curated citations to news sources
Bulwark: Andry Is Free. Trump’s Barbarous Immigration Regime Is Just Getting Started.
Andry is alive. And for now he is freed from a horrid detention center in El Salvador. Thank God.
This morning his mother is awaiting his arrival, supposedly today or tomorrow. They spoke by phone on Sunday for the first time in more than four months, according to his attorney. I cannot imagine her relief.
For 125 days Andry and hundreds of other men were held in a torture prison where they got a “beating for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner.” They had been kidnapped by our government and left in that hellhole to rot with no due process, no access to legal counsel, no phone call home. They were completely stripped of their humanity. In many cases their only crime was existing in Stephen Miller’s America while being Venezuelan. For some, their sin was having the wrong tattoo.
On Friday, these men were released, at long last, in what was described by the participating governments as a “prisoner exchange” between El Salvador and Venezuela. In reality this was a hostage swap between the United States and the Nicolás Maduro regime. A hostage swap in which the Americans were the villains, using a tactic previously deployed by despots like Putin, who imprisoned an American athlete for minor cannabis crimes in order to extract concessions from the earnest West.
It’s remarkable that our administration’s actions were so depraved that they somehow made Maduro seem like the good guy. We gave him a domestic public relations victory, so he can crow about the humanitarian aid he brought to Venezuelans who had been tortured by the capitalist American devil.
(Bulwark more…)
Human Rights Campaign: Andry Hernández Romero Released from El Salvador Prison
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Allison Gill: DOJ Analyst and Wife of ICEBlock App Developer Wrongfully Terminated
Laura Loomer called for Carolyn Feinstein’s termination on Twitter, then Tom Homan told Newsmax that he spoke to the DoJ about her. Carolyn was terminated within 24 hours.
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Business Insider: Canada First, Eh!
America’s terrible tariffs could be great news for Canada’s economy
(Business Insider more…)
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Covid-19 in pockets, sugar cane isn’t better, ticks march on, rescission cuts (vs. everything else), bright spots, and more
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Wired: How Trump Killed Cancer Research
Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research.
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Bulwark: Gabbard Garbles 2016 ‘Russiagate’ Intelligence
Her memo is smoke and mirrors—but it boosts both MAGA and Kremlin narratives.
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If true, that would indeed be outrageous. But this supposed scandal rests on a crude bait-and-switch. A quick look at the media reports Gabbard cites shows that they weren’t talking about altering the election outcome through “cyberattacks on election infrastructure”ؙ—that is, actual tampering with the vote count. Rather, the claims of election interference via cyber warfare concerned, as the Washington Post put it, “individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.”Was this a new, post-election assessment, as Gabbard seems to claim? Hardly: The same conclusion was announced at the start of the October 7, 2016 joint statement issued by the DNI and the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of seventeen intelligence agencies:
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. . . . We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.
Crooks and Liars: Gabbard Promises More Political Prosecutions, Accuses Obama Of ‘Treasonous Conspiracy’ Against Trump
The Trump administration has moved on from Comey and Brennan to Obama now with their desperate attempt to erase Trump’s Russiagate corruption and pretend it never existed.
Borowitz: Obama Posts Video of Trump Actually Getting Arrested in Real Life
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Egberto Willies: Many Democrats’ Epstein response show that theoretical empathy is no better than no empathy at all.
I will not be writing about the substance of the Epstein case, as given today’s reality, I do not believe it has any upside for people experiencing poverty, working, or middle-class. It remains a distraction. I may sound a bit callous because of the 250+ underage girls that were involved. I feel for any underage girl, or any woman, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump may have taken advantage of to my core. But I know it has virtually no effect on the Trump base voter. They are only upset because they are not getting documents to embarrass or imprison LIBERALS. The fact that this president elected a known degenerate is proof enough that we are willing to ignore the terrible deeds of powerful men for many reasons, prejudice playing a significant role.
(Egberto Willies more…)
Letter from Attorney General Bondi to FBI Director Patel – February 27, 2025
Allison Gill: The Epstein Cover-Up at the FBI
Lucian K. Truscott IV: Trump thought Epstein had taken his secret to the grave. How wrong he was.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – July 20, 2025
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You don’t need polls to see that Trump, at least, is panicking. He is throwing red meat to his base in what appears to be an attempt to regain control of the narrative. After his July 12 threat to strip comedian and talk show host Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship (she was born in New York, and he does not have that power), he has kept up a stream of social media posts that seem designed to distract his wavering followers from the news around them.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Judd Legum: Does Trump’s alleged letter to Epstein “sound like” Trump? An investigation.
Jonathan Larsen: Trump’s Epstein Letter Was in the FBI Review … But Not Released
A second newspaper reports that investigators kept copies of the letters from Epstein’s birthday book
Daily Beast: Epstein Victim Twice Urged FBI to Investigate Trump
Borowitz: School Group Visiting Mar-a-Lago Finds Epstein List in Bathroom
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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