Democratic Underground: Forums for U.S. Liberals and Democrats

Four senior senators express alarm, push for 'hard' Social Security votes

(The Hill) Four senior senators, two Democrats and two Republicans, are calling on Congress to tackle the “hard” debate over how to extend the solvency of Social Security after the program’s trustees issued a new report this week projecting it will face a significant shortfall at the end of 2032. “It’s clear now that Congress shouldn’t delay any longer. Several of us have been coming together to talk about how we can strengthen Social Security for current and future generations of retirees.

BumRushDaShow

Wholesale prices rose 1.1% in May, more than expected

(CNBC) Wholesale prices rose more than expected in May, indicating that pipeline inflationary pressures are percolating higher, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. The producer price index, a measure of final demand costs, increased a seasonally adjusted 1.1% on the month, putting the 12-month wholesale inflation rate at 6.5%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a monthly move of 0.7%. The annual headline inflation rate was the highest since November 2022.

LetMyPeopleVote

House Dem Says 'Explosive' NY Times Report Shows Todd Blanche 'At the Heart' of Epstein-Trump Cover-Up

(Mediaite) Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) spoke to Capitol Hill reporters on Wednesday following sitting in on a closed-door Oversight Committee deposition of Bill Gates. Gates was called before Congress to testify about his ties to sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein in the ongoing House investigation into Epstein’s illicit activities, which Stansbury said will next look at Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

riversedge

Trump Moves to Deeply Censor the Entire Internet

(Futurism) The White House and Congress are working on a deal to clamp down on what US citizens are allowed to say online. According to new reporting by Axios, the Trump administration is negotiating with key senators in an effort to shoehorn a massive legislation package which would limit states’ abilities to regulate AI in exchange for placing broad federal limits on digital speech.

KS Toronado

Thursday's Condensed News Cartoons

mahatmakanejeeves

Trump sees 22 medical specialists, appearing to set new bar for presidents

(Washington Post) For George H.W. Bush’s first medical checkup as president in 1989, he was seen by five specialists, the White House said at the time. His son George W. Bush was seen by 12 in his first presidential checkup, White House officials said a dozen years later. President Donald Trump appears to have set a new bar: 22 medical specialists assessed him as part of his latest checkup, according to a medical report recently released by the White House. That figure is nearly double the number of specialists who assessed Trump for his past medical checkups as president, according to a review of publicly available statements by Trump’s doctors.

mahatmakanejeeves

The Supreme Court is in its final stretch this term. Here are the major cases left.

(NPR) The U.S. Supreme Court is heading into its crunch time, the part of the year when the justices are racing to finish decisions and dissents in the cases that remain undecided. There are 23 cases left, out of the 58 that have been argued. Two major cases have already been decided: One essentially gutted what remained of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, prompting Republicans in a number of Southern states to redraw congressional maps to diminish or eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Black members of Congress.

BumRushDaShow

USPS proposal could halt ballot deliveries to states that don't share voter lists

(KGW-TV) Oregon leaders are pushing back against a proposed U.S. Postal Service rule that would require states to share voter registration lists and ballot-tracking barcode information with the agency in order to ensure mail ballot delivery. The Postal Service says the proposal is intended to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March, ostensibly aimed at strengthening election integrity and oversight of mail voting. But Oregon officials argue election administration should remain under state control. "It's incredibly bizarre to take a postal service — that their job is to deliver mail — and then tell them, 'You can't deliver mail to certain people,'" Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said.

marmar

Why MAGA can't hear the Trump boos

(Salon) The most revealing moment of Donald Trump’s week was not the boos that rained down on him at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. It was the almost instantaneous insistence, by him and his media ecosystem, that the boos never happened. What we witnessed this week — the feverish, almost liturgical insistence that a crowd loudly booing the president of the United States was actually chanting “USA!” — is something more disturbing and dangerous than ordinary propaganda.

Ocelot II

Event honoring fallen servicewomen was cancelled because it was too DEI for Kegbreath's military

(Task & Purpose) An annual event put on by members of Congress to honor fallen servicewomen was canceled this year after the Navy, Air Force and Space Force bowed out, citing Pentagon and White House policies on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to the Democratic members of the caucus leading the event. The Bipartisan Women’s Caucus’ 28th annual wreath-laying ceremony is typically held at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The Democratic Women’s Caucus announced the cancellation on Monday.

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Foreign workers say they were paid less than $2 an hour to build a new US Consulate

58 min ago - June 11, 2026, 1:25 AM MILAN -- Foreign workers building a sprawling $350 million American Consulate in Milan were paid less than $2 an hour after being promised fair wages, according to Associated Press interviews with five former employees and a re ... (ABC News/AP)

Toronto police officer dead after investigation tied to U.S. consulate shootings: Chief

1 hr ago - A Toronto police constable, 43, has died after being shot following an exchange of gunfire with a suspect in the northwest end of the city Thursday morning, according to Chief Myron Demkiw. The investigation that occurred prior to the shooting was li ... (CBC)

Pentagon Issues Shelter-in-Place Order Over Air Quality Issue

1 hr ago - The Defense Department imposed a shelter-in-place order for part of the sprawling Pentagon building over an air-quality issue, according to a statement. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Pentagon systems “have detected an air quality issue ne ... (Bloomberg)

House rejects last-minute extension for key FISA spy power amid Bill Pulte uproar

2 hrs ago - Updated on: June 11, 2026 / 10:36 AM EDT / CBS News Washington — The House on Thursday defeated a last-ditch effort to extend a key spy authority until early July, after President Trump's pick for director of national intelligence rattled lawmak ... (CBS News)

OpenAI says fake accounts from China tried to turn Americans against data centers

3 hrs ago - OpenAI has published a report about ChatGPT users, who it says were likely based in China, that used the chatbot to plan a campaign designed to sway Americans' opinions about AI data centers. It divided the users into two clusters, the first of ... (Engadget)

El Nino forms, expected to strengthen, say NOAA forecasters

3 hrs ago - NOAA’s National Weather Service announced today that El Nino has developed in the tropical Pacific, and issued an El Nino Advisory. El Nino, the warm phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), is predicted to intensify to a moderate or st ... (NOAA)

ECB hikes interest rates for first time since 2023 as Iran war ramps up energy costs

3 hrs ago - ECB hikes interest rates for first time since 2023 as Iran war ramps up energy costs Published Thu, Jun 11 2026 8:16 AM EDT Updated 11 Min Ago Chloe Taylor @ChloeTaylor141 Key Points * ECB hikes its key interest rate to 2.25% as the Iran war continue ... (CNBC)

America's emergency oil reserve is about to hit lowest level since Reagan era

3 hrs ago - Thursday 11 June 2026 06:48 BST President Donald Trump's ongoing war with Iran is draining America's emergency supply of crude oil — which is just days away from hitting its lowest level in more than 40 years, according to a report Wednesday. Si ... (The Independent)

Trump White House hunting for insider who leaked details about Epstein freakout: report

4 hrs ago - June 10, 2026 10:21PM ET The Trump administration is launching a "massive leak hunt" to find out who spilled details on a panicked conversation inside the White House. A new book by journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan has the Trump White Ho ... (Raw Story)

Ukraine reportedly strikes military targets, hit several bridges in large-scale attack across Russian-occupied Crimea

4 hrs ago - June 11, 2026 7:05 am (Updated: June 11, 2026 2:08 pm) Ukraine struck military targets in Russian-occupied Crimea, hitting several bridges as multiple explosions were reported across the peninsula overnight on June 11, according to local authorit ... (kyiv independent.com)

Solar generates more energy in US than coal for first time

4 hrs ago - Solar supplied 12.8% of US electricity in May even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy Thu 11 Jun 2026 06.00 EDT Even as Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the US and remains the leading source of ... (the guardian)

Wholesale prices rose 1.1% in May, more than expected, on surge in energy

4 hrs ago - Published Thu, Jun 11 2026 8:33 AM EDT Updated 2 Min Ago Wholesale prices rose more than expected in May, indicating that pipeline inflationary pressures are percolating higher, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. The producer price in ... (CNBC)

FBI seizes 13 websites that officials say were used by China to target and recruit US workers

4 hrs ago - Updated 10:07 PM EDT, June 10, 2026 WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI has seized more than a dozen websites that officials say were part of a Chinese effort to target American workers who have access to classified or sensitive government information, th ... (AP)

USPS proposal could halt ballot deliveries to states that don't share voter lists

5 hrs ago - Published: 7:01 PM PDT June 10, 2026 Updated: 7:02 PM PDT June 10, 2026 PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon leaders are pushing back against a proposed U.S. Postal Service rule that would require states to share voter registration lists and ballot-tracking ... (KGW-TV Portland, OR)

WSJ Files Scathing Motion Against Trump in Epstein Lawsuit, Calls His Claims Dishonest

6 hrs ago - Jun 10th, 2026, 8:49 pm The Wall Street Journal has responded to President Donald Trump's second attempt to sue for defamation over an article about an infamous note in Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday book, filing a scathing motion to dismiss that ex ... (MEDIAite)

Jeanine Pirro has a new target - banks who 'debanked' customers for political reasons

6 hrs ago - Wednesday 10 June 2026 19:01 EDT Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, is looking into whether major banks have closed customers’ accounts over politics, according to a new report. Pirro’s office subpoenaed Bank of ... (The Independent)

Bar fight: Dispute between beverage distributor and union leads some Omaha bars to stop offering popular beers

6 hrs ago - Since Feb. 2, unionized workers at the beverage distributor Premier-Midwest Beer & Beverage have been on strike after contract negotiations with the company stalled. By Emma Croteau June 11 Rich Slobotski used to have Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribb ... (Flatwater Free Press)

Trump sticks with Pulte for intel job as risk grows of lapse in spy powers

7 hrs ago - Updated 6:16 PM EDT, June 10, 2026 WASHINGTON (AP) — A lapse in a law that allows the U.S. to gather intelligence abroad grew more likely on Wednesday as President Donald Trump resisted calls from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to imm ... (AP)

Judge declines to block 'Anti-Weaponization Fund' officials say is halted

7 hrs ago - 06/10/2026 06:03 PM EDT A federal judge has turned down a bid to formally block the Trump administration from moving forward with a controversial $1.776 billion fund to compensate people claiming to be victims of politically motivated prosecutions an ... (Politico)

Dairy farmers sue Trump administration over checkoff program

7 hrs ago - 06/10/26 5:50 PM ET Three Wisconsin farmers filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday for requiring dairy producers to provide operational data and pay mandatory fees to the Dairy Checkoff Program. For every 100 pounds of milk so ... (The Hill)