PomPolitics

Happy Juneteenth 🫠✊️

✨️ Cartoon by Garth German

This is a great deep dive into the term "Oligarchy" by Johnny Harris.

Why the rich stay rich I thought I knew what "oligarchy" meant. I was totally wrongGo to ...

📖 Day 516 of : If You Can't Fix It, Rebrand It

(June 18, 2026)

The architecture of American democracy looks less like a foundation and more like a controlled demolition — each week another load-bearing wall quietly removed while the cameras point somewhere else. Today's digest has everything the tRump era has perfected: a war "ended" through a deal that nobody fully understands, signed at Versailles because subtlety died somewhere around 2017; a ballroom being built with stolen security funds while immigrants die in repurposed prisons; a baby shot dead in a Walmart parking lot; a Supreme Court expanding gun rights; and Finland — Finland — rearming with nuclear weapons because the adults left the room and nobody's sure America will answer the phone anymore. We've got Ghislaine Maxwell sitting comfortably in a minimum-security camp while Congress gets stonewalled trying to ask why. Meanwhile, tRump is taking credit for an Iran deal he'll blame on Vance if it collapses, Apple is raising your prices because of tariffs tRump swore wouldn't hurt you, and the Obama Presidential Center opened today in Chicago with Springsteen, Bono, and Stevie Wonder — and tRump wasn't invited, which is probably the most honest review of his presidency anyone has offered. Let's dissect:

— News Roundup —

☢️ War's "Over": The tRump-Iran MOU and the Art of Declaring Victory Before the Ink Dries

After months of an unnecessary war choice that shuttered the Strait of Hormuz, torched oil markets, and cost hundreds of lives — including civilians and children killed in strikes the Pentagon still won't fully account for — tRump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding this week, with tRump putting pen to paper at the Palace of Versailles, because nothing says "humble statesman" like signing a ceasefire at the most flamboyant building in human history. As of today, the U.S. has lifted its naval blockade of Iranian ports, JD Vance announced more than a dozen ships have already passed through to Iranian ports, and oil tankers are moving through the Strait again for the first time in months. The deal calls for Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in exchange for sweeping sanctions relief — including the freedom to sell oil on the open market — a concession so significant that Republican hawks like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz are openly calling it a capitulation, with Cruz arguing tRump is "receiving bad advice," and Graham helpfully identifying Vance as "the architect of the deal," which sounds like praise until you realize everyone's positioning for the blame assignment if it unravels. And unravel it might: Iran's deputy foreign minister says the 60-day nuclear negotiations won't even begin until the U.S. releases billions in frozen funds; a U.S. official flatly rejected that precondition; and the formal signing ceremony, originally planned for Switzerland Friday, is now in limbo after Vance floated postponing his travel — because nothing projects confidence in a historic peace deal like the vice president maybe not showing up to sign it. Supreme Leader Khamenei — who reportedly hasn't appeared publicly since being wounded in an Israeli airstrike and is managing this entire diplomatic pivot through written statements — endorsed direct talks while carefully noting it "does not signify acceptance of the enemy's views." The political insulation built into the deal's architecture is telling: Khamenei delegated visible authority to President Pezeshkian so he can claim credit if it works and plausible deniability if it doesn't — a move tRump understands instinctively, given he already announced his own escape hatch: "If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD." Two leaders, one deal, zero accountability — and a two-month window to solve what decades of diplomacy couldn't. What could possibly go wrong?

🎥 NTI (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/vxhVGg1gB48?is=tW7Cx6EjilcpC5VK

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/r0uxgK9Rohc?is=NnYmzC0vGEq7Nv8t

(3):
https://youtube.com/shorts/Juzy9JrobHc?is=NJrIz7fyDo58hxMG

🎥 MEE (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/yZttTp7F0Mc?is=OY_D9u2mg0RBcHEg

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZeSX6wZyJok?is=gNtqxZS2shz6GaaM

(3):
https://youtube.com/shorts/qY69JI_H0vg?is=HpzP7aDgygZgyzbb

(4):
https://youtube.com/shorts/e0Mj2lilv04?is=xyc9_hPmaijp_Dab

(5):
https://youtube.com/shorts/U2k_9GiEl0g?is=d3EhtrWdYHC5iscT

(6):
https://youtube.com/shorts/T9feg92FJ2k?is=R1JwKO58bvym8c3u

(7):
https://youtube.com/shorts/Hzo1SsDQePg?is=OKMa3-o93lxH8UTU

🎥 Zeteo:
https://youtube.com/shorts/J1Ek2xhmx_g?is=RugmqmLHw_kaxgXh

🎥 BP (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/K-YOTk5LF2E?is=ojOz-G83RvyxhIwy

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/049CWK_H5LE?is=1GMS3SKNpjLx9EKe

🎥 Itsluke:
https://youtube.com/shorts/pzkoZk0MDHY?is=I6SbZAPME7GwcCTf

🎥 PM:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Vw6_Enhhq5M?is=1jGsAx-7S3JRQxkX

🎥 WM:
https://youtube.com/shorts/TZprynqQ8sE?is=tPaAKXUGrmqTEjtU

🎥 DN:
https://youtu.be/kRO3JL_MVIc?is=uEgkera_huMUCoA2

🎥 MT (1):
https://youtu.be/oi18DXjhVbA?is=1NEMiNFIrczqkZdt

(2):
https://youtu.be/jboAm_Vv-5c?is=r5apo_uyqt0yxySF

(3):
https://youtu.be/OgRFqKPc1z4?is=aSAH5HPbP6Io_Cq7

(4):
https://youtu.be/0OdQk72ECr0?is=LPDmFgvBwUd-YRPk

🎥 ST:
https://youtu.be/V2_REHy6oy8?is=OVeaU2TPqtCJRh0s

🎥 PDS:
https://youtu.be/etofLBwcMmI?is=56vr4D02QIFozC3g

🎥 IHIP:
https://youtu.be/aHux7t__DO8?is=tCbN2vc7iour6wEW

🎥 JamesLi:
https://youtu.be/4NrCPaKfeps?is=0turu86VdhVUgT7j

🇮🇱 Vance to Israel: Nine Million People Can't Kill Their Way to Peace

In what may be the most surprising sentence to ever come out of a tRump regime official's mouth, JD Vance told the New York Times that Israel's far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich — two of the worst people currently holding government office on planet Earth — need to stop attacking the U.S.-Iran deal and recognize that "you're a country of nine million people — you can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have." Vance also reminded them that American hands built the vast majority of Israel's defensive weapons, and that the deal reopens the Strait of Hormuz and delivers $300 billion to Iran — so maybe pump the brakes on the ingratitude. Netanyahu, who is reportedly in "stunned anger" over the deal, has at least been smart enough to keep his mouth shut publicly, unlike his coalition partners who took to social media to declare Israel "not bound" by an agreement between two other sovereign nations. Ben-Gvir's response to Vance? That Israel's plan is to "deal with the N*zis of the 21st century" — which is rich coming from a man whose politics would make a 1930s ethnonationalist blush. Too bad, warmongers — maybe don't bite the hand that continues funding a military campaign increasingly condemned worldwide as collective punishment and what scholars refer to as a g*nocide.

⛽ Gas Dips Below $4 — Don't Pop the Champagne Yet

For the first time in months, the average U.S. gasoline price has dipped below $4 per gallon, offering a brief exhale for American wallets that have been squeezed since the Iran war sent oil markets into chaos. Indiana is leading the nation at a $3.40 average, while oil analyst Tom Kloza dryly noted that gas prices "go up like a rocket and come down like a feather" — which explains why you're paying less today than three weeks ago but still more than you did before any of this started. Experts are already waving the caution flag: with tanker traffic restoration still three to four months out and fuel inventories sitting at decade lows, pump prices could easily surge back above $4 this summer. Analyst Dan Pickering was clear that the new normal "isn't going to be $2.85 gasoline," so you should still plan accordingly for your next road trip.

🎥 NTI (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/lVeaQZ_iUWo?is=ORoDXX-xaSUVSmcT

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/TLI9uwKMe4c?is=JWlQ9hrWGXkTP2Ci

👑 Ghislaine Maxwell's Cushy Arrangements Are Under Congressional Scrutiny

Congressional staff from the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees traveled to Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas this week to investigate whistleblower allegations that Ghislaine Maxwell — convicted s*x trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's longtime partner in crime — has been receiving suspiciously cushy treatment since her transfer from a Florida prison last year. Investigators found Maxwell is the *only* convicted s*x offender among roughly 600 inmates at the minimum-security camp, and were flatly refused the ability to question her — while the warden insisted, with a presumably straight face, that no special treatment has been given. Reps. Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia publicly called out the Bureau of Prisons for repeatedly "shutting down their lines of questioning," and promised to dig into Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's role in ensuring Maxwell stays "comfortable and quiet." Democrats are openly asking whether Maxwell's transfer is part of a quiet arrangement tied to tRump and Epstein — which is a question the regime is clearly in no hurry to answer.

🎥 Liz Oyer:
https://youtube.com/shorts/dNSx2_Sg04o?is=n5_uvS7Pa2HFQvL1

🎥 JDM:
https://youtube.com/shorts/1yhlc307fZs?is=M25O9_eFnxUXTbzO

🎥 ST:
https://youtu.be/0jEE5empbq0?is=ke8tD5fFGpYqgFS9

🕵️ Peter Thiel's Secret 'Dialog' Society Leaked — And the Guest List Is Everything

A Swiss hacktivist named maia arson crimew discovered that the registration records for Peter Thiel's ultra-secretive "Dialog" society — an invite-only elite retreat Thiel founded and describes as a place for "off-the-record relationships among leaders from different fields" — were hiding in plain sight within the publicly accessible code of the group's embarrassingly poorly secured website, dialog.org. The leak exposed membership statuses, retreat attendance records, biographies, political affiliations, home cities, and private login credentials for hundreds of global power brokers who gather annually at locations like the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain, the Ritz-Carlton Santa Barbara, and the San Clemente Palace in Venice — next stop, Ireland in August — for moderated sessions with names like "Navigating WWIII," "Bring Back Nuclear," "Money (Does?) Buy Happiness," and, inexplicably, "How's Your S*x Life?" which really puts the "elite" in elite gathering. Dialog has been described as "Bilderberg meets Silicon Valley salon", and the comparison flatters neither. Among those named in the leak are sitting tRump regime officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, and acting DEA Chief of Staff Hallie Hoffman; NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich; Sens. Ted Cruz and Cory Booker; Reps. Jim Himes; Govs. Wes Moore and Jared Polis; Jared Kushner; YouTube CEO Neal Mohan; Google DeepMind's general counsel Tom Lue; former Fed Governor Randy Kroszner; ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt; Cato Institute president Peter Goettler; Charles Koch Foundation's Ryan Stowers; Nobel economist Roger Myerson; music manager Scooter Braun; political commentator Ezra Klein; Washington Post reporter Souad Mekhennet; actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sophia Bush; and evangelical pastor Rick Warren. The billionaire contingent reads like a who's who of people who have never once worried about a medical bill: Elon Musk ($1.3 trillion), Eric Schmidt ($40.1B), Peter Thiel himself ($27.8B), Henry Kravis ($12.2B), Mike Cannon-Brookes ($7.7B), Marcos Galperin ($6.8B), Scott Cook ($4.4B), Barry Sternlicht ($3.1B), Nicolas Berggruen ($2.9B), John Arnold ($2.8B), Joe Lonsdale ($2.8B), and Reid Hoffman ($2.7B). What's most revealing isn't that powerful people meet privately — they always have — it's that the guest list cuts across party lines, ideological labels, and public personas in ways that should make you deeply skeptical of anyone who claims their political identity is a matter of principle rather than positioning. Ted Cruz and Cory Booker don't agree on anything in public; in a Ritz-Carlton in Arizona, they're apparently colleagues. The walls have no ears when you own the walls — until a Swiss hacker finds your member database in your website's source code, that is.

🎥 PDS Clips:
https://youtu.be/Z2UPEXxhJyc?is=P560wPKfsMoeQ1j3

🎥 Johnny Harris (long):
https://youtu.be/4S25FfbFw4M?is=6tw7GZfvDZuIOpyc

📜 tRump Regime Moving to Strip Citizenship From Naturalized Americans at Record Pace

The tRump regime is planning to file at least 250 denaturalization cases by October — stripping foreign-born Americans of their citizenship — after already filing 29 in less than two months, compared to a historical annual average of fewer than 10, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. A dedicated 12-attorney unit is now handling the surge by pulling civil litigators from other DOJ divisions, straining U.S. attorney offices already drowning in Homeland Security referrals. A senior Justice Department official called denaturalization a "lawful tool" Congress has provided for decades — which is technically true and also a perfect example of how you use the letter of the law to gut its spirit. The Supreme Court will soon rule on whether the policy is constitutional, but make no mistake: this was never about "coming here legally." The cruelty has always been the point.

💀 Death Rate in ICE Detention More Than Doubles Under tRump

A Reuters analysis has found that the death rate in ICE immigration detention facilities has more than doubled under tRump, reaching approximately one death for every 1,630 detainees — as the detained population ballooned from 40,000 when tRump took office to a peak of 70,000 before settling around 57,000 as of early June. In Indiana's repurposed maximum-security "Speedway Slammer," 55-year-old Vietnamese man Tuan Van Bui died after staff failed to meet the four-minute medical-emergency response standard. In Pennsylvania, a Chinese man previously flagged for suicidal ideation was found hanging in the shower. In New York, a Honduran man died in his cell from untreated alcohol withdrawal. Since January 2025, 50 people have died in U.S. immigration detention — 21 of them discovered dead or unresponsive before anyone even called for help. Medical experts from Columbia University have warned the system lacks the chronic-care infrastructure to handle this population, producing what they call a "spike in preventable deaths." These aren't statistics — they're people, and the regime responsible for their care decided efficiency mattered more than their lives.

🎥 NTI (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/t17fWhaDOOw?is=mFHUucOmvKL_thG7

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/wQo_85Em08w?is=AbyagtSoz3y4-4mt

🎥 JGG (1):
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1KjJGJDmBE/

(2):
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BR8VxGNNn/

🎥 BTC:
https://youtu.be/WlHaGBEmfEI?is=mx11z8bbgujbaVbS

🎥 Legal Eagle (long):
https://youtu.be/fJaHM6XxfJo?is=JODzAbTMmwTDGiKk

💸 tRump's $600M Ballroom May Be Secretly Funded by Your Tax Dollars

The White House Office of Management and Budget has quietly redirected $352 million from a specialized Secret Service fund into an account labeled "White House Security Measures" — and congressional investigators from both parties believe those funds are being covertly funneled into tRump's controversial "East Wing Modernization Project," better known as his $600 million White House ballroom. This is the same project tRump originally quoted at $200 million, then $600 million, and repeatedly swore would be "entirely funded by private donors" — no taxpayer money, he promised. Internal projections now show roughly 51% coming from the Secret Service, White House Military Office, and Executive Residence (i.e., you), with the remaining 48% from "private sources" — meaning whoever writes those checks will expect something in return. The raided funds were originally approved by Congress specifically to shore up Secret Service training, recruitment, and technology — after years of documented security failures. Congress explicitly rejected a $1 billion construction request, so the regime appears to be doing an end-run around the democratic process to build tRump's party room. The White House called the transfer "appropriate" and "inextricably tied" to presidential security. Sure it is.

📺 Vance Goes on The View, Comes Out Looking Like Vance

JD Vance appeared on ABC's "The View" Thursday to promote his memoir "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith", and was immediately reminded by the panel that nobody asked for a faith journey from the man who helped architect some of the most cruel domestic policies in modern American history. Opening with a joke that the show was now for "MAGA Republicans," Vance spent the hour defending inflation, immigration crackdowns, the Epstein files, and the removal of Black history from federal museums — admitting he's "frankly kind of a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff" while defending the 3.5 million pages tRump released as evidence of transparency. Co-hosts challenged him at every turn, and the White House — true to form — immediately tried to clip the moment with Navarro into a social media meme, which is what you do when you lose an argument. The appearance is widely seen as a preview of Vance's 2028 presidential campaign strategy: show up to hostile venues, stay composed, and hope people forget what he's actually done. They won't. JD Vance was, is, and will remain profoundly unlikable.

🎥 NTI:
https://youtube.com/shorts/KCnvgg-wLjU?is=mEIlLuhZ_tJ1Z2Dy

⚓ Senate Moves to Cut Hegseth's Travel Budget Over Alleged War Crimes — And Rightly So

The Senate Armed Services Committee has inserted a provision into its defense policy bill that would freeze part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget unless the Pentagon hands over unredacted records related to military strikes — including the bombing of a girls' school in Minab on the first day of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, and the "double-tapping" of alleged drug boats in the Pacific that has resulted in at least 200 deaths with zero verified proof of drug activity. Lawmakers from both parties are demanding transparency on reported civilian casualties, and the measure would withhold funds until Congress receives the requested documents. Cool that they're cutting his travel budget — now investigate him for war crimes. The idea that a man overseeing mass civilian deaths gets to globe-trot on the public dime while stonewalling Congress is the kind of accountability vacuum that gets worse the longer it's left unfilled.

🏀 Knicks Owner Dolan Accepts White House Visit — Hypocrisy Never Sleeps

New York Knicks owner James Dolan announced the NBA champion Knicks will visit the White House after accepting an invitation from tRump — citing his 30-year friendship with the president as his reason, which is exactly the kind of answer that tells you everything. This makes the Knicks the first NBA championship team to visit the Oval Office during tRump's tenure, a streak that was notably unbroken during his first term, when no NBA team made the trip. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Philadelphia Eagles both declined in recent years — a tradition with roots stretching back to 1963 and JFK's invitation to the Boston Celtics. Republicans who spent years screaming about athletes "keeping politics out of sports" are, of course, celebrating this. The hypocrisy of the highest order has always been a cornerstone of the MAGA brand — politics only "belongs" in sports when their team wins.

🗳️ Arizona's Fake Elector Case: Dismissed, But Not Dead

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Thursday she's dismissing the fake elector case against 18 defendants — including Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani — but vowed to immediately bring it back before a new grand jury, using the dismissal as a procedural workaround to beat a Friday deadline she was about to miss after losing an appeal. The case, stemming from tRump's 2020 loss in Arizona by just 10,457 votes, has crawled through the courts for over three years, plagued by judicial recusals, appeals, and defense attorneys arguing — with a straight face — that submitting fake electoral slates to Congress was just good, clean, legal fun. Similar cases in Michigan and Georgia have been tossed; the federal case against tRump himself was dropped in late 2024; and both Republican challengers to Mayes in the upcoming AG race have promised to kill the charges if elected. Mayes is running unopposed in the July primary, so at least that part's clean. The fact that it's this hard to prosecute an open attempt to overturn a certified election tells you everything you need to know about where accountability stands in this country.

🎪 Arizona's GOP Gubernatorial Circus Heads to the July Primary

Reps. David Schweikert and Andy Biggs faced off in their only GOP gubernatorial debate, both auditioning for the role of the man most likely to lose to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in November while pretending the real issue is mail-in ballot fraud. Biggs, backed by Turning Point USA — which should disqualify anyone automatically — proposed eliminating the state income tax, which funds a full third of Arizona's $18 billion budget, because nothing says "serious governance" like proposing to blow up a third of your revenue base at a campaign debate. Schweikert called Arizona's affordability rankings "pretty miserable" and argued Biggs's electoral record puts the whole party at risk, which is true and also rich coming from a man with his own ethical baggage. With early voting starting June 24 and the primary on July 21, Arizonans will choose which Republican gets the honor of losing to Hobbs. Anyone backed by TPUSA should be treated like a flashing hazard sign — proceed with extreme caution, or better yet, don't.

🏛️ DC Elects a Democratic Socialist as Its Next Mayor — tRump Already Threatened Her

Councilmember Janeese Lewis George won Washington D.C.'s Democratic mayoral primary in the city's first ranked-choice election, defeating Kenyan McDuffie — who conceded Thursday — on a platform of resisting federal overreach and protecting D.C.'s already limited autonomy. The race was shaped by Muriel Bowser's decision not to seek re-election and by the ongoing presence of National Guard deployments in the capital, with candidates competing on who would push back hardest against federal intrusion. tRump had already threatened last week to place Washington under federal control if Lewis George won — a threat that is both constitutionally murky and entirely on brand — though she indicated she's willing to work with the regime on specific issues. Electing a democratic socialist to lead the nation's capital, in the shadow of a White House actively hostile to local governance, is either an act of defiance or a dare. Probably both.

🎥 Piker:
https://youtu.be/0mzzttK_bVc?is=oFa3Xk6xkuBnBQd3

⛓️ Third Circuit Says tRump Can Erase Slavery Exhibits From Philadelphia's President's House

A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the tRump regime may remove slavery exhibits at the Philadelphia President's House — overturning a February injunction that had temporarily halted the removal — in a decision timed just two weeks before July 4th and the nation's 250th birthday. The site documents the nine enslaved people who lived and labored there while George Washington occupied it, and Philadelphia sued after the National Park Service pulled the panels despite a $1.5 million city investment and a cooperation agreement. Judge Thomas Hardiman wrote that the new replacement panels are "full of historical context," which is the judicial equivalent of saying a participation trophy is "full of achievement." Gov. Josh Shapiro and Rep. Brendan Boyle slammed the ruling, with Boyle urging Congress to pass the Protecting American History Act and declaring the fight isn't over. Erasing slavery from the home of the man who enslaved people, two weeks before we celebrate freedom — the irony isn't subtle, it's a policy.

🎵 The Obama Presidential Center Opens — And tRump Wasn't Invited

The Obama Presidential Center held its grand opening Thursday in Jackson Park, Chicago, with a ceremony that brought together three former presidents, an extraordinary lineup of performers, and — notably — zero mention of Donald tRump, who was also not invited. Bruce Springsteen sang "Land of Hope and Dreams" and told the Obamas "I love you"; Bono and The Edge performed "City of Blinding Lights" on behalf of "all the Irish in Chicago"; and Stevie Wonder closed the show with "Higher Ground" as the crowd — including Oprah, Tom Hanks, Billie Jean King, and multiple potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates — danced along. The $850 million campus on Chicago's South Side spans 19.3 acres and opens to the general public on Juneteenth, which feels deliberate and right. Barack Obama told the crowd he hoped the center would serve as "an affirmation of just how special, how precious our democracy truly is" — and in the current moment, with everything being deliberately dismantled a few hundred miles away in Washington, the contrast couldn't be sharper.

🎥 MT (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/LrHQhYRN3h8?is=i8qRWO_menN2Bzv1

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/PI2gnuznIj4?is=2uhaAJZ0J4bMtU-H

Michelle (3):
https://youtu.be/11W5zv3xT8A?is=gLisJKxghkGQPyLM

🕵️ tRump Regime Threatens States Over Unemployment Fraud — While Ignoring the Biggest Fraudster in the Room

Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling sent letters to all 53 U.S. states and territories demanding immediate crackdowns on unemployment insurance fraud, threatening to withhold administrative funds for the first time in history — while JD Vance's anti-fraud task force oversees the effort and California's governor's office has the audacity to note, accurately, that the pandemic-era fraud explosion was largely enabled by the *first* tRump administration's own rushed benefit distribution. The GAO estimated 11-15% of unemployment payouts from April 2020 through May 2023 were fraudulent, which is a real problem — but California, Illinois, and New York are being singled out by the same regime that has overseen tRump's personal wealth explode more in one year of his second term than in his entire previous career as a self-described "businessman." If this administration genuinely cared about fraud, it would start with the man at the top of the org chart. Spare us the moral theater.

🎥 MPU:
https://youtube.com/shorts/G0s3XT1oKx0?is=FBJp9gsDWTdhzJSv

🎥 IHIP- Pardons:
https://youtu.be/NDLi00HLorc?is=bq4ZYBwVcMCH-9S0

🌿 SCOTUS Rules 9-0: You Can Smoke W**d and Own a Gun

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in "United States v. Hemani" that the federal government cannot disarm individuals simply because they are habitual ma*****na users, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing that prosecuting a Texas man who kept a handgun at home while being an every-other-day pot smoker was inconsistent with the Second Amendment. The ruling is narrow — the government can still charge someone for being actively intoxicated while possessing a firearm — but it strips prosecutors of the broad power to disarm millions of state-legal cannabis users based purely on their off-duty habits. The case originated from an FBI search of Ali Hemani's Texas home in 2022, and the same federal statute at issue is the exact one used to convict Hunter Biden — who, of course, received a pardon before any of this mattered to him personally. In a political universe where gun rights and ma*****na legalization rarely share a sentence, a 9-0 ruling was a rare moment of cross-ideological clarity: you can't punish someone's legal lifestyle to strip their constitutional rights. Make that make sense, Congress.

🐊 DeSantis Signs Public Safety Package — Don't Mistake It for Compassion

Governor Ron DeSantis signed five public safety bills at the Winter Haven Police Department, including the Officer Jason Raynor Act — mandating life without parole for manslaughter of an on-duty officer — and "Meg's Law," which bars nitrous oxide sales to minors and creates first-degree felony penalties for trafficking xylazine, the veterinary sedative increasingly showing up in fentanyl supplies. Another bill lets prosecutors use social media posts and online admissions to establish gang membership, while career offenders must now register annually in person and report address changes within 48 hours. DeSantis also took another swing at "teen takeovers," threatening state intervention if local officials don't crack down. Before anyone gives DeSantis credit for the xylazine provision — a drug that is genuinely killing people — remember this is the same man who spent years performatively ignoring public health when it wasn't politically useful to him; Republicans don't do altruism, they do optics, and there's always an angle worth looking for when they occasionally stumble into doing something that resembles sense.

🔫 Florida Court: 18-to-20-Year-Olds Have the Right to Concealed Carry

Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that the state's ban on concealed carry for adults aged 18 to 20 is unconstitutional, finding young adults entitled to the same Second Amendment protections as everyone else — citing, of all things, Founding-era militia laws that required young men to arm themselves. The ruling targets a Florida statute requiring individuals to be 21 for a concealed carry license, and Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Wednesday the state won't appeal, confirming he'll work to implement the order immediately. The decision aligns with recent rulings from the Eighth and Third Circuits, making this a national trend, not an outlier. In a post-"Bruen" legal landscape, courts keep expanding gun rights — so if you were hoping the guardrails would hold at 21, Florida just moved the goalpost.

👶 One-Year-Old Kohen Wiley Shot Dead by Police in Walmart Parking Lot

A one-year-old boy, Kohen Wiley, was shot and killed Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Mississippi — about 40 miles from Memphis — after police responding to a shoplifting call opened fire on a vehicle containing the child, his mother, and a family friend. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump stated the mother, who has not been charged with any crime, was actively telling officers there was a baby in the car — and they fired anyway. Mississippi DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell confirmed body camera footage and evidence won't be released until the state investigation concludes and the attorney general's office reviews it. A baby is dead because officers responding to a shoplifting call fired into a vehicle. Many observers have already noted, with justified bluntness, that the calculus on pulling that trigger might have looked very different if the family inside had been white.

⚡ FERC Greenlights Fast-Tracking AI Data Centers to the Power Grid — Follow the Money

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted unanimously to direct six regional grid operators to accelerate connections for AI data centers and large power users to the high-voltage transmission system, following pressure from Energy Secretary Chris Wright eight months ago — framed, as always, as a matter of competing with China. Over 4,000 data centers already operate in the U.S. with 3,000 more planned, and the Electric Power Research Institute projects data centers could triple their share of U.S. electricity demand to roughly 15% by 2035 — already exceeding 25% in Virginia alone. Tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, OpenAI, and Amazon signed a "Ratepayer Protection Pledge" promising to cover grid upgrade costs themselves, which sounds noble until you remember these are the same oligarchs who had front-row seats at tRump's inauguration after flooding his campaign with cash. The China excuse is a reliable wrench in the regulatory toolbox — useful for bypassing the environmental protections that stand between Big Tech's power appetite and the air and water of the communities hosting these facilities.

🎥 Bernie:
https://youtube.com/shorts/knKXGjjPdHU?is=5i80SKv2VyjN1qyr

💻 tRump Claims Apple Will Partner With Intel on U.S. Chip Production

tRump announced on Truth Social that Apple has agreed to partner with Intel to design and manufacture chips domestically, a deal that sent Intel stock surging roughly 9% in premarket trading and which the President used to tout Intel's valuation jumping from $100 billion to over $600 billion since the government's investment nine months ago. For Intel, a consistent Apple order is a lifeline for a manufacturing division that has badly lagged behind TSMC; for Apple, it's supply chain diversification as AI chipmakers compete fiercely for TSMC's capacity. Intel's new 18A manufacturing technology has entered initial production, lending some credibility to the timeline. Whether this is a genuine industrial policy win or another tRump Truth Social announcement that quietly evaporates remains, as always, to be seen.

📱 Apple CEO Warns Price Hikes Are Coming — Wonder Whose Tariffs Did That

Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that product price increases are "unavoidable" due to surging memory and storage costs, as AI-driven data center demand has squeezed DRAM supplies and left consumer electronics companies fighting over scraps. Cook, who is preparing to hand the CEO role to John Ternus in September, indicated Apple may tap its cash reserves to boost memory supply rather than build its own factories — while the Mac Mini has already quietly dropped base storage options as a preview of what's coming. Macs and iPads are expected to see price hikes before the iPhone 18 launch in September. The same administration whose tariffs helped create this supply chain mess will, predictably, take zero responsibility for the higher prices hitting American consumers — but at least tRump got some nice inauguration donations out of the deal.

🏈 Senate Debates College Sports Overhaul — With the Usual Discriminatory Fine Print

The Senate Commerce Committee debated the revised Protect College Sports Act Thursday, a bipartisan bill negotiated by Sens. Ted Cruz and Maria Cantwell that would regulate player payments, transfers, and coaching changes in college athletics — with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee CEO urging the panel to advance it. The Southeastern Conference and Big Ten have withheld endorsement, complicating the path forward despite support from the NFL and tRump. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville opposed the bill by essentially arguing Congress ruins everything it touches, which, fair, but probably not the intended argument. Buried in the "protecting women's sports" framing is the now-standard Republican mechanism for discriminating against trans athletes — because apparently no sports legislation can move through this Congress without being weaponized against a group that was never the actual problem to begin with.

🎥 Hasan Piker:
https://youtube.com/shorts/J71aVED0UwY?is=RVtpkiVK3i8sZ824

🎥 NTI:
https://youtube.com/shorts/NFb6Qi2rvXY?is=2k8mbt_misDm35pO

⚔️ tRump Invokes Defense Production Act After Iran War Drained U.S. Munitions Stockpiles

tRump invoked the Cold War-era Defense Production Act to address supply chain bottlenecks in the munitions industrial base — a direct consequence of the Iran war that began in late February straining U.S. weapons stockpiles to a level officials acknowledged could "impair the ability" to expand defense equipment availability. The move enables voluntary agreements between the Pentagon and private defense firms to collaborate on production problems outside standard competitive limits, a workaround the assistant secretary of defense described as tackling "nasty issues in the supply chain." Pete Hegseth, naturally, rejected any characterization of a munitions "crisis," insisting stockpiles are "getting stronger" — while simultaneously the administration pushes to bring the defense budget to a record $1.5 trillion to fund multi-year contracts for Patriot systems and Tomahawk missiles. Nothing accelerates the weapons budget like a war your regime helped engineer.

🤖 Air Force Awards Drone Wingman Contracts to Anduril and General Atomics — Four Months Early

The Air Force awarded production contracts to Anduril and General Atomics for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft program — autonomous drones designed to fly alongside fighter jets — beating its own schedule by four months, with a goal of fielding at least 150 systems by the end of the decade. The contracts came after re-soliciting the original five vendors, which included Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, before selecting the two winners through competitive evaluation. The Air Force is targeting per-unit costs under $30 million — roughly a third the price of an F-35A — while separately managing a second increment with nine vendors and a modular software strategy designed for rapid upgrades. Three companies, including Anduril and a Raytheon subsidiary, are competing for the mission autonomy software contract, with a single provider to be selected by summer 2027. The future of aerial combat is increasingly autonomous, increasingly expensive, and increasingly in the hands of a small cluster of defense contractors — welcome to the drone age.

💥 Gunmen Attack Airport in Niger's Capital

Explosions and sustained gunfire erupted early Thursday at Niamey's Diori Hamani International Airport and its adjacent military airbase — the second attack on the facility this year, following an Islamic State-affiliate assault in January that wounded four soldiers. Niger has been hemorrhaging stability for years as jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIS have killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel, with Mali and Burkina Faso facing similarly dire conditions. Security forces locked down the area while soldiers searched civilians on nearby roads, and no group had claimed responsibility as of Thursday. Military ruler Abdourahamane Tiani previously blamed France, Benin, and Ivory Coast for sponsoring the January attack without offering evidence — the authoritarian playbook of pointing outward when the house is burning from within.

🕊️ Colombia's ELN Declares Ceasefire Ahead of Presidential Election

The National Liberation Army announced a unilateral ceasefire from June 20-23, halting attacks on the Colombian military in the days surrounding Sunday's presidential election — framing the pause as respect for citizens' right to vote freely. The race pits Gustavo Petro's ally Sen. Iván Cepeda against conservative lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, who received a tRump endorsement earlier this month and has promised to cancel the peace talks Petro initiated with the ELN. The ELN, which reportedly commands more than 6,000 fighters across Colombia and Venezuela, warned against foreign interference in the vote — a pointed remark given tRump's unsolicited endorsement of the candidate who wants to restart the war. De la Espriella's campaign has already asked prosecutors to investigate alleged rebel voter coercion in remote municipalities, setting the table for a contested result regardless of who wins.

🇹🇼 Taiwan Urgently Requests $14 Billion U.S. Arms Package as China Pressure Mounts

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te urged Washington to approve a proposed $14 billion arms sale "as soon as possible," as Beijing continues ramping up military pressure across the Indo-Pacific and Chinese officials warn that seeking defense partnerships with the U.S. is "a dead end." Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the package remains "under review," while officials carefully navigate tRump's past comments describing arms sales as leverage — which is a polite way of saying nobody's entirely sure if tRump might trade Taiwan's security for a real estate deal. Taiwan's cabinet separately approved an additional $6.6 billion for indigenous drone development after opposition lawmakers slashed a $40 billion defense budget last month. Taipei insists U.S. commitments are unchanged; Beijing insists they're irrelevant; and tRump has yet to clarify which version he's selling this week.

🪖 Hegseth Pushes 'NATO 3.0' — Wants Europe to Lead Its Own Defense While Demanding a $1.5 Trillion U.S. Military Budget

Pete Hegseth told European allies they must take the lead on their own defense and help transform NATO into a "hard-line military alliance" — weeks after the U.S. quietly informed allies it would no longer guarantee certain warships and aircraft under Article 5 commitments, leaving partners scrambling to plug the gaps. He simultaneously announced the U.S. will invest $1.5 trillion in its own defense in 2027 as "a message to the world" — which is a strange message to send while telling your allies to fend for themselves. The "party of fiscal responsibility" is pushing a military budget that nearly doubles already-bloated Pentagon spending, layered on top of a Big Ugly Bill adding over $3 trillion to the national debt, while most existing defense dollars can't be fully accounted for. On a more constructive note, the UK announced it will deliver 150,000 Ukrainian-produced drones and 350 air-defense missiles funded by a £2.26 billion loan backed by frozen Russian assets — letting Putin's own money pay for Ukraine's defense, which is genuinely elegant.

🎥 DN- G7:
https://youtu.be/amOJgLoau1A?is=1q-VW8qEIDT3TqTJ

🎥 ST:
https://youtu.be/pzav8XD-2-Y?is=yhYkahpzAONzVJlJ

☢️ Finland Lifts Its Nuclear Weapons Ban as Russia Builds a Base Next Door

Finland's parliament voted 125-61 to repeal its 1987 nuclear weapons ban, authorizing the import and possession of nuclear arms for national defense — a historic shift driven by Russia breaking ground last week on a military base near the Finnish border capable of housing up to 6,000 personnel. Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen framed the move as essential for NATO deterrence amid growing uncertainty over long-term U.S. security commitments — which is diplomatic language for "we're not sure tRump will answer the phone." Finland's incoming F-35As could theoretically pair with U.S. B61-12 guided bombs for NATO nuclear missions, though the government insists no immediate plans exist to host warheads on its soil. When your neighbor starts building a 130-installation military base on your doorstep, updating your deterrence posture isn't paranoia — it's geometry.

🔥 Zelenskyy: 'If Ukraine Burns, So Will Moscow' — Ukraine Strikes Capital's Oil Refinery

Ukraine struck a Moscow oil refinery Thursday — supplying roughly 40% of the capital's fuel and processing over 12 million tonnes of crude annually — in direct retaliation for Monday's Russian drone and missile attacks that killed at least 10 Ukrainians and damaged the thousand-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. Zelenskyy called the strike "entirely justified," warned that "Moscow will burn" if Russian attacks continue, and urged European and U.S. allies to intensify sanctions on Russia's energy and defense sectors at a Brussels military meeting Thursday. Russia countered by accusing Ukraine of striking a civilian bus in Bryansk carrying a Belarusian youth football team — killing one chaperone and injuring six children — while Ukraine's military flatly denied operating any drones in the region and emphasized it targets only legitimate military sites. Putin has built a war machine on the assumption Ukraine would eventually break; Zelenskyy has spent two and a half years making that assumption expensive.

🎥 MT:
https://youtu.be/wt3SwCoSkGY?is=ev1XmG69rJvWbri1

💰 U.S. Treasury Sanctions Hezbollah Financiers — While Israel Keeps Bombing Anyway

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated individuals across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Oman accused of running front companies and raising funds for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group founded by the Revolutionary Guards in 1982 and long designated a terrorist organization by Washington. The sanctions were framed as protecting Lebanon's peace process and pressuring Hezbollah disarmament — a justification that lands a little hollow given Israel continued bombing civilian shelters in Lebanon even after the U.S.-Iran memorandum was signed Wednesday. tRump said he spoke with Syria's leader about containing Hezbollah amid concerns the group will benefit from Iran's newfound financial breathing room under the MOU. Sanctioning financiers while your closest regional ally bombs the country those financiers operate in is the geopolitical equivalent of mopping the floor with the faucet still running.

🗺️ Israel Negotiating to Stay in Southern Lebanon Despite MOU Explicitly Demanding It Leave

Israel is conducting what a senior official described as "stubborn negotiations" with Washington to maintain its military deployment in southern Lebanon — the same Lebanon whose "territorial integrity and sovereignty" were explicitly guaranteed in the U.S.-Iran MOU tRump signed Wednesday. Israel expanded its occupation of southern Lebanon after Hezbollah opened fire in March, and now seeks to hold what it calls "buffer zones" south of the Litani River, while Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem was unambiguous: "No yellow zones, no red zones, no green zones — Israel must leave, and it will leave." The Times of Israel framed it starkly: Israel must choose between maintaining military pressure or losing tRump's diplomatic support. Over the past two and a half years, Israel has seized swaths of Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria in what amounts to the largest expansion of militarily occupied territory in decades — and Netanyahu is now betting that tRump won't actually force the issue. Given tRump's track record of threatening consequences he never delivers, that may not be a bad bet.

🎥 ⚠️ call2actionnow:
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/14iMSn49dEP/

🎥 MEE:
https://youtube.com/shorts/hEY1omVy4rs?is=G9i6o7fWz_20HI68

🎥 MsRachel:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZskXqHOXdi/?igsh=emJycHN4MnppNmp0

🎥 HP:
https://youtube.com/shorts/Gf1boAwkh8Y?is=2N_kgZJEZ7K938Ri

🎥 DDN:
https://youtu.be/5Sd3O-b-oPw?is=G305OZSXdT3oapED

— Conclusion —

The chaos isn't random; it's a management style. While tRump signs deals at Versailles and declares victory before the terms are agreed upon, the people this regime was never built for are absorbing the real costs: the immigrants dying in detention, the families rationing healthcare, the teenagers who can't find a summer job, the baby who was shot in a Walmart parking lot because an officer didn't care enough to wait. The pattern is consistent and it is deliberate — manufacture urgency at the top, extract wealth in the middle, and let the consequences settle at the bottom where the cameras don't linger. The global order that America once anchored is reorganizing itself around the assumption that the United States is no longer reliable — and they're not wrong. What this regime calls strength is a protection racket with a flag on it. What it calls peace is a photo op with a 60-day expiration date. And what it calls patriotism is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook: make enough people afraid of the right "enemies", and they'll hand you everything else without a fight. The noise is loud, the patterns are clear, and the silence of those with the power to stop it grows more deafening by the day.

🎭 ☆Some Comic Relief☆

☆ DailyShow:
https://youtu.be/fVg3Cm6MEys?is=FHZK6uM_oamltTzp

☆ Kimmel:
https://youtu.be/0M9yRpzR85U?is=N7fhBGLE4IoM2I2j

☆ Seth Meyers:
https://youtu.be/zWMRr-cTQNg?is=OpHtSdkKid9I5EL1

☆ DailyDose:
https://youtu.be/Nobuc9n59wg?is=jU5rtXZyL0n-unIA

👀 ☆Worth Watching☆

☆ Robert Arnold:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19CPTQQXmf/

☆ PoliticsGirl:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZtG76mFCYZ/?igsh=MWcxeWY3bGVudGl2Yw==

☆ Dr.Rubin:
https://youtube.com/shorts/zVd6iE3Fr48?is=qkvLbrHrQ_8VnyJo

☆ Ohhhthatsrich:
https://youtube.com/shorts/quT7lrgnuGU?is=LDBCxh4M3Denafwd

☆ NTI (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/GYWPgYLHF9Q?is=d43WV0-fzZTSYwpV

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/9LBdPmqcrf8?is=WPRLJKWan2mcdp-5

☆ TNC (1):
https://youtube.com/shorts/oVZYRNB9yw0?is=P-kTvryDCwpQfsfX

(2):
https://youtube.com/shorts/gXsg3eNC8ic?is=8fSKaej0HWFOno0F

☆ According.to.jared:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/179uU1v25v/

☆ JayDeeMilo:
https://youtube.com/shorts/DWBtAC8Dbo0?is=HHxBgQM69454tBK6

☆ PDS Clips:
https://youtu.be/322OKO-8gTU?is=SCJMJ1gLNyTpl-zG

☆ DN- Musk/Memphis:
https://youtu.be/maO3-XTodJI?is=4wdfM3W48EBXxLhG

☆ MT- Musk:
https://youtu.be/JJ4PNMBoYUE?is=UCQWjPyPgP81K0LL

☆ MPU- Co-Ops:
https://youtu.be/Cb6xjJf42_c?is=ZZOWcRQ5dZ40qIbm

📢 Follow and Support this work on other Socials.

All can be found at 👇 :
PomPolitics.carrd.com

📖 Yesterday's Post:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1JKpwpP58v/

"Each lie requires a bodyguard of other lies."

– Michael Josephson

✨️ Cartoon by Michael de Adder