DC Braces for Trump’s Toxic Firework Display – The Friday AM Quickie 6/3/26
Here’s hoping you have the day off today! -Whitney
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THE BIG NEWS
DC Braces for Trump’s Toxic Firework Display
Prayers up to everyone in America’s capital city, where Trump is planning to unleash “hazardous levels of pollution” and cause “very unhealthy” conditions with a massive fireworks display, according to the Washington Post. The mad king has decided to poison the air tomorrow with 850,000 pyrotechnics for the better part of an hour, starting around 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m. That’s 354 fireworks every second and 58,500 pounds of net explosive weight, “comparable to a magnitude 2.8 to 3.0 earthquake.” Normally, 4th of July shows are 17 minutes long with between 17,000 and 20,000 fireworks. Not this time, OK?! This time, “we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all,” Trump screamed on his website last month. “To conclude the program, and commemorate this Historic Occasion, I will be launching, what will be, the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY, right here in our Nation's Capital. Do not miss it.”
If you have any respiratory or cardiovascular conditions, or simply do not want to breathe toxic fumes, you probably should miss it. Per the Post:
The combustion from large fireworks displays typically causes significant pollution because it generates fine particulate matter, also known as PM2.5. These small particles can penetrate deep into the heart and lungs, causing irritation and in some cases asthma attacks and other illnesses.
A draft air-quality analysis, based on the National Park Service’s modeling, states that people should “avoid prolonged exposure” to the pollution around the Mall. ...In downtown D.C., Arlington and the Capitol Hill area, where pollution will be “very unhealthy,” the document says that people should “expect irritation symptoms” and limit their postshow exposure to the pollution. It projects that pollution will remain at elevated levels for three to six hours after the show.
Trump is willing to destroy your lungs and torment your pets because he wants to beat the world record for fireworks displays. He also wants to use the occasion to continue his grift. He’s selling, for example, $25,000 “Presidential” tickets for a watch party on the Kennedy Center rooftop, The Hill reported. The show will begin at 7 p.m. Trump is scheduled at 9:45 p.m. to give a “really long speech just to show that I can do anything,” and after that it will be time to poison the air. News outlets recommended that people near the area venturing outside during or after the show should wear an N95 mask.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
More Fireworks News: SoDak Edition
In addition to his air pollution event in DC, Trump is also carrying out a massive fireworks display at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, which has been suffering under an ongoing drought that severely increases the possibility of wildfires, Politico reported. The entire Pennington County, home to Mount Rushmore, is in moderate to extreme drought conditions. But who cares, right? Who cares that the National Park Service has been warning visitors about increased wildfire risks at major parks and completely banned campfires in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain and Washington’s North Cascades national parks? Not Pennington County Commission Chair Ron Weifenbach, who wants the show to go on. “They’re making something into a political firestorm, when it really doesn’t need to be,” he said. “Independence Day should be a day when everybody can come together and go, ‘You know what? We live in a great country. We’re not perfect, but we do live in a great country.” Interesting choice of word, “firestorm.”
New Jersey Charging Companies for Health Insurance Failure
Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a measure this week to charge employers if their workers are on Medicaid instead of a plan offered by the company, the Associated Press reported. The new fee will help pay for the state’s Medicaid program, the joint federal and state insurance program covering low-income residents, which the Trump administration voted to severely underfund with his One Big Beautiful Bill law. The New Jersey fee is expected to raise $145 million and would apply to employers that have at least 50 workers on Medicaid. Per the AP: “The fees per person would start at $325 a year for companies with 50 to 249 Medicaid beneficiaries and top out at $725 annually for employers with at least 500 recipients.”
Across the country in California, state lawmakers passed a bill this week directing state administrators to develop a plan for a similar program to New Jersey’s. Lawmakers in Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon and Washington have discussed or proposed similar measures, which are in various stages. Businesses are objecting, of course, because waaah. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning policy research, also has concerns because companies may respond by firing workers and hiring fewer people from low-income or single-parent households. All of this could be easily avoided if we had universal healthcare like every other major economy in the world.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Florida Board of Education Bars Undocumented Students from State Colleges and Universities Doing so will likely cost Florida up to $15 million in lost tuition and fees every year. It’s unclear if the rule is legal given that the seven-member board is populated entirely by people that far-right Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed. The board is supposed to implement legislation, not write it. That’s the job of legislators, who voters elect, because we still live in a democracy. via the Guardian.
- Grand Jury Indicts Olympic Canoeist for Alleged Reflecting Pool ‘Vandalism’ The indictment accuses the three-time Olympian David Hearn of “maliciously” ruining the reflecting pool lining on June 19, which Hearn disputes. via NBC News.
SOME NUMBER
58 percent
That’s how much Amazon’s carbon emissions increased between 2019 and 2024, according to the company, Bloomberg reported. Remember when Amazon promised to stop belching out any carbon by 2040? It’s not going so well; emissions rose 16 percent last year alone. Anyway it was 100 degrees in New York yesterday and it’s going to be just as hot today.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
7/3: Majority Reporters have the day off today. But don’t worry! Sam has still produced some original artisanal Content for your viewing pleasure. The channel will air a pre-taped interview Sam did with Jeet Heer, in which they wrap up the week’s news. Heer is the national affairs correspondent at The Nation and host of the In Time of Monsters Podcast.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
WATCH The Moment Hasan Found Out His Audience Delivered 2,000 Votes To Win An Election
Beautiful. You matter! Your vote matters! Your canvassing shift matters! Your hour of phone banking matters! Yes we can and SOLIDARITY FOREVER!
The Democratic Party's Moral Rorschach Test
DSA style? You mean all the fun and locally relevant swag?
PARTING WORDS
“That’s the thing nobody tells you about these long fights. The arc doesn’t move in a straight line. The Boy Scouts changed, not because any court told them to, but because people came to understand how wrong it was to exclude a kid for who he was. That understanding built slowly, over the years, because people like you refused to disappear. Someday, I believe, America will understand with the same clarity why excluding transgender kids is wrong. When that day comes, it will be because of what you built. The record you made. The five years you actually competed and showed everyone watching that the sky did not fall. Today’s ruling will never erase that.”
-- James Dale, in an open letter to Becky Pepper-Jackson, the 16-year-old trans girl from New Jersey who challenged West Virginia’s law banning trans girls and women from school sports teams for girls and women. The Supreme Court ruled against her earlier this week, its latest anti-trans bigotry that we will ultimately defeat. Dale is 56 now, but he was just 19 when he sued the Boy Scouts in 1990 for revoking his adult membership because he is gay. After a decade of litigation, the Supreme Court justices ruled against him, too. Thirteen years later, the Boy Scouts of America ended its homophobic ban voluntarily.
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