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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: 4th of July music

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features 4th of July music. Enjoy!

^{Grateful Dead - U.S. Blues}

“Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre”

-- Robert Hughes

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News and Opinion

Trump hijacked US’s 250 anniversary to serve ‘political ideology and pet projects’, congressional report says

Donald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday. The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF)

The document was produced by Democratic staff of the House of Representatives’ natural resources committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. It has not been officially adopted by the committee. “Under President Donald Trump, this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment,” it states, contending that the machinery built for a national commemoration was converted “into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President’s ego, political ideology, and pet projects”.

In 2016 Congress established the US semiquincentennial commission, operating as the non-profit America250 Foundation, to plan the nation’s 2026 celebrations on a non-partisan basis. However, under Trump, the White House launched a sustained pressure campaign to subsume the commission. When America250 leadership resisted its demands to shift focus toward partisan, campaign-style spectacles, the Trump administration created Freedom 250 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the congressionally chartered NPF.

The interim report finds that, by taking control of the NPF board and installing key campaign operatives such as Meredith O’Rourke and Chris LaCivita, the White House secured an opaque vehicle that enjoyed the NPF’s non-partisan credibility and tax-exempt status while operating outside standard government transparency laws. Sources interviewed by Democrats on the committee said fundraisers including O’Rourke misled prospective America250 donors by providing them with Freedom 250’s banking and routing numbers instead. The report finds this could constitute wire fraud and charitable solicitation fraud under federal and District of Columbia law.

This deceit extended to the entertainment industry. Artists recruited for the kickoff of the Great American State Fair – including Martina McBride and Young MC – were assured the event was non-partisan, only to face social media backlash when the event was revealed to be a Trump-backed rally. In the words of Young MC, the booking was a “bait and switch”. The investigation also outlines how Freedom 250 effectively put a price tag on presidential access, circulating sponsorship packages starting at $500,000 and climbing above $10m for tiered recognition, culminating in a “historic photo opportunity” with Trump.

What They Don't Teach You About July 4th | Rania Khalek & Zoe Alexandra

U.S. House traitors to marry Israel

House lawmakers have blocked a congressional debate to remove Section 219 (formerly Section 224) from the national defense spending bill, which means the US and Israel will be intimately merging their military technology to a significantly greater extent than they already were.

And hell, why not. Why keep pretending the US and Israeli war machines are two separate entities. Why keep pretending Israel’s war crimes are separate from America’s war crimes.

If you’re already living together, you might as well get married.

Don't call this an integration if the two militaries: this is creating a clear hierarchy, with Israel on top and the US under its command.

How do I know that? It is simple: under the new agreement, the US will have to share its secrets with Israel, but Israel won't be obliged… https://t.co/jmf0YWIOnR

— Alon Mizrahi (@alon_mizrahi) July 1, 2026

1,022 Babies Among 21,500+ Children Killed by Israel in 1,000 Days of Gaza Genocide

Over 21,500 children—1,022 of them babies—are among the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since it launched the US-backed genocidal war on Gaza 1,000 days ago, including hundreds of minors slain since a one-way ceasefire took effect nine months ago, Gaza’s Government Media Office said Thursday.

In updated figures, the GMO said that at least 73,066 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began its war and siege on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. A separate analysis published in mid-April by UN Women found that at least 38,000 women and girls were killed between October 2023 and December 2025.

The GMO said Thursday that at least 173,514 others—including more than 44,500 children—have been wounded, and 9,500 Palestinians are still missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings in the coastal strip, more than 90% of which has been destroyed and 80% of which is under Israeli control, according to officials.

More than 11,000 Gazan children have suffered what the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called “life-changing injuries,” including as many as 4,000 amputations, many of them performed without anesthesia.

“Every day for the past 1,000 days, the world has failed 1 million children in Gaza by not intervening to stop the killing and maiming of children,” Ahmad Ahendawi, regional director at the charity Save the Children, said Thursday. “As their young, fragile bodies were blown to bits and pieces by bombs and missiles, the world sold those same weapons to the government of Israel [and]... continued trade agreements with the government of Israel.”

Weekly Wrap - 3 July - America's 250th Birthday

Britain Detains US Human Rights Lawyer

U.S. human rights lawyer, professor and journalist Daniel Kovalik was detained by three counter-terror police officers at Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport on Saturday morning under paragraph 4 of Schedule 3 of the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which allows border police to detain and question people they believe to be involved in “hostile state activity.”

Kovalik — who was visiting England for a wedding — was detained for approximately two and a half hours and interrogated extensively on his political views about “everything under the sun,” including on Israel, Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organisations Hamas and Hezbollah, the war against Iran and on China and Russia. He told Crispin Flintoff that despite the scope of questions, ultimately, “I think what they wanted is my stuff [electronic devices], that’s what they wanted and they got it.”

In the height of irony, I was detained at John Lennon International AirPort in Liverpool, England by anti-terrorism police concerned about my opposition to the Genocide on Gaza and the war on Iran. They seized my phone, computer, fingerprints and DNA sample. More to come . . . pic.twitter.com/WOtXQLjjO2

— Dan Kovalik (@danielmkovalik) June 29, 2026

Kovalik was told he would be arrested if he did not co-operate with the interview or provide the passwords to his electronic devices. Officers seized his phone and laptop, took his DNA, fingerprints and photographs from nine angles, copied his bank and credit cards and rifled through his luggage. They also questioned him about a book he was carrying — a gift from a student by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, Palestine’s Children: Returning to Haifa & Other Stories — before releasing him.

During his interview, Kovalik repeatedly informed the interrogating officers — who refused to identify themselves when asked — that he is a practising lawyer, that his electronic devices contained material protected by legal professional privilege and that he objected to their seizure. A supervising sergeant subsequently confirmed that Kovalik had properly asserted legal professional privilege but said his devices would nevertheless be retained “with intention to copy.”

The decision to retain and copy the devices despite those objections raises serious concerns about the protection of legally privileged material, the preservation of client confidentiality, and compliance with the safeguards governing legal professional privilege under Schedule 3.

Larry Johnson: Iran Rejects Hormuz Deal, US Surges Forces, Israel Expands Targets

Pro-Palestine protesters who blocked Golden Gate Bridge convicted of misdemeanor charges

Seven protesters who blocked traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge during a 2024 anti-war demonstration have been found guilty of misdemeanor charges in a case that became yet another flashpoint over how governments and major institutions respond to pro-Palestinian protests in the Trump era.

The jury, which deliberated for a total of seven days, was deadlocked on the most serious charge: felony conspiracy. If convicted of that charge, the defendants would have faced a potential sentence of 15 years in prison. The jury also could not reach a verdict on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. It’s unclear whether there will be a retrial for the deadlocked charges.

But the seven protesters were each convicted of six misdemeanors, including false imprisonment and obstruction of thoroughfare. One defendant, Sara Cantor, was convicted of an additional misdemeanor charge of refusing to disperse. The protesters will be sentenced on 21 August. Six of the protesters face a maximum sentence of five years in county jail; Cantor faces five-and-a-half years.

“The demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge caused a level of safety risk, including extreme threats to the health and welfare of those trapped, that we as a society cannot ignore or allow,” the San Francisco district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said in a 2024 statement when her office brought charges four months after the incident.

Defense attorneys, meanwhile, have maintained that protesters were acting out of a moral obligation to stop genocide and were doing what they could to halt Israeli strikes on Gaza – including participation in a nationwide tax day protest of US financial and military aid to Israel. The defendants turned to the bridge-blocking protest, they said, only after more traditional methods, such as calling their congressional representatives and writing letters, went nowhere.

US Believed Israel Wanted To Kill Iran’s Araghchi and Ghalibaf During April Negotiations

The New York Times reported on Thursday that the US was concerned Israel might try to assassinate Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf during negotiations that were taking place in April.

The report, which cited US officials, said that the US agreed that Araghchi and Ghalibaf could have been targets for Israel during the full-scale war, as the US has strongly backed Israel’s assassinations, but that it was concerned that killing them during negotiations could have derailed the diplomatic process. Some officials told the paper that the US went as far as telling other countries to warn Iran about the potential Israeli assassination plot.

Israeli officials have made clear that they’re eager to restart the full-scale war against Iran despite the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding and would likely want to start with another round of high-level assassinations. At the end of May, Capital & Empire reported that Israel was pressing the US for the resumption of large-scale strikes on Iran that would involve the targeted killing of Ghalibaf.

RUSSIA LEARNS FROM IRAN WAR /Alastair Crooke & Lt Col Daniel Davis

German prosecutors accuse Kyiv of ordering 2022 Nord Stream sabotage

German prosecutors have accused Ukrainian “state authorities” of ordering the 2022 explosives attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe, a charge likely to ignite tensions between Kyiv and Berlin, its biggest military backer. The sabotage in the Baltic Sea by a team of assailants almost entirely destroyed the seafloor infrastructure of the key source of Russian gas to Germany.

A suspect who was arrested last August in Italy and extradited to Germany in November was indicted this week. He was named at the time of his capture as Serhiy Kuznietsov. The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement it had charged him with war crimes “for an attack on a civilian site” as well as causing an explosion and disrupting public services.

Crucially, the office said Kuznietsov, then an officer in the Ukrainian army, had, together with other members of the military, devised the plan to destroy Nord Stream pipelines 1 and 2 “on the orders of state authorities in Ukraine” after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Nord Stream 1 pipeline was a vital route for Russian gas exports to Europe, while Nord Stream 2 was yet to enter service. “The aim was to permanently halt gas supplies via the pipelines and prevent Russia from using the revenue from natural gas trade to finance its war effort,” the prosecutors said.

At the time of the attack, Moscow had recently choked off deliveries via Nord Stream 1, citing western sanctions and technical issues, though European countries accused it of weaponising gas supplies. Germany, the EU’s top economy, was forced to scramble in the ensuing months to meet its energy needs. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Wednesday he was yet to receive full details of the indictment, which had been served that day, Reuters reported. ​The list of charges was published on Thursday. “The relevant authorities of our ‌countries will get in touch, and when ‌we receive more details, we will probably be able to respond. For now, it is too early to speak,” he said.

Germany has overtaken the US as Ukraine’s single biggest national military backer. The German government did not immediately comment on the charges.

Voters Rank Billionaires, Then Corporate Landlords as Top Villains to US Society and Economy

After finding last fall that a majority of voters believe

life in the United States is getting worse, and many are “extremely worried” about issues including cost of living, division, authoritarianism, wealth inequality, and the climate crisis, the polling firm Data for Progress decided to have Americans name the “bad actors” most responsible for the country’s concerning conditions.

In a pair of surveys conducted last month, Data for Progress asked more than 2,000 Americans to rate the impact of various groups or industries on the US economy—“things like jobs, prices, and economic growth”—as well as American society, or “things like feelings of community, well-being, and social trust.”

The top villains, according to respondents, are the nation’s nearly 1,000 billionaires, then corporate landlords. Rounding out the top 10 were sports gambling marketplaces, artificial intelligence companies, cryptocurrency firms, payday lenders, the Republican Party, social media giants, the Democratic Party, and for-profit universities.

Respondents were asked to rank each group or industry on a seven-point scale from “extremely negative” to “extremely positive.”

Those with the most positive views were small businesses, libraries, regional banks and credit unions, charitable organizations, hospitals, churches, public K-12 schools, online shopping platforms, large grocery companies, big box retailers, and urgent care clinics.

“Within categories, we see some meaningful differences between individual actors—mom-and-pop landlords, small regional banks, public K-12 schools, and renewable energy companies are viewed more positively than their counterparts: corporate landlords, multinational banks, charter K-12 schools, and oil and gas companies,” the progressive polling firm noted.

With the November midterm elections just four months away, and Democrats trying to seize control of both chambers of Congress as progressives within the party notch key wins over more moderate candidates, Data for Progress executive director Ryan O’Donnell said that “effective populist messaging requires calling out the actors actually making life worse for Americans, and right now, that includes Big Tech and the billionaires behind it.”

“As AI continues to impact people’s lives directly—whether it’s a data center in their backyard or a job replaced by automation—AI companies and tech billionaires are setting themselves up to be the next big villains in American politics,” he added.

Earlier this week, as the US Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority “gave their blessing for billionaires to buy even more influence over the politicians who represent us,” the watchdog Public Citizen released a report about soaring corporate political spending since the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, including $517 million in this cycle so far.

Some of the top villains from Thursday’s polling were key contributors to that figure: “Cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, Big Tech, and online betting corporations have collectively spent $294 million to influence federal elections in the 2026 midterm cycle.”

Blasting the corporate spending as “a disaster for democracy,” the report’s author, Rick Claypool, said that “if the current, broken campaign finance system remains unchallenged—and corporate spending is allowed to drown out the voices of real voters and real people—these corporate campaigns will keep multiplying, even as voting rights for individual Americans face escalating attacks.”

That report and the Data for Progress polling were notably published as more than 250 million people across the United States faced high temperatures tied to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency—and, as Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices due to strained power grids.

Americans are also awaiting the fate of the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act—which includes a ban on corporate investors buying single-family homes to rent out—because Republican President Donald Trump has refused to sign it in an effort to bully GOP lawmakers into passing a legislative attack on voting rights.

In a comment that multiple congressional Democrats said shows Trump “does not care” about Americans’ cost of living concerns, Trump on Monday called the affordable housing bill a “big yawn” compared with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE America, Act that he wants Congress to send to his desk.

Jobs DISASTER, BBQ Prices Skyrocket

US employers added just 57,000 new jobs in June, lower than expected

US job growth slowed in June as employers added 57,000 new jobs – just about half of what economists had predicted – and the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its figures from the past two months down by a total of 74,000.

The country’s unemployment rate dropped slightly to 4.2%, but the number of unemployed people changed little, according to the latest data, as 720,000 people left the labor force. The bureau revised the unexpectedly high May figures from 172,000 new jobs to 129,000, and revised the April figures from 179,000 to 148,000.

Though the numbers fell short of economists’s expectations, the average number of jobs added in the last three months was about 111,000, indicating a relatively strong job market despite economic uncertainty and higher inflation brought on by the war in the Middle East. The figures also remain much higher than the sluggish growth seen last fall and winter.

Private employers added 98,000 jobs in June, according to data from the payroll supplier ADP, and pay was up 4.4% year-over-year for those who have stayed in their jobs for the year. Workers in finance saw the highest increase in their annual pay, at 5%. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, also released earlier this week, the number of job openings, hires and voluntary separations all changed very little in May, indicating that the economy is still in a “low hire, low fire” mode.

Louisiana: Republican attorney general indicted on criminal charges

Louisiana’s Republican attorney general was indicted on Thursday on criminal charges by a grand jury in New Orleans, accused of trying to intimidate local officials who fought a law enacted by GOP legislators to overhaul the local courts.

Liz Murrill, the attorney general, told eight New Orleans officials, including Helena Moreno, the mayor, and Jason Williams, the district attorney, that they could face removal from their jobs because of their opposition to the law.

It eliminated the position of Orleans parish criminal court clerk after Calvin Duncan, a man who spent decades in prison for a wrongful conviction, was elected to the post with 68% of the vote.

Legislators approved the law at the urging of the Republican governor, Jeff Landry, just days before Duncan was to take office in May. Duncan’s supporters saw it as a move by a majority-white conservative legislature to thwart the will of voters in a predominantly Black Democratic hub in a red state.

Trump administration can remove history and climate info from US parks, court says

The Trump administration does not have to reinstate materials related to climate change, immigration and slavery that it has removed from national parks, a US appeals court ruled on Thursday. It’s the latest twist in a legal battle over how history is remembered at American public monuments.

At the behest of Donald Trump, the federal government has over the last year dismantled plaques and signage deemed to be “ideological indoctrination”, a move the president characterized as the restoration of “truth and sanity to American history” in a 2025 executive order.

The National Parks Conservation Association and the Association of National Park Rangers, among other advocacy groups, have challenged the removals in court, filing a February lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and NPS.

Thursday, a three-judge panel with the US court of appeals for the first circuit determined that a lower court erred in its finding that the advocacy groups would suffer “irreparable harm” if the contested materials were not promptly put back. According to the ruling, the district court’s determination that the Trump administration was erasing certain histories and degrading public trust did not amount to “any specific harms likely to be experienced by the plaintiffs”.

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Kamala CRAWLS BACK To Palestine Activists in DESPERATE 2028 Ploy

Who Is Funding the Democrats Who Say ‘We’re Capitalists, Not Socialists’? Probably These Billionaire Capitalists

More than a dozen corporate Democrats last week responded to upstart progressive wins in primaries by pledging their support to a political manifesto called “Promise to America,” which emphasizes support for capitalism, law enforcement, and “fiscal discipline.”

A Thursday report published by Sludge about the Promise to America found that it “is closely tied to the Welcome Party, a group whose PAC has received more than half of its individual contributions from billionaires.”

According to Sludge, the Promise to America appeared in public for the first time last month at Welcome Party’s annual WelcomeFest conference, where it was signed by Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Adam Gray (D-Calif.).

Other prominent Democrats who have signed the pledge include Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Vincente Gonzalez (D-Texas), and Don Davis (D-NC).

Although Sludge uncovered no evidence that Welcome Party is financially supporting the Promise to America, the manifesto’s presence at the group’s conference was notable given that billionaire donations account for more than 60% of the $10.8 million in donations that it has received over the last five years.

Major donors to the PAC include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who has donated a total of $1.8 million, and former 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch, who with his wife Kathryn has donated $2.5 million.

Other notable billionaires who have contributed to WelcomePAC include Bain Capital co-founder Joshua Bekenstein, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and several members of the Walton family.

Sludge’s investigation also found that “more billionaires may have donated to the Welcome Party’s two ‘dark money’ nonprofit arms, which do not disclose their donors publicly.”

The Promise to America manifesto has drawn heavy criticism from progressives.

In a recent interview with political commentator Santita Jackson, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said that the corporate Democrats’ pledge was a reactive document that lacked policy solutions to the problems facing Americans.

“Okay fine, if you’re against [democratic socialists], that’s okay. But what do you believe?” said Ocasio-Cortez. “And that I think is the core of the weaknesses from that wing at this moment. There’s no affirmative vision really coming from most places in the Democratic Party with the exception of democratic socialism.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) last week also challenged the corporate wing of the party in a speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives in which he defended the vision being laid out by progressive insurgents.

“The progressive movement is winning across the country, from the heart of New York to Michigan to Maine,” Khanna said. “The people are saying no to foreign wars and they’re saying no to genocide in Gaza. They’re saying no to the unfair and lopsided economy that has allowed a few people to hoard extreme wealth and power, and they’re saying yes to Medicare for All.”

DSA Challenger DEFEATS 15-Term AIPAC Incumbent in Colorado

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Forecasters warn of record-breaking US summer heat amid intense El Niño

Meteorologists are anticipating a tumultuous summer that could rank as one of the US’s hottest ever. New data released on Tuesday showed the first six months of the year were the hottest ever measured for parts of eight western states. That data arrives as a potentially record-breaking heatwave is under way in the east. The National Weather Service expects temperatures over the Fourth of July holiday weekend to approach all-time highs from Washington DC to New York with sweltering heat indexes topping 115F (46C).

This week’s intense heatwave will affect more than 100 million Americans and will be intensified by the growing influence of El Niño and a drought affecting 45 states.

Across the western US, numerous wildfires have broken – including in the mountains of Colorado where a record-warm start to the year has left a dearth of winter snows. Local officials have been working for months to strengthen preparations for what is expected to be a brutal fire season. That includes sourcing additional equipment and working to free up additional federal support from the US Wildland Fire Service, a newly consolidated federal agency.

“We have known since April 1st that snowpack is very low across the western US,” said Guillaume Mauger, the state climatologist of Washington. “Knowing what to expect early on gives people time to prepare.” Mauger cautioned that while there were many factors that will influence this summer’s weather, the ongoing drought and a strengthening El Niño will continue to tilt the odds toward unusually warm temperatures. Research has tied low April snowpack to a higher risk of mountain wildfires across the entire intermountain west.

Scientists fear seabird die-off as El Niño looms: ‘We don’t know how bad this will get’

Within minutes of walking on a San Diego beach, marine ornithologist Tammy Russell found the feathered carcasses – one after another. Some were mixed in with washed up kelp. Others were under rocks. Each month, scientists and volunteers conduct surveys of dead seabirds and find what Russell describes as a grim assessment of the impact of a massive marine heat wave that has lingered for months off parts of the California coast.

The surveys that have been carried out by various organizations for decades help build a baseline of information on beached sea life to detect threats and their impact.

Many seabirds, including California brown pelicans, loons and grebes, starved to death in recent months as record-setting ocean temperatures decreased the band of cold, nutrient-rich surface water where krill, anchovies and sardines thrive near the shore, said Russell, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“We’ve been seeing cormorants walk to shore and then just die within the hour. I mean, one time it happened within 15 minutes, and I’ve never seen that before,” Russell said. “That has been heartbreaking for me and we’re seeing this happening across the whole coast.”

Scientists fear the die-off could worsen with the recently formed El Niño, the natural warming of parts of the central Pacific that alters weather worldwide and spikes global temperatures. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in June confirmed an El Niño has formed, and it is expected to grow to historic strength.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.

War Crimes, War Powers, and American Sovereignty

Iran War: Vance Confirms Plan to Use “Deal” as Minsk-Type Pause to Restock Fuel (and Arms); US Ostentatiously Failing to Implement MOU, Seeking to Isolate Iran Over Strait of Hormuz Control

Jonathan Cook: ‘Mixed Marriages: a Second Holocaust’

US Presbyterian Church votes to recognise Gaza genocide

Ben Jennings on the US’s 250th birthday under Donald Trump – cartoon

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A Little Night Music

Talking Heads - Life During Wartime

Robert Earl Keen - 4th of July

The Del McCoury Band & Bluegrass Congress - White House Blues

The Byrds - Chimes of Freedom

John Lee Hooker - The Motor City is Burning

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - This Land Is Your Land

Chuck Berry - Back In The USA

Alice Cooper - I Love America

Guess Who- American Woman

Gil Scott Heron & Brian Jackson – Bicentennial Blues

Leonard Cohen - Democracy

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