire.

For this Israeli government, then, it is essential to blow up the U.S.-Iran agreement and force the resumption of this ruinous war. That’s the number-one reason why Israel continues bombing Lebanon, with dozens of civilians killed daily, immediately after announcing yet another “ceasefire” deal.
Global Consequences

Where this leads in U.S., Israeli, and Iranian broader regional politics and global economy will take time to emerge. But let us not overlook how the peoples of the Middle East (as some now call it, Western Asia) and the world are collateral damage in this imperial debacle.

The longterm effects of the Strait of Hormuz blockage have implications for hunger in the Global South that won’t be fully known for at least a year. And this at a moment when a “super El Niño” phase in the Pacific Ocean can impact agriculture by massive climate disruptions.

Israel’s occupation-annexationist rampage in southern Lebanon threatens the very existence of the Lebanese state. In Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian people are human sacrifices on the altar of settler-colonialism and U.S. and European indifference.

If the Iranian regime has won the war — at least in terms of its survival and control of the Strait of Hormuz, and promises of sanctions relief and massive reconstruction subsidies from Gulf states — the Iranian people have not. Over a million Iranians are newly unemployed, and thousands or tens of thousands were murdered by the government earlier this year.

And let’s remember that the Iranian president a year ago — before the 2025 “twelve day war,” before the mass murders of protesters, and before the most recent war — was warning the nation that the capital Tehran would have to be “evacuated” as it would ultimately run out of water, as if there were anywhere for the population to go.

Iran’s internal crises rule out the scenario proclaimed by some geopolitical pundits, and parts of the anti-imperialist left that should know better, that Iran has now become a “fourth global power.”

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is yet another example of imperialism creating problems it can’t solve. Again, the U.S.-Israeli defeat in this war and the partial U.S.-Israeli rupture are to be welcomed — and if all this weakens Trump’s death grip in American politics, so much the better.

But there shouldn’t be illusions that this automatically opens a road anytime soon to progressive solutions, which will require mass movements, popular mobilizations, and alternative politics that remain to be organized.

27 June 2026

Source Solidarity webzine.

Attached documents

• trump-netanyahu-debacle-a-world-of-collateral-damage_a9622.pdf (PDF - 1.1 MiB)
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• David Finkel

  David Finkel is an editor of Against the Current, published by the US socialist organization Solidarity (www.solidarity-us.org)

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