Happy Juneteenth!!
The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth
On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.
But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.
The post-emancipation period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877) marked an era of great hope, uncertainty, and struggle for the nation as a whole. Formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, push radical legislation and even sue slaveholders for compensation. Given the 200+ years of enslavement, such changes were nothing short of amazing. Not even a generation out of slavery, African Americans were inspired and empowered to transform their lives and their country.
Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Although it has long celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.
And this year, we have another celebration on Juneteenth – THE OPENING OF THE BARACK OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY!
Barack Obama
@barackobama.bsky.social
I wouldn’t be where I am today without the love and support that Michelle has poured into me over the years. Her story — from her South Side roots to the White House and beyond — is a central part of the Obama Presidential Center.
https://bsky.app/profile/barackobama.bsky.social/post/3mo3uf6r5dc2t
Michelle Obama
The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama
@MichelleObamaBarack and I were so honored to have @AkunyiliCrosby create our portrait for the Obama Presidential Center. Her artistic brilliance shines through — and the way she infused such life and joy into the piece is truly extraordinary. We love it, and we think everyone who visits the
https://x.com/MichelleObama/status/2066514520109941210
Phil Lewis
@phillewis.bsky.social
The performers for the Obama Presidential Library opening on June 18 have been announced:Stevie Wonder
John Legend
Jennifer Hudson
The Roots
Bruce Springsteen
Christina Aguilera
Marsai Martin
Common
U2’s Bono and The Edge
Eddie Vedder
Marc Anthony
Tems
https://bsky.app/profile/phillewis.bsky.social/post/3mognkgaj2k25
Blue Georgia
@BlueGeorgia
Bill Maher mocked the Obama Presidential Center as a billion-dollar monument to ego. Ro Khanna had the better answer.
“It’s a unique story of the possibility in this country of someone who had no shot. When I was in law school, they said to me, your Indian-American, you’re of Hindu faith. Go to the Capital because you’ll never get elected to anything. And then Barack Obama happened, and he changed the direction of this nation for millions of people.”
https://x.com/BlueGeorgia/status/2068354543667023980
middleclassparty
@middle_class_us
Working Americans are going to food banks now.
Not the unemployed or the homeless.
People with jobs People with degrees.
People who did everything right.
The food bank is no longer a last resort.
It’s a regular errand for the middle class.
5:09 PM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/middle_class_us/status/2068380653159149991
user avatar
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
ICYMI: A federal judge said Trump’s sweeping executive order attacking mail voting will, if fully implemented, directly harm states’ ability to carry out elections this November.
Here’s how she’s allowing states to fight back:
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/2067932926637998570
Scott Robertson
@sarobertson_
Blundell: When Trump took over the board with all of his loser pals, he also got access to The Kennedy Center bank account. And there’s about $17 million that should be in this account for operational expenses that has disappeared … where did that $17 million go?
https://x.com/sarobertson_/status/2068072869637038427
all a scam
PURE GRIFT
Sammi🦋
@StoriesBySammi
ICE paid $123 million for a Texas warehouse valued at $11 million. It never detained a single person.
Now it doesn’t want it anymore.
That warehouse isn’t an outlier. ICE spent close to a $billion dollars buying 11 of these buildings under Kristi Noem, betting that empty industrial space could become a nationwide deportation pipeline.
Congress backed the plan with a budget that jumped from $8 billion to $28 billion.
Border czar Tom Homan promised 100,000 detention beds by the end of 2025.
Now the agency is reversing course on 7 of those warehouses, worth more than $700 million combined — either selling them outright or handing them off to other federal agencies.
The agency isn’t backing off mass detention. It’s just shifting the money.
ICE now plans to buy detention space directly from the private prison companies it already contracts with — likely GEO Group and CoreCivic, its two largest private detention contractors.
The same Inspector General investigating where the first $billion went hasn’t said a word about where the next one’s headed.
Who’s getting fired for a $123 million mistake?
#DemsUnited
https://x.com/StoriesBySammi/status/2068130370185281673
CALL TO ACTIVISM
@CalltoActivism
🚨ON JUNETEENTH, Mississippi Democratic Senate nominee Scott Colom has launched a voter protection initiative to help voters who may have been improperly removed from the rolls.
Volunteers across Mississippi are contacting voters who may have been impacted. This is amazing.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/2068107137381781970
Rushi
@rushicrypto
A tech billionaire is telling us that people may need to use less water so AI can use more.
Think about how absurd that is.
Instead of asking how technology can serve humanity, we’re being asked how humanity can make sacrifices for technology.
Machines are supposed to improve our lives.
People should never come second.
9:18 AM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/rushicrypto/status/2068262122958766128
Eric Jay
@EricinAmericaX
This is the direct OPPOSITE of a “meritocracy.”
Navy leadership believed that Admiral Stephen D. Barnett was the top choice for a command position that would oversee our US Naval bases “at home and abroad.”
He was due a promotion.
He had more experience than the other candidates and he also successfully presided over the clean up of one of the Navy’s “worst messes” in recent history—a fuel spill that contaminated an aquifer on a base in Hawaii, causing thousands to get sick.
But the admiral didn’t get the job because he was black.
“Instead of Admiral Barnett, Mr. Hegseth selected a white officer who was the Navy leadership’s third choice.”
“So far this year, Mr. Hegseth has blocked the promotions of at least 40 senior officers to general and admiral ranks. About half of those are women or members of minority groups.”
There is nothing meritocratic about Hegseth’s decision.
For years, conservatives have been complaining that the “DEI” boogeyman is responsible for discriminating against qualified white candidates.
This was, of course, not the case.
But now these same pearlclutchers are on board with an administration that’s actually discriminating in hiring based on race.
https://x.com/EricinAmericaX/status/2068099143797727381
Every accusation a confession.
Rushi
@rushicrypto
I find it utterly obscene that Bezos has the audacity to suggest that human water consumption is limiting AI.
Are we supposed to sacrifice access to life-essential drinking water in the hope that AI will somehow create new water sources?
This is the same guy who could rally his ultra-rich friends to help end world hunger, yet he’d rather lecture ordinary people about how much water they consume while flying private jets and relaxing on a superyacht.
Obscene.
12:16 PM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/rushicrypto/status/2068306913637654540
🪷 A Harris Democrat✊🏾
@sephius1999
Leftists are so busy trying to make Black ppl their mules for GOTV, instead of fighting Republicans.
Y’all are busy trying to remove Black ppl from seats of authority they earned by winning their elections, to elected Leftists who think discussing race is identity politics
2:10 PM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/sephius1999/status/2068335687154213092
Roger Parloff
@rparloff
Plaintiffs in the Kennedy Center renaming case ask judge to order Trump to explain what the tarp/scaffolding is about. “Willfully sabotaging the KC’s iconic facade to assuage Defendants’ vanity or massage broken egos is a clear breach of fiduciary duty.”
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
https://x.com/rparloff/status/2068382100538130480
P a u l ◉
@SkylineReport
🚨 The biggest risk to DOJ isn’t losing this case.
It’s a federal judge deciding DOJ helped turn the courts into a prop.
What began as a politically awkward settlement is now being examined as a potential abuse of the judicial process itself.
If Judge Williams finds the court was misled, the consequences extend far beyond Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund”:
• DOJ’s credibility with federal judges takes a hit.
• Future DOJ claims face greater skepticism.
• Discovery could expose communications between DOJ, the White House, Treasury, IRS, and Trump’s lawyers.
• Courts may become more suspicious of “friendly lawsuits” where government actors appear to be on both sides.
The nightmare scenario isn’t political embarrassment.
It’s a judicial finding that DOJ participated in a sham adversarial process and helped deceive the court
At that point, the story stops being about Trump.
It becomes a story about whether the Department of Justice can still be trusted when it walks into a federal courtroom.
The most dangerous part for DOJ?
The alleged victim is no longer the IRS, Treasury, or taxpayers.
It’s the judiciary itself.
And judges tend to take that personally.
https://x.com/SkylineReport/status/2068373328595656751
Nicole Minét
@mouvement33
⚡️During his 2010–2012 overhaul of the National Mall, President Obama completely modernized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Instead of wasting millions of gallons of potable city water, the project switched the pool’s source to the nearby Potomac River Tidal Basin. To keep it clean, they installed a massive ozone water filtration and circulation system—essentially transforming how the iconic landmark handles water quality and sustainability.
It’s obvious Trump removed the filtration system Obama had installed, thus creating a dangerous, toxic pool of algae-ridden water that can make bystanders, pets, and wildlife very ill.
https://x.com/mouvement33/status/2065953322578887037
Sammi🦋
@StoriesBySammi
They’re at it AGAIN.
The Department of Interior is.
Caught them today posting a gorgeous photo of Beartooth Pass wildflowers and told everyone to “enjoy the view.” Last time it was Moonscape Overlook.
This time it’s the same mountain range they’ve been quietly leasing out for oil since at least 2018.
Same department. Same federal agency a judge had to stop in court. Same rule they just got to kill so they don’t even have to pretend conservation matters anymore. They’re not hiding any of this. They’re using it as the marketing.
In 2018, BLM auctioned a 2,400-acre parcel for oil and gas drilling in the Beartooth foothills, Carbon County, the same range in that photo. The people who actually live there had to drag the federal government into court to stop it, and they won, because BLM skipped the environmental homework.
On May 11, 2026, BLM killed a separate rule that had required conservation to be treated as just as important as drilling and grazing when deciding what happens to public land. That’s gone now, on 245 million acres nationwide, 8 million of them in Montana.
See the first source ⬇️ to check out the Department of Interior’s post from today, it’ll blow your mind.
Who’s going to tell the wildflowers that “enjoy the view” isn’t the same as actually protecting it?
#DemsUnited
https://x.com/StoriesBySammi/status/2068375591427195351
MeidasTouch
@MeidasTouch
The extent of Trump’s destruction of Washington, D.C., is truly stunning. It’s the ultimate metaphor.
The algae-infested Reflecting Pool. The destroyed grass from the UFC event. The bulldozed East Wing grounds. “86 47” etched into the lawn near the Reflecting Pool.
REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz
https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/2068094087245517267
Reuters
@Reuters
President Trump unveiled a Boeing 747, a gift from Qatar that was overhauled by L3Harris Technologies and is set to join the Air Force One fleet with a custom livery reut.rs/4xMVJEn
Chris Murphy 🟧
Senate Democrats
@ChrisMurphyCT
The plan is for this plane to be in service for two years and then Trump will take if for himself. No President has ever stolen an Air Force for himself.
And you paid for it. The total cost could be $1 billion of your money for a new luxury jet for Trump and his family.
https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/2068364646596407726
Lisa Rubin
@lawofruby
NEW: Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered DOJ on 6/12 to file a “status report” within 7 days to confirm “no payments have been made from the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and that no funding has been transferred to an account for [that] Fund, or if it has, that that transfer has been reversed.” As of this morning, no status report has been filed.
11:57 AM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/lawofruby/status/2068302110286914001
#JoeMama🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🌻🪷
@Mama4Obama1
Y’all see how when Black women and Black voters do not rush to Kowtow to White liberal bidding , they attack and disparage? I’ve seen the attacks of Talarico supporters against her . I’ve seen the Talarico campaign not denounce those attacks against her. But they want her labor.
4:36 PM · Jun 20, 2026
https://x.com/Mama4Obama1/status/2068372552733319551
Lovable Liberal and his Old English sheepdog
@DougWahl1
He was in prison for life, then Kristi Noem let him out, and now….
Mark Milk whose life sentence for manslaughter was commuted by then-SD Gov. Kristi Noem has been charged in connection with the death of a 14-year-old girl, in what authorities are calling a “horrific” case.
https://x.com/DougWahl1/status/2068335008616534392
FactPost
@factpostnews
The Trump administration has forced the National Parks Service to remove any photos of Harriet Tubman from their website covering the Underground Railroad.
https://x.com/factpostnews/status/2068052047279091800
Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock
Senate Democrats
@SenatorWarnock
This is huge.
For months, I have been working to stop the construction of a massive 10,000-person ICE facility in Social Circle, Georgia.
We just learned DHS is cancelling it
https://x.com/SenatorWarnock/status/2067749640615743891
Moe Davis (U.S. Air Force, Retired)
@ColMoeDavis
This is Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor John Cafaro who got the no-bid contract to install a water purification system for the reflecting pool. He has 2 prior convictions, one for bribing a member of Congress and another for an illegal loan that violated campaign finance laws.
https://x.com/ColMoeDavis/status/2067953306295562388
Democracy Docket
@DemocracyDocket
NEW: 132 election deniers across 35 states are on the ballot this year.
Many are running for pivotal roles that wield enormous power to undermine elections and disenfranchise voters.
Matt Cohen identified 19 who could play a major role in how elections are run and how Trump’s power is checked 👇 bit.ly/4ekxK7Q
These 19 election deniers and vote suppressors are on the ballot in the midterms. We should be…
From democracydocket.com
1:00 PM · Jun 19, 2026
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/2067955711850557872
Happy Juneteenth🤗
Happy Juneteenth, ladies!
Good morning, rikyrah! Happy Juneteenth to you and Peanut and your whole family!
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊 😊