curated citations to news sources
Rebecca Solnit: Please Shout Fire. This Theater Is Burning
The United States is being destroyed from within, and mainstream journalism isn’t making that clear. When I was a kid, there was a popular phrase–“what if they had a war and no one came?” What if we were in a war and no one noticed? Obviously all the people under direct attack have noticed, along with all the scientists and federal employees who’ve been fired, the foreign students afraid to come back, the medical professionals who understand what’s happening to public health, the economists who see the wrecking ball swinging, the university administrators whose institutions are under attack. I think most of us feel it and see it and know it. But too many of the powerful voices in this country are downplaying the crisis we’re in, and that tamps down the reactions that could save us.
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Two things under attack are the rule of law and the separation of powers, but the impact is largely downplayed. This year we’ve all heard a lot about the three co-equal branches of government. But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who, after the Big Brutal Bill (BBB) passed, literally handed his gavel to Trump in a horrifying gesture of surrender, is clearly and openly taking orders from him. Johnson is not interested in defending Congress’s powers, and so important powers Congress has, namely the power of the purse, the power to control the allocation and flow of federal funds, have been surrendered.
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
Bulwark: Trump’s Foreign Policy: Felons First
The pattern is clear—he’s using American power not to help Americans but to shield foreign authoritarians from justice.
Jennifer Rubin: Stopping Trump isn’t Enough
It’s time to hold lawbreakers accountable
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Closer to the Edge: George Retes was abducted. ICE is hiding him.
They didn’t arrest George Retes — they abducted him. Let’s call it what it is. On July 10th, 2025, ICE agents smashed through the window of his car, pepper-sprayed him in the face, tackled him to the ground like an enemy combatant, and then vanished him. George Retes is a 25-year-old disabled U.S. Army veteran. He is a U.S. citizen. But that didn’t matter. Not to the badge-wearing cowards who swept through Camarillo, California like thugs on a purge night, armed with the full force of a government that no longer feels bound by law, reason, or humanity.
And now? George Retes is missing. His family has no idea where he is. The local sheriff has no clue, the city police can’t help, the county officials pretend their hands are tied. Every institution that is supposed to keep citizens safe and accounted for is shrugging its shoulders, as if a man can just be snatched off the street and dropped into some Kafkaesque black site without consequence. This is what state-sponsored kidnapping looks like when it wears a federal badge.
(Closer to the Edge more…)
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Law & Chaos: Judge Orders ICE Goons To Stop Racial Profiling And Start Following The Constitution
Reasonable suspicion requires more than being Hispanic at Home Depot.
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KTLA5: Labor union says California university professor was taken during Camarillo immigration raid protest
(KTLA5 more…)
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Ken Klippenstein: I Triggered Another Federal Investigation
The Army’s keystone cops are on the case
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My report detailed the Guard’s Operation Excalibur in Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park. The article revealed “unclassified” documents leaked to me showing how uncoordinated and ridiculous the mission was in support of ICE and other homeland security brownshirts.Brownshirts, of course, is not the right word. Many in the military who are on the ground in Los Angeles think that ICE and others from homeland security dressing up in Army green and using armored vehicles on the streets of an American city undermines the reputation of the armed forces. At least in the field, they don’t want to be part of any Trump crusade, and are hesitant about being mixed in theatrical shows of force, which the MacArthur Park operation was.
(Ken Klippenstein more…)
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Business Insider: Revolt of the female execs
Musk, Bezos, and Zuck are going full alpha male. Women are fed up.
(Business Insider more…)
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Sunday Times: The tiny African kingdom brought to its knees by Trump
The US president insulted Lesotho, the continent’s denim capital, and hit it with the most punitive tariffs of any trading partner
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Trump viewed that figure against the $3 million in US exports to Lesotho as an injustice, rather than a sign of Agoa’s success. Calculating that the kingdom was effectively slapping a 99 per cent tariff on American goods, he responded with a “reciprocal” 50 per cent. The blow has been worsened by the dismantling of USAid, which had funded the jobs and health programmes that kept many alive in a country where one in four adults is HIV positive.
(Sunday Times more…)
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD: COVID & Health news, 7/13/25
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AZFamily: Dragon Bravo Fire destroys 50-80 structures at Grand Canyon; historic lodge gone
Gov. Katie Hobbs seeks independent investigation into handling of Dragon Bravo Fire
…Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has called for an independent probe into the management of Dragon Bravo Fire because, despite the blaze being lightning-caused, the feds decided to manage it as a controlled burn “during the driest, hardest part of the Arizona summer.”
“I am calling for the federal government to conduct a comprehensive, thorough, and independent investigation into the management of the Dragon Bravo Fire, and to produce a report detailing the decisions that led to this devastating outcome,” the governor said.
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NY Times: Excerpts From The Times’s Interview With Biden on Clemency Decisions
The former president said he “made every single one of those” decisions and that Republicans were questioning them because “they’ve done so badly” and wanted to shift the focus.
(NY Times more…)
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Times: The Tesla leaks: what it’s really like to work for Elon Musk
Oliver Moody reports on the whistleblowers who lifted the lid on the ‘cultlike hell’ of the electric car giant’s gigafactories — and the safety record it tried to keep secret
(Times more…)
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Texas Tribune: Why Greg Abbott refuses to release his emails with Elon Musk
The governor’s office said some of the correspondence with the billionaire and his companies contains “intimate” information that isn’t of “legitimate concern to the public.”
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – July 13, 2025
This weekend saw the development of an extraordinary rift in MAGA world.
…For the first time ever, Trump got ratioed on his own platform, meaning that there were more comments on his post than likes or shares, showing disapproval of his message. According to Jordan King of Newsweek, by 10:45 this morning (Eastern Time) it had more than 36,000 replies but only 11,000 reposts and 32,000 likes.
Trump sounds panicked, not only over the Epstein issue itself, but also because he cannot control the narrative his followers are embracing. After stoking the fire of his followers’ anger against what they seemed to see as powerful men getting away with crimes against children, he is now being burned by it. His reflex is to return to his greatest hits, accusing Democrats of writing the Epstein files and then, as he always, always, always does, snapping back to the Russia scandal and calling it a hoax.
Over the weekend, attendees at a conference held by the right-wing Turning Point USA booed the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case. MAGA influencers kept up the drumbeat; Matt Walsh called the administration’s about-face on releasing information “obvious bullsh*t.” Natalie Allison of the Washington Post reported that even the Fox News Channel warned this morning that “[t]here has to be some explanation” and that questions about the way the administration is handling the Epstein files were “very valid.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Judd Legum: How QAnon and Epstein sparked Trump’s political crisis
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Gil Duran: Epstein, Thiel, Trump and the Danger of Conspiracy Theory
Reality has become more conspiratorial than any conspiracy theory
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
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