curated citations to news sources
Michael Thomas: Trump’s Latest Policy Could Threaten Every Wind Project in America
President Trump has been a vocal opponent of wind energy for more than a decade. But up until recently, his policies have never matched his rhetoric.
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Shortly before he took office in January, Trump told reporters in Mar-a-Lago that his second administration would take a very different approach to wind energy. “We are going to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he said.
The growth of wind energy and the legal guardrails that should make such policy impossible made it easy to dismiss this early warning sign. Since then, it’s become clear that the administration is willing to break laws and pursue unprecedented policies to stop wind energy development entirely.
A new escalation that could threaten every wind project
This week, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman broke a story about the administration’s latest attack on wind energy:
The Transportation Department last Tuesday declared that it would now call for a national 1.2-mile property setback — that is, a mandatory distance requirement — for all wind facilities near railroads and highways.
A 1.2-mile setback in a country with as many highways and railroads as ours would restrict development on a huge swatch of the country’s land. But it was a single sentence buried in the same release that signaled a threat that could be much larger.
DOT said that it would instruct the Federal Aviation Administration to “thoroughly evaluate proposed wind turbines to ensure they do not pose a danger to aviation” — a signal that a once-routine FAA height clearance required for almost every wind turbine could now become a hurdle for the entire sector.
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South China Morning Post: As Trump funding cuts hit even maths prodigy Terence Tao, China remains a talent magnet
Trump-era cuts are hobbling US research, while China has stepped up efforts to attract science and tech talent, particularly mathematicians
Renowned mathematician Terence Tao says funding delays at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have left his lab struggling to support graduate students and research projects.
(South China Morning Post more…)Bulwark: He’s the ‘Mozart’ of Math and Trump Killed His Funding
The latest casualty in the administration’s assault on higher education is a legendary researcher who embodies the best of America.
Register: Trump calls for Intel CEO’s head over alleged China links
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TNR: The Diversity Bell That Trump Can’t Un-ring
The biggest problem with the history Trump wants to impose on us is that it never, in fact, existed.
(TNR more…)
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Jay Kuo: ICE Is Having Trouble Recruiting
But you should see who they’re encouraging to join.
- Sign-on bonuses, student debt relief, hefty overtime and generous benefits
… - Eliminating the age cap …
- Poaching from local law enforcement …
- White nationalist and fascist themes …
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These are just some of the white supremacists people were able to out or spot. By inviting new hires to “Defend your culture!,” DHS is now supercharging recruitment of white supremacists into the ranks of ICE. And it is doing so intentionally.This is nothing short of the KKK being reconstituted within the government itself, being granted official permission to remain anonymous behind masks, and handed near boundless resources to continue a campaign of terror against immigrants and racial minorities.
(Jay Kuo more…)Adam Kinzinger: The DOJ Just Hired a Man Who Cheered for Cops to Be Killed
He called Capitol police “Nazis” and screamed “Kill ’em!” Now he’s working at the Department of Justice.
USA Today: Actor Dean Cain, who played Superman in the ’90s, reveals he joined ICE
- Sign-on bonuses, student debt relief, hefty overtime and generous benefits
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 6, 2025
Members of the House of Representatives are back in their districts for August, and on Monday, Republican Mike Flood of Nebraska held a town hall in Lincoln. A woman asked what she called a fiscal question. She said: “With 450 million FEMA dollars being reallocated to open Alligator Alcatraz, and 600 million taxpayer FEMA dollars being used to now open more concentration camps, and ICE burning through $8.4 million a day to illegally detain people—How much does it cost for fascism? How much do the taxpayers have to pay for a fascist country?” The crowd cheered wildly. Nicholas Wu, Cassandra Dumay, and Mia McCarthy of Politico reported today that by the end of Flood’s town hall, “chants of ‘Vote him out!’ threatened to drown out his closing comments.”
The Politico reporters also said that Republicans maintain they aren’t worried about their angry constituents and dismiss the town hall pushback as astroturfed and not reflective of real voter sentiment.
Maybe. But with the political tide running strong against the administration, that position sounds like posturing.
…The Department of Homeland Security continues to echo the language of Nazis, posting today, “Serve your country! Defend your culture.” It does not appear that people are rushing to sign up. The administration has worked hard to recruit new agents, offering a signing bonus of up to $50,000 and help repaying student loans. Today, it eased requirements for new recruits, removing age limits and posting “no undergraduate degree required!” David Dayen of The American Prospect noted today that probationary employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been ordered to report to ICE within seven days or lose their jobs.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Jennifer Rubin: It’s About the Corruption
Ordinary Americans can expose it and hold Trump accountable
AXIOS: FBI will help locate Texas Democrats who fled the state, Cornyn says
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Mother Jones: The Nation’s Landmark Voting Rights Law Just Turned 60. It May Not Survive Trump.
“The long-term game is to repeal the Voting Rights Act.”
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Register: Trump surprises with TSMC $300B investment claim
The president’s casual assertion in a wide-ranging CNBC interview may have come as a surprise to TSMC, given that the contract chipmaker hung a $165 billion price tag on its American cash splurge just five months ago in a regulatory filing.
TSMC’s Phoenix plant was originally supposed to cost a mere $12 billion, but over the last five years the plan has expanded into a sprawling complex comprising six wafer fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center.
The first fab has been producing 4nm-process chips in volume since late last year. So far, there is no indication that TSMC is going to start more cutting-edge 3nm-process production anywhere outside of Taiwan.
TSMC declined to comment to The Register on Trump’s latest pronouncement, and also on a separate report, from Taiwan’s mnews.tw website, that claimed Trump has asked for major concessions from TSMC in exchange for reduced tariffs on Taiwanese exports to the US.
According to that unconfirmed report, Trump wants TSMC, the crown jewel of the Taiwanese economy, to both invest “an additional $400 billion” in the US and buy a 49 percent stake in Intel, the US’s ailing legacy chip giant.
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Fred Wellman: The Army is putting mental health back in the closet
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll shows he is fully onboard with turning back the clock on progress in the military and a simple memo stigmatizes mental health once again
…But, under the radar to the public, and even many that serve, has been the most disturbing to many of us who have fought the military for decades on the stigma surrounding mental health. This month Driscoll shockingly waived most outprocessing mental health evaluations for departing soldiers from the service.
It feels like a minor little change but for those who have tracked the devastating suicide and addiction epidemic in the Army, he just turned back the clock and the fall out will be paid for years.
(Fred Wellman more…)
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Above the Law: Congress Just Deleted Habeas Corpus From The Constitution On Its Website
Pop quiz: how many sections does Article I of the Constitution have? If you choose to look it up on the official website of Congress, congress.gov, because you don’t want to trust not some sketchy Substack for sedition hobbyists, you’d say it has eight. Except it has ten. Congress has just deleted Section 9 (and 10) from the website where it maintains the “Constitution Annotated” as a public service. But it’s gone now. Because the sketchy sedition hobbyists are the ones running Congress now.We may need Nicholas Cage to steal the paper copy of the Constitution before it gets the Wite-Out treatment too.
(Above the Law more…)
Wayback Machine before and after side by side
Wayback Machine July 17, 2025
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/Borowitz: Republicans Accidentally Redraw Map of Texas to Make it Rejoin Mexico
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Guardian: JD Vance’s team had water level of Ohio river raised for family’s boating trip
Exclusive: Incident raises questions of exploitation of public services, but Secret Service says it was requested for ‘safe navigation’
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Daily Kos: Noem’s tease for new ‘Indy’ ICE prison crashes and burns
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AXIOS: Trump faces escalating GOP revolt on redistricting
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Daily Beast: Trump Makes JD Vance Awkwardly Deny Secret Epstein Crisis Talks
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
The president doubled down on his claim that the issue was a Democratic “hoax” with an added expletive.Independent: Trump team looking to Joe Rogan for help amid lingering Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell fallout, report says
Vice President JD Vance denied strategy dinner he was set to host with Justice and FBI leadership was about handling of ongoing Jeffrey Epstein case
Closer to the Edge: The man who let a monster walk
Charlie Sykes: The Victims of Epstein/Maxwell Would Like a Word
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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