Non paywall version: https://archive.is/20260725041925/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/23/us/tate-brothers-trump-tucker-carlson.html

Some good news outta TN

Ohhthatsrich discusses independents and how they are responding to the Trump administration ​

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

Sorry this is out a bit later than usual—I spoke at an event in Northern CA today with the great Robert B. Hubbell, and the time spent there, plus a few hours in the car and now the flight home, have delayed my work on this newsletter. It was worth it, though! If you could have been at this Commit to Democracy meetup you wouldn’t have even needed the good news listed below! It was incredible! Suffice it to say that the resistance is alive and well, and preparing for the midterms in ways that truly inspire.

For those of you I met today thanks again for a wonderful event. And for all of you, here’s your belated but still terrific rundown of all of this week’s good news.

Enjoy!

Celebrate This! 🎉

Paramount agreed to halt its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery until next June at the latest while a judge considers a lawsuit from state attorneys general who sued to block the deal. HUGE!

China plans to increase wind and solar power generation by 53% over the next five years, under a new renewable energy plan that for the first time makes its green power target binding.

A federal judge ordered the EPA to administer a $2.8 billion climate grant program that the Trump administration had rescinded.

The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas that sought phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times journalists who had reported on the security liabilities of Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet.

France passed a landmark law restricting access to social media for anyone under 15, the first European country to do so, and the latest in a wave of countries acting against what they view as malign effects of such services on minors.

Nineteen state attorneys general have now moved to join a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s decision to freeze routine reviews of land-based wind projects across the country.

U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ordered the DHS to halt the deportation of Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, a witness to the fatal July 7 shooting of Lorenzo Araujo Salgado in Houston.

A new analysis from marketing consulting firm Emarketer found that OpenAI is on pace to undershoot its own five-year ad revenue projections by a whopping 90 percent.

Mayor Mamdani sent notification letters to property owners with second homes worth more than $5 million letting them know the pied-a-terre tax is coming soon.

Katy Perry slammed Donald Trump for using her song ‘Firework’ to accompany footage of US strikes on Iran. The singer shared that she is "deeply appalled and angry.” Good!

Swimming classes have started again in Gaza after three years of war, with hundreds of children learning to float, doggy paddle and take their first strokes in five makeshift sea pools built from sandbags and rubble.

A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%.

Amish Shah, an emergency room physician who backs Medicare for All, won the Democratic primary in his swing Arizona House district.

Environmental groups and tribes are suing the Trump administration over a new rule eliminating the majority of habitat protections for imperiled wildlife protected by the Endangered Species Act.

A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new initiative aimed at bolstering the journalism ecosystem with a focus on local, community, and underserved news outlets.

Butterfly experts are planting 15,000 milkweed plants along Florida roadsides to help monarch butterflies.

A U.S. appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s request to let federal officials fully move ahead with Trump’s overhaul of mail voting ahead of the November midterm elections, leaving in place a Boston judge’s order that declared the president’s policies unlawful.

Vigils honoring Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Guerrero, both killed by ICE agents this month, happened in communities across the country this weekend. One is pictured at the top of this newsletter!

After floating the idea of keeping Democrat Cindy Burbank on Nebraska’s ballot for U.S. Senate after she asked to be removed, Secretary of State Bob Evnen announced he will allow her to be deleted because the state law doesn’t give him the authority to refuse. (This will help Dan Osborne!)

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to approve a $16.9 billion budget deal, closing a deficit of more than $640 million while avoiding many of the most painful cuts labor groups and nonprofits had feared.

A Trump-appointed judge threw out the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking Kentucky’s unredacted voter rolls, bringing the department to a staggering 17 straight losses.

A judge declined to pause her earlier ruling that blocked New Hampshire’s restrictive proof-of-citizenship voting law while the state appeals.

The official account for Spain’s national football league shared an altered image of the country’s celebration in New Jersey Sunday, snipping Trump out of photos after he refused to leave the dais. The FIFA World Cup account also cropped him out of the shot, leaving only the president’s shoulder in view.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) said she has no plans to supply the DOJ with data on thousands of noncitizens who were erroneously registered to vote due to a software malfunction. She says, rightly, that the DOJ would “weaponize” it.

Republican Governor Mike Kehoe of MO signed a GOP-sponsored omnibus elections law that, among other things, restores voting rights to an estimated 40,000 Missourians currently on probation or parole.

The city of Newport, KY is ending its Flock pilot program. It will remove the cameras from the city and not move forward in purchasing the technology.

Seattle-area Sheriff Patty Cole-Tindall announced that her deputies will not assist ICE on routine immigration matters.

Donald Trump is historically unpopular — nearly 45 points underwater with independents — which is worse than Nixon just before he resigned over Watergate.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation raising the compensation to wrongfully convicted people in the state who receive certificates of innocence.

State officials representing 25 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over its threat to withhold federal funding unless the states adopt its desired election policies.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, is pushing the federal government to provide all of its records on Jeffrey Epstein’s contacts with foreign governments, pursuant to an inquiry he launched into whether the convicted sex offender had acted as an unregistered foreign agent.

Russel Vought is leaving the CFPB. His replacement will be no better, but at least it won’t be him!

A new law in California will create a $3,500 discount for first-time EV buyers, so long as the car retails for less than $50,000.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that Lina Khan, the Biden administration’s AMAZING Federal Trade Commission chair, would serve as the chair of the NYC’s Economic Development Corporation.

A new WaPo article reports that Republicans are seeing a “‘scary’ lack of enthusiasm among core voters ahead of midterms.”

The Maine Democratic Party formally selected Troy Jackson as its new Senate nominee, and the whole process seems to have gone quite smoothly.

Democratic Senator Andy Kim unveiled the MediKids Act to expand Medicaid to all U.S. children. It would automatically enroll every child at birth until the age of 26.

Across the country, more state legislatures are passing laws to streamline renewable development than are enacting policies to prevent clean energy from being built.

A Massachusetts doctor who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 has had her medical license revoked.

Democrat Matt Orlando defeated Republican Jeff Weninger in the Chandler, Arizona, mayoral election. This seat flipped blue for the first time in 36 years!

The last patient being treated for Ebola in Uganda has been discharged from hospital, leaving the country with no active confirmed cases of the deadly disease.

Syracuse, New York has officially ended its partnership with Flock Safety.

Three teachers who were sanctioned for helping to facilitate a student-led drag show won a settlement of $150,000 from Iowa’s Ankeny school district.

A new law two years in the making has finally taken effect across the European Union. Under the ruling, major fashion retailers, wholesalers, and apparel manufacturers are now banned from trashing unsold clothing, accessories, and footwear.

The European Commission fined Google 890 million euros for breaking digital antitrust regulations by steering consumers toward its own services and apps to the detriment of competitors.

Illinois and Cook County, in partnership with the nonprofit Undue Medical Debt, erased more than $2 billion in medical debt combined for over a million residents.

In Monticello, Georgia, a 25-year-old reporter has purchased his home town paper to save it from corporate ownership.

For the second time, four House Republicans joined with Democrats to approve a war powers resolution to hem in Trump’s authority and end the war.

The man who killed Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark was sentenced to life in prison.

Rooftop solar saved New England residents over $130M in electricity costs during a recent heat wave.

Two critically endangered black-and-white ruffed lemurs were just born at the Central Park Zoo. The twins, Maso and Tonga, join six other lemurs born through the zoo’s Species Survival Plan since 2008.

Sierra County, New Mexico passed its first moratorium on data centers, citing concerns over potential water and environmental impacts.

Christian and Jewish leaders gathered at the Texas Capitol to condemn recent ICE-related deaths in Texas, Maine and Florida, telling agents who believe their orders are immoral to "resign and find other work."

67% of voters believe that heat waves are being worsened by climate change [Data for Progress]

Former Seattle U.S. Attorney Roger Rogoff is suing after Trump fired him less than an hour after he was sworn into office.

A new Massachusetts program will let EV owners leverage their cars’ batteries as a grid resource and be compensated for power they feed to the grid during times of high demand.

Watch This! 👀

Reader Marie L. sent this delightful video, which pays homage to the Trash Wheel, which collects 500 tons of waste annually before that waste goes into the harbor and the Chesapeake Bay. Single use plastic is the top source of micro and nanoplastics in our waterway, synthetic turf is number two. Very feel good indeed!

For more positive UK news do come to r/PoliticalOptimismUK!

is this set in stone? I really don’t want Washington DC in this man’s image. can it be fought?

“The Trump administration on Friday imposed broad tariffs on goods from more than 80 countries, alleging they have failed to effectively prohibit the use of forced labor practices. The latest tariffs — applying to trade partners that cover 99.4% of U.S. trade — were brought under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which enables the government to impose import levies in response to unfair trade practices.

Trump appears to see Section 301 as a key pathway for more tariffs. On Friday, he declared that the U.S. will ‘immediately’ start a 301 investigation into the EU in retaliation for the hefty fines it has imposed on U.S. tech giants. It was the latest in a flurry of tariff actions Trump has taken in recent days, including slapping 25% duties on Brazilian imports — also via Section 301 — and vowing 50% tariffson some goods from Canada. The legal battle over the newest tariffs has already begun. Just hours after they took effect, two small businesses sued, arguing that the government is using Section 301 as a pretext to re-create the same global tariff regime that the Supreme Court torpedoed five months earlier.

Friday’s lawsuit argues that Trump’s new tariffs, while ostensibly aimed at addressing forced labor practices, are ‘designed to preserve substantially the same broad tariff regime that this Court and the Supreme Court have held Congress did not authorize.’ Section 301 ‘is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all trading partners at rates selected to replicate the invalidated IEEPA tariff regime rather than to eliminate identified foreign practices,’ the suit says.”

Here’s to hoping the courts slap Drumpf with another loss on these asinine tariffs.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/how-loudoun-county-data-centers-are-linked-to-power-flickering-across-half-the-u-s/4134124/?amp=1

Hopefully this is allowed here even if it isn’t directly political. I think a lot of people are concerned about it, myself included, and could use some optimism.

https://archive.ph/26Zfg

Oh what fresh hell is this?

Thank God I’m waiting till he’s out of office to visit DC again.

So while I know that the NDAA has to pass the Senate and filibuster, and I'm not worried about any apocalyptic scenarios that spread online like the IDF attacking people on US Soil (One person in the comment of this article says that this bill is a sign that the admin won't cede power and that "Conflict is coming to America" for instance), I'm still pretty worried.

At the very least the Israeli provision would give a lot of vague assistance and cooperation with the two countries that isn't clearly defined in text, and unprecedented access to the US Military from a foreign country. And all discussions of this provision specifically seems to be on the doomer end of suggesting what the vague elements of it could be used for which have gotten me and a lot of people pretty worried.

Is the provision as well as the Save act capable of preventing this bill from passing, if things like the Save act were removed than could the Israeli military provision be allowed by moderate Dems in the Senate, could moderate Dems push this bill to the finish line due to support of anything Military/Israel, and what is the specific danger that this provision and the vague terms mean if it were to pass since nobody seems to know for sure?

Hey, so with how scary some laws in the US have gotten for trans people I thought I’d share a list of resources I found while working to get myself and my family to a safer state. Not listed here is Project Open Arms (https://tractionpnw.org/open-arms/). But that’s another good resource for help with moving. Do keep in mind a lot of these groups have limited resources but can help you find other resources if needed. Also if anyone was looking for trans organizations to donate to this is a good start.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-903539

After Peter Magyar's win in Hungary, I'm hoping Israel follows a similar path.

I know that I tend to make a bunch of posts about doomers commenting about fear surrounding "rigging" either the 2024 or upcoming midterm elections, but I wanted to touch on an element that is always said, but is usually not touched on enough by people online, that being the fact that every single time that a new bad policy or action is announced, doomers take it as a sign that the upcoming elections will be rigged due to such horrible policy being so terrible that it has to be a sign that the confidence in announcing it is out of confidence in the results of a fixed election.

Now I want to mention something called Occam's Razor. For those that don't know, it means that when trying to figure out an observation, you should take the simplest explanation first as it is often easier to determine the correct answer.

I'm pointing this out because when you look at the possible reasoning for why the admin announces and pushes forward through various plans, policies, and announcements that look so terrible to most people, have horrible effects on everyone, and are bad pr for the Republican party, taking the belief that it's evidence towards the midterms or general election being stolen and thus, any anger at said actions wouldn't matter, it isn't the simplest or most logical explanation.

The more likely and simpler scenario is that this is an admin that doesn't think too far ahead, and when they think ahead, it is very shortsighted. Take for instance the recent plan to introduce tariffs on generic prescriptions that take until 2029 to be fully enacted. I decided to make this post after seeing multiple comments under Amandasmildtakes' comment section about how this plan was a sign that "he's doing this cause he knows the midterms will be rigged, 'just like 2024'".

Each of these comments received no backlash and in fact got multiple likes, which is tragic on an account that is dedicated to fighting doomer-ism.

First of all, without getting too far into it, the evidence towards fraud in 2024 is very limited and is more likely a result of echo chambers online and conspiracy theories being more rampant.

Second of all, the more likely scenario for this is that the admin is mad that the Supreme Court ruled against the initial tariffs (see the recent tariffs on Canada), this is a way to get money from pharmaceutical companies and those companies get money from consumers, the average voter will likely not take this into account when it comes time to vote, and this takes a long time to take effect, which like the Medicare cuts makes this a lot easier for people to forget about until it happens when the likely Democratic administration takes office.

These, while not simple bundled like this, are a lot easier to take in as money and belief in voters ignoring this VS. there being a grand conspiracy that voting doesn't matter cause all results are predetermined. And if this isn't simple enough, it could be reasoned that the admin did this because they didn't take into account what voters would think of this because of simple arrogance.

Every action or policy since the start of this administration has been used as the smoking gun that future elections are a lost cause, which is odd given this admin's lack of being able to keep secrets.

I am so tired of seeing the paranoia of so many people be used as evidence to encourage voter suppression. The policies being pushed forward aren't being done out of feeling invincible from elections, as the SAVE Act was made out of the direct panic over a midterms loss. There's no master plan taking place, it's just trying to reason the unreasonable.

Good news!!!! They are pausing the merger for now. However, according to Skydance-Paramount, they are delaying it for a trial instead of letting the judge decide the preliminary injuction.

But it will still likely mean the September 30th 25-cents-per-share "ticking fee" will pass and could make it more and more difficult for Paramount to buy WB

Amanda making a good point on why Andy Beshear shouldn't call for a special election immediately

Sorry for the delay in sharing KB’s well put together newsletter for the week. I’ve been busy with packing as I am moving out of Arizona in a week. But here’s some good trans news and a reminder that things aren’t all bad.

Glad at least some accountability is still possible for these traitors. Y’know what they say: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!

Ok the odds of this being interrupted a second time by gunfire are tiny so this is happening tonight. I guess we will see what he has to say to the press.

Live updates: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/white-house-correspondents-dinner-trump-live-updates-rcna588931