curated news excerpts & citations
James Eagle: Tariff receipts have exploded
I’ll admit my bias upfront: I deeply oppose tariffs because they contradict everything I believe about free trade. Trade is the thread that stitches our world together, compelling us to engage with one another whether we like it or not.
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Here’s the dirty secret about tariffs: they’re a magnificent tax machine. Monthly customs receipts have rocketed from $7-8 billion to nearly $30 billion, while the trade deficit yawns at the same old $90-110 billion, utterly unmoved by the current protectionist theatre.
American businesses and shoppers meanwhile foot most of the bill through higher prices. Clever multinationals meanwhile, simply shift their supply chains, shipping through Vietnam or Mexico rather than bringing jobs home. It’s taxation dressed up as trade policy.
For investors, this is perverse: retailers and car manufacturers are bleeding margins while government coffers swell. The speed of it all is breathtaking. Tariff receipts nearly quadrupled overnight, yet the trade deficit couldn’t care less. Anyone betting this windfall will last is dreaming. It’s a transfer of wealth from the private sector to the public sector. This is cyclical cash grab, not structural reform, and the hangover will be spectacular.
(James Eagle more…)
Seeking Alpha: Sen. Thune: Farmers will need government aid as China stops buying U.S. soybeans
NY Times: ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’: Trump Officials Offer $625 Million to Rescue Coal
The new effort, which includes opening 13.1 million acres of federal land for mining and eliminating pollution limits, aims to save an industry that has been declining for decades.
Micah Erfan: Elon Musk’s DOGE Has Been A Spectacular Failure
Republicans promised to fix the debt. They made it worse.
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WSJ: FEMA Is Paralyzed. Disaster-Torn Communities Are Paying the Price.
St. Louis’s tornado was months ago, but it’s still waiting for hundreds of millions in federal recovery funds to arrive. It’s part of Trump’s plan to shift responsibility to the states and shrink the agency.
(WSJ more…)
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TNR: Camerawoman Captures Scott Bessent’s Texts, Exposing White House Panic
Members of Donald Trump’s administration are scrambling to right their ship, after the president’s tariffs sent a major foreign trading partner into the arms of Argentina, which just received a massive bailout from the U.S. government.
(TNR more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 29, 2025
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) left a meeting with President Donald J. Trump this afternoon without a deal to keep the government open past the last day of the fiscal year, which is tomorrow: Tuesday. The president and Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to consider opening up negotiations over extending the premium tax subsidies for healthcare insurance that will expire at the end of 2025 because of the budget reconciliation bill the Republicans passed in July, but they insisted the Democrats must fund the government before talks begin.
“We think when they say ‘later,’ they mean ‘never,” Schumer told reporters. He noted that Democrats had asked repeatedly for meetings about the measure and the Republicans refused, so Democrats had no input on the continuing resolution. Jeffries pointed out that far from being willing to work with Democrats, House Republicans have left town. …
Tonight, Trump’s social media account posted a deepfake video of Schumer and Jeffries speaking to reporters. In the doctored video, Schumer talks with Mexican music playing in the background, while Jeffries stands beside him wearing what appears to be a colorful Mexican sombrero and sporting a mustache with the ends waxed and turned up.
In the video, Schumer’s image is made to say: “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bullsh*t. Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore, even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of sh*t, you know? At least for a while, until they learn English and they realize they hate us too.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: ‘Incitement’ has become another word for ‘Trump criticism’
“Incitement” is now MAGA’s favorite word, or rather its favorite pretext for violating First Amendment and due process rights. Donald Trump is enlisting the power of the federal government to go after left-leaning groups that he thinks (or convinces his cult to think) have something to do with violence. Before we get to the glaring constitutional problem, it behooves us to try to figure out what MAGA thinks constitutes “incitement.”
Vice President JD Vance’s patently absurd lie that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs? MAGA apparently thinks this is not incitement, even though it spawned bomb and death threats.
The Great Replacement theory (including reprehensible comments that immigrants are poisoning our blood and are swamping Whites, etc.)? Again, MAGA demagogues will not call that incitement, although it was recited at numerous White supremacists’ mass murders.
Sending military troops and federal immigration agents into a overwhelmingly peaceful Los Angeles? Trump and his ilk refused to acknowledge that was incitement—even though deployment of intimidating military forces provoked violence and resulted in numerous cases of excessive force.
Ah, but truthfully repeating Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric? MAGA voices scream “Incitement!”Funding progressive causes that help the environment, feed the hungry, or aid immigrants? Again, the MAGA bullies would have us believe that such groups or the funding of their causes are inciting violence.
Fascistic behavior such as violently snatching people off the street and sending them to third-world hell holes? Not incitement, in the MAGA cult. But calling out that fascistic behavior? That, in their ideological bubble, constitutes incitement.
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
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Cammy Pedroja: ICE’s Shadow War on Women
Criminals are now impersonating masked ICE agents to kidnap and assault women
(Cammy Pedroja more…)
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George Retes: I’m a US citizen and a veteran. ICE arrested me for no reason.
Jailed for three days without an explanation or ability to notify anyone, George Retes argues the only path to healing starts with the government taking accountability for its actions.
(George Retes more…)
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Austin American-Statesman: ‘This is over:’ How authorities say they finally solved the Austin yogurt shop murders
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However, investigators believe the most compelling evidence came in the past few weeks when new testing indicated that DNA under the fingernails of 13-year-old Amy Ayers matched Brashers, who has been linked to murders in Missouri and South Carolina.
(Austin American-Statesman more…)
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Ken Klippenstein: Trump’s NSPM-7 Alarms Law Firms While Congress Is Silent
Domestic terror watchlist to double, sources say
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TNR: Teacher Forced to Teach Trump Bible Reveals What Is (and Isn’t) in It
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Notably, the incorrect version still featured the three-fifths compromise, a vestige of slavery that handed more political power to slave-owning states, while omitting the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished slavery. The incorrect edition also lacked the Fourteenth Amendment, which constitutionalized the right to due process and granted citizens equal protection under the law, shielding them from state action.In addition, Trump’s Bible is missing the Nineteenth Amendment, which grants women the right to vote; the Twenty-Second Amendment, which limits the president to two terms in power; and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, which lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Trump Border Czar Filmed Taking Cash in FBI Sting & Junk Science Targets Tylenol and Autism
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Measles outbreak growing and common cold surging, hunger survey is stopping, abortion pill watch, why we can’t split up MMR, and some great news!
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TNR: Tom Homan’s Defense on $50K Bribe Crumbles as Exact Timeline Revealed
No, the FBI didn’t try to entrap Trump’s border czar.
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Boing Boing: Cracker Barrel logo outrage initially driven by botnet
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Borowitz: US Military Cleans Up Discarded Kale at Portland Farmer’s Market
(Borowitz more…)
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Rook T. Winchester: CIVIL OBEDIENCE
PART I
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Rook: Hi. I’m here to turn myself in.One of the officers looked up like he was rebooting from inside his own skull. The otber just stared at me like I’d said, “I’m here to pay my taxes in milk.”
Cop #1: Sorry, what?
Rook: I’m turning myself in. For being anti-fascist.
(PART I more…)Rook T. Winchester: CIVIL OBEDIENCE
PART II
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Rook: I don’t care if the law changes. My conscience doesn’t. My loyalty is to the vulnerable, the unheard, and the furious. If that makes me a criminal in the eyes of this regime, then get the paperwork ready.The cops still said nothing. I could hear them breathing. That’s it. Not even an eye-roll. Just breathing and bewilderment.
Rook: Oh—and one more thing. If you don’t arrest me today, you’re admitting the law doesn’t actually apply to what I just confessed. Which means it’s not a real law. It’s a scare tactic. A toothless propaganda stunt dressed in tactical gear and hiding behind a flag. And if it is a real law, then you’re cowards for not enforcing it. So which is it?
(PART II more…)Rook T. Winchester: CIVIL OBEDIENCE
PART III
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Rook: I just told you that I’m anti-fascist. I did it on your premises. I said it loud enough to trigger every Ring cam in the breakroom. And under the Executive Order your boss signed — the one the fascist in the White House finger-painted into existence between campaign rallies and pudding breaks — that’s supposed to be a crime.I let the words marinate. Gave them space to wrinkle their khaki brows.
Rook: So now we’ve got a problem, officers. Either I’m a criminal… or you’re complicit. Because if the law says it’s illegal to be antifascist, and you let me walk out that door, then you’re either aiding and abetting, or admitting the law is bullshit.
No response. Just one guy chewing gum like it was a hostage.
(PART III more…)Rook T. Winchester: CIVIL OBEDIENCE
PART IV
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Rook: Let’s say a million people do exactly what I just did. Not all in one place, mind you—we’re not trying to give the National Guard a panic attack. But one by one. Day by day. In every city, every town, every dimly-lit office where the words “Serve and Protect” have been turned into wall art with the moral clarity of a Live Laugh Love sign.
(PART III more…)
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