curated citations to news sources

[site access disrupted after May 28 Austin storms/power/Internet outages]

Dispatch: How Kindness Became Criminalized

Three years ago, the city of Tempe, Arizona, was celebrating Austin Davis as a hero. It even gave him an award for his charitable work, which included driving the city’s homeless people to addiction or mental health services and putting on Sunday picnics, where he shared food with those who were hungry. Last summer, he was jailed for the same work.

In 2023, the city began requiring Davis’ group, AZ Hugs, to obtain “special events” permits to host public picnics. Even though Davis didn’t think the law applied to him, he tried to get one. But the city said he wasn’t qualified because he had continued these picnics while his application was pending.

Undeterred, Davis continued to share food, taking care to clean up after each event. Equally undeterred, Tempe police began citing him each time. After multiple charges, threats of serious fines, and even spending a night in jail, Davis finally relented. He accepted a plea deal that prohibited him from entering public parks or any other areas where homeless people gathered.


(Dispatch more…)

• Jess Piper: Applebaum and Joplin

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  I have read Applebaum before, and she is a Pulitzer Prize winning author for a reason, but her work is not for the faint of heart.

  She cuts through theocratic and autocratic systems of oppression and lays it out for all to see. Her book looks at autocracies – Russia and China and Iran and North Korea and Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Those autocratic countries that work together to support one another. How they preserve their power and undermine the democratic world.

  I listened to the stories of very transparent corruption in these countries, and I couldn’t help but think about how all of the structures to support autocracy have been put in place in our country. I recognized these structures immediately because I live in a red state and we have been the proving ground for autocrats for decades.
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  Show up. It sounds so easy…so why aren’t we?
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  Show up and see what happens.
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  Start by showing up.
  (Jess Piper more…)

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• Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 2, 2025

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  Ernst blamed the “hysteria that’s out there coming from the left” for the outcry over her comments. Like other Republicans, she claims that the proposed cuts of more than $700 billion in Medicaid funding over the next ten years is designed only to get rid of the waste and fraud in the program. Thus, they say, they are actually strengthening Medicaid for those who need it.

  But, as Linda Qiu noted in the New York Times today, most of the bill’s provisions have little to do with the “waste, fraud, and abuse” Republicans talk about. They target Medicaid expansion, cut the ability of states to finance Medicaid, force states to drop coverage, and limit access to care. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the cuts mean more than 10.3 million Americans will lose health care coverage.

  House speaker Mike Johnson has claimed that those losing coverage will be 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants, but this is false. …
  …
  In fact, the CBO estimates that the tax cuts and additional spending in the measure mean “[a]n increase in the federal deficit of $3.8 trillion.”. …
  (Heather Cox Richardson more…)

  Thom Hartmann: Why Do America’s Workers Need Welfare? The Scandal Nobody Talks About

  Exploring the GOP’s strategy to keep wages low and the poor desperate…

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• 404 Media: Anti-Porn Laws’ Real Target Is Free Speech

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• Stephen Robinson: The real cover-up is of Trump’s disordered mental state

  Daily Beast: Trump Rages at Claim He Launched Harvard War Because He Didn’t Get In

  RawStory: Trump rages against Amy Coney Barrett in meltdowns over rulings

  Daily Beast: Furious Trump Vows Payback After His Athlete Order Was Ignored

  Borowitz: Trump Puts Musk in Charge of Absorbing All Drugs Coming into US

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• Dan Pfeiffer: Pardons for Sale, Free Jets, and Crypto Schemes: Why Trump’s Corruption Doesn’t Stick

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• Daily: Investigation Launched Into RFK Jr. Using AI To Write MAHA Report

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  In a letter to RFK Jr., House Oversight Committee ranking member Stephen Lynch wrote:

  I write with serious concerns about the report recently released by the White House titled “The MAHA Report: Make Our Children Healthy Again” (the Report). Despite the Report’s insistence on “pursuing truth” and “embracing science,”1 public reporting has revealed that the Report cites scientific studies that do not exist, misrepresents the findings of certain studies, and may have used artificial intelligence (AI) to draw conclusions that are not based on actual scientific research.
  (Daily more…)

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• NY Times: Trump Talks a Lot About Antisemitism, With a Notable Caveat

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  In a social-media post on Monday afternoon, Trump condemned Sunday’s attack in Boulder, Colo., where witnesses said a man threw two Molotov cocktails at people attending a peaceful march in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, wounding at least 12. The man, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, was charged with a federal hate crime after he said he wanted to “kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead,” according to court filings.

  But Trump’s post made no mention of Jews or antisemitism. He pinned blame for the attack on former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and said it was a reminder of “why we must keep our borders SECURE.” (Soliman, who emigrated from Egypt, had overstayed his visa and applied for asylum, officials at the Department of Homeland Security said.) Stephen Miller, a deputy White House chief of staff, also made no mention of antisemitism in his posts on social media about the attack, focusing only on the suspect’s immigration status.
  (NY Times more…)

  ProPublica: The Tech Recruitment Ruse That Has Avoided Trump’s Crackdown on Immigration

  NewsNation: Boulder attack suspect says he planned violence for a year

  • Mohamed Sabry Soliman charged with federal hate crime in Colorado
  • He told investigators he originally planned to kill everyone at the demonstration
  • Soliman has been living in US since 2022 on an overstayed tourism visa

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• Independent: Pro-MAGA reporter fired after questioning why Pete Hegseth hides from the media

  Daily Beast: Defense Official Warned Pentagon of ‘Grave Risk’ to National Security Over Harvard Cuts

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• MetaFilter: Actor Jonathan Joss murdered in homophobic attack

  Independent: Arson, threats and homophobia claims: What we know about Jonathan Joss shooting as suspect named

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• ars Technica: Analysis: Trump’s “Gold Standard Science” is already wearing thin

  FDA head uses great-sounding science standards to dismiss COVID vaccine benefits.

  NY Times: The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research.

  Thousands of scientists, academics, physicians and researchers have responded to the administration’s executive order about “restoring a gold standard for science.”

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• Bulwark: Mike Lindell Is Texting Me From His Defamation Trial

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• Dean Blundell: Ukraine Bombed the Kerch Bridge a Day After Taking Out 1/3 of Putin’s Long Rang Bombers

  Atlantic: Ukraine’s Warning to the World’s Other Military Forces

  Expensive planes, tanks, and ships can be destroyed on the cheap.
  

  
  
  
  (Atlantic more…)

  James Eagle: Russia’s drone barrage hits new highs

  
  
  

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  Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda

  Project 2025 Tracker

  DOGE Tracker

  ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew