Robert Reich, the economist, lawyer, author, professor and political commentator, who is perhaps best known as U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, writes about the real meaning of July 4th …
On this July 4 — the 250th anniversary of the start of this country — many people, including the current occupant of the Oval Office, believe that celebrating America means waving the flag or standing for the national anthem or shouting, “America First.”
That’s not what real patriotism is.
Real patriotism means sacrificing to keep America going.
It means paying taxes proportional to your wealth. I’m talking to you, Donald Trump, and you, Jeff Bezos, and you, Elon Musk.
It means paying your workers a living wage so they can thrive. I’m talking to you, John Furner, CEO of Walmart, and you, Chris Kempczinski, CEO of McDonald’s.
It means fully reckoning with how racial oppression and white supremacy have shaped this nation, not whitewashing our history and ignoring racism’s continuing legacy. I’m talking to you, Ron DeSantis, and other lawmakers trying to prevent students from learning the roles slavery and genocide have played in our history.
Real patriotism means protecting American democracy and our form of government, not trying to overturn an election that was upheld by 60 federal courts and the Supreme Court, or lying about election fraud when it barely exists, or seeking to suppress the voting rights of people of color.
I’m talking to you, Trump, along with traitorous members of Congress who refused to certify the 2020 election, and you, state legislators who have advanced nearly 400 voter suppression bills, and you, Supreme Court justices who have gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Real patriotism means not flooding our politics with big money, so the voices of the people can be heard. I’m talking to you again, Elon, as well as Charles Koch, Timothy Mellon, Miriam Adelson, and Michael Bloomberg.
And it means putting the interests of our country over partisanship. Do you hear me, Mike Johnson and John Thune?
Finally, real patriotism means using your position of power in the media to inform and educate the public rather than weaponize lies and promote extremism to get more clicks. I’m talking to you, Mark Zuckerberg, and you, David Ellison, and you, Rupert Murdoch, and, once again, you, Elon.
On this July 4, the 250th anniversary of America, we must recommit ourselves to real patriotism — the hard work necessary to make American democracy survive.
Moving on, let’s now consider what the grifter-in-chief been up to for 250.
For all those of you that have all been thinking, “Well gosh, the White House doesn’t have enough gold“, then here you go …
It truly is wild that he announced plans to affix giant golden homage to Nazi Germany—An America-Themed Version of Adolf Hitler’s Infamous Reichsadler—to the Front of the White House As Americans Experience the Early Throes of a Massive, Even Historic Economic Collapse that he is wholly and completely responsible for.
His Fair on the Mall has not been going well, which honestly is not a surprise because everything he touches turns to shit. You could literally pick 12 random people at a truck stop in WV and each one of them would be able to run a better fair …
Sums up his presidency nicely …
As for the fireworks, how did that all pan out?
I have to admit they are the best July 5th fireworks I’ve ever seen.
If I’d told you that on the evening of July 4th on the nation’s 250th birthday it would be 11:15PM, Trump would not yet have spoken, there would only be a few hundred people in attendance, and the event stage would be featuring a foreign opera, you would’ve had me committed.
As for the speech itself, well here you go …
Chris Britt – #trump #birthday #news #crime #america #news
Nick Anderson – Me, me, me…
Clay Bennett – Tree of Liberty
Over the last 250 years, he is the No.1 … most corrupt president ever.
Reminder: If you voted for him, then you voted for a known criminal, a sexual predator, and also a convicted felon …
He stuck his image on a meme-coin, then told MAGA to buy it. It was all a scam just to enrich himself, and they are paying …
He has also issued more Pardons for criminals …
Daniel Medina – Trump’s corruption is out of this world. I’m left speechless almost every day. This regime is the most corrupt administration in American history, and they’d make people like Boss Tweed blush. #classwar #fucktrump #corruption #politcalart #nevertrump
New ABC story says what we all already know — Trump is enriching himself with his crypto scam, taking money directly from anyone who buys into it Corruption. Grift. Endless.
Let’s be clear about this. He is enriching himself by rigging the game. This is very blatant insider trading, and there is plenty more of the same over and over …
Imagine this …
Matt Davies – Cleared For Rip-Off
Chris Britt – How is he able to keep this jet for private use after he leaves office? Is there no way to stop this theft?
Clay Jones – Donald Trump will go down as the most corrupt president in our nation’s history. #Trump #AirForceOne #GrifterInChief #TrumpIsCorrupt #TrumpSucks #MAGA
A few rulings from SCOTUS landed with a bit of a thud this past week.
Why did that happen?
Let’s go there now and dig into a sample of the some of the key rulings.
SCOTUS Impacts
The U.S. Supreme Court works on an annual term that begins in October and typically finishes its major argued-case opinions by late June, hence a whole slew of rulings landed over the past week.
They continued reshaping executive power …
Via The Guardian on Mon June 29th this past week …
Outcry over supreme court decision to grant Trump power to fire agency chiefs
Legal and labor experts say Trump v Slaughter decision upends settled constitutional law in favor of ‘loyalty test’
... “As Justice Sotomayor recognized in dissent, today’s decision abandons nearly a century of settled constitutional understanding and replaces it with a loyalty test,” said Gary DiBianco, co-founder of the pro bono litigation corps Lawyers for Good Government….
...“The decision effectively prioritizes the political preferences of the president over ensuring that independent agencies can carry out their enforcement and regulatory functions consistent with the law and operate with integrity,” said Jocelyn Frye of the National Partnership for Women & Families….
Here is the Washington Post headline about it, and also the version where somebody fixed the headline to reveal the real story …
Ann Telnaes – Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett rule presidents have the power to fire independent government regulators “overturning 90 years of court precedent curbing executive power”
Monday did however have some good news. SCOTUS announced that they would decline to hear Trump’s E. Jean Carroll appeal. That means it left standing the $5 million civil verdict in favour of E. Jean Carroll. That 2023 verdict found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The Court gave no explanation and there were no noted public dissents.
I should also make it clear that this is separate from Carroll’s other, larger $83.3 million defamation judgment, which has been under separate appeal.
Tuesday Jun 30 brought the NRSC v. FEC ruling. This struck down federal limits on political parties’ coordinated spending with candidates. This is a major campaign-finance ruling and overruled the earlier Colorado II precedent.
It basically means “Fewer Massies & Khannas, more zombies” …
Tuesday also brought us the Birthright ruling, and it was good news. However, what many missed is that it was damn close, just 5-4. If the court was not corrupt then it should have been 9-0 because the words within the 14th Amendment really are crystal clear …
Nick Anderson – Birthright Citizenship
Dennis Goris – Where American citizens come from #birthrightcitizenship
Clay Jones – Trump is upset that birthright citizenship was held #Trump #BirthrightCitizenship #Obama #Birtherism #SCOTUS
Dennis Goris – One small step for babies… #birthrightcitizenship #SCOTUS
ICE Gestapo updates
ICE grabs a nun, and to be clear she was here legally …
- This caused a huge uproar and after pressure from some Republican Texas lawmakers she was released. The only reason they did something was due to the huge backlash they faced from their own voters.
Israel Genocide continues
NBC: “3yo shot dead in Gaza… Al-Ajeen tried to call for an ambulance, Israeli soldiers took his phone and dragged him beyond the yellow line, still carrying Rayan, who was bleeding from his chest… No medical assistance was provided to his dying son…” www.nbcnews.com/world/gaza/s…
MAGA Christian Cranks
The nuttier right-wing religious fanatics within the MAGA cult are as always doing their thing, and so here are this week’s samples. What is notable is that as the midterms come closer they are ramping up the deployment of their usual vacuous fear-mongering that has exactly zero grounding in reality.
Here are a dozen debunking deep dives:
Rick Green fumes that the Supreme Court decision upholding birthright citizenship was “one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in history” and “a death knell to Western civilization and the American dream.“
- Rick Green calling birthright citizenship “a death knell to Western civilization” is a perfect little snow globe of Christian nationalist panic: shake it gently and out comes fear, historical illiteracy, and a tiny plastic Constitution they clearly haven’t read.
- The Supreme Court didn’t kill the American dream. It refused to let Trump scribble “unless I don’t like your parents” into the 14th Amendment with a Sharpie.
- Birthright citizenship exists because America once had to be forced, after slavery, to admit that citizenship is not a racial inheritance, a bloodline privilege, or a permission slip handed out by nativist preachers in tri-corner hats. That is not the death of Western civilization, it is one of its better ideas.
- What Green is really mourning is not “the American dream,” but the fantasy that America belongs more to some babies than others. The Court said no. Naturally, the people who confuse democracy with a gated church picnic are acting like civilization has collapsed because the Constitution still applies.
- Fact Check: Dred Scott v. Sandford from 1857 is generally recognised as the worst Supreme Court decision in U.S. history because the Court ruled that Black people, enslaved or free, could not be U.S. citizens, and that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in federal territories.
Alex McFarland says that the Southern Poverty Law Center is “the personification of why verses like Ephesians 6:12 say, ‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, spiritual wickedness, and rulers of the darkness in high places.'”
- Alex McFarland accusing the Southern Poverty Law Center of being “spiritual wickedness in high places” is a perfect little museum exhibit of modern Christian nationalist theology: if someone documents your extremism, they must be demons.
- Not mistaken. Not unfair. Not even biased. Demons.
- Because once you frame criticism as Satanic, you never have to answer it. You can skip the boring Christian stuff: humility, repentance, self-examination, and go straight to cosplay exorcism against a nonprofit with a spreadsheet.
- It’s not theology. It’s grievance with Bible verses stapled to it.
Pastor Rick Joyner of MorningStar Ministries claims that “Marxists in America devised 45 point, 100 year plan for taking over the United States 96 years ago. They have brilliantly and relentlessly implemented this plan and now see the U.S. as ripe for final conquest. Keeping the citizens of the U.S. ignorant of what socialism really is has been a primary weapon, and now we totter on the edge of the ultimate disaster of succumbing to subtle, but very effective and deadly attack.”
- Rick Joyner has apparently discovered that America is being conquered by a secret Marxist “45-point, 100-year plan,” which is impressive because the famous “45 goals” list wasn’t a leaked Marxist document at all. It came from The Naked Communist, an anti-communist book by W. Cleon Skousen, that got read into the Congressional Record during the Cold War. Apparently if a congressman reads a conspiracy theory out loud, it becomes scripture for every panic merchant with a newsletter.
- This is not political analysis. It’s a haunted-house tour for people who think Medicare is Bolshevism and public libraries are sleeper cells.
- And notice the trick: everything Joyner dislikes becomes “Marxism.” Civil rights? Marxism. Feminism? Marxism. Public education? Marxism. Art he doesn’t understand? Marxism. The entire argument is just “society changed and I’m scared,” dressed up as prophecy and sold as vigilance.
- The real danger here is not that America is secretly being conquered by socialists using a 96-year-old Bond-villain checklist. It’s that Christian nationalist influencers keep training their followers to see pluralism, democracy, education, equality, and basic social welfare as demonic enemy action. That isn’t discernment. It’s paranoia with a Bible verse taped to it.
Chad Connelly, the founder of founded Faith Wins, declares that “today’s Democrats hate America and elect people who hate our nation more than they do.”
- “Democrats hate America” is the laziest possible substitute for thinking. It means: I cannot win the argument on policy, so I’ll accuse half the country of treason and call it patriotism. That is not love of country. That is cult politics
- The deceit here is obvious: If Democrats are not opponents but “people who hate America,” then compromise becomes betrayal, elections become spiritual warfare, and democracy becomes optional. That is not patriotism. It is authoritarianism wearing a flag pin and doing youth-pastor voice.
William Wolfe insists that “not a single person has died because America shut down USAID. Not one. And anyone claiming otherwise is lying.“
- Guess who is actually lying here? (Hint: It is a hard-right Southern Baptist political activist and Christian nationalist commentator whose first name is William)
- Fact Check: A 2025 Lancet study estimated that discontinuation of USAID funding had already caused 62,557 adult deaths and 130,535 child deaths by mid-April 2025. One year later those numbers have rapidly increased. Conservative estimates show that 750,000 people have already died unnecessarily due to these cuts. And estimates suggest that those numbers could potentially be up to 14 million over the next five years.
- It is chilling that he stands on this mountain of bodies and then declares that they don’t exist.
- For some reality truly is a complete undiscovered country.
- MAGA doesn’t evaluate Trump by outcomes. They grade him like a toddler’s finger painting: lots of mess, big feelings, somehow a masterpiece.
- “The most masterful negotiator we’ve ever seen” is a heroic description for a man whose diplomatic strategy appears to be: light the house on fire, sell tickets to the flames, then demand applause for discovering smoke.
- If you are perhaps thinking that he is all on David Barton’s level of lying, then you are spot on, Green is Barton’s co-host on Wallbuilders.
- Lying is par for the course for these guys. Of course, Washington never said anything of the sort. www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwat…
- Their willingness to look you in the eye and happy lie tells you all you really need to know about who and what they really are.
Tony Perkins is outraged about recent Pride parades: “Hell opened its doors for a day and a lot came out.”
- The actual dispenser of hellish stuff here is Tony Perkins spewing his bigotry.
- Pride is not Hell opening its doors. It is what happens when people who were shoved into closets, pulpits, courtrooms, conversion camps, and political attack ads step outside and refuse to apologise for being alive.
- If Tony wants to find something genuinely hellish, he might start with the movement that spends every June screaming about “family values” while trying to make life crueler for other people’s families.
Andrew Wommack believes that when America celebrates its 300th anniversary, Christian nationalists like David Barton, Bill Federer, Bob McEwan, and Chad Connelly will be remembered along with the Founding Fathers.
- All they really are is a bunch of culture-war influencers trying to Photoshop themselves into Hamilton because they once misquoted Jefferson on a podcast.
- Fifty years ago back in 1976 there were similar individuals banging a similar drum, and nobody knows their names. By America’s 300th anniversary, the utterly wasted lives of today’s band of fanatical liars will also have been long forgotten.
- Lance Wallnau says Zohran Mamdani is “like the devil” because he is “cute” and “photogenic” before supposedly unleashing Bolshevism, economic collapse, and the destruction of Christians and Jews.
- Translation: Wallnau saw a Muslim democratic socialist talking about rent, childcare, transit, and affordability, and immediately reached for the Scooby-Doo exorcism kit.
- This is not a serious political argument. It’s Christian nationalist Mad Libs: “My opponent is [Satan], his policies are [Bolshevism], and democracy is in danger unless you hand power to [people who hear God through cable news].”
- Also, pretending to defend Jews and Christians while demonizing a Muslim politician as Lucifer in good lighting is not moral clarity. It’s bigotry wearing a prayer shawl it found in the prop closet.
- Jason Rapert’s version of American history is basically: “The Founders risked hanging by the British so I could scream at Muslims, gay people, and trans kids on the internet.”
- The Founders did not create a country where one sect of Christianity gets to decide who counts as American. They created a republic with no religious test for office, a First Amendment, and enough distance from state religion that Christian nationalists have been furious about it ever since.
- Rapert’s little sermon is the usual bargain-bin theocracy: invent a sacred Christian past, pretend religious minorities are invaders, reduce LGBTQ people to a horror cartoon, and then call the resulting bigotry “patriotism.”
- And the trans panic line is especially vile. It is not policy. It is not theology. It is just moral arson dressed up as concern for children. When your argument depends on turning vulnerable kids into monsters, you are not defending civilization. You are proving why civil rights laws had to exist in the first place.
There is of course always plenty more of their usual fear-mongering BS that is designed to manipulate, such as the examples below. There you can see that the real message is that democracy is only legitimate when they win, history only counts when they can counterfeit it, and freedom means everyone else wearing the sash they assign…
- Andrew Wommack believes that “if Kamala [Harris] had been president, this nation might have been gone”: “We were that close.”
- Similarly, Eric Metaxas says that “we’d have to wearing rainbow sashes … if Kamala had won.”
- Alex McFarland declares that “Satan has attacked America” because “for 200 years, we have been the carriers of Christ’s great commission.”
- Seth Gruber asserts that “America has been the closest thing, this side of Eden, to utopia that we’ve ever seen in the world.”
- William Wolfe announces that “we must finish what [Joseph] McCarthy started.”
- It is rather ironic to hear David Barton’s gullible audience insist that “you can’t make this stuff up” right after Barton has told them something that he completely made up.
Weirdest of the Weird
Lauren Witzke declares that “women should never have been granted the right to vote, to hold public office, or to wield judicial power as Supreme Court justices.”
- “Women should remain politically silent and not hold public office“, announces the failed GOP candidate for Delaware. (Apologies, but I appear to have just trashed your industrial strength irony meter, you are going to need to buy a new one now).
- Fun Witzke Fact 1: There are public reports that Lauren Witzke has described herself as a flat Earther. Her Wikipedia entry cites reporting from The New York Times and others saying she has called herself one; a YouTube clip also circulates under the title “GOP Lauren Witzke The Earth Is Flat,” with her saying, “I haven’t seen [a round Earth].”
- Fun Witzke Fact 2: The University of Delaware’s The Review described her in 2020 as “a former drug runner for Mexican cartels”.
Epstein – Kicking the can down the road … again!
Bernie nails the core-problem
Even More Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons.
Clay Jones – Trump listens to a caddie who says he’s more powerful than Hitler. #Trump #MAGA #WorstPresidentEver #GOLF
Dave Whamond – Trump is bringing back religion
Clay Jones – Don’t you feel so much safer now that SCOTUS has saved us all from trans athletes? #SCOTUS #TransAthletes # #ClarenceThomas #BrettKavanaugh
Midterms
Democratic Socialists have a winning message …
Marxist oppression in NYC …
Trump is also playing the red scare card now. This was his Friday last week …
- Nothing says good old fashioned 4th of July American patriotism like flying to a speech in a grifted Qatari jet.
- Can we assume that the Fox hosts who said that Mamdani’s speech was “too negative” for Independence Day will feel the same about Trump’s rants about Democrats being communists who hate America and God? … (Hint: Not a chance).
Finally: The Daily Show Celebrates 250 Years of America, and Maybe 250 More? | The Daily Show
2.3 million views Jul 1, 2026 #DailyShow#USA#250
It’s America’s 250th anniversary, and while Trump is planning to commemorate the milestone with a concert full of understudies and his own face on a $250 bill, the TDS News Team asks Americans what they want for the quadricentennial, looks ahead to the next 250 years, and looks back at the greatest moments in the country’s history, from the 1992 Dream Team to the 1992 Dream Team. #DailyShow#USA#250#Trump#HappyBirthday
