06/30/26

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, June 30th

International Asteroid Day

How big are we talking?

Just… asking.

Oh, I can’t be curious???

And now, the news.

Update: Iran

-via CBS News

Starting in Iran, where it was a very tense weekend in the world of “wouldn’t it be super cool if we could keep that ceasefire.”

It started in the Strait of Hormuz, naturally, where Iran struck two ships that were trying to make passage through the strait. That kicked off the US and Iran trading fire all weekend. 

If you’re wondering how this will affect the continuing negotiations, well… you’re not alone. On Monday, Trump announced that talks would continue AT IRAN’S REQUEST, while Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied that they would be meeting with US officials. 

So as we’ve done throughout this entire ordeal, we will just… see what today brings.

We technically have a ceasefire still, as of this recording.

Update: Venezuela

-The Guardian, PBS, and CNN

And of course, there’s an update on the Venezuelan earthquakes. 

As the search continues for survivors, the number dead is now at 1,719 with tens of thousands more still missing.

Among all of this, Maria Corina Machado, the opposition leader who won the last presidential election in what many credible officials say was a landslide before Maduro stole it, has accused the government of closing the country’s airspace to prevent her from returning to the country. Additionally, she accused the government of blocking information about the quakes to keep Venezuelans in the dark about the full scope of the damage.

Now, obviously I’m not there and I can’t say whether that’s true or not. I can only report what I can report. But I’m inclined to believe her, based on this government’s past and also this: NASA satellite imaging suggests that around 58,870 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the dual quakes. That number is radically different than the one coming from the government, who notes that 855 buildings have been damaged, 189 of which have collapsed.

Additionally, there are stories about police officers shutting down donation centers because they say they have to be run through the government. 

And just an awful story inside of an awful story… 146 people were stuck in a hotel just hours after landing in Venezuela from Miami – because we’d just deported them. That flight included 19 women and 7 kids.

So far Trump has promised $300 million in US aid. But as someone who once posted a mockup of his Wikipedia page that said he was the acting president of Venezuela, he should consider opening that checkbook up a little further because the economic fallout from these quakes is expected to fall anywhere between $10-100 billion.

Elon could pay for all of that without even noticing. He won’t, but he could.

Those donation links will stay in show notes.

German Shooting

-via NY Times, Gun Violence Archive, and Time

In Germany, a 45-year-man has been arrested after he shot and killed six adults, and wounded others, in a remarkably rare mass shooting for the country. It took place as a child welfare facility and authorities say it was because of a custody dispute over his three-month-old daughter.

The daughter, and her mother, were inside the building. Neither were injured in the shooting.

The man left in a car with a 65-year-old woman. Police fired on the car. Neither people in the car were injured but they were both arrested. Police haven’t, as of this recording, released how the shooter is related to the driver.

This is the 2nd mass shooting Germany has had in the last five years. The one prior to this was in 2023, when a man shot and killed six people at a Jehovah's Witness worship hall.

Meanwhile, here in America, we’ve already 206 this year (we’re 186 days into the year). And just on Sunday, one person died and another was injured at a World Cup Fan Zone in San Jose, California, although no game was being shown at the time of the shooting. 

Supreme Court Ruling

-via Axios, NBC News, AP News (E. Jean King) and AP News (mail-in ballots)

The Supreme Court continues to hand down rulings, and Monday saw quite a few. 

With a 5-4 majority, the court ruled that Trump can’t fire Lisa Cook, who sits on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Trump tried to fire her, after accusing her of mortgage fraud. Now according to the law (Trump’s least favorite thing, besides his kids and a blending brush), the president can’t fire Fed governors just because they don’t like their policies. And it was very obvious that Trump was trying to fire Cook for any reason at all, whatever he could find (especially when it came out that he was also doing the two primary homes thing). Cook also said she could prove she hadn’t actually committed mortgage fraud. 

The Supremes believed her too, apparently, ruling that Trump couldn’t fire Cook. But the ruling was narrow. Meaning Trump can’t fire Cook. Not that no presidents can ever do any firings ever. 

The biggest ruling, with bigger ramifications, is in another firing – this one lets it stand and overturns 91 years of precedent. In March of 2025, Trump fired Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause, simply because her vibe didn’t align with how Trump wanted to do things. 

This overturned a 1935 decision known as Humphrey's Executor, which came from Roosevelt trying to do the exact same thing – trying to fire the FTC commish over ideological disagreements. There, the court held that, although the president has the power to remove executive offices for any (or no) reason, that power doesn’t transfer to agencies like the FTC because their duties, per the court, "are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative."

But per Chief Justice Roberts, who… is bad, "Although it is up to the Senate to decide whether to confirm those with whom the President would prefer to work, neither Congress nor the courts may saddle him with those with whom he cannot work. Subordinates who exercise the President's power are subject to removal by him. Then, and only then, can they remain accountable to the President, and the President to the people."

Roberts already had his eye on Humphrey's back in Trump’s first term, when he left Trump fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

And just to make it extra clear that he knew what he was during in Monday’s ruling, Chief Justice Roberts also wrote this in his dissent: "If anything more is left of Humphrey's, the Court overrules it."

So big picture, what does this mean? This means the president can now fire the commissioner from an opposing party in any agency and just leave that spot open. Why not fill it? Because Congress says that no single political party can hold more than three seats on a five-member commission.

Because these agencies have a huge influence on our day-to-day lives.

We’re talking about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and so on.

What did Justice Sotomayor have to say about this ruling? 

"The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws."

So this is one of those quietly big rulings.

And then two obviously big rulings:

The Supreme’s rejected Trump’s attempt to toss the jury’s $5 million ruling that he sexually assaulted E. Jean’s Carroll in a department store in the mid-90s.

There were no noted dissents or explanations (that’s common when they don’t hear a case). Trump is also going to try to appeal the $83.3 million verdict that was awarded to Carroll in the defamation trial.

Remember, it was two different trials.

The first was for sexual assault, and then the second was for continuing to defame Carroll over and over again. Including saying that the reason he didn’t rape her wasn’t that it’s a horrific crime and he would never do something like that, but because she wasn’t his type.

And then the party of family values (more on THAT in a minute) was like “that’s our guy!”

Trump called high court’s decision “surprising” (yeah, because this court is his court – honestly, I bet he was surprised) but fear not, he’ll continue to fight it because “This Case is really against the United States of America, and all it stands for.”

Yeah, your rape case is really against the US. Sure man.

And finally, the Supreme handed down a surprising decision in a voting case – surprising because it favors voters.

This one will allow mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day, as long as they are mailed in before Election Day. 

I don’t have more to say about this. Well no, I have a LOT more to say about this. But it’s good news so let me save my voting lecture for a day news day. For now, we take our win where we can. 

 Pete Buttigieg

-via NPR

Speaking of the party of family values (from that thing I said a minute ago)… in a Substack post on Friday, former Transportation Secretary, and likely 2028 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, said that he and his children were the subject of a CPS investigation after an anonymous report was filed and, you’ll be shocked to hear this.. found to be false.

That’s right. Just because someone doesn’t like this man and his politics, his four-year-old twins were separated from his parents for hours and forced to participate in forensic interviews where no family was allowed to be with them, and then following that, they were still forced to be separated, to stay with their grandparents, for 24 hours. 

The party of family values.

Pete Buttigieg is an incredibly smart and, by all reports, deeply kind and loving man… and the idea that someone is so full of hate that they would do this to this family, to four-year-old kids, simply because they don’t agree with his politics and the fact that he holds those politics while also being gay, is disgusting. 

I hope they find the person who called it in, and that person is charged and gets the help they very clearly need.

Luckily, the Buttigieg family is back together now.

Housing Bill Heads to Trump

-via CNN

On Monday, Speaker Johnson sent that bipartisan housing bill that Trump’s threatening to hold hostage in exchange for voter disenfranchisement to Trump’s desk for signature.

This isn’t really news except to say that Trump called it, “a yawn.”

Dude. You fell asleep in Madison Square Garden during the playoffs. Everything is a yawn for you!! That’s so silly. “A yawn.”

You’re a yawn!

What is this, mildly sick burns hour at Flappers?

This guy… am I right?

Gracie the Giraffe

-via The Guardian and Vox

And finally… Gracie the Giraffe… a long-neck lady who escaped from a private game ranch in Texas and was on the run for two weeks, was found on Friday, just a few miles away from the ranch. 

While she was missing, the ranch’s manager offered up a $5,000 reward and a description that included Gracie’s specific markings just in case she was confused for one of the many other giraffes roaming around Leakey, Texas.

Yeah, that’s the name of the town where this happened. 

Leakey, Texas.

Come on Texas! I’m out here, doing the best I can. Running a PR campaign for you at all times. I have a dang Texas tattoo! And then I find out you have a town called Leakey?

How is that helping anything?

Now, I looked it up and although the ranch is a private game ranch and some of those ranches do raise animals for hunting, there’s no evidence that this one, Cedar Hollow Ranch, raises its animals for hunting. I’m not saying it’s great this beau was there, I don’t really have enough information on either side, but I can confidently say that. 

Ultimately she was found just a few miles away from the ranch, which made me want to know – how far does a giraffe travel in a day? Between 2 and 8 miles, with a pace of 10 mph.

But then, sometimes Google will have other popular questions and the next suggested question was: What is the homosexuality rate in giraffes? And I was like: well I GOTTA know that! VERY high it turns out. 90-94% of sexual interactions, from straight up sex stuff to just cute little neck rubbing, happens between males. However, researchers don’t think this means the giraffes are necessarily homosexual in the same way you would apply that term to a human. They’re just curious. No no, they believe it’s anything from social bonding (oh that’s what they’re calling it these days), establishing a hierarchy, or partially due to the females' selective breeding, making heterosexual behavior harder for researchers. AKA – the ladies are pickier.

Giraffes only sleep for 30 minutes a day.

Soccer and giraffe facts on the tens and twos!

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of… giraffes. They know what they’re about son. 

Also asteroids. I’ve seen Armageddon. I think, if I needed to, I could put a bomb on an asteroid. I wouldn’t want to, but I think I could do it.

But more than the movie Armageddon – because you make sense… I’m proud of you.