curated citations to news sources
Yale School of Public Health: Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization
…Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time. While this study does not answer the question of how many children from Ukraine are currently in Russia’s custody, it does reveal the logistical and operational capacity committed to Russifying children taken from their home communities in Ukraine. This is the first detailed effort to study the number, types, and roles of locations utilized by Russia’s federal government, particularly regarding re-education and militarization, in efforts to Russify Ukraine’s children.
Lev Parnas: Kidnapped Children Forced to Build Putin’s War Machines
From Russia’s camps where kidnapped children are brainwashed, militarized, and turned into weapons against their own people, to Trump’s energy betrayal of Europe — the truth he doesn’t want you to see
Mindy Belz: Poland in the hot seat
Russian strikes have NATO looking to Ukraine for help
Missile parts found in Poland and drone debris in Latvia. NATO members say they are being targeted by Russia with drone swarms launched from Belarus, threatening a wider war, including stepped up defenses from the Atlantic alliance. All prompting this turnabout: NATO asking Ukraine for help.
National Security Journal: Putin Won’t Be Happy: Ukraine Is Now ‘Taking Territory’ In Donbas
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 18, 2025
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In Trump’s worldview, it appears, those who oppose him, those he calls “Democrats,” are anti-American and dangerous. In his first term, he insisted those people were organized as “Antifa,” for “anti-fascist.” In summer 2020, in the midst of protests after the murder of George Floyd, Trump threatened to designate “Antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.” When FBI director Chris Wray, whom Trump appointed himself, said antifa is an ideology, not an organization, Trump posted: “I look at them as a bunch of well funded ANARCHISTS & THUGS who are protected because the Comey/Mueller inspired FBI is simply unable, or unwilling, to find their funding source, and allows them to get away with ‘murder’. LAW & ORDER!”Dividing a population into friends and enemies is a tool of authoritarians, clearly articulated by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, who is enjoying a burst of popularity right now in the American right wing. MAGA figures have pushed the idea that the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last week, apparently by a lone gunman, could be blamed on “Democrats” or “THEM.” Last night, after news broke that ABC was suspending comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s television show, the Trump administration announced it was putting the teeth of the government into this division of the world.
…Yesterday, Republican political strategist Karl Rove, who was a key member of President George W. Bush’s administration, pushed back against the friends and enemies distinction in The Wall Street Journal. “No,” he wrote. “Charlie Kirk wasn’t killed by ‘them.’ ‘They’ didn’t pull the trigger. One person did, apparently a young man driven by impulse and a terrible hate. If there were a ‘they’ involved, law enforcement would find ‘them’ and the justice system would hold ‘them’ accountable. But ‘he’ and ‘him’ are the correct pronouns for this horrendous act…. Using Charlie’s murder to justify retaliation against political rivals is wrong and dangerous. It will further divide and embitter our country. No good thing will come of it.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Nate Silver: The political mood feels like 9/11 again
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: McCarthy’s Shadow Still Lingers, Just Ask Kari Lake
Maris Kabas: The high cost of free speech
Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension shows us that nothing will ever satisfy Trump’s unquenchable thirst for power.
BBC: Trump says TV networks ‘against’ him should ‘maybe’ lose licence, after Kimmel suspension
NY Times: In Their Own Words: Trump and Top Officials Change Tone on Free Speech
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the president’s pledges to guarantee free speech have been replaced by efforts to suppress — and even criminalize — what their critics have to say.
Jason Easley: Trump’s Duplicitous FCC Chair Misleads About Threatening ABC To Get Jimmy Kimmel Off The Air
Trump’s FCC Chair claimed on Thursday that he never [threatened] ABC over Jimmy Kimmel, but Brendan Carr did exactly that on video for the world to see.
Sarah Jones: Chris Murphy Reveals The Chilling Plan Behind Kimmel’s Suspension To Turn Local TV into Trump Propaganda
FreePress: Nick Gillespie: Abolish the FCC
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Matthew Wollin: The lawyers who caved
Big Law firms finally have to hold up their end of a Trumpian bargain.
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And yet Trump now has a promise from these firms and their compatriots to spend nearly a billion dollars of their services — which, at an average hourly rate of $1,000 an hour, works out to roughly a million hours of attorney time — on basically whatever he wants.
(Matthew Wollin more…)
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Emily Atkin: Charlie Kirk was a fossil fuel industry plant
Big Oil’s money gave Kirk a larger platform to spread baseless climate conspiracy theories—as well as other extremist views.
…in 2017, Kirk admitted that some of the group’s anonymous donors “are in the fossil fuel space.” Speaking to The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, Kirk disclosed that he’d fundraised for TPUSA at the annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), as well as the 2017 board meeting of the National Mining Association.In those meetings, Kirk promised oil and gas companies he’d fight “the myth that fossil fuels are dirty,” and target the “leftist professors” on college campuses who “perpetuated” the “myth.”
(Emily Atkin more…)Ta-Nehisi Coates: Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause
By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, pundits and politicians are sanitizing his legacy.
… And the everything-else of Kirk’s politics amounted to little more than a loathing of those whose mere existence provoked his ire.
(Ta-Nehisi Coates more…)NBC: Military leaders consider recruiting campaign centered on Charlie Kirk
Possible slogans discussed include “Charlie has awakened a generation of warriors.” There is talk of using Turning Point USA chapters as recruitment centers.
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Jess Piper: A Teacher Grades the Text Messages
“Are you saying that the government might be trying to mislead us with an embarrassingly and sloppily contrived narrative?”
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Hussein Agha and Robert Malley: The Lies America Tells Itself About the Middle East
As Its Influence Faded, Washington Dissembled and Denied Reality
(Hussein Agha and Robert Malley more…)
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Dean Blundell: Canada Doesn’t Bow: US “Ambassador” to Canada “Disappointed” he Came to Canada — and Needs to be Expelled
When a MAGA operative cosplaying as a diplomat tries to scold Canadians for defending ourselves, the right response is simple: Kick him out.
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Texas Tribune: Texas A&M President Mark A. Welsh III to step down after a week of turmoil over viral classroom video
Calls for Welsh’s ousting intensified over his handling of a student’s complaints about gender identity discussions in a children’s literature class.
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Ken Klippenstein: FBI Readies New War on Trans People
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Above the Law: Dylann Roof’s Judge Arrested On Child Porn Charges And Denied Bond
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Jack Hopkins: How Donald Trump Happened: They Kept Him Afloat for a Reason…and It Wasn’t Democracy
The Frankenstein Story They Never Wanted Told
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Measles and Hep B vaccine changes: What it means for you
Today’s ACIP meeting
arsTECHNICA: RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine panel realizes it has no idea what it’s doing, skips vote
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Allison Gill: I’ve Filed a Motion for Summary Judgment to Expedite Release of the Epstein Files Training Videos
In the wake of Kash Patel’s appearance before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, and after receiving no response from the FBI pursuant to my Freedom of Information Act request to pry loose the training videos created by agencies detailing how to flag and redact Donald Trump’s name from the Epstein Files, I have filed a motion for summary judgment with DC District Judge Beryl Howell.
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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