Thank you LeftieProf, Steve Goldberg, <3, Nick G, A Dude On The Couch, Shirley Figueroa, and many others for tuning into my live video with Chris Geidner!
Here’s What we Covered in Tonight’s Live:
What You’ll Learn:
Alito’s Expected Retirement — and His Crazy Book Tour…
How the Voting Rights Act Might Survive, Crippled…
How John Roberts Is trying to Right the Court…
Whether the Court Will Turn on Trump…
Updates on Cases Set for Rulings…
Firing of FTC Commissioner
Lisa Cook’s Federal Reserve Case
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Trump Prepares to Put Thousands of US Troops in Harm’s Way
So here’s where things stand with Iran. According to Reuters, the Trump administration is actively discussing the deployment of thousands of additional U.S. troops to the region, on top of the roughly 50,000 already stationed there.Four sources, including two U.S. officials, told Reuters that “securing” the Strait could mean putting American troops on Iran’s actual shoreline.
There’s also been discussion about sending ground forces to Kharg Island, which handles 90% of Iran’s oil exports. One official called that option “very risky.” The U.S. already struck the island earlier this month, and Iran has the capability to hit it with missiles and drones.
And then there’s the uranium question. Officials have reportedly discussed deploying U.S. forces to secure Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. Experts say that would be extraordinarily complex, even for special operations forces.
Thirteen U.S. troops have been killed so far. About 200 have been wounded. The U.S. military has carried out more than 7,800 strikes since launching the war on February 28th. And Trump, the guy who spent years railing against American entanglement in foreign wars, is now refusing to rule out boots on the ground in Iran.
Attack on Qatar Facility an “Armageddon Scenario” for Gas Prices
While all of that is unfolding, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex, the largest liquefied natural gas facility on the planet. And the damage is severe.
In normal times, roughly a fifth of the world’s LNG supply flows out of that facility. It’s enormous. Think a complex nearly three times the size of Paris, built over decades, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Iran hit it twice. First on Wednesday night, then again in the early hours of Thursday morning. QatarEnergy says two of its LNG units have been damaged so badly that repairs will take three to five years and cost the company $20 billion a year in lost revenue.
Gas prices in Europe jumped 30% when markets reopened. They’ve more than doubled since the war began. Oil hit nearly $119 a barrel. Energy experts aren’t sugarcoating it. One analyst told the Financial Times that this was an “armageddon scenario.” There are early signs that some politicians are already pushing for a relaxation of bans on Russian gas imports.
This is a global economic crisis in the making, and it’s directly connected to a war the American public was never asked about and never voted for.
Almost All Republicans Just Voted to Gut Social Security and Medicare
Back home, nearly every House Republican voted recently for a proposed constitutional amendment that would effectively ban deficit spending, with one exception: War.
The amendment, led by Republican Andy Biggs, failed to reach the two-thirds threshold required. The final vote was 211 to 207. Every Republican who voted backed it. Only one Democrat crossed over.
Now, why does this matter? Because passing and ratifying this amendment would, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “immediately devastate programs that are appropriated annually” like housing assistance, education, and medical research. And eventually, it would force cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and food assistance.
Here’s the kicker: this vote came less than a year after those same Republicans passed what they called the “Big Beautiful Bill,” cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations. Nonpartisan analysts estimate it added more than $4 trillion to the national debt.
So to be clear about what just happened: Republicans blew a $4 trillion hole in the deficit to cut taxes for billionaires, and then turned around and voted to constitutionally prohibit deficit spending in a way that would gut the retirement and healthcare programs working Americans have paid into their entire lives.
Democrat Brendan Boyle put it plainly: “American families don’t need a lecture on fiscal responsibility from the same politicians who just added $4 trillion to the debt.”
That’s the con. Don’t let them get away with it.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Kicked Out of Arkansas Restaurant
And finally, something a little lighter, though it says quite a bit about the political moment we’re living in.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she was asked to leave a Little Rock restaurant called The Croissanterie earlier this month. She arrived unannounced with her State Police security detail, was seated for over an hour, and says the owner approached her security team and asked her to leave because her presence was making employees feel “threatened and uncomfortable.”
The restaurant tells a somewhat different story. They say that when they realized Sanders was there, she was already seated and eating, so they chose not to interrupt. As her security detail became more noticeable to both staff and other guests, staff approached a member of the security detail and quietly asked Sanders to wrap up her visit, since she’d finished dining and they have a 90-minute table limit.
The Croissanterie specifically denies using the word “threatened” and says they made a difficult call to support employees who were uncomfortable.
Sanders, for her part, released a statement calling the whole thing “discrimination and hate” and contrasting it with “warm Arkansas hospitality.”
This may be a local story, but it’s also a perfect microcosm of how the culture war gets manufactured. A restaurant makes a judgment call. A governor turns it into a statement about discrimination. And suddenly a croissant shop in Little Rock is national news.
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