Robert Reich

This is Fascism
Trump’s Big Ugly Bill is fascist — not only in what it does and authorizes, but in how it got enacted



Friends,

Trump’s 940-page Big Ugly Bill was passed today by the House and is now on the way to the White House for Trump’s signature.

It is a disgrace. It takes more than $1 trillion out of Medicaid — leaving about 12 million Americans without insurance by 2034 — and slashes food stamps, all to give a giant tax cut to wealthy Americans.

It establishes an anti-immigrant police state in America, replete with a standing army of ICE agents and a gulag of detention facilities that will transform ICE into the most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the government.

It will increase the already-bloated deficit by $3.4 trillion.

It’s also disgraceful because of how it came to be.

READ MORE...

I ate like a KING on just $5 a DAY

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> British band Oasis' reunion tour kicks off tomorrow after nearly 16-year hiatus; band is set to play 41 dates across the UK, Ireland, and North America (More)

> NHL to allow players to compete in 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics; will mark first time NHL players participate since 2014 (More)

> The 112th Tour de France begins this weekend from Lille, France; see a stage-by-stage breakdown of the 23-day bicycle race (More)


Science & Technology
> First complete human genome from Ancient Egypt sequenced; 4,800-year-old DNA reveals ancestry was 80% North African, 20% Mesopotamian (More) | Ancient Egypt explained (1440 Topics)

> New study reveals how plants heal damage to their protective outer layer; oxygen and ethylene in the wound trigger cellular repair mechanism; findings may lead to new varieties of resilient crops (More)

> Air pollution and other environmental factors, including some traditional herbal medicines, may lead to lung cancer in never-smokers; heavy pollution linked to 400% increase in the same mutations seen in smokers (More) | Cancer explained (1440 Topics)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 +0.5%, Dow -0.0%, Nasdaq +1.0%); S&P 500 hits new record (More) | Robinhood shares close up 6%, with stock topping $100 in intraday trading for the first time (More)

> Tesla reports 384,122 vehicle deliveries in Q2, a 14% decline from a year ago and the second consecutive quarterly drop (More) | Rivian reports 10,661 vehicle deliveries in Q2, a 23% year-over-year drop (More)

> Microsoft to lay off roughly 9,000 employees, or about less than 4% of its global workforce; action comes after the company eliminated 6,000 roles in May (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty to one count of burglary, four counts of first-degree murder over fatal stabbing of University of Idaho students in 2022, avoiding possible death penalty; Kohberger faces up to four consecutive life sentences and maximum 10 years in prison for burglary when he is sentenced July 23 (More)

> US Defense Department halts shipments of promised weapons to Ukraine amid reports US' overall stockpiles are too low (More) | Iran suspends cooperation with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, blocking inspectors from monitoring nuclear activities without approval (More) | Trump administration strikes tariff deal with Vietnam including 20% levy on imports of Vietnamese-made goods (More)

> Wisconsin Supreme Court strikes down 1849 abortion ban, allowing most procedures until 20 weeks of pregnancy to continue (More) | Education Department withholds over $6B for summer and after-school programs for low-income Americans (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Independence Day

 

I am a Vietnam Era Veteran since we have never called it a war, serving from 1969 until 1974.  But just because I am a veteran does not mean I am patriotic; I am patriotic because I am an AMERICAN.

July 4, 1776, is when the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE was adopted, and 13 colonies declared their independence from Great Britain.

These 13 colonies, soon to be states, were:

1. New Hampshire
2. Massachusetts 
3. Rhode Island
4. Connecticut
5. New York
6. New Jersey
7. Pennsylvania
8. Delaware
9. Maryland
10. Virginia
11. North Carolina
12. South Carolina
13. Georgia

The leaders and followers of these 13 colonies/states, could have been HANGED FOR TREASON, if they had lost the war with Great Britain.  Fortunately, they did not.

It took great courage to do what these leaders and their followers did...

Shortly after the passage of the Declaration of Independence, our Founding Fathers wrote the US CONSTITUTION which contained THE BILL OF RIGHTS, giving us the FREEDOMS that we all enjoy and are mostly taken for granted.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH is the one of which I am most supportive because it gives AMERICANS what citizens of other countries do not have.

I am not very fond of the Second Amendment because I believe it was designed to only be TEMPORARY until we established a military and police force.

I am patriotic, not just because I am an American, but because I live in the greatest country in the world and we are the envy of everyone else because they don't have and will never have what we have.

I will fight to the death to protect the country to which I belong...  regardless of all the mistakes she has made and will continue to make.

Somewhat Political

 

Physicist Solves 120-Year-Old Thermodynamics Puzzle and Corrects Einstein

A thermodynamics mystery dating back to 1905 has been resolved by University of Seville professor José María Martín-Olalla, who demonstrates that the Nernst theorem is inherently tied to the second law of thermodynamics. His reinterpretation corrects a long-standing assumption made by Einstein, reframing how physicists understand the behavior of entropy near absolute zero. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

The paper argues that the third principle of thermodynamics follows from the second principle, rather than being a separate or independent concept.

Professor José María Martín-Olalla of the University of Seville has published a paper addressing a thermodynamics problem that has remained unresolved for 120 years. In doing so, he corrects an idea proposed by Albert Einstein more than a century ago.

The paper links Nernst’s theorem, an experimental observation from 1905 stating that entropy exchanges approach zero as temperature approaches zero, directly to the second principle of thermodynamics. Published in The European Physical Journal Plus, the study extends the implications of the second principle, which states that entropy in the universe tends to increase.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gimme Three Steps (Live At Knebworth '76)

INDEPENDENCE DAY

 

Imagine

 

Russell Brand

 

Nature

 

Lara Trump

 

Moon

 

The Big MIG

 

Beachhead

 

Thrivetime

 

Pink Line

 

The Big THINK

The Big 5 personality traits linked to lifelong singlehood

Brookings Brief

 

The global implications of the US strikes on Iran

The Mountains

 

Headlines

A garment factory in Vietnam. Nhac Nguyen/Getty Images


President Trump announced trade deal with Vietnam. In the agreement, American goods entering Vietnam will not be subject to tariffs, while Vietnamese imports will be assessed a 20% tariff, down from 46% the president announced in April. Goods from other countries that transit through Vietnam en route to the US will be subject to a 40% tariff. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Vietnam deal is the second one Trump negotiated since he raised the issue of so-called reciprocal tariffs (the UK deal was the first). Stocks for shoe and apparel companies that have been diversifying manufacturing out of China, such as Nike, rose on the news.

The June private sector jobs report was a bummer. Payroll processing firm ADP, which releases the monthly update, found that 33,000 jobs were lost last month, when an addition of 100,000 was expected. It marks the first decrease since March 2023. A press release accompanying the report said that while layoffs remain rare, employers are choosing not to hire for new roles or to replace departing employees. The report is considered an important, but not superior, precursor to the monthly jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor. The government’s June report on jobs data is due out this morning.

Sean “Diddy” Combs found guilty on two charges, acquitted of racketeering. After three days of deliberation, the jury in the music mogul’s high-stakes trial in Manhattan federal court found him not guilty of the most serious charges related to sex trafficking and racketeering, which could have meant a sentence of life in prison. But the charges he was found guilty of—two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution—each carry a sentence of up to a decade behind bars and could end his career, according to the Associated Press. Following his conviction, Combs was denied bail. No date has been set yet for his sentencing.—HVL

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Robert Reich

Why They Hate Education
What Trump, Vance, Stefanik, and Viktor Orban have in common





Friends,

Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down Friday, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.

The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA sufficiently complied with Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion.

UVA dissolved its DEI office in March, though Trump’s lackeys claim the university didn’t go far enough in rooting out DEI.

This is the first time the Trump regime has explicitly tied grant dollars to the resignation of a university official. It’s unlikely to be the last.

READ MORE...

At A Glance

Meet Gouverneur Morris, the forgotten Founding Father.

See a ranking of the best hot dog brands.

The history of fireworks and how they work.

Visualizing the US budget across federal agencies.

What the brains of psychopaths have in common.

Portugal beachgoers stunned by rare "roll cloud." (w/video)

Holocaust survivor and WWII vet meet 80 years later.

Can cheese secretly fuel your nightmares? Well, sort of.

Clickbait: Time is three-dimensional, and space is just a side effect.

Choosing the KING of Cozy Soups 👑

Quick Clips

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Jury reaches partial verdict in Sean "Diddy" Combs' wide-ranging sex crimes trial, agreeing on four of five counts; jury resumes deliberations today on racketeering conspiracy charge (More) | Jimmy Swaggart, televangelist and gospel singer who was defrocked amid prostitution scandals, dies at age 90 (More)

> University of Pennsylvania agrees to ban transgender women from competing in women's sports, resolving the federal civil rights case (More)

> NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander signs four-year, $285M contract extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder, the highest annual salary in NBA history (More) | FIFA Club World Cup quarterfinal is set; see latest bracket (More)


Science & Technology
> Web infrastructure firm Cloudflare announces it will block bots and AI crawlers by default, provide an option for per-page-crawl payment; company services about 20% of the open internet (More)

> New imaging analysis reveals how quickly the human brain is aging from a single MRI scan; tool can assess risk of dementia and chronic disease, motivate lifestyle changes to improve brain health (More) | Aging explained (1440 Topics)

> Engineers develop technique to reconstruct 3D images of hidden objects using reflections from millimeter radiation (the same frequency as Wi-Fi); approach achieved 96% accuracy with common household objects (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.1%, Dow +1.0%, Nasdaq -0.8%) (More) | Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says the Fed would have likely cut interest rates by now if it weren't for tariffs (More) | US job openings rose to 7.8 million in May, up from 7.4 million in April and the highest level since November (More)

> Design-software maker Figma files for initial public offering, with plans to trade on the NYSE; comes after Adobe scrapped a $20B deal to buy the company in 2023 following regulatory hurdles in the UK (More) | IPOs explained (1440 Topics)

> Grammarly, maker of AI-powered writing assistant, acquires email client Superhuman (More) | Lululemon sues Costco, accusing the retail wholesaler of selling bargain knockoff versions of its popular activewear (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani officially secures Democratic nomination for New York City’s mayoral race, with final tally showing he beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo by 12 points (More) | See previous write-up (More)

> Thailand court suspends Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra amid ethics probe over leaked phone call with Cambodia's leader; court suggests Shinawatra may have been too deferential when discussing border incident that left one Cambodian soldier dead (More)

> President Donald Trump says Israel has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire plan for Gaza, urges Hamas to accept deal (More) | German authorities summon Iran's ambassador after Danish citizen was arrested and accused of spying for Iran, scouting Jewish targets in Berlin for possible attacks (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

College Tuition

 

Going to college in 1965 cost $1,2,50/year for room, board, and tuition with books costing about another $250 at the most...  so roughly $1500 per year.

$69, 163 is the cost for the same three items in 2025...  roughly 60 years later.  The cost of books is about $900 which includes both hardback, paperback and digital.  

That's a 4,567% increase over 60 years.  The cumulative inflation rate in the USA from 1966 to 2025 has been 892.18%.

The cost of attend this same college has increased over FOUR TIMES the national cumulative inflation rate over that same 60 year period.

NOW...  for me...  that does not make any sense.  Why has college tuition increased four times faster than the national inflation rate?

Are colleges/universities gouging the public?

Based upon data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average tuition increase for colleges and universities was 1,538.73% from 1977 to 2025 which is just shy of 50 years not the 60 years in my example.

The cumulative percentage increase in wages from 1966 to 2025 is 3100% based upon an increase from $5000 to $160,000.

Still...

looking at these numbers, college/university all inclusive tuition has increased ONE THOUSAND PERCENT more than wages over the last 60 years.

It would appear to me that the colleges and universities are taking advantage over people's desire to attend college.

Is going to college worth the price???

Somewhat Political

 

New research finds the universe is twice as old as we previously thought

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest the cosmos may be much older than once believed. For decades, scientists have held that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. That number now faces serious doubt, thanks to the telescope’s groundbreaking data.

The JWST wasn’t just designed for clearer images—it was built to peer deeper into time than ever before. Its precision and range allow it to detect light from the earliest galaxies, opening a window into the universe’s youth. And what it's seeing doesn’t match the script cosmologists have followed for years.

Some of the most puzzling finds have been dubbed “impossible early galaxies.” These ancient structures appear to have formed just 500 to 800 million years after the Big Bang. But that’s where the problem lies: they look far too developed for their supposed age.

READ MORE...