Morning all. Lots of news today, will try to get to it all….
Major Candidate Jumps Into Iowa Senate Race To Challenge WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE Ernst - From The Downballot:
Democratic state Rep. J.D. Scholten unexpectedly kicked off a bid against Republican Sen. Joni Ernst on Monday, saying the incumbent's derisive remarks about Medicaid cuts had spurred him to join the race.
This announcement from Scholten, who is currently a minor league baseball pitcher for the Sioux City Explorers, gives Democrats their first prominent contender for a seat they'd very much love to put in play, though his decision to run was something of a surprise: Just two months ago, he told the Des Moines Register that he was inclined to remain in the legislature.
Soon after, he upgraded his chances to 50-50, but it was Ernst's performance at a town hall on Friday and her follow-up the next day that, he told the Register, were "pretty instrumental for me."
Liberal Candidate Wins in South Korea - While we fell short in Poland this past weekend, after recent wins in Australia, Canada, Germany and Romania, we appear headed to victory in a critical ally, South Korea:
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung is forecast to win South Korea’s snap presidential election, a joint exit poll on Tuesday showed, two months after his archrival and then conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office over his short-lived imposition of martial law.
The exit poll by South Korea’s three major TV stations -– KBS, MBC and SBS -– showed Lee projected to obtain 51.7% of the total votes cast, beating main conservative candidate Kim Moon Soo on 39.3%.
Pre-election surveys also suggested Lee, the Democratic Party candidate, appeared headed for an easy win, riding on deep public frustration over the conservatives in the wake of Yoon’s martial law debacle. Kim has struggled to win over moderate, swing voters as his People Power Party remains in a quagmire of internal feuding over how to view Yoon’s actions.
Ukraine Attacks Russian Bridge To Crimea - From The Guardian:
Ukraine has detonated a massive underwater blast targeting the key road and rail bridge connecting the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia, damaging its underwater pillars.
The operation, claimed by Kyiv’s SBU security service, is the second high-profile operation by Ukraine in days striking significant Russian assets after a sophisticated drone raid on Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet on Sunday.
The attack came as Ukraine confirmed it had been invited to the Nato summit later this month, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned it would be a “victory” for Russia if it was not present.
The latest strike on the 12-mile-long Kerch Bridge – a prestige project of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, which he opened in 2018 – comes amid what appear to be determined efforts by Ukraine to change the narrative promoted by the Trump administration that Kyiv holds few cards in the war.
Fighting Trump’s Ruinous Economic Strategy - But the big story this morning is the OECD’s revised global economic forecast. Here’s the writeup from the Wall Street Journal this morning:
The OECD is out with some new growth forecasts, and they're not looking pretty. Estimates for the global economy and the U.S. have been cut further due to "substantial increases in trade barriers, tighter financial conditions, weakened business and consumer confidence." Inflation is also projected to be higher through 2026, which will likely prevent Fed rate cuts this year, while public debt levels will need to be addressed and put on a sustainable path.
By the numbers: U.S. growth will slow sharply, dropping from 2.8% last year to just 1.6% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026. That's also down from the 2.2% expansion for 2025 predicted before President Trump unveiled "Liberation Day" tariffs in early April. 2025 forecasts for other OECD countries were also scaled back, including China, Canada and Mexico, compared with the past interim outlook.
"Weakened economic prospects will be felt around the world, with almost no exception," the OECD declared, adding that the forecasts are "based on the assumption that tariff rates as of mid-May are sustained." In order to revive growth, the Paris-based organization is recommending the lowering of trade barriers, raising productivity and cutting regulatory costs. It also proposed increasing public investment in energy, digital and critical infrastructures, as well as speeding up construction permits and reforms to spur housing supply.
Watching Trump’s economic plan unfold - terrible tariffs + rancid reconciliation + mass deportations + dismantling of US gov and assaulting US science/research/academia - is like watching a disaster movie unfold. It’s just unprecedented, unbelievable, fanatical, traitorous sabotage of a once great nation and we have to fight it with everything we got.
New, from the NYT, The US Lit A Beacon For Science. Under Trump, Scientists Fear Its Dimming (gift link):
Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science.
He arrived in Los Angeles in 1986 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn Lebanon. He spent a year writing for an Armenian newspaper and delivering Domino’s at night to become eligible for the University of California, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience.
He started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego with a grant from the National Institutes of Health, discovered the way humans sense touch, and in 2021 won the Nobel Prize.
But with the Trump administration slashing spending on science, Dr. Patapoutian’s federal grant to develop new approaches to treating pain has been frozen. In late February, he posted on Bluesky that such cuts would damage biomedical research and prompt an exodus of talent from the United States. Within hours, he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to “any city, any university I want,” he said, with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years.
Dr. Patapoutian declined, because he loves his adopted country. Many scientists just setting out on their careers, however, fear there is no other option but to leave.
Scientific leaders say that’s risking the way American science has been done for years, and the pre-eminence of the United States in their fields.
China and Europe are on hiring sprees. An analysis by the journal Nature captured the reversal: Applications from China and Europe for graduate student or postdoctoral positions in the United States have dropped sharply or dried up entirely since President Trump took office. The number of postdocs and graduate students in the United States applying for jobs abroad has spiked.
A university in France that created new positions for scientists with canceled federal grants capped applications after overwhelming interest. A scientific institute in Portugal said job inquiries from junior faculty members in the United States are up tenfold over the last two months.
“We are embarking on a major experiment in restructuring the innovative engine in America, and China is the control,” said Marcia McNutt, a geophysicist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, which was established by President Abraham Lincoln to advise the government on science policy. “China is not going to cut its research budget in half.”
What the fuck are we doing here people? I mean, what is the possible justification for this? Everyday, the Trump regime is working to make Russia and China great again, not us, not the United States of America.
Upcoming Events
Wed, Noon ET - Simon goes Live with Lincoln Square’s Stuart Stevens. Click on this link at noon to join our live discussion.
Wed, 8pm ET - Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together. Register here.
Mon, June 9th, 6pm ET - A Night With Palm Beach Dems and David Jolly - The Palm Beach Democratic Party is hosting me and former Representative David Jolly at Florida Atlantic University for what promises to be a lively in-person discussion. You can learn more and register for the event here, and be sure to watch my recent interview with David Jolly too. Excited to connect with members of the Hopium community in South Florida!
Sat, June 28th, 10:45am ET - I’ll be speaking at Network NOVA’s 9th Annual Women’s Summit in McLean, VA. More info and tickets here. This is always a great event!
You can always find the latest listing of our upcoming events on our Events page. All recorded events and podcasts can be found on the Hopium site under Podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify too. Enjoy everyone!
Now, Let’s Get To Work - In last Saturday’s post I offered up some initial ideas of what our summer was going to look like. Please check it out if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Job 1 for us this summer is fighting Trump’s ruinous economic agenda. We need to keep calling every day and demand our leaders vote down the reconciliation bill and roll back Trump’s terrible tariffs. This is the big, definitional battle of the summer and we need keep working it every day. Those of you in states with Republican Senators have a particularly important role to play.
Here’s a possible script for contacting your offices. Use whatever works for you:
I am calling to urge you to vote against the reconciliation bill and to roll back Trump’s terrible and illegal tariffs. Together these actions have raised taxes on all of us and will explode the deficit - things Republicans have always told us they did not believe in.
But your agenda is also causing all of us to “pay more and get less” for every day things including our health care; people to loses their jobs; and the economy to slow - all so you can give your rich donors a huge tax break. Your plans will weaken this great country and are an extraordinary betrayal of everything you promised during the campaign - which was to help people like me, not Elon Musk, get ahead.
Your plans are ones of sabotage, surrender and betrayal and I urge you to abandon them and to work with Democrats to find a better way.
I know many of you are involved in the June 14th No Kings events, town halls, Telsa take downs and all the other in person activities that have taken off of late. Thank you, and do keep working it everyone. I am still encouraging our community to explore ideas for how we can Own The Fourth and make our Independence Day an ugly day for our mad wannabe king. Hopium Merch is coming soon, and be sure to check our robust Events schedule as new events are being added daily.
There are three additional efforts we’re working on now:
1 - Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Simply, the Virginia elections are the most important elections we have this year, and we must win them. We have narrow majorities in both legislative chambers and while our candidate Abigail Spanberger has a modest lead in current polling, this is going to be a close election where our money and volunteer time can make a real difference. If you are to give to only one candidate or election this year it should be this one. Here’s a link to do so today……
To learn more about Abigail check out my new discussion with her, watch her new TV ad, or head over to her campaign website We have now raised over $118,000 towards our June 30th goal of $200,000 - thank you all! We need to keep working it everyone!
2 - Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum, Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen and give to all 7 through a single donation on our ActBlue page. Learn more about this important effort here.
We’ve already raised over $115,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - great work everyone!
We also have ongoing campaigns to raise money for the new DNC, support the North Carolina Democratic Party and thank Senator Cory Booker for his spirited leadership in a time of enormous challenge.
3 - Growing Hopium - We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 151,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day too!
Keep working hard all. Some welcome progress today, and yes, lots more to do - Simon
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