curated news excerpts & citations
Bulwark: Trump Tells Voters: Don’t Believe Your Lying Wallets
From elections to the economy, he keeps denying reality.
MILLIONS OF PEOPLE who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 are learning a hard lesson: A man who refuses to face facts in his own life is also unlikely to face facts about the lives of others. These voters are discovering that Trump’s denial of the election results in 2020 wasn’t a one-off. It was a forewarning of what we’re seeing now: his refusal to acknowledge the affordability crisis.
Five years ago, Trump didn’t just deny that he had lost the presidential election. He proved the severity of his delusion by trying everything, including violence, to block the transfer of power. When he ran for re-election in 2024, he made it clear that he still believed he had won in 2020.
Many people who voted for Trump in 2024 bought this absurd story. But they weren’t enough to elect him. He won because a pivotal segment of the public knew his story was bogus but voted for him anyway.
(Bulwark more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – November 17, 2025
President Donald J. Trump spent the weekend flooding social media with posts claiming that his economic policies are working and that his 34 felony convictions and the investigations into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russian operatives were illegitimate, and posting angrily about those people calling out his association with Jeffrey Epstein. He even reposted a statement from one of his own lawyers saying, “If Jeffrey Epstein had any dirt on Donald Trump, he would have had great leverage in the criminal case against him at the time he died,” which perhaps conveys a different message than he intended.
Then, after fighting furiously against the upcoming House vote over releasing the Epstein files the FBI collected as part of its investigation into the convicted sex abuser, at 9:15 p.m. last night Trump abruptly reversed course, saying that House Republicans should vote in favor of releasing the files “because we have nothing to hide.” “I DON’T CARE!” he posted.”
But of course, he does care, as is evident from how deeply he fought the release of the files the FBI collected during its investigation of Epstein right up until the final signature on the House discharge petition that would force the House to vote on a measure to require the Justice Department to release the files. …
…The signs were clear: Trump had lost control of the House Republicans.
…Don’t hold your breath for the release of the files, though: Trump’s post saying he didn’t care about the release included the qualification that “the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to,” suggesting he will continue his stonewalling with the help of the Department of Justice. Remember: all the congressional machinations are only to force the release of the files. He could release them himself any time he wanted to.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Liz Dye: Lindsey Halligan’s Math Ain’t Mathin’
How do you get three indictments out of one presentment?
On Friday afternoon, cosplay US Attorney Lindsey Halligan defended her A-plus prosecuting chops.
“There are no missing minutes, contrary to the suggestion raised by the court,” she huffed, insisting that there was definitely no gap in the record of her presentation to the grand jury that indicted Jim Comey.
Halligan was so indignant that she docketed three filings attesting to her fitness — twice.
(Liz Dye more…)
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NY Times: Chaos at the Justice Department
President Trump’s second term has been difficult for the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency.
The administration has taken away safeguards that protected the agency from political influence. Trump officials have directed criminal investigations that would usually have nothing to do with the White House. They’ve ignored ethics rules and told attorneys to drop cases. They’ve fired hundreds of career attorneys. Thousands more have resigned. The department’s culture of independence and impartiality has shattered.
My colleagues Emily Bazelon and Rachel Poser wanted to know what it was like inside the institution as all that happened.
(NY Times more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: The Chicago Invasion After-Action Report
Adopting a term (Midway Blitz) for its Chicago immigration operation that has its origin in the Nazi’s lightning-fast pulverization of Western Europe and destruction of civilian neighborhoods was a telling choice for the Trump regime—which is infamous for spouting white nationalism tropes and deploying violence against its own people. Sure enough, instead of measured, lawful exercise of civilian immigration enforcement in Chicago, Donald Trump cooked up a dystopian fantasy, tried (but failed) to roll out the military, and dispensed brutal, undisciplined, and reckless Customs and Border Protection forces. The feds terrorized Chicago neighborhoods and garnered judicial rebukes for their illegal conduct and inhumane detention of suspected undocumented immigrants. Judged by their goal of removing the “worst of the worst,” however, it was a humiliating blunder.
ProPublica investigated one of the most notorious episodes during the operation. On Sept. 30, “some 300 agents from Border Patrol, the FBI and other agencies stormed the 130-unit apartment complex.” Using tactics sure to traumatize civilians, “SWAT teams rappelled from a helicopter, knocked down doors and hurled flash-bang grenades.” Though they did arrest 37 immigrants, the feds “also zip-tied and, for several hours, detained many U.S. citizens.” None of them, it seems, turned out to be gang members, let alone criminals.
(Jennifer Rubin more…)Boing Boing: Noem faces resignation calls after failed “terrorist” raid yields nothing
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World Without Exploitation: National PSA Calling for Release of ALL the Epstein Files
Bulwark: Trump’s Epstein Humiliation Grows
The president saw defeat and ran. But that doesn’t mean the fight over releasing the files is over.
![[Image of Towed Work van with “Hannan Towing” on the side and U.S. Park Police in the foreground, caption: US Park Police and tow driver converse after loading the work van of a detained immigrant worker onto the back of a Hannan tow truck along the B-W Parkway on Tuesday, Nov 11. Image taken by a community patrol member.]](https://kewus.net/yesterday/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/hannan.avif "[Image of Towed Work van with “Hannan Towing” on the side and U.S. Park Police in the foreground, caption: US Park Police and tow driver converse after loading the work van of a detained immigrant worker onto the back of a Hannan tow truck along the B-W Parkway on Tuesday, Nov 11. Image taken by a community patrol member.]")
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Mel Buer: Families of DC-area immigrant drivers snatched by feds stuck with tow bill
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“What’s really notable about these situations is that these are all work vehicles,” said Councilmember Mink, who was notified of the tows and has been working with local community members to try and help impacted families. “So, they’re targeting breadwinners from these families, and then we have companies that are then trying to extort hundreds of dollars from those same impacted families who have just had a loved one and a breadwinner stolen from them.”
(Mel Buer more…)
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Texas Tribune: UT-Austin silent on Trump compact as deadline approaches
Most other invited universities have rejected the administration’s offer tying priority federal funding to campus policy changes.
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