Yesterday’s News 2025 11 11

curated news excerpts & citations

Mother Jones: Trump’s anti-climate agenda is making it more expensive to own a car

The president hates EVs. But his policies are making gas cars more expensive too.
…

And they aren’t just getting more expensive to buy; cars are getting more expensive to own. For most Americans, gasoline is their single-largest energy expenditure, around $2,930 per household each year on average.

While a more efficient dishwasher, light bulb, or faucet may have a higher sticker price up front—especially as manufacturers adjust to new rules—cars, appliances, solar panels, and electronics can more than pay for themselves with lower operating costs over their lifetimes. And Trump’s agenda of suddenly rolling back efficiency rules has simultaneously made it harder for many industries to do business while raising costs for ordinary Americans.

(Vox more…)

• Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – November 10, 2025

  …
  If Trump signs the measure into law, the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP payments will get relief. The two million federal workers who need paychecks will get them, and airlines should eventually get back to business as usual. These are no small things: aside from the individual human cost of the shutdown, the undermining of the federal government threatened to destroy it, and the administration’s cuts to air traffic were hitting cargo planes, adding yet another blow to the weakening economy just before the busiest shopping season of the year.

  News of the terms of the deal to end the shutdown hit the country rather like a cue ball hitting a rack: lots of balls started to move in wildly different directions.

  The eight senators who voted with the Republicans appear to have lost any hope Trump would negotiate and, in that absence, decided they had to relieve the pain of the shutdown. As Dan Drezner noted in his Drezner’s World, Trump’s behavior during the shutdown made it clear he simply didn’t care how badly Americans got hurt. “He did not just refuse to negotiate,” Drezner noted. “During the shutdown month he also completely bulldozed the East Wing, cut SNAP benefits, witnessed producers passing on the cost of tariffs to consumers, announced curbs on air travel, and participated in a Great Gatsby–style party at Mar-a-Lago.”

  Voters hated this, but Trump didn’t appear to care. Indeed, his administration was working to ratchet up the pain …
  (Heather Cox Richardson more…)
  

  Nate Silver: Trump made a huge blunder on the shutdown. So why did Democrats cave anyway?

  It’s not entirely Chuck Schumer’s fault, but the party needs new leadership.

  I’ve never really been on the same page as Congressional Democrats when it comes to shutting down the government. In the spring, I thought they should pick a fight over Elon Musk and DOGE-related cuts, but they didn’t.

  Then in September, I thought all their options were pretty bad. But that tariffs, not health care, would at least highlight President Trump’s unpopular handling of the economy and provide more of a pain point for Republicans — without offering a deal that could actually help the GOP in next year’s elections by extending popular health care subsidies.

  Mind you, I didn’t expect Democrats to actually extract concessions from the GOP on tariffs. Rather, if Democrats held firm, Republicans would eventually have to pass a budget on their own by eliminating the filibuster — something that Democrats would rather be without anyway should they win a trifecta back in 2028.

  And then once the shutdown began on Oct. 1, I disagreed with the conventional wisdom that Democrats were “winning” it. True, polls found that a slight plurality of voters blamed Republicans rather than Democrats. But those same polls showed that voters didn’t understand why there was a shutdown in the first place, and that Democrats’ message on health care wasn’t breaking through. Moreover, Democrats’ advantage on the “blame” question was eroding over time — while Trump’s approval rating actually improved initially once the shutdown began.
  (Nate Silver more…)

  Intelligencer: Why Democrats Couldn’t Hold Out Any Longer on the Government Shutdown

  
  …
  So for Democrats, this is at worst a lost battle — or a tactical setback, if you wish — in a longer war that is looking increasingly more promising for them. It’s not a great time for a party civil war.

  Politico: Legal immigrants face loss of Obamacare help, threatening insurance markets

  The GOP megabill stripped subsidies from hundreds of thousands of green card holders and other legal migrants. Experts predict ripple effects for citizens.

  John Pavlovitz: A Bi-Partisan Murder: The Democrats Who Caved and the Americans Who Will Die

  ---

  

• Al Jazeera: Israeli drone strike kills two in Gaza as ceasefire violations mount

  …
  In a statement published on Telegram on Monday, the group said Israeli attacks had killed 271 people, over 90 percent of them civilians, and wounded 622 more since the ceasefire took effect on October 10.
  (Al Jazeera more…)

  ---

  

• Bulwark: Pardon the Corruption

  Trump’s blanket pardons for stop-the-steal illegality aren’t only about settling scores from past elections. They’re about laying the groundwork to subvert future ones.
  (Bulwark more…)

  ---

  
  
  

  ---

  Trump Action Tracker

  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

  1. The Impact Map
  2. United States Disappeared Tracker
  3. ICE Flight Tracking
  4. Regulatory Changes Tracker
  5. Trump Administration Litigation Trackers
  6. Far Right Groups Targeting Pride Month