DN Speak Daily

Thursday, June 4, 2026

White House site compares undocumented immigrants to extraterrestrials : NPR

While many may dismiss the wordplay as a joke, even one of bad taste, said Castañeda, "for a few people, it may be another license to act violently against people that they may think are aliens, undocumented. They may be another incitement to hate crimes and to profiling people."

The website is yet another example of the Trump administration making light of the toll of immigration enforcement through a "memefied communication style," said Shannon McGregor, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies the role of media and social media in political processes. The government's communication, and even governing style, is "wrapped up in 'everything's a joke, nothing matters,' as an excuse for pushing the envelope over and over," she said...

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/03/nx-s1-5843359/white-house-gov-website-alien-immigration

Six States Are Suing the Trump Administration Over Its Deal to Kill an Offshore Wind Project – Mother Jones

The $1 billion TotalEnergies payout was unlawful, attorneys general say...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/states-sue-trump-administration-kill-totalenergies-offshore-wind-project-payout-billion/

Trump strips job protections from 8,000 federal workers : NPR

"It creates bubbles around policymakers," he says. "If you were a career civil servant and there is bad news that you want to share with the president, you're less likely to do so if you think, 'The minute I share that bad news, I'm going to get fired.'"

Moynihan says this is not an abstract idea. He points to what's happened with political appointees — who lack civil service protections — who raise the president's ire: The head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was fired after the agency issued a preliminary report last year contradicting Trump's assessment that U.S. airstrikes had "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. The commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who had previously served as a career economist in the government for more than two decades, was ridiculed and then replaced by Trump after a disappointing jobs report…

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/03/nx-s1-5742806/trump-federal-employees-civil-service-job-protections-schedule-f

Are Atheists Less Moral? I Brought Receipts (with Dr. Phil Zuckerman)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ENS0fWCFU

Lawmakers Demand Answers After White House Intervened in $620M Deal — ProPublica

In a letter, a group of Democratic Congress members wrote that ProPublica’s reporting on the deal “reveals a staggering level of corruption and influence.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-jr-vulcan-lawmakers-letter

5 lingering questions about Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ - POLITICO

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche sought to end the furor over the fund, but the saga seems far from over.

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/02/trump-weaponization-fund-todd-blanche-00947631

Iranian strikes set Kuwait's largest airport ablaze amid fragile ceasefire with the U.S. | PBS News

The U.S. said its ceasefire with Iran is still holding despite continued violence, with both sides trading fire overnight. Iran also struck Kuwait’s main airport, killing one person and injuring dozens. Israel's ongoing invasion in Lebanon is also challenging the ceasefire and has sparked rare public tensions between President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Nick Schifrin reports...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/iranian-strikes-set-kuwaits-largest-airport-ablaze-amid-fragile-ceasefire-with-the-u-s

Tracie Harris ☠️

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lT71VmsNaY0

Jared Kushner’s Albanian Resort Faces a Corruption Probe and Mass Protests – Mother Jones

On Monday, Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime, known as SPAK, confirmed it was investigating Kushner’s project. The investigation will probe the changes to the land’s protected status and how Kushner-controlled entities obtained rights.

An investigative report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network found that the project involved a “network of shady individuals and companies“ including “a businessman accused of links to the Italian mafia, a former judge who resigned due to the vetting process, the daughter of a lawyer accused of forgery, the company of a murdered businessman and individuals linked to one of Albania’s biggest oligarchs, Shefqet Kastrati.”…

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/jared-kushner-albanian-resort-corruption-probe-mass-protests-environmental-harms-albania-edi-rama/

Carl Sagan 🔭

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0ThU1YbjLuw

Trump’s intel pick delights MAGA and shocks nation’s spies - POLITICO

Democrats offered wall-to-wall condemnation of the appointment. The news hijacked an afternoon Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, with ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.) asking “What qualifications from my standpoint does Mr. Pulte bring to the office? Well, he has shown that he is willing to do anything that President Trump wants, legal or otherwise.”.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters in the Senate that Pulte had already wielded government power against Trump critics (those include Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook). “With more access to more private information, Pulte may simply use that to do more damage to more American citizens,” Warren said...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/02/trump-bill-pulte-dni-maga-spies-00947355

Holy Magic? | The Superstition Christians Won’t Admit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4v52hr7enI

Patriot missile shortage has created ‘window of vulnerability’ Russia is exploiting in Ukraine

Countries that rely on US-made air defence system feel increasingly exposed as interceptor supplies dwindle…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/02/patriot-missile-shortage-window-vulnerability-russia-exploiting-ukraine

Tomorrow is Thursday! That means the war will be over until Monday. It happens every week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwsBoOBpETs

President Trump seeks control of science funding : NPR

"Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation's scientific enterprise," Holden Thorp, editor of Science magazine, wrote in an editorial about the proposal…

"We're asking ourselves whether we wanna repeat that Stalinist situation where people who know nothing about science are the ones who are making the decisions about what's going to go forward," said Snyder.

Others compared the moment to a period in the United States in the 1950s when government officials scrutinized people's ideology and politics rather than their credentials.

"Proposed rule would replace scientific merit with McCarthy era politics," read the headline from a statement by the Infectious Diseases Society of America…

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/03/nx-s1-5844678/trump-science-funding-omb-budget-office-rule-change

They Were Detained by ICE. Then They Vanished. – Mother Jones

Immigrants are frequently being sent all over the country, and families and attorneys often don’t know where they are…

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/06/they-were-detained-by-ice-then-they-vanished/

The House GOP majority dwindles, and so does the calendar - POLITICO

Just ahead of the recent Memorial Day recess, Republicans’ hopes of quickly passing the immigration enforcement bill evaporated after President Donald Trump’s administration announced the creation of a controversial “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could be used to hand large settlements to presidential allies.

Members headed home expecting to return for Tuesday’s votes, but Johnson & Co. instead opted to punt the week’s first roll call votes to Wednesday. That effectively gave the White House more time to wriggle out of the payout-fund mess and also possibly strike an Iran deal that would forestall an embarrassing loss on a bipartisan resolution to end the war in the Middle East...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/03/house-calendar-mike-johnson-00947763

Supreme court approves Alabama map that erases majority-Black district

Alabama can use a redrawn congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts in this year’s midterm elections, the US supreme court ruled in a 6-3 decision on Tuesday, another major blow to Black voters and a win for Republicans...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/02/supreme-court-alabama-map

Trump-backed candidate loses in Iowa governor’s race as Democrats look to flip Senate seat

A red state that the GOP has dominated for the past decade, Democrats believe they can be competitive in three of its four House races, its Senate election, and the contest to replace Kim Reynolds, the retiring Republican governor...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/02/iowa-primary-election-results

Christopher Hitchens vs. Frank Turek 📣

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jEdj95I-xM4

Strict Medicaid work rules could harm people with serious illnesses, advocates say : NPR

The nearly 400-page interim final rule released Monday makes that process even harder. For months, federal officials have been meeting with states informally and giving them guidance, and states understood that people with conditions where continuous health insurance coverage was really important would be exempt.

"What the rule says, as published, is that that's actually not enough," McIntyre explains. "The condition or the disease needs to be actively interfering with your ability to work. So people with early stage cancer who are in radiation treatment but still have the capacity to work, or people who have HIV but can still technically work, are not exempted from the work requirement."

McIntyre and others foresee situations where a person newly diagnosed with cancer, who is working, loses Medicaid because they don't fill out the paperwork correctly. That could lead to patients losing coverage when they need it most…

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/03/nx-s1-5845097/medicaid-work-requirements-cuts-hiv-cancer

How Trump’s new acting intel chief Bill Pulte won him over - POLITICO

“The president has so many smart people at the White House, trusted people, that he could be listening to,” said a former Trump administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “And he listens to Pulte, who just continually fucks things up.”

In naming Pulte acting director of national intelligence, Trump is rewarding an operative who has used his perch to try to secure political wins. Pulte will lead an office created in the aftermath of 9/11 to help the U.S. spy community coordinate intelligence analysis — while keeping his job running the mortgage agency...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/02/national-intelligence-chief-bill-pulte-00946847

Here’s what we just learned about the Democratic Party’s future - POLITICO

Voters chose centrist and establishment-backed candidates in several key races...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/03/democrats-future-what-we-learned-primaries-00947987

STUNNING: Fired ’60 Minutes’ star Scott Pelley BLOWS WHISTLE on CBS execs for falsehoods and bias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tyIavp9vNA

As some Republicans pursue cuts to programs for needy families...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0S1vsKqoTDo

The drug side effect that is quietly happening in doctor's offices every day

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yBk3wtEx-K0

Democrats see the stars aligning in Iowa - POLITICO

The economic turmoil of the past year-and-a-half has been felt acutely in Iowa, where the agriculture-heavy economy has been jolted by tariffs. Medicaid cuts in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act are ransacking rural health facilities, Democrats say, and several clinics in the state have closed. And the Iran war has spiked prices for fertilizer and diesel — critical supplies for the farm state...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/03/democrats-iowa-excitement-primary-00947943

Why Trump Cult wants to watch world burn #psychology #trump #donaldtrump

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NWkFdBlMEzw

‘They beat me until I lost consciousness’: growing reports of brutal arrests, torture and deaths in Iran’s prisons

Amnesty International reports it has documented torture and other ill-treatment against detainees since 28 February, including mock executions through staged hangings and guns forced into prisoners’ mouths, severe beatings, suspension by the hands and feet, prolonged solitary confinement, and the denial of food and medical care...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/03/reports-brutal-arrests-torture-deaths-iran-prisons

Iran vote caps Trump’s congressional losing streak - POLITICO

The 215-208 bipartisan vote is largely symbolic, as Trump would almost certainly veto any legislation that restricts his authority. But the politically damaging vote underscores dissent within his own party and could be a catalyst as the Senate considers similar legislation that advanced in a surprise initial vote last month.

And Trump is going to need Republicans to hold the line if he wants to avoid further political setbacks...

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/03/iran-war-powers-house-trump-00949175