curated citations to news sources
Adam Kinzinger: How Trump Is Undermining the National Guard—and America
As a former Guardsman, I’ve seen the damage this kind of abuse can do—both to the soldiers and to the country.
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I served in the National Guard. I know what it means when that activation call comes in. It’s not just a change in plans for the weekend—it upends lives. Guardsmen are citizen-soldiers. They have civilian jobs, family responsibilities, and community commitments. Many are single parents who must suddenly scramble to find childcare, miss paychecks, or rely on friends and family to hold their lives together while they are away. When they answer the call for a hurricane, a wildfire, a flood, or a war zone overseas, they do it because those missions serve the public good. They put their personal lives on hold for something larger than themselves. But when they are ordered to stand on street corners in American cities to serve the political optics of a president looking to project strength and dominance, that is an abuse of their service and their oath.
These deployments don’t just disrupt the lives of those currently serving; they corrode the very foundation of the National Guard’s relationship with the public. Recruitment in the Guard is already facing serious challenges. The next generation of young Americans is not looking to enlist in order to confront peaceful protesters or to patrol neighborhoods at the whim of a president’s political calculations. When service becomes synonymous with suppressing dissent, the pipeline of willing and capable recruits will dry up even faster. And once lost, rebuilding that trust—and those ranks—will take decades, if it happens at all.
(Adam Kinzinger more…)
Bulwark: How To Prepare for Trump Taking Over Your City
A leading Democratic mayor has a game plan. But he also has concerns that the national party isn’t doing more to support them.
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It’s worth noting that all of the cities Trump mentioned have seen homicide and violent crime decline this year. They’re also all in Democratic-run states, placing leadership there in an unprecedented situation: anticipating the possibility of some sort of confrontation with federal authorities.
(Bulwark more…)
Waging Nonviolence: Free DC models effective resistance to Trump’s takeover
Free DC models effective resistance to Trump’s takeover
Washington, D.C. residents’ rapid response to Trump’s National Guard deployment is a masterclass in how to prepare for crises and fight authoritarianism.
- Plan ahead
- Lead with values
- Do not obey in advance
- Prioritize joy
- Take up space
- Be in solidarity
- Organize
- Tell institutional leaders what to do
- Give clear instructions for involvement
- Build for the long haul
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 13, 2025
On August 14, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While he had already put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently changed the nature of the American government.
The Social Security Act established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services. It was a sweeping reworking of the relationship between the government and its citizens, using the power of taxation to pool funds to provide a basic social safety net.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Rebecca Solnit: Stick With the Facts & Don’t Be Like Them: Some Notes on a Spate of Recent Misreadings
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Guardian: Juneau orders evacuations as record glacier flood looms
Juneau orders evacuations as record glacier flood looms
Mendenhall Glacier outburst threatens homes, with scientists warning events are intensifying
Alaska’s capital city of Juneau is urging many residents to evacuate, bracing for the arrival of what could be record floodwaters flowing downstream from a basin dammed by the area’s Mendenhall Glacier, with the event being driven by climate change amid glacial retreat, according to a federal agency.
(Guardian more…)
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AXIOS: These states have the highest COVID cases right now as “stratus” variant erupts
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RNS: How Doug Wilson’s child-rearing tips baptize parents into Christian nationalism
The theologies espoused by Wilson and company are not theoretical — they have a far-reaching, destructive impact.
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In my research, I’ve read scores of popular Christian parenting books, including Wilson’s copious writings. In them, he encourages followers to employ corporal punishment from infancy, alongside “reigns of terror,” in which parents spank children without explanation for every infraction to establish first-time obedience.
(RNS more…)
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Times of London: US and Russia ‘propose West Bank-style occupation of Ukraine’
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Daily Beast: Trump’s New Stats Boss Exposed as Part of Jan. 6 MAGA Mob
JUST WANDERED OVER?
Unearthed images show E.J. Antoni among the crowds of the president’s supporters.
(Daily Beast more…)TNR: Trump Team Has Bonkers Excuse for Why BLS Pick Was at January 6 Riot
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Jess Piper: Will work for food
The price of groceries
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Conversation: Why rural Coloradans feel ignored − a resentment as old as America itself
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TNR: Donald Trump Is a Bird Killer
He claims to care that wind turbines kill a (statistically insignificant) number of birds. But his administration’s policies are downright murderous toward our avian friends.
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Bulwark: Trump Demands the Smithsonian Deliver Shiny, Happy History
His fascistic insistence that it eliminate “divisive or partisan narratives” reveals what he doesn’t understand about history and about America.
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404 Media: ICE Adds Random Person to Group Chat, Exposes Details of Manhunt in Real-Time
Members of a law enforcement group chat including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies inadvertently added a random person to the group called “Mass Text” where they exposed highly sensitive information about an active search for a convicted attempted murderer seemingly marked for deportation, 404 Media has learned.
FIGHT THE TRUMP TAKEOVER: National Day of Action Saturday 08.16.2025
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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