curated citations to news sources
Sarah Jones: Pam Bondi Can’t Explain What Exactly She’s Doing to Ensure Our Safety
AG Pam Bondi expressed disbelief when told that ICE agents are wearing masks and she also doesn’t seem to believe that moving counterterrorism officials to immigration is endangering us.
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“I’m deeply concerned that the lack of identification during these activities is dangerous, both to the public as well as to the officers themselves,” Senator Peters said in a hearing on Capitol Hill. “The public risk being harmed by individuals pretending to be immigration enforcement, which has already happened. We’ve seen that happen, and these officers also risk being injured by individuals who think they’re basically being kidnapped or attacked by some unknown assailant.”
Peters tied this endangerment of the public to the broader lack of focus on national security under Trump, “So my question for you, Attorney General Bondi, is given the number of DOJ employees currently conducting immigration enforcement activities in support of DHS, how are you going to ensure that the safety of the public and the officers if they continue to not follow required protocol to identify themselves as law enforcement?”
Bondi pivoted to the officers’ concerns about being doxxed and threatened, which seems to suggest that she knows masking is happening, but then said she was unaware of it happening, but then agreed to look into the issue of ensuring proper identification.
(Sarah Jones more…)
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4 Washington: More than 30 arrested at Senate building while protesting Medicaid cuts
Video shows officers arresting demonstrators — some in wheelchairs — and putting their hands in zip-ties behind their backs.
(4 Washington more…)
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Defense One: The Army’s not sure what its new ‘Executive Innovation Corps’ will actually do
Silicon Valley tech leaders will go direct commission course, take a PT test, and presumably help make the Army more efficient.
(Defense One more…)
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ICE: Canadian national in ICE custody passes away
Guardian: US citizen arrested during Ice raid in what family describes as ‘kidnapping’
Andrea Velez, 32, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, had just been dropped off at work by her mother and sister
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“The only thing wrong with her … was the color of her skin,” Velez’s mother, Margarita Flores, told CBS Los Angeles.The incident comes as numerous US citizens have been swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. People have reported they are being targeted for their skin color and for attempting to aid immigrants being detained by immigration agents.
While it’s not yet clear how many citizens have been affected by the administration’s attack on immigrant communities, a government report found that between 2015 and 2020, Ice erroneously deported at least 70 US citizens, arrested 674 and detained 121.
Velez’s family was unaware of her whereabouts for more than a day until attorneys for the family tracked her down. “It took us four hours to find her and we’re attorneys. That’s crazy,” attorney Dominique Boubion told ABC7.
“Just to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you have the full weight of the federal government against you and your family can’t find you – it is very scary.”
(Guardian more…)
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Jonathan M. Katz: An illegal little war (that could become an illegal big war) [1 of 2]
Jonathan M. Katz: How the US-Israel ‘preemptive war’ on Iran may have triggered something worse [2 of 2]
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Foreign Affairs: Did the Attacks on Iran Succeed?
Israel and America Bought Themselves Time but Will Pay in Other Ways
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Neuroscience News: Robotic Heart Transplant Marks Surgical Breakthrough
Surgeons have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S., using advanced robotic tools to avoid opening the chest. This technique involved precise incisions and accessing the heart through the preperitoneal space, preserving the chest wall.
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Sarah Jones: Jane Goodall’s Reforestation Program Saved from Trump Cuts by Ecosia
Jane Goodall’s Tanzania reforestation program was hit with the massive cuts to USAID, but a search engine stepped in to save it and you can help.
(Sarah Jones more…)
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Adam Mockler: MAGA’s Racist Meltdown Just Exposed What We Already Knew
How MAGA extremists weaponize Islamophobia to divide America and why we must fight back.
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Vaccine policy meeting: The essentials
Foxes in the hen house and rising above the noise for fall
- Flu shots are recommended for everyone over 6 months. However, flu shots containing thimerosal (4–7% of supply) are not, not because of scientific evidence but because of falsehoods.
- RSV protection is recommended for pregnant women (vaccine), infants (monoclonal antibody) up to 18 months old, and older adults (vaccine). This fall, a second monoclonal antibody option will be available for parents (which is good) for kids up to 8 months old.
- Covid-19 will be available, but for whom, when, and what are still big questions. There was no vote. No guidance today. And there should have been.
(Your Local Epidemiologist more…)
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CNN: Details emerge of secret diplomatic efforts to restart Iran talks
The Trump administration has discussed possibly helping Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a civilian-energy-producing nuclear program, easing sanctions, and freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds – all part of an intensifying attempt to bring Tehran back to the negotiating table, four sources familiar with the matter said.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 26, 2025
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This afternoon, Zachary Cohen, Alayna Treene, Kylie Atwood, and Jennifer Hansler of CNN reported that the administration has been engaged in secret talks to ease sanctions on Iran, free up $6 billion in Iranian funds currently in foreign banks, and help Iran access as much as $30 billion to build a nuclear energy program, all in exchange for Iran freezing its nuclear enrichment program.Trump ran his 2016 campaign in part by attacking President Barack Obama for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was a much more stringent deal than the one suggested in the CNN article.
But there is perhaps a different angle to this deal than the Obama administration’s. The idea of building nuclear power plants in the Middle East was central to Trump’s 2016 bid for office. Members of Trump’s inner circle, including Michael Flynn and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, hatched a plan for a joint U.S.-Russian project to build nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia. In June 2016 they formed a company called IP3 International, short for International Peace, Power and Prosperity.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Gil Duran: Is Peter Thiel the Antichrist? NYT Didn’t Think to Ask
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“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop…” says Thiel, the Palantir co-founder and godfather of the so-called PayPal Mafia, which includes both Elon Musk and David Sacks.Thiel has repeatedly suggested that Greta Thunberg, the 22-year-old climate activist, is a possible candidate for Antichrist. But, given Thiel’s own criteria, perhaps he should look in a mirror.
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MEDIAite: ‘Normandy? Hiroshima?’ Pete Hegseth Roasted on Social Media for Calling Iran Strikes ‘Most Complex and Secretive’ Military Op in History
Charlotte Clymer: A Woman Is a Woman Until She’s a Boy
The curious worldview of Pete Hegseth.
…A grown woman, among the best trained combat pilots in the world, was referred to as “a boy” by a Defense Secretary who wakes up every morning with a personal vendetta against anyone who expresses the slightest fluidity in gender terminology.
He now thinks it doesn’t matter, but if it doesn’t matter, as Shannon Watts smartly observed, wouldn’t it be fine to refer to this fine group of pilots as “the girls”?
(Charlotte Clymer more…)Mary Geddry: Trump’s White House, You Can’t Parody A Parody
Trump turns tax policy into folklore, immigration into fiction, and a press conference into a spectacle of lies.
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Texas Tribune: Trump administration expands military’s role at the border to the southern tip of Texas
The newly annexed 250-mile stretch at the border spans two counties and runs alongside cities including Brownsville and McAllen.
SANTA FE, N.M. — The Department of Defense is expanding a militarized zone along the southern U.S. border where troops are authorized to detain people who enter illegally for possible federal prosecution on charges of trespassing in a national defense area.
The Air Force announced Monday the annexation of a serpentine 250-mile stretch of the border in Texas amid a buildup of military forces under President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border. A Defense Department official said the Navy also has been instructed to establish a new national defense area at the border. The official didn’t provide further details.
(Texas Tribune more…)
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Decoding Fox News: As Fox News Beats the Drums of War Trump Sinks in the Polls
A condensed overview of 28 hours of Fox News for the week ending 6/22/25
(Decoding Fox News more…)
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties