curated news excerpts & citations
USCCB: U.S. Bishops Issue a “Special Message” on Immigration from Plenary Assembly in Baltimore
… In a vote of 216 votes in favor, 5 votes against, and 3 abstentions, the bishops overwhelmingly approved the Special Message, with sustained applause of the body following the vote.
The full text of the bishops’ Special Pastoral Message follows:
As pastors, we the bishops of the United States are bound to our people by ties of communion and compassion in Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are disturbed when we see among our people a climate of fear and anxiety around questions of profiling and immigration enforcement. We are saddened by the state of contemporary debate and the vilification of immigrants. We are concerned about the conditions in detention centers and the lack of access to pastoral care. We lament that some immigrants in the United States have arbitrarily lost their legal status. We are troubled by threats against the sanctity of houses of worship and the special nature of hospitals and schools. We are grieved when we meet parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school and when we try to console family members who have already been separated from their loved ones.
(USCCB more…)
NY TImes: In Pulpits and Pews, Catholic Churches Urge Compassion for Immigrants
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – November 16, 2025
On Thursday, November 13, Michael Schmidt reported in the New York Times the story of the 17-year-old girl the House Ethics Committee found former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) likely paid to have sex with him. The girl was a homeless high schooler who needed to supplement the money she made from her job at McDonald’s to be able to pay for braces.
…In 1858, the year after the Dred Scott decision, rising politician Abraham Lincoln explained to an audience in Chicago what a system that set some people above others meant. Arguments that those deemed “inferior” “are to be treated with as much allowance as they are capable of enjoying; that as much is to be done for them as their condition will allow…are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world,” he said. “[T]hey always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden…. [This] argument…is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it.”
“Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent….”
In Lincoln’s day, and in the Gilded Age, and in the 1930s, Americans pushed back against those trying to establish an aristocracy in the United States. That project appears to be gaining speed as well in today’s America, where the rich and powerful are increasingly operating in cryptocurrencies and avoiding accountability, but where a majority of people would prefer to live in a world where a child does not have to sell her body to older men in order to save enough money to get braces on her teeth.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Fortune: MacKenzie Scott says her college roommate loaned her $1,000 so she wouldn’t have to drop out—and is now inspiring her to give away billions
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That roommate was Jeannie Ringo Tarkenton, who went on to found Funding U, which has provided $80 million in low-interest loans to about 8,000 students who needed help to pay for college, according to Princeton. Tarkenton still plays it cool, though, when asked about how she changed Scott’s life.“I’ve always said she would have graduated without that grace, as would probably a lot of the thousands of kids I help because they are hardworking people who kind of try to figure it out,” Tarkenton told Princeton Alumni Weekly. “But small graces everywhere add up—or big graces, when it comes to MacKenzie’s [giving].”
(Fortune more…)
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electrek: Solar and wind are covering all new power demand in 2025
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For the first time in 2025, renewables collectively generated more electricity than coal. And fossil generation as a whole has stalled. Fossil output slipped slightly by 0.1% (-17 TWh) through the end of Q3. Ember expects no fossil-fuel growth for the full year, driven by clean power growth outpacing demand.
(electrek more…)CNBC: Data centers are concentrated in these states. Here’s what’s happening to electricity prices
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Adam Mockler: Trump Doesn’t Realize the Disaster He’s Created
The shutdown shoved healthcare to the forefront and left Republicans holding the blame they’ve spent years trying to dodge.
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Dean Blundell: Canada Announces $1.7B H‑1B Escape Hatch
On one side of the border, Donald Trump just put a $100,000 fee on new H‑1B visas — the visa that keeps a huge share of America’s researchers, coders, doctors, and engineers in the country.
On the other side, Prime Minister Mark Carney dropped his first federal budget and quietly built an escape tunnel under that wall — a C$1.7 billion “International Talent Attraction Strategy and Action Plan” designed to recruit over 1,000 world‑class researchers, supercharge Canadian universities, and fast‑track H‑1B visa holders out of Trump’s America and into Canadian labs, hospitals, and startups.
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD: COVID & Health News, 11/16/25
Your Local Epidemiologist: A rough flu season may be taking shape
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MS.NOW: Trump die-hards and fellow travelers are using a ‘Jedi mind trick’ on themselves
The real “Trump derangement syndrome” is looking at the Epstein emails, Trump’s graft and U.S. warships in the Caribbean and saying, “There’s nothing there.”
(MS.NOW more…)
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Dean Obeidallah: We need to know why Pam Bondi did not investigate Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s AG from 2011 to 2019?!
Was Bondi protecting Trump?!
…To be clear, Epstein’s crimes were well known in Florida given the media coverage surrounding his 2008 guilty plea to two relatively minor crimes. There’s no doubt Bondi knew about that as well as the grave injustice of Epstein getting a sweetheart deal from GOP US Attorney Alex Acosta that ignored the wishes of the victims.
…Once again in 2018, The Miami Herald released a bombshell report that “identified about 80 people who say they were molested or otherwise sexually abused by Epstein.” We learned that the “girls — mostly 13 to 16 — were lured to [Epstein’s] pink waterfront mansion” in Palm Springs, Florida after being recruited at “shopping malls, house parties” and other locations.
(Dean Obeidallah more…)Allison Gill: Trump Killed a Biden-era Epstein Probe, Fired the Prosecutors, and Stole the Files
Epstein survivors have confirmed with democrats in congress that they participated in a massive Biden-era investigation into Epstein’s co-conspirators, but Trump and Pam Bondi closed it.
Guardian: The banality of evil: how Epstein’s powerful friends normalised him
He got by with a little help from his friends. From British royalty to White House alumni, from a Silicon Valley investor to a leftwing academic, connections and influence were the ultimate currency for Jeffrey Epstein.
Yet none appeared to challenge Epstein over his horrific crimes. If silence is complicity, the casual disdain of the elite circles he moved in spoke volumes.
(Guardian more…)Guardian: Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show
Pair devised responses to public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his treatment by the justice system and his friendships with powerful people
WSJ: Trump Backs Vote to Release Epstein Files in Sharp Reversal
WASHINGTON—President Trump threw in the towel on dissuading House Republicans from backing a measure to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying Sunday night that GOP lawmakers should instead embrace the vote.
The vote set for this week had been shaping up as a major test of GOP loyalty to the president, who has kept an iron grip over the party since starting his second term in January. Dozens of Republicans were expected to potentially break with the president when the measure hit the House floor, and Trump’s announcement avoids a potential embarrassment for the White House.
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