Trump HUMILIATES himself — and us — at NATO

Trump arrived at the NATO summit in Turkey and immediately made it about himself: launching a new round of military strikes against Iranian targets following attacks on commercial vessels near Oman, revoking Iran's oil export license, renewing his demand that the U.S. take control of Greenland, and threatening to pull all American troops from Europe. The strikes — the first known U.S. military action against Iran since late last month — came as NATO allies were already quietly planning around American unreliability. 

The summit's stated purpose was to showcase allied defense spending increases; instead, NATO awarded a $4.5 billion surveillance plane contract to Sweden's Saab over Boeing. Trump also picked another public fight with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — one of his few remaining European allies — after saying he needs to get a restraining order against her.  The man who promised to make America respected again is getting snubbed on the contract and lectured on the tarmac.

The ACLU announced its largest-ever electoral investment: $25.5 million targeted at down-ballot state races in nine states, including state Supreme Court seats, secretary of state races, and legislative contests. The "Firewall for Freedom" campaign is explicitly focused on abortion rights, voting rights, and democratic infrastructure — the places where the right has been quietly winning for a decade while national Democrats chased Senate seats. 

The ACLU is not waiting for a presidential cycle to matter. Twenty-five and a half million dollars into the races that actually set the rules is the kind of structural investment that wins things that last — and it's happening now, not in 2028.

A new Public Citizen analysis of government data finds that ACA marketplace enrollment dropped from 22.3 million in 2025 to an estimated 17.5 million in 2026 — a loss of nearly 4.8 million people. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz have publicly attributed the decline to the removal of fraudulent enrollees. 

The data, of course, says otherwise: the people losing coverage are concentrated at incomes well above the poverty line, exactly the opposite of what a fraud-removal effort would produce. The administration let the subsidies expire, millions lost coverage, and then lied about why.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, was shot and killed by ICE agents during a vehicle stop in Houston. His son told reporters that his father was at the location to hire workers. ICE has not released details about what prompted the stop or the shooting. This is the enforcement regime the administration calls a success.

The Mitch McConnell health story has moved from "suspicious silence" to something that looks like a coordinated cover-up. His social media accounts have gone dark. His daughter has deleted her accounts. His office is dodging direct questions about whether he is brain dead. Senate Republican leadership offices initially ignored press questions before suddenly issuing nearly identical statements — a coordination pattern that MAGA figures are now calling out publicly as a cover-up (The Daily Beast).

Some Republicans say they have spoken to McConnell — all miraculously around 20 minute calls where he was sharp as a tack, but nobody has provided any actual evidence or proof.  It’s done little to quiet the speculation. Even a fellow Republican is making fun of them. 

A sitting U.S. senator has now been hospitalized for weeks, his office will not confirm his condition, his family has scrubbed their online presence, his wife flew off to China, and the institution he serves is pretending it isn't happening. It is truly bonkers.