The political landscape shifted yesterday, and not in ways that suggest unity is breaking out anytime soon. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his Republican primary by nearly 10 percentage points to Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein, making him the latest GOP lawmaker to discover that crossing the president carries real consequences. The race itself became a spending spectacle: $33 million poured into TV ads, according to NPR’s ad-tracking partner AdImpact, making it the most expensive House primary in history. Most of that money was directed at Massie.
This primary was never really about local concerns or constituent service records. It was about loyalty to Trump, plain and simple. When a party bases its internal contests on personal allegiance to one figure rather than policy or performance, something has shifted fundamentally about how that party operates.
The Local Climate Revolution Nobody’s Talking About
While the federal government has essentially abandoned climate ambitions, something genuinely interesting is happening at the ground level. Denver’s climate office is planning to heat and cool a cluster of downtown buildings using water, Earth’s heat, and even sewage. Yes, sewage.
The city currently relies on the world’s oldest continuously operating commercial steam system, which heats over 100 downtown buildings by burning natural gas. That’s obviously not great from a decarbonization perspective. The new plan involves creating a “thermal energy network” that would circulate water through underground pipes between 11 city-owned buildings, repurposing the old system infrastructure. It’s the kind of unglamorous but effective solution that rarely makes headlines outside local news outlets.
Denver isn’t inventing this from scratch. Similar networks already exist on campuses and in cities around the world. But if it works here, the city could become a template for how dense urban areas can cut their climate pollution without waiting for Washington to figure things out. That’s actually more powerful than any federal mandate, because it shows rather than tells.
When Tariffs Become Personal Favors
On the business front, there’s a story that deserves more scrutiny: Cambria CEO Marty Davis, a Trump donor and kitchen countertop mogul, has been repeatedly asking the U.S. government to impose more tariffs on quartz imports. His $500 million company manufactures quartz countertops, so he knows exactly who this helps.
Those tariffs don’t magically disappear. They raise costs for competitors and other businesses that rely on imported materials. Those increased costs get passed directly to homeowners and consumers. Small businesses in the industry say this is textbook political favoritism, and it’s hard to argue otherwise when one well-connected CEO gets tax policy tailored to his advantage while everyone else absorbs the bill.
The question isn’t whether tariffs can be justified on various grounds. The question is whether a government should be shaping trade policy around the specific requests of a single company owner and political donor. That’s a harder case to make.
Everything Else Worth Knowing
Trump claimed yesterday he was an hour away from launching strikes against Iran before calling them off. He credited “serious negotiations” for the delay and gave Iran two or three days, maybe a week, to reach a deal. Vice President Vance offered a subtly different framing, suggesting Iran faces a binary choice: keep talking or face military action. Those aren’t the same message, and the difference matters.
In San Diego, police released more details about the mosque attack that killed five people. According to AP reporting, three of the victims died while attempting to stop the gunmen. The Islamic Center of San Diego identified them as Mansour Kaziha, 78, Nader Awad, 57, and Amin Abdullah, 51. Abdullah, working as a security guard, saved the lives of 140 children during the shooting. Police say the two teen suspects met online and “did not discriminate on who they hated,” according to an FBI special agent in charge.
Minnesota’s governor signed the nation’s first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state. The Trump administration has already filed a lawsuit in response. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket now face potential felony charges if they operate there starting in August. It’s another example of how legal battles over the internet’s role in society are becoming increasingly fragmented across state lines.
What happens when climate policy gets written by cities instead of Congress, and trade policy gets tailored to individual donors? The answer probably isn’t what democracy advocates hoped for.
