Akiko Takenaka

What we know, 10:20pm

—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, *and* AG
—BIG Dem gains in VA House
—Dems win NJ-Gov
—Mamdani wins
—Dems keep PA supreme court
—Larry Krasner & Bragg win
— GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices
—JD Vance’s half-brother loses Cincy
—Dems sweep Orlando council
—ME anti-mail vote measure loses

Trump declares that Republicans have lost the shutdown. Absolutely zero reason for Dems to cave at this point

Who, us? We aren’t judging 😹

The Walton family (who own Walmart) are worth over $400 billion, yet many of their employees are on SNAP.

Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP.

The people who need help are not the problem.

It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.

If I were running the DNC, there would be Democratic Party sponsored food relief banks across the country right now that specifically welcomed anyone regardless of party affiliation.

Along with the food, there could be voter registration and links to runforsomething.net

🚨BREAKING🚨: Portland Frog receives Nobel Peace Prize.

This is awesome.

If you're protesting ICE in Chicago, let me know at sheryl@weikallaw.com if you need free legal training or legal support. If you're arrested protesting ICE, I can represent you pro bono. Email me at sheryl@weikallaw.com. As always, I will take as many cases as I can.

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND HATE: A Sane Person's Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists & Flock Fleecing Frauds.

For any believer, atheist or agnostic who will ever have to deal with right-wing Christian nationalists; releasing 9/9.

www.simonandschuster.com/books/Separa...

Super important. But the fact that this needs to be said in America makes me profoundly sad, scared, and angry

Trump wants a new U.S. census to exclude people here illegally. It'd be unprecedented Trump is calling for a "new" census that excludes people in the U.S. without legal status. The 14th Amendment requires the "whole number of persons in each state" in a key set of census results.

THREAD: There are a lot of unanswered questions 12 hours after President Trump — who, according to the Constitution, has no final authority over the census — released a social media post calling for unprecedented changes to how the government produces data that forms the foundation of U.S. democracy

thinking about the dems who said we can't abolish ICE as the Department of Education gets wiped off the map

Emmy-winning Austin, TX based TV meteorologist on Facebook:

each year on this day i find company in this poem

“No Explosions”
by Naomi Shihab Nye

To enjoy
fireworks
you would have
to have lived
a different kind
of life

One thing that is weird about the Mandami story is the focus on the checked boxes, not the rest of the application (which presumably contains essays or other written statements). Admissions people actually read those! (especially at a school like Columbia, in an era of paper applications) 1/

Of course, the Medicaid and SNAP cuts are appropriately getting the most attention. But almost lost has been the dramatic expansion of ICE, dwarfing every other law-enforcement agency combined. I had feared a private Trump vigilante force. Much worse. An official one.

Trump promised not to cut Medicaid and his signature legislation cuts Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion.

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens.

Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important".

Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary.

substack.com/redirect/169...

Ok, so Republicans just introduced a 900 page bill none of them have read. But my team is going through it line by line and on this 🧵you can see the hidden provisions we found. Will update all day.

1/ NEW Medicaid cuts, so now 17 million - instead of 16M - lose health care.

Hey.

Two-thirds of people DON'T KNOW what's in Trump's budget bill, even though it will affect all of us. Polls show when people know what's in it, they don't want Trump's Big Ugly Bill.

So let's make sure more people know what's in it 🧵

Update from Maggie Haberman

In a 4 minute address gloating over US bombing of Iran, President Trump made this statement:
“We love you, God, and we love our great military.”
This is Holy War language.
He was flanked by Hegseth, who has the Crusades motto “Deus vult” tattooed on his arm.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

If you were too young in 2003 here is what Bush told the American people:

1) The Iraq War won’t cost a lot of money
3) We won’t need a lot of troops
4) We’ll bring peace and freedom to Iraq
5) We’ll find WMDs
6) We’ll be welcomed as liberators
7) It will be easy
8) It won’t take long

All lies.

For those who don’t have truth social apparently we are at war. Insanity that this is how the U.S. president makes an announcement.

I’m old enough to remember a US president making an announcement to the nation and not posting something this serious to a right wing platform

Fun fact: the US has been at continual war since 1945 and *not a single one of these wars*, from the Korean War to Vietnam to Iraq to Iraq again, was ever declared war by Congress.

The last time the US Congress declared war was 1942. 83 years ago.

Christine Ahn (@christineahn.bsky.social) Peace activist, organizer, writer, mom, surfer and hopeaholic. Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies; founder, Women Cross DMZ. Expert on Korea, feminist peace, U.S. foreign policy.

Listen to today’s Daily Beans (and on all other days, but especially today) mswmedia.com/show/daily-b...

Do not miss the interview with @christineahn.bsky.social

Americans take to the streets* Patriots were everywhere Saturday — *except at Trump’s dumb birthday party

After a November election that felt like the end of the world, after months of attacks on values and institutions we hold dear, after a Democratic official and her husband were murdered Saturday morning, we needed to see that we weren’t the only ones heartbroken, freaked out and super pissed off:

Democratic senators need to stop pretending that GOP senators are their “good friends across the aisle” and realize many of them are just lying sociopaths who are actively fanning the flames of violence against them.

This is an egregiously shameful tweet from a US senator

It's .........very cosplay so far here at Trump's birthday parade. Those wigs must be so damn hot

Let's do this!

🧵