How was your weekend? What’s in the news?
You’d think Hakeem Jeffries and New York’s Dem. Reps would be embracing New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani with both arms and a big wet kiss for being such a winner, but no. Democrats sure are good at losing! (Politico)
Grab your ankles and cough: health insurers expect premium increases will double next year. (KFF Health News)
Horrific ICE stories: a Swiss tourist with a valid electronic travel authorization was chained to a chair and then imprisoned in New Jersey. (NZZ) An 82-year-old grandfather from Chile with a Green Card who had been in the US since 1987 was kidnapped to Guatemala, and ICE told his family he had died. (Guardian) And DHS has collected DNA from 133,000 migrant children, and put it in the CODIS database, and collecting immigrants’ Medicare data. (Wired)
Ten Venezuelans arrested in the US and kidnapped to El Salvador with no due process have been prisoner-swapped out of the CECOT prison in El Salvador, including gay makeup artist Andrey Hernandez Romero. But but but but Big Daddy told us the US has no control over who gets out of El Salvador prison! (Mother Jones / Advocate)
Upstate New York is suffering a plunge in tourist revenue, as Canadians have zed interest in vacationing in the US any more, for obvious reasons. By the way, every New York county that touches Canada except for Monroe and Erie (AKA Rochester and Buffalo) went for Trump, so, enjoy what you voted for, people who voted for him! (CBC)
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski feels “cheated” that she she made a deal to protect Alaska’s wind and solar projects and then her fellow Republicans fucked her over. Republicans lying and fucking people over, who’d a thunk they would do such a thing? (Anchorage Daily News)
Mark Zuckerberg agreed to pay $8 billion to Facebook shareholders for violating users’ privacy. (Delaware Online)
A pregnant woman in Tennessee was denied prenatal care because her holier-than-thou doctor objected to the fact she was unmarried. (Rachel Wells/ TN Repro News)
Jesse Watters, the Fox News host who met his second wife by letting the air out of her tires (while still married to his first wife), apologized on-air for lying about Gavin Newsom (!) after the governor filed a $787 million defamation lawsuit against Watters and Fox News, accusing Primetime of misleadingly editing a video to support the lie that Trump talked to Newsom before deploying the National Guard in California. (The Independent)
Oh hey look, more Jeffrey Epstein / Trump connections! Epstein invested $40 million with JD Vance’s sugardaddy / weirdo who is unsure if humanity should survive, Peter Thiel. (New York Times archive link) And oh hey, the index of the government’s Epstein evidence list shows a lot of stuff that hasn’t been made public, “including logs of who potentially visited Epstein's private island and the records of a wiretap of Maxwell's phone.” (ABC) Then there’s Steve Bannon’s tapes, Epstein’s brother would like to know where they went. (NBC) Hey, remember in 2021 a lady said Epstein introduced her to Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 and a beauty-pageant contestant? (NBC) Also why didn’t Pam Bondi investigate Epstein when she was Florida AG? The Palm Beach Post would like to know! There’s so much more (Tulsi Gabbard! Battling bots! More missing footage!) we’ll just have to write another story about it!
Pettiness, unbound: Obama’s director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, sponsored the training of a CIA sniffer dog named Susan, and Trump executive-ordered that Clapper was not allowed to attend the Susan’s dog-graduation ceremony. (The Atlantic)
Let’s all enjoy Stephen Colbert dragging Trump to his face.
Meanwhile the Writer’s Guild wants an investigation into bribery at Paramount, because it sure sounds like there was some bribery going on at Paramount. (Variety)
Heritage Foundation founder Edwin J. Feulner has died, and is surely looking up at the current administration with pride. (Newsweek/ New York Times archive link)
Chinese spies have been hacking into the National Guard for more than a year. Anybody going to do anything about that? (Wired)
These tabs are already too long, but don’t you want to know that The Alamo has acquired Pee Wee Herman’s bicycle? (Hollywood Reporter)
In honor of everybody’s big summer adventures, Homer and Jethro’s Hart Brake Motel.
Outside plumbin’, it’s unbecomin’!
Upcoming Wonkmeets:
Join Thalia and Menotsure in ATLANTA, Saturday, July 26, 5-8 p.m. at Reformation Brewery for a lovely evening of brewing up good trouble! Reformation Brewery has both indoor and outdoor seating, has food available, and is both pet- and kid-friendly. Please email Thalia at realistic dot caregiving at gmail dot com to RSVP.
Do YOU want to host a Wonkmeet in your neck of the woods? Seize the means of Wonkmeet production, and email Rebecca at rebecca at wonkette dot com with the deets!
What time is it? It’s time to IMPEACH!
Wonkette runs entirely on contributions by you, our readers. Thank you for being our friend and keeping us living forever! The button below will let you donate one time or monthly, in any amount of your choosing.
Do you prefer Venmo? Here’s a button you will like.
Those kitties in the hed gif are moth-proofing their fur (a well-adopted custom is putting lavender sachets in clothing drawers to repel moth infestations). Your hed gif info is here: https://martiniambassador.substack.com/p/leaps-in-the-lavender
And meme chat: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/38263e11-c2c6-43c6-8779-fe8604704f1e?utm_source=share
Thread
———
Meta’s CEO has become one of the biggest landowners in Hawaii, growing his property’s footprint and erecting new mysterious buildings.
Mark Zuckerberg Is Expanding His Secretive Hawaii Compound. Part of It Sits Atop a Burial Ground
Meta’s CEO has become one of the biggest landowners in Hawaii, growing his property’s footprint and erecting new mysterious buildings.
https://bsky.app/profile/wired.com/post/3luhtvle2ac2m