Carlos E. Castañeda

Locals didn’t think Roundup was being sprayed near Lake Tahoe. So @natethecurious went to find out. Nate dug up maps from the Forest Service's website, and headed to a spot where one of them indicated spraying might already be happening. Public uproar has echoed across the Tahoe area since April, when our yearlong Mother Jones investigation revealed that, in California, the fastest-growing use of glyphosate—the main ingredient in Roundup—is to spray forested areas, including this massive new project around Lake Tahoe. As the public outcry grew over the past few weeks, news begin circulating on social media that the Forest Service was backing off. “They cancelled the plan!" one person wrote. "People showed up to meetings, called our representatives and it’s finally cancelled. OUR VOICES MATTERED ON THIS ONE.” But that wasn't true. At Sierra-at-Tahoe, Nate stood on a mountainside that clearly had been doused in glyphosate. The plants around him were nearly all dead—killed with the controversial herbicide, which the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer has deemed a probable human carcinogen—and that a 2020 report from the US Environmental Protection Agency said likely harms 93 percent of endangered species. You can read Nate's full report at MotherJones.com.

@LombardiHimself 1000 Chestnut? Beautiful!

Massive winner of Super Bowl week: The City of San Francisco. Even though the stadium is far away, the majority of the week’s events gravitated toward the City — a testament to its timeless appeal. Food, businesses, architecture, views, people…. All shined more than even the biggest optimist could’ve hoped. Rave reviews have poured in from all corners of visiting media. And SF needed this. It’s facing major issues, but it has been working to tackle them. Its iconic nature has made it a famous punching bag, and that made a perception boost all the more necessary. That’s what this week under the Super Bowl microscope successfully accomplished. The brunt of negative feedback seemed aimed at distance/traffic between events across the Bay Area, but not the City itself. And that’s huge as SF continues its ascent after some really dreary years. The people here — especially the small business owners — deserve this perception correction. San Francisco has so much to offer. It’s iconic for a reason, and it’s a target because it’s so relevant. Now, its recovery can enjoy a big boost. If you’ve read this far, go to your favorite sandwich spot or taqueria this week. That’s my (small) community contribution in a great week featuring many of them!

President Trump now says it was Attorney General Pam Bondi who insisted DNI Tulsi Gabbard attend the FBI raid in Georgia. Last night, he told NBC he didn’t know why she was there. And Gabbard said in a letter to Congress that “the president specifically directed my observance of the execution of the Fulton County search warrant.”

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” —George Orwell, 1984

On a single Saturday in September: --Trump instructed his AG to go after specific political enemies. --We learned that his DOJ ended an investigation into his border czar, who was caught on camera taking a $50k cash bribe. --His Pentagon top brass threatened to expel journalists who report info not cleared by them. --His WH spoke to a shady deal that will see TikTok in the hands of a consortium of GOP mega-donors. --Trump threatened "bad things" if we don't re-take Bagram AFB. --His most senior counterterrorism official is in a Twitter spat with Laura Loomer. None of this is normal. All of it is so dangerous and corrosive to our democracy.

Rev. Dr. Howard-John Wesley: “Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated. But I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land. And hearing people with selective rage who are mad about Charlie Kirk, but didn’t give a damn about Melissa Hortman and her husband when they were shot down in their home, tell me I ought to have compassion for the death of a man who had no respect for my own life. I am sorry, but there’s nowhere in bible where we are taught to honor evil. How you die does not redeem how you lived. You do not become a hero in your death when you are a weapon of the enemy in your life”

- @KarenAttiah, the last Black full-time opinion columnist at the Washington Post, says she was fired

A mural of the Statue of Liberty covering her face in shame was unveiled in Roubaix, France, one day before the United States celebrates Independence Day on July 4. The mural, titled “The Statue of Liberty’s Silent Protest,” was created by Dutch artist Judith de Leeuw, who painted the it over six days a building on Rue de Chemin-de-Fer. de Leeuw said the city of Roubaix "has a large migrant population, and many of them live in extremely difficult circumstances." "The values that the statue once stood for—freedom, hope, the right to be yourself—have been lost for many,” she said. The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to the U.S. and stands on Liberty Island in New York – nearby Ellis Island, which was a stop for immigrants making their way to New York in 19th and 20th centuries. Both make up a National Park.

So it’s really important you understand the Trump Coin grift. It hasn’t gotten enough attention, but it’s maybe the biggest White House corruption in a century. Right out in the open for all to see. I’m going to explain how the grift works. Only takes 3 minutes.

For the rest of my life, I will never understand how a country full of people busting their asses, working paycheck to paycheck, allow the fucking richest guy on Earth to call them "parasites" while calling the Social Security we contributed to our entire lives "a Ponzi scheme." It will NEVER make sense.

AOC: Why isn’t this moving? Republicans support it. Democrats support it. So what happened? On December 15th at 415am, Elon Musk began firing off a barrage of social media posts opposing pharmacy benefit manager reform. All of a sudden, something that had almost unanimous support fell apart. We had nearly 435 members on board with it—he tweets, and it kills drug pricing reform that would save people money on their insulin, asthma inhalers, and everything they need. And to top it off, five days after he kills pharmacy benefit manager reform, we get this tweet from Elon Musk: What is a pharmacy benefit manager? The problem here isn’t a substance issue or a process issue—it’s an oligarchy issue, a power issue. And this room is where the power of the people resides. Everyone here was elected to be accountable to the people—not to be governed by tweets, but to be governed by their duly elected representatives. So we can get this done; there are more of us than there are of him.

This speech is full of half-truths, distortions, misleading claims and outright lies. Basically living up to every meme, trope and unfair stereotype, of Americans being ignorant morons. I'll go through each of the claims he made in this segment and what the actual facts are. /1

Federal minimum wage in: 2009: $7.25 2010: $7.25 2011: $7.25 2012: $7.25 2013: $7.25 2014: $7.25 2015: $7.25 2016: $7.25 2017: $7.25 2018: $7.25 2019: $7.25 2020: $7.25 2021: $7.25 2022: $7.25 2023: $7.25 2024: $7.25 Folks, it's time to raise the damn wage already.

Hope Maya Rudolph has cleared her schedule

I doubt that Justices Thomas or Alito would put up with arguments of the quality and veracity of their own arguments about their own ethics issues. They stand out for their inadequacy and unverifiability. 🧵

Some disasters don't make the news, because they happen every single day. We've become accustomed to these catastrophes, even though they're often (much) worse than even the worst news on the front pages. Case in point: the tobacco industry. /1

1. @elonmusk is promoting claims that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants are registering to vote in the 2024 election The "data" that Musk is sharing with tens of millions of his followers is COMPLETE BOGUS Follow along for the full debunk

A quick open letter to NY Jets quarterback and massive weirdo Aaron Rodgers, from me, an attorney who for many years represented several Sandy Hook parents... 🧵 twitter.com/TheLeadCNN/sta…

@kali316 Ken Willard, Larry Schreiber, Vic Washington

Roger Craig

"Sounds like you do want to tell people what to do in their house": Taylor Lorenz presses Libs of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik to explain her issue with trans adults.