curated news excerpts & citations
Rebecca Solnit: Solidarity Stitches Us Together: Today, World AIDS Day, Is Also the 70th Anniversary of Rosa Park’s Historic Protest
… Seventy years ago today in Montgomery, Alabama, a Black civil rights activist and seamstress famously refused to yield her seat on the bus, which got her arrested, which got the town’s Black community organizing, which got a young minister there named Martin Luther King involved in political activism in a whole new way, which begat the Civil Rights Movement, which didn’t just change the United States but forged essential tools for rights and justice movements all over the world ever since. …
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
-
Business Insider: Costco sues over Trump’s tariffs in a bid to secure a refund
- Costco filed a lawsuit to recover tariff payments imposed by the Trump administration.
- The retailer challenged tariffs enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
- Costco is seeking a full refund of duties paid.
Kimberly from Home of the Brave: Trump’s tariffs are illegal. They’re also ruining my business.
I’m a licensed customs broker and international trade specialist operating a logistics business in my home state. In layman’s terms, that means I help companies—mostly small- and medium-sized ones—navigate the hurdles of importing and exporting goods internationally.
Without a large, designated team, this isn’t an easy thing for your average company to do. There are procedures required for goods to clear customs, duties on certain types of goods, specialized forms to be completed, and more. My company takes the hassle out of all of that, handling shipments for importers into the US, processing their paperwork through the customs system, and allowing my clients to focus on doing what they do best.
Donald Trump is making all of that infinitely harder. This administration’s on-again, off-again tariff regime is leaving businesses that operate internationally with no certainty around costs and zero ability to plan for the future. And Trump is doing all of this in contravention of the plain letter of the law, which says only Congress should have the power to levy tariffs.
(Kimberly from Home of the Brave more…)Boing Boing: Brain drain: Many U.S. researchers making plans to leave the country
Reuters: US manufacturing stuck in doldrums as tariff headwinds persist
Thom Hartmann: The Great Secession of the Morbidly Rich Marks a Breaking Point for Democracy’s Survival
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – December 1, 2025
President Donald J. Trump’s behavior over the holiday weekend has increased concern about his mental acuity. …
On NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday, Walz responded by calling for Trump to release the results of an MRI he told reporters he underwent in October, later saying: “I have no idea what they analyze, but whatever they analyze, they analyzed it well and they said that I had as good a result as they’ve ever seen.” Although Trump told reporters the MRI was part of his routine physical, medical experts say such tests are not routine.
…Today White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a memo from the president’s physician, Sean P. Barbabella, saying that “advanced imaging” was performed on the president as a preventative measure. The memo said this imaging “was performed because men in his age group benefit from a thorough evaluation of cardiovascular and abdominal health.” It said Trump’s cardiovascular and abdominal imaging is “perfectly normal.”
Conspicuously absent from the memo was any reference to the president’s brain.
In the press conference, Leavitt also addressed Friday’s Washington Post story by Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima claiming that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Special Operations commander Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley to “kill everyone” in a small boat off the coast of Venezuela on September 2. After a first strike left two survivors clinging to burning wreckage, Bradley ordered a second strike that killed the survivors.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Miles Taylor: Trump officials discussed illegal “boat strikes” years ago
White House aides in the first administration wanted to know if airstrikes against unarmed civilians would be legal.
…
Years before the world saw a grainy Pentagon video of a Trump-ordered missile strike obliterating a drug boat in the Caribbean, senior Trump officials were already probing a disturbing question: Could the U.S. government legally launch airstrikes on unarmed civilians in boats?I know, because I was in the room.
(Miles Taylor more…)Jennifer Rubin: War Crime…or Murder?
Killing shipwreck survivors is patently illegal and morally abhorrent
Brian Allen: Trump Scrambles to Rewrite the Hegseth Strike Scandal as Republicans Join the Oversight Push
The President is now publicly distancing himself from the deadly Caribbean “second strike” operation as Congress launches its most serious bipartisan review of the mission to date
Aaron Parnas: White House Confirms Second Strike, Possible War Crime or Murder
Dan Rather: Could The Boat Strikes Sink Hegseth?
…
An unintended consequence of this latest Trump tantrum is that now many of the well-reported articles about Trump and his illegal, unethical and democracy-eroding activities are easily found in one convenient place, at WhiteHouse.gov. And kudos to the journalists and media organizations that made the cut, they have skillfully touched a nerve.
(Dan Rather more…)
-
Brian Allen: Kristi Noem Defied a Federal Judge. Now the Trump Administration Faces a Full-Blown Constitutional Confrontation.
On Sunday morning, in a television interview that should have sent shockwaves across Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed what the Department of Justice had already hinted at in federal court filings. She acknowledged that she personally authorized deportation flights of Venezuelan detainees to El Salvador after a U.S. district judge issued an order halting the removals. The admission did not come with hesitation or caution. It came with pride.
(Brian Allen more…)Brian Allen: Inside the Leaked FBI Report That Calls Kash Patel’s Bureau a “Rudderless Ship”
A 115-page internal assessment sent to Congress describes an FBI adrift under Kash Patel, where image management beats actual law enforcement.
-
Joyce Vance: The Third Circuit Says “No” To Alina Habba as Interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey
Monday morning, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s appointee to be U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, had been improperly appointed. In a 32-page opinion, the 3-0 majority wrote, “These cases require us to consider … whether Habba is lawfully acting as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey … or has been lawfully delegated the full scope of powers of an Acting U.S. Attorney. The defendants in two criminal cases moved to dismiss their indictments and to disqualify Habba from participating in their prosecutions, arguing that she is unlawfully serving as Acting U.S. Attorney. The District Court denied the motions to dismiss, but it granted the motions to disqualify Habba from the prosecutions. The Government appeals. We will affirm.” One of the panel judges was appointed by President Biden. The other two are Bush appointees.
(Joyce Vance more…)
-
Bulwark: Trump’s Venezuela “No-Fly Zone” Is a Dangerous Joke
…
The American president says that this air space is closed, but he does not stipulate what the penalty is for violating his edict. Is the United States monitoring Venezuelan airspace for violations? If the United States sees a commercial airline in Venezuelan airspace, will it issue a fine? Or revoke that carrier’s ability to fly to the United States? Or will it shoot the plane down?What are the geographic limits of the exclusionary zone? Trump says the area “above” but also “surrounding” Venezuela? How far out does that “surrounding” area go? Does Trump mean that some of the airspace above Colombia, near the Venezuelan border, is also closed? How about the airspace over the Caribbean off Venezuela’s coast?
How far around Venezuelan air space should flights be diverted in order to not be subject to whatever penalty Trump has left unstated?
Oh, and what are the various players here supposed to make of what Trump said on Sunday when he was asked if his tweet declaring a no fly zone meant that the United States was preparing military action? … Trump was asked what closing Venezuelan airspace in its entirety meant and he responded: “Don’t read anything into it.”
(Bulwark more…)
GriftMatrix
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
Leave a Reply