Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Republicans are now demanding proof of life from Mitch McConnell after nearly a month of silence from the senator’s office. Belgium eliminated the US from the World Cup and used their win to mock Donald Trump’s meddling in the tournament. Both Democratic and Republican-dominated areas are attempting to recall local officials who quietly approved massive data centers. And more than 1,200 former Department of Justice employees are urging senators to reject Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general.
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MAGA Wants Proof Mitch McConnell Is Still Alive
Former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was hospitalized on June 14 after reportedly being found unconscious and needing CPR at his Washington home. That was almost a month ago. Since then, it’s been radio silence from his office.
His staff keeps putting out the same canned statement. McConnell’s office says he appreciates the support and that he’s continuing treatment. But there are still no details on his condition or an expected date he’ll get back to his Senate duties.
That silence has created a void, and MAGA is rushing to fill it. Far-right influencer Laura Loomer cited anonymous sources to claim that the Kentucky senator is “braindead.” Independent journalist Desirée Townsend says she’s heard similar things from her own sources and is now camped outside McConnell’s hospital waiting for word from his family on whether he’ll be taken off life support.
Breitbart reporter Matthew Boyle is publicly demanding McConnell’s staff provide Republicans with proof of life. Pro-Trump commentator Catturd, who has millions of followers on X, is asking for a video from McConnell’s hospital room.
Observers are also questioning why McConnell’s wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, reportedly went to Beijing just three days after McConnell was hospitalized to meet with China’s vice president. There’s still no word on the details of that trip.
Former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon suggested the senator’s team is hiding his condition specifically to avoid triggering a special election, which could allow ousted Republican congressman Thomas Massie to run as an independent. Under Kentucky law, if McConnell resigns or is deemed unable to serve before August 3, Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat, could call for a special election. After that date, any replacement would just be decided in November’s general election.
Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee insists there isn’t a coordinated effort by Republicans to keep mum on McConnell’s health, saying that his GOP colleagues know as much about how the former Republican leader is doing as the rest of us. Current Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he spoke with McConnell shortly after he was hospitalized and that he sounded good, though Thune said he’s deferring to McConnell’s staff on when he’ll return to the Senate.
This is just the latest health episode for the 84 year-old McConnell. He had a couple of mid-sentence freezes in front of reporters. He’s had multiple falls, including one on camera that was apparently bad enough to require a wheelchair. Now, this new health crisis is raising questions his own party can’t answer.
This isn’t new. When Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in 1919, his wife and a handful of aides quietly ran the government for months while the public was told he only needed rest, and a self-governing people that isn’t allowed to know who’s really holding its power has already lost something that matters.
Belgium Mocks Trump After Knocking the US Out of the World Cup
Team USA lost 4-1 to Belgium in the FIFA World Cup’s Round of 16 last night. And Trump’s direct involvement in overturning the red card suspension for American soccer star Folarin Balogun has led to a new nickname for FIFA: Fix It For America.
The president admitted he had personally spoken with FIFA president Gianni Infantino about getting that red card reviewed. And soccer fans around the world saw it as blatant political interference in a sport that’s supposed to be above that kind of thing. Calls for Infantino to resign have continued to spread, with plenty of people pointing out that FIFA’s reputation for corruption was just underscored.
Trump’s involvement turned out not to matter, as the US became the latest host country to be eliminated from the World Cup. Belgian player Nicolas Raskin summed it up afterward with one word: justice.
While Belgium’s coach Rudi Garcia made a point of telling Balogun after the final whistle that none of the controversy was his fault, his players were less diplomatic. After their fourth goal, they gathered at the corner flag and broke into an impression of Trump’s signature dance move, which was widely interpreted as a mockery of his involvement. The Belgian Red Devils’ official social media account piled on, posting: “Overturn this.”
In 1974, a unanimous Supreme Court told Richard Nixon in United States v. Nixon that no president gets to bend the machinery of government to suit himself, and the same instinct that reaches into a courtroom to fix an outcome is the one that reached into a soccer match, only this time the whole world got to watch it fail.
Democrats and Republicans Find Common Ground in Recalling Local Officials for Approving Data Centers
There’s a fight happening in Lenox Township in Michigan that’s playing out in dozens of communities across the country: an effort to kick out local officials for ramming through a new data center.
A website called lenoxdatacenter dot com went live back in May promoting what it called a proposed advanced technology and data center campus. Nothing on the site reveals who is behind it. Lenox Township officials denied anyone even applied to build one.
But when residents filed an open records request, they found emails showing developers had already reached out to the township supervisor and deputy supervisor asking for their support. Residents exploded with anger, and public meetings soon started running for four hours or longer. Eventually residents filed recall petitions against four members of the local township board.
This same pattern is playing out in California, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas, where voters have launched recall efforts just in the past two months against local and county officials who approved backroom deals for sprawling data centers.
A single data center can use as much electricity as 2,000 homes. Larger ones can burn through 5 million gallons of water a day, which is roughly the same amount of water that a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people uses. Neighbors have plenty to say about the constant noise from cooling systems and about air pollution. In most cases, the public has no idea which tech company is actually going to use the facility, since developers sign non-disclosure agreements before anything even gets voted on. Researchers found that 80 percent of proposed Virginia data center sites had that same kind of secrecy built in.
In Festus, Missouri, which Trump won with 67 percent of the vote in 2024, residents filed a recall petition against the mayor and three council members after they approved a $6 billion data center, which even included a five-year tax break for the developer. A judge ruled residents had enough signatures to force a recall election, but the city council rejected the petition anyway. Now a resident is suing.
One organizer who’s helped anti-data center activists in ten different states told the Guardian people feel like data centers are being shoved down their throats. And whether they’re Republicans worried about their electric bills or Democrats worried about air and water pollution, they’re increasingly landing in the same place of full opposition.
This fight is older than it looks. When the railroads cut their deals in back rooms in the 1880s and treated whole towns as if they had no say, public fury pushed Congress to pass the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 and drag those arrangements into the daylight, and the people packing these township meetings are carrying on that same refusal to let powerful companies write the rules in the dark.
1,200 Former DOJ Alumni Urge Senate to Reject Todd Blanche
More than 1,200 former Department of Justice employees sent senators a letter this week urging them to reject Todd Blanche’s nomination for attorney general.
The letter, which was organized by the group Justice Connection, points out that Blanche has spearheaded witch hunts into Trump’s political enemies, negotiated deals that reward January 6 rioters with taxpayer money while outright refusing to hold anyone accountable for January 6, and mishandled the release of the Epstein files, perhaps intentionally.
But the letter’s central focus is on what Blanche has done to DOJ’s sizable workforce of career staffers, who are supposed to be apolitical and keep the Justice Department running regardless of who occupies the White House.
According to the letter, Blanche has fired or overseen the firing of hundreds of career DOJ employees, often with no notice and no real justification. Some were let go for working on January 6 cases, and others for being connected to people Trump considers his enemies. Some were terminated for handling immigration cases in accordance with existing federal law, while others were fired for simply refusing to lie in court, under oath.
Roughly 16,000 of the department’s 100,000+ employees have left since the beginning of Trump’s second term in January of 2025. Many forced out, while others resigned as opposed to following orders they considered illegal or unethical.
Blanche was nominated to lead the DOJ after Trump fired Pam Bondi. His confirmation hearing is set for next week, and these former DOJ employees are hoping to give Republican senators second thoughts about helping Trump’s former personal attorney become the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
And this cuts deeper than one nomination. Article Two of the Constitution orders the president to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and faithfully means evenly, for everyone, not aimed at the people he happens to fear, so a Justice Department that picks its targets by loyalty isn’t enforcing the law, it’s abandoning the one duty the Constitution hands it by name.
That’s your Tuesday morning breakdown. A top senator’s health condition is being hidden from the public while conspiracy theories run wild. Donald Trump leaned on a FIFA to bend a rule for his home country’s team, which led to a loss and public humiliation anyway. Americans in both red and blue counties are teaming up to fight billion-dollar data center deals being negotiated behind closed doors. And the man who might run the Justice Department is accused of turning it into the president’s personal army.
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Thanks for reading independent media. And thanks for standing with us. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Here are five additional stories that may have fallen through the cracks:
More Democrats Call on Platner to Drop Out of Maine Senate Race. After Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner was credibly accused of sexual assault by 41 year-old former girlfriend Jenny Racicot, Platner has faced a wave of calls to drop out of the race. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) urged Platner to suspend his campaign, along with NEw York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, leftist streamer Hasan Piker and the Maine Democratic Party. If Platner drops out before Monday, the party will have several weeks to decide on a new nominee to replace him on the ballot. Some establishment figures want Gov. Janet Mills (D) to run, while Piker has endorsed logger and former state legislator Troy Jackson to take Platner’s place.
Epstein Moved Millions Through Virgin Islands Bank Account Just Before His Death. One of convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s bank accounts experienced a flurry of activity just prior to his death in prison in July of 2019. The Miami Herald reported that approximately $20 million went through Epstein’s Southern Country International account between April and July of 2019, despite the account having been dormant for years. The Herald found the record of the transactions buried in the Department of Justice’s release of Epstein-related documents.
Trump Revives Call for U.S. to Control Greenland During Turkey Summit. President Donald Trump is now reiterating his call for Greenland to be a U.S. territory, rather than Denmark. Trump made the remarks during the recent NATO summit in Turkey, and complained that NATO countries made him abandon his effort to annex Greenland for the U.S., saying “Greenland doesn't help Denmark,” and that “Denmark doesn't spend money to really help Greenland.” While Denmark lays claim to Greenland, the island operates as an effectively autonomous country with its own elected government made up of local residents.
Newsom Announces New Bill to Stop Trump from Interfering in California Midterms. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) recently announced new legislation that would make it a felony offense for anyone to seize ballots from a polling place before an election had been certified. The bill is a direct response to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R) seizing hundreds of thousands of ballots in the wake of the 2025 election on Prop 50, which Californians overwhelmingly approved to permit the redrawing of congressional districts. Bianco alleged that fraud in the election necessitated his seizure of the ballots, though he provided no proof of his claims.
Former NFL Punter Aims to Flip MAGA Stronghold Blue in Local Election. Chris Kluwe, who was a punter for the Minnesota Vikings, is running as a progressive Democrat for California’s 72nd state assembly district. The district includes Kluwe’s hometown of Huntington Beach, which is a known as a deep-red stronghold with a city council almost completely made up of dyed-in-the-wool MAGA loyalists. Kluwe won the June 2 primary, and will face off in the general election against Huntington Beach City Council member Gracey Van Der Mark.
