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A conservative former judge warned Americans that they're facing a stark and important choice right now.In a July 4 appearance on MS NOW, ex-judge Michael Luttig said Trump is forcing Americans to decide what kind of country they want for the next 250 years. Trump "could not have presented the choice any more starkly," Luttig added."As we celebrate our founding today once again, these are the times in America that try men's souls, and Americans must decide today, this year, what America they want," Luttig said, evoking a quote by Thomas Paine. "What America they want and what America they do not want for the next 250 years."While Luttig stressed how critical the decision is, he struck an optimistic tone about the path that Americans seem to be choosing. He noted, "Only as of late, I have seen hope in the American people that they are beginning to rise up and reject this government and this president and all that he and it represent."Luttig cautioned that Trump fits the description of the kind of monarch that the founding Americans rejected through the 27 grievances in the Declaration of Independence. According to Luttig, "The American people, I believe, have finally come to their senses in a way and understood what vision of America this president and the current government has, and Americans don't want that."He added that no matter what Americans choose, "it's the decision of the American people that will prevail," and "If we have the courage in our breasts and the hope in our hearts that our founders had 250 years ago, when they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to create this country, we will long endure."

An ex-GOP operative flagged how Trump is killing what he once touted as his "best" deal at the expense of his supporters.During an episode of The Bulwark Podcast, Tim Miller described Trump's plans concerning the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump negotiated and boasted about during his first term."The Trump administration decided not to renew the USMCA," Miller noted. "Which is pretty interesting because Donald Trump said that was the best agreement we've ever made, the best trade deal of all time."While "it's strange that they would not renew the best trade deal of all time," Miller explained, "They're now going to do yearly reviews where Trump shakes down the leaders of Mexico and Canada...not great."According to Miller, Trump will ditch the USMCA in favor of an arrangement where the U.S. conducts annual reviews of trade with Mexico and Canada. He predicted that the new arrangement would likely hurt American farmers, who supported Trump."The farmers, it's one hit after another for the farmers, who, it seems like, every Trump policy is like it's almost like an elaborate plot to see how much he can p— off the farmers and still run up the numbers in rural America," Miller said.Miller's guest on the show, New Yorker writer Susan Glasser, agreed."As far as the farmers go, Donald Trump loves to provide evidence that his ride or die supporters will be there no matter how much he humiliates them," Glasser said. "No matter how much he backs away from policies that would support him, no matter how much he fails to deliver the things that he said he would deliver. That to Trump, that's the ultimate sort of political own, and he loves that move."

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board is alarmed by President Donald Trump's hints he'll give F-35 fighter jets to the Turkish government — which, despite being a NATO ally on paper, has disconcerting ties to Russia.This comes after Trump recently said that Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a notorious autocrat who has cracked down on freedom in his country, “is a strong member of NATO. I’m going to probably do something that’s going to make him very happy. He’s a respected man, a respected leader, and he’s been a friend of mine.”"America’s premier fighter jet should be a nonstarter for Ankara as long as it owns an S-400 missile-defense system," wrote the editorial board. Trump initially kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program in his first term, the board noted, when it bought that Russian missile system in the first place in 2019, having "offered Patriot defenses to Turkey and warned Ankara multiple times."That was the right idea in the first place, the board argued, and it makes no sense to reverse it now."Allowing the two systems to work together would amount to letting Vladimir Putin conduct target practice on the free world’s pilots," noted the board, because it would give Putin valuable intelligence about how the F-35 program works. Worse yet, "The stakes of cracking the F-35’s tech are especially acute given Russia is working with China and Iran in a larger competition with the U.S."Moreover, the board wrote, there is the soft power issue to think about: caving to Turkey and letting them have American tech at the same time they use Russian tech will "fuel European cynicism that Mr. Trump cares less about European defense spending than he does about pleasing the illiberal strongmen he views as pals" — which comes at a moment Trump has already enraged Europe with his efforts to bully Denmark into handing over Greenland.If Trump truly values "hard power and real deterrence," as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently said in a speech, a key part of that is "not handing the alliance’s prime adversary a potential cheat code on the West’s best military aircraft technology," the board concluded.

A former Republican operative warned that Trump not only lost the Iran war but set in motion a larger conflict.Steve Schmidt argued in an episode of The Warning podcast that Trump lost the war with Iran because he failed to achieve any of his aims. However, Schmidt added that the consequence will be more conflicts breaking out. "We should appreciate that there are consequences for great powers losing wars," Schmidt said. "And in the manner that Trump has lost this war, and the lies that he told about a peace that does not exist, we should all understand that what he has set in motion is cataclysm, a larger war, a looming war, a building crisis, a deadly one."Although Schmidt stopped short of predicting where another war or conflict will take place, he warned that conflicts will carry on after the Iran campaign, which will "be Donald Trump's legacy of ruination," Schmidt added. "In part, it will be the lost wars and the next wars."Schmidt pointed to Iraq and likened Trump's assertion about winning the Iran war to George W. Bush standing below a banner that read "Mission Accomplished.""And Iraq today is a fragile democracy," Schmidt said. "We have lost a war to Iran, and what's amazing about the tolerance of the American people for Donald Trump is that he's hung his 'Mission Accomplished' banner on his forehead at least 500 times over and over."Even though "Trump tells you his lost war is over, the fighting rages on," Schmidt said. "The American people, stupefied, somehow hypnotized, numbed, as if they had a cattle prod zap them in their frontal lobes, seem detached."

A presidential historian is sounding the alarm about a recent mining deal that's expected to enrich the Trump family."The audacity is so off the Richter scale," Douglas Brinkley said about a deal between the Trump administration and Kazakhstan to access one of the world's largest untapped reserves of tungsten.The New York Times reported on the $1.6 billion tungsten mining deal with the Central Asian country. The Times noted that the sons of both Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stand to benefit. Tungsten is used in "missile warheads, fighter jets, computer chips, and other critical goods," the Times noted.Brinkley reacted to details of the deal as reported by the NY Times during an appearance on The Jim Acosta Show on Tuesday."People aren't sure what's even going on," Brinkley said. "You have to hope the law will eventually hold President Trump accountable if he did some things that are illegal and illicit, but the law moves slowly."Brinkley agreed with host Jim Acosta's assessment that Trump's self-enrichment during his second term is unprecedented."Just think, not that long ago, there was a scandal because Jimmy Carter's brother Billy had a beer, or you know, Neil Bush got involved with a bit of a hedge fund banking thing run a little bit amok," Brinkley said. "They're so small, and then this is such a huge wake-up call, people."The way Brinkley sees it, "you're having a president of the United States using the White House for personal self-enrichment of a kind of mind-boggling audacity," adding that "it's a crisis, but we've got to get through it."Read on Substack

Local officials said preliminary reports showed the centre was unregistered and operating inside a privately owned residential building Fourteen children died after ⁠the roof of a tutoring centre collapsed in Pakistan’s eastern city of ⁠Lahore on Tuesday, ⁠rescue ​officials have said, as authorities opened the way for a possible negligence ⁠investigation.Punjab’s emergency service said rescuers found children and a 30-year-old female teacher ⁠under the rubble of the private after-school facility. The ​children killed were aged ‌five to ‌16 with most below nine. Continue reading...

The internet criticized President Donald Trump's response on Tuesday to the Supreme Court ruling that upheld birthright citizenship and rejected the president's executive order.Trump posted a bizarre — and apparently sarcastic — statement on his Truth Social platform following the ruling."I would like to congratulate President Xi, and the Great Country of China, on their massive Birthright Citizenship WIN!" Trump wrote.Media and political commentators responded to the president's remarks."Sour, miserable, and un-American, even by the denatured standards of this president," Tom Nichols, staff writer at The Atlantic, wrote on X."He should resign if he doesn't like the Constitution he swore to uphold. UnAmerican!" Peggy Gabour, progressive political commentator, wrote on X."Translation: 'I’m super jealous that a dictator got permission to flush human rights down the toilet and I didn’t,'" Patric Reynolds, comic book artist and political commentator, wrote on Bluesky."Sorry, but isn’t Trump born of an immigrant?" The political account Mary Shelley’s Fluoxetine wrote on Bluesky.Sour, miserable, and un-American, even by the denatured standards of this president https://t.co/Ougc2u5ot5— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) June 30, 2026

Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollutionThe unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually ban petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws in favour of those running on electricity, in an attempt to bring down dangerously high pollution levels in the city by the end of the decade. Continue reading...