curated citations to news sources
status_: WIRED for the Moment
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We’re witnessing, in real-time, a profound consolidation of power and collusion among political and tech elites—the ruling class of this country, and the world – wherein the tools and technologies that this industry has built, and continues to build, can now be deployed in service of an authoritarian regime. What happens when Trump decides he’s not so hot on TikTok’s algorithm showcasing Democratic candidates ahead of the midterms? Or when he really sinks his teeth into this notion of “woke A.I.”? How about when the Department of Homeland Security decides it needs even more surveillance power over American citizens?
(status_ more…)
Gil Duran: WIRED Editor: Tech Billionaires Threaten US Democracy
Slate: Trump Wants to Send the National Guard to Chicago. It’s Clear What This Is Really About.
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This is not crime policy. Trump is overriding state sovereignty, occupying local streets with federal troops, and transforming constitutional limits into stagecraft for a national audience. It is the open demonstration of a governing philosophy that substitutes force for persuasion, imagery for reality, and political theater for democratic restraint.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – August 25, 2025
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“Finally,” he said, “to the Trump administration officials who are complicit in this scheme, to the public servants who have forsaken their oath to the Constitution to serve the petty whims of an arrogant little man, to any federal official who would come to Chicago and try to incite my people into violence as a pretext for something darker and more dangerous, we are watching, and we are taking names. This country has survived darker periods than the one that we are going through right now. And eventually, the pendulum will swing back, maybe even next year. Donald Trump has already shown himself to have little regard for the many acolytes that he has encouraged to commit crimes on his behalf. You can delay justice for a time, but history shows you cannot prevent it from finding you eventually.
“If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law. As Dr. King once said, the arc of the moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Humbly, I would add, it doesn’t bend on its own. History tells us we often have to apply force needed to make sure that the arc gets where it needs to go. This is one of those times.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Jess Piper: Orange is the new nightmare
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I am scared, but I am also resolute. This nightmare will end and those inflicting death and pain will pay for their misdeeds and wickedness and crimes against humanity. I know this because of that History minor I received so many years ago.
I know we can end this together. They can’t keep going at this pace when citizens rise up.
I am awake…you are too.
Shake your neighbors. Wake them from the nightmare.
(Jess Piper more…)
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James Eagle: The real reason Trump attacked the Fed
Donald Trump’s Monday night bombshell, firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook “effective immediately”, marks a watershed moment for American capitalism. Not because Cook will actually be removed (she won’t), but because this desperate act of political theatre reveals something far more sinister: the world’s reserve currency is being undermined by a toxic cocktail of fiscal recklessness and institutional vandalism.
Let’s be clear: Cook isn’t going anywhere. The Supreme Court has already signalled that Fed governors cannot be removed without genuine cause, and claiming two properties as primary residences on mortgage applications, while potentially problematic, hardly constitutes the gross malfeasance required by law. Cook’s defiant response, backed by heavyweight attorney Abbe Lowell, sets up a legal battle Trump will almost certainly lose.
(James Eagle more…)WSJ: Trump Says He Is Removing Fed Governor Lisa Cook
(WSJ more…)NY Times: Can Trump Fire a Fed Governor? What to Know About the Legal Arguments.
The Supreme Court has indicated that there are distinctive reasons to shield the Federal Reserve from political interference.
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LA Times: Why are all these leading Democrats suddenly facing mortgage fraud charges? Guess who’s behind it
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What gets me, and should get you, is the flimsiness of these accusations despite how loudly they’ve been bruited about on the MAGA right as though they’re signals of profound moral turpitude on the part of the targets, and how they all originated in the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is led by Trump acolyte and sycophant William J. Pulte, in private life a big homebuilder.
(LA Times more…)
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Bulwark: The Bolton Raid Was Designed to Scare Us
I know because I was the first one there.
WSJ: Trump’s Vendetta Campaign Targets John Bolton
This FBI raid makes clearer that second-term success for the President includes retribution.
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Jennifer Rubin: Word & Phrases We Should Ignore
Assume bad faith from the Trump regime
Boing Boing: “A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator” — Trump suggests Americans are in the mood for fascism
Constitutional scholars use the “autocratic signaling” when leaders test public tolerance by “just wondering” if dictatorship might be preferable. Trump did exactly that today when he complained about Illinois Governor Pritzker’s resistance to his plans for a military takeover of Chicago. He said, “A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator.”When a president jokes, flirts, or wonders out loud whether Americans might want a dictator — even if he immediately walks it back — he is testing the boundaries of what the public, the press, and other power centers will tolerate. Dictatorships rarely arrive with tanks in the streets; they arrive when the language of democracy is hollowed out from within.
(Boing Boing more…)
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Lucian K. Truscott IV: This is getting very, very serious
Today, Donald Trump signed an executive order commanding Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to set up new “specialized units” within the National Guard, including ready reaction forces that will be available to move with 24 hours’ notice. These units will not be deployed against America’s enemies overseas but against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. Trump commanded specially trained National Guard units to be “available to assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, as appropriate under law.”
(Lucian K. Truscott IV more…)
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Hill: Vaccine skeptic to lead CDC COVID immunization working group
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In 2023, Levi spoke out against mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and called for their usage to be stopped “immediately.”
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Ken Klippenstein: Trump’s “Weapons of Mass Migration” Explains Targeting of DC, LA, Mexico, Venezuela
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Independent: Angry town hall attendee rips Republican congressman for sucking up to Trump: ‘The man is a dictator’
(Independent more…)
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Borowitz: National Guard Refuses to Go to Chicago, Citing Bone Spurs
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
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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