Global

We open GREEP #271 by commemorating the Lakota victory over G.A. Custer on the prairie, June 25, 1876.  We also curse W.T. Sherman for using the mass slaughter of the buffalo as a genocidal tool to destroy the Indigenous.

From HEDY TRIPP we hear of ICE’s latest outrages in Minnesota.

From ANTHONY FLACCAVENTO we hear of RUBI’s urban/rural coalition for preservation of democracy.

We get great input from SUE DORFMAN, ANNA GYORGY, DOROTHY REIK AND OTHERS.

The great RAY MCCLENDON then updates us on the stunning victory of relational organizers to defeat the Legislature’s attempt to gerrymander out a majority-minority district in Georgia.

From ALISON GREENE we hear more about urban workers who can crossover to rural constituency building.

From legendary organizer ABE BONOWITZ we are buoyed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s opposition to the death penalty.

KPFK Chair TATANKA BRICCA underlines the growing demand for the release of “secrets” ranging from JFK, UFOs and a “movement of conscience” now sweeping the country.

Mona Khalil was not a high-ranking Hezbollah fighter; she was a renowned Lebanese sea-turtle conservationist who was killed following an Israeli airstrike that struck her home on Mansouri Beach near Tyre in southern Lebanon. Multiple independent news outlets have reported on the incident.

What Happened?

The strike hit her beachside home, known as the Orange House, during a series of intensified Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon. She was critically wounded and died days later in the hospital.

Her age: Reports list her as 76 or 77 at the time of her death.

Others injured: Her housekeeper and assistant was also injured but survived.

Why Was She Killed?

There is no evidence that Mona Khalil was personally targeted. All available reporting indicates that her death occurred as part of broader Israeli military retaliatory strikes in southern Lebanon after the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) suffered significant casualties while fighting Hezbollah.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has every right to condition European relations with any other country or bloc on respect for human rights. That, of course, would hold true if she genuinely cared about such values herself.

In response to the June 19 signing of the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran—intended to bring an end to a destructive war—von der Leyen declared that the European Union does not intend to lift its sanctions on Tehran.

Speaking on June 15, ahead of the G7 summit, she firmly conditioned any diplomatic thawing on domestic changes within the Islamic Republic.

"The principle of sanctions is that we need real change on the ground before we can think about lifting them," she stated, adding: "As long as there is no behavioral change, you cannot lift the sanctions because of human rights violations."

The saying “that’s history” is usually meant to be dismissive, but in politics the past casts a long shadow over the future. Now, two years after President Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump, the patterns that dominate the Democratic Party are damaging its prospects for the elections to come.

When Biden left CNN’s debate studio after an often-incoherent performance on the night of June 27, 2024, his re-election goose was cooked. With voting for president set to begin within three months, time was of the essence to replace Biden as the party’s presidential candidate. But excessive loyalty and outright denial kicked in immediately among top Democrats.

I – Trump’s health

There are questions about his mental and physical health and thus his ability to be President. He rants from his social media platform early in the morning. He tends to fall asleep at his administration’s events.

Jem Bartholomew, considers this issue of Trump’s sleepiness in an article titled “Sleepy Trump” for the Columbia Journalism Review, June 15 2026, and what it reveals about the president’s mental and physical health. Here are a few excerpts.

He writes, “Donald Trump has seemed extremely sleepy lately. He appeared to doze in a cabinet meeting, caught forty winks during a meeting in the Oval Office, nodded off at a Memorial Day event, and fell into a light snooze during the NBA finals.”

Many news reports are out now reminding all of us about the tragedies wrought by flash floods in the Texas Hill Country a year ago that hit youth camps and other communities with terrible death and damage. A report on the precautions at Camp Mystic, where more than 25 children were lost, indicated that there were no real emergency plans, inadequate to nonexistent communications systems for coordination and response, and no real evacuation plan. The state of Texas responded to this devastatingly critical report with a press release saying that most of these issues had been addressed by new laws in the legislature. 

This piece traces five individuals whose actions converged toward one outcome in the 2024 election: a far-right takeover of American politics. Racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are the ties that bind them.

But first, the electronic election equipment companies—privately held and embedded in a far-right ecosystem since the 1970s.

While the world is busy watching the World Cup, Israel is demolishing homes in Palestine and Lebanon and killing innocent civilians in both countries.

The difficult truth is that the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East is carrying out actions that include killing, stealing, rape, deception, and lying, all while presenting itself as the victim.

This week, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon even had a bizarre temper tantrum directed at Vanessa Frazier, the U.N. secretary‑general’s special representative for children and armed conflict, after Israel was placed on a sexual‑violence blacklist. Danon went so far as to call for her immediate dismissal, after he hurled personal attacks on her.

Israel’s government never ceases to amaze me; its officials often behave as though ignoring the consequences of their own actions will make the underlying problems disappear.

No wonder Israelis are hated all over the world. They create mischief wherever they go.