The shocking result of the "Brexit" referendum, with Britain leaving the European Union, has widely been taken as Good News for Donald Trump. He was happy to say so himself, and to attempt to take credit somehow for the referendum's success. And people have been panicking about the danger that Trump's campaign could beat the conventional wisdom just as the British "Leave" campaign did. That danger is probably overrated, as Jamelle Bouie points out: the UK is much whiter than the US, so the angry white vote doesn't carry as far here any more, and we should remember that the Brexit result wasn't really a surprise: "Leave" and "Remain" had been polling neck-and-neck down to the wire, so the 52-48 result wasn't unlikely. But Trump, who led the Republican primary polls wire to wire, is clearly behind in the general-election polls. On the other hand, it's easy to see Trump and the Brexiteers as part of a wider movement: angry nativist populists, hostile to policy experts and welcoming to xenophobes and racists.  That movement won't meet with the same success everywhere, but it's real.

In the three and one-half years I've been here, we have not been allowed ONE VOTE, NOT ONE VOTE on matters of gun safety. This was why we had to protest."

- Rep. John Larson, Sit-in ringleader whose Connecticut district is near Sandy Hook.

On June 23, around 11:25 AM, Democrats in the House of Representatives, fed up over the lack of action on simple, common-sense gun control measures after years of failed attempts, and led by Civil Rights icon John Lewis, announced a sit-in on the floor of the House chamber, and then, one by one, sat themselves down on the hard floor in front of the speaker's podium.  (Watch it here.)

Quick thought here --

On the merits, were I a UK citizen, I believe I'd have voted to stay with the EU.

However, that would have been in spite of a lot of preaching and hectoring by the elites who brought the Uk into the EU in the first place.  As an outsider, I kind of hoped for an "exit" outcome if only to see, for once, a referendum pushing back against what we've all been assured is "the right thing to do," by people who seem immune to the falling wages and abdications of democracy that seem the result of the new capitalist global order.

Some years ago, an unstable young man committed one of the most notorious terrorist acts in U.S. history. He was American-born, but his parents were immigrants, and his allegiance to a radical ideology with foreign origins terrified the public. “They and those like them should be kept out of this country,” railed Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States, “and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came.”

The young man was Leon Czolgosz, a Polish-American anarchist. On August 31, 1901, he fatally shot President William McKinley in the abdomen with .32 caliber revolver. The nation reacted with shock and outrage. McKinley’s successor, President Theodore Roosevelt, denounced anarchy as “a crime against the whole human race” and demanded legislation to restrict immigration and deport suspected anarchists. Congress answered the call with the Anarchist Exclusion Act, which barred anyone “who disbelieves in or who is opposed to all organized government” from becoming citizens.

Full story at The History Reader

Today we woke up to news of another mass shooting, this time in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  The facts about it are sketchy but it looks like a hate crime, an obvious act of terrorism.  The horrific news, coming in bits and spurts, is that 50 people are dead and 54 have been injured.  It's being classified as the worst mass shooting in U.S history.

The shooter's name is Omar Saddiqui Mateen, an American on the FBI watch list thought to be inspired by Isis.  The motive, it appears, is a murderous hatred of gays, but the ease of owning military-style assault weapons gave him an opportunity to act on it. It was about as carte blanche as it gets.

My liberal Twitter and Facebook feeds are all abuzz with anger at the NRA over the terrorist attack in Orlando. That's fine.  There are plenty of reasons to be angry at the NRA.  Our lack of reasonable gun control is a problem. I'm with you.  But let's not miss the point here.

A man shot at hundreds of people, killing more than twenty and wounding more than forty, because he was angry that he saw two men kissing in public.  The man reportedly has connections to Islamic extremists.  Gun or not, his motive was to export his intolerance, specifically his hatred of homosexuality.

On June 7, 2016, after a hard-fought landmark election, Hillary Clinton became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. She's the first woman in the history of the United States to even come close to that pinnacle. It only took 227 years to crack that thickest of glass ceilings. (She'll have actually broken it when she wins.)

 If the goal in the coming days is to try and diminish this triumph, you'll fast realize how many of us are in the vanguard, protecting and supporting this woman, this former First Lady, this former Senator from New York, this former Secretary of State, this mother, this grandmother, this perennial choice for most disliked, distrusted famous American who still has the confidence and the audacity to run for president, not once but twice.

Eight years ago, in what was really my first few months as a blogger, I opened a post like this:

This seems to be the week that it began to sink in, even among the people who had bought into the conventional Beltway wisdom: Trump means what he says. And this is Trump, the only Trump there is. He's not going to "pivot toward the general election" like the wised-up insiders have been saying he would. He's not capable of change.

Roger Cohen's a confirmed internationalist -- a believer in global trade and in America being engaged militarily and politically, with the rest of the world.  So his chagrin over the sudden opposition to the Obama Administration's signature trade deal is not surprising, but it's good to know what the other side thinks.

Cohen doesn't make any shocking arguments in favor but he hopes the TPP will be approved by Congress before the next election so that:

One year ago, Bernie Sanders stood in the sun on the shore of Lake Champlain and opened his presidential campaign with a promise “to build a movement of millions of Americans.” Critics scoffed, dismissing his supporters as callow youngsters destined to drift once #FeelTheBern stops trending. But Sanders’s campaign proved more popular and resilient than anyone expected. Ironically, many Democrats now want him to terminate his movement and convert it into a get-out-the-vote drive for Hillary Clinton.

But that is not how movements work. The celebrated political movements of American history—abolitionism, progressivism, and civil rights—were never subordinate to political parties. Their leaders did not bow to party elites. Great movements transcend partisanship; they are the makers and breakers of parties.

Read the full story at the Daily Beast

In Rolling Stone a wise friend wrote that one of Donald Trump's great weaknesses is his inability to back down from a fight. Because he's so predictable in that regard, Hillary Clinton will be able to employ numerous surrogates to attack Trump on the theory that he will find himself embroiled in fights with some or all of them. Trump's eagerness to debate Bernie Sanders in California seems evidence of that.

Let's get one thing straight: people are not out to get Hillary Clinton because of her private e-mail server. Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail server because people are out to get her. Yes, she apparently bent and broke the rules, and everyone,  including Clinton, has said how stupid this was. I don't think it's stupid. I think it was the best of several bad choices.

You see, Hillary Clinton doesn't have the option of doing the right thing and not getting attacked. She has not been allowed that option in twenty years.

Lee Chatfield is a Freshman Republican representing a district in Michigan that includes my low-income county, Chippewa, along with some of the richest counties in the state.  His heart, he says, is with God, so naturally he ran as a Tea Party candidate.  He works with the Republican majority to undermine crucial social programs in our beleaguered state because, I don't know--tough love, boot straps, nanny state,the poor don't need it, the rich do, sin, punishment, retribution, all of the above.

So, William F. Weld, former Republican governor of Massachusetts, is running for Vice-President on the Libertarian ticket. That's a ridiculous thing, but it's a ridiculous year, and I'm less interested in this trivial fringe campaign than in what it says that Weld, who was once seen as a real comer in national politics, would even bother with this.

You know how sometimes grandpa seems so cute and well-meaning but then somebody gives him a bourbon and asks him about how the neighborhood has changed over the years and he starts in on the really uncomfortable talk about how everything was fine before the Koreans moved in?

That's where Bernie is now.

He's now arguing that the primary process is biased against him and so the super delegates who he had once claimed were all unfairly in the tank for Hillary Clinton should give him the nomination at the convention.

Yesterday, four days after a small riot took place at the Nevada State Democratic Convention over what Bernie Sanders' supporters say were rule changes depriving Bernie of FOUR DELEGATES and a win that was never going to happen because he had already lost Nevada in FEBRUARY, Bernie Sanders issued a statement warning the Democratic Party that there's a new sheriff in town and they've been really, really bad so whatever happens, it's on them, not him.

This week Hillary Clinton quietly announced plans to overhaul the U.S. Federal Reserve System by removing bankers from the boards of directors of the regional Feds.  I think that more than anything this highlights how Clinton's knowledge of the government and its institutions will work to make her an effective agent for change once she's in the White House.