curated news excerpts & citations
Root: Selma Was Not Just History, It Was a Warning
Opinion: Sixty-one years after “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, we are once again watching the machinery of state violence turn toward Black and Brown communities.
Sixty-one years ago, on March 7, 1965, 600 people stepped onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. They marched for the simple promise of democracy: the right to vote. What met them was not dialogue but violence — billy clubs, tear gas, mounted troopers. “Bloody Sunday” forced the nation to confront two truths: the brutality of racial discrimination and the power of coordinated Black organizing.
(Root more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 7, 2026
At 8:50 yesterday morning, President Donald J. Trump posted on social media: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! …
As Alex Leary and Vera Bergengruen of the Wall Street Journal observed, the demand for unconditional surrender was quite a shift from Trump’s original promise to the people of Iran that the future is “yours to take,” or even his early claim that he was hoping to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities. …
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President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s enemies “must take their dream of the Iranian people’s unconditional surrender to their graves,” but he did apologize to neighboring countries for the strikes against U.S. military bases in their lands. He said Iran would suspend those strikes unless those states themselves launched attacks on Iran.
…Zach Everson of Public Citizen recalled a quotation from William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, summing up Adolf Hitler’s view: “We must always demand so much that we can never be satisfied.”
…In Need to Know, David Rothkopf today called out the madness of the fact world trade and global security is being shattered by a single man. “Not since Adolf Hitler blew his brains out in a bunker beneath the garden of the German Reich Chancellery on April 30, 1945, have the lives of so many people around the world been so buffeted by the psychosis of a single man.”
Why has Trump launched a war against Iran on a whim, attacked other countries, and upended world trade, Rothkopf asked. “Because he’s insane. Because he’s venal. Because he’s a malignant narcissist. Because he’s a sociopath. Because he has a fragile ego. Because those around him exacerbate and play to those traits to advance their own interests. Because CEOs and investors do likewise to fill their coffers. Because to some people, whether he is insane or malevolent or repugnant or not matters less than whether his actions will feather their nests, increase their power.
“Because they, the billionaires…play their games and the consequences for the little people down below, the consequences for us, hardly matter a whit.”
On Thursday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called attention to another factor in play. In a speech to the Senate, Whitehouse noted that throughout his second term, Trump has advanced policies that help Russia, pausing weapons shipments to Ukraine, easing sanctions on Russia, and pushing a peace deal favorable to Russia. …
“If Trump were purposefully doing Russia’s bidding,” Whitehouse said, “it is hard to see what he would be doing differently. The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. Russia is a weak, corrupt regime. My old friend Senator John McCain used to say that Russia is a gas station, run by gangsters, with an army. It doesn’t make sense that the President of the United States, who insists—insists—on being dominant in essentially every relationship, is so submissive to one person and that one person is Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Joyce Vance: No More Benefit Of The Doubt
Last Sunday, we discussed a number of cases pending in front of federal district judges in Minneapolis. Friday night, one of them, Judge John Tunheim, dropped a decision that is well worth your time—even on a Friday night. It involves allegations from people detained by ICE that their property was seized and not returned to them. Another word for that might be theft, although one supposes it could also be the result of extraordinary carelessness. Federal law enforcement agents routinely collect, and subsequently return, the possessions of people they detain. But that isn’t happening here.
Judge Tunheim felt so much urgency about the matter than he got his ruling out on a Friday night, not a typical time for a federal judge to be finishing up at work. But he decided it was time to deliver a reckoning to the Trump administration and apparently, didn’t want to delay. …
(Joyce Vance more…)
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Marcy Wheeler: Jacob Winckler Got Charged for His Cat Toy because Charlie Kirk Died
I sprang for the trial transcript of Jacob Winckler’s trial.
He’s an unhoused man whom the government charged, last September, with trying to blind Marine Force One’s pilots because he shined a cat toy laser pointer in the eyes of Secret Service Officer, Diego Santiago, after Santiago shined his own flashlight into Winckler’s eyes.
Winckler was acquitted in a one-day trial in January.
I did a thread of my reading of the transcript here.
In my opinion, the highlight came when the excellent Public Defender representing Winckler (whose name I’d still be misspelling if not for a discussion in the charging conference about how DOJ never got his name right), Alexis Gardner, got Santiago to admit he never actually looked where Winckler was shining his cat toy, but was instead relying on either his feelings or his Spidey Sense to testify he had shined it at Marine Force One.
(Marcy Wheeler more…)
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Malcolm Nance: How The US-Iran War Ends? Enter The Dragon
A Peoples Republic of China intervention could quickly end the US-Isareli War without firing a shot.
Bottom Line Up Front: China could suddenly intervene in the US-Israel vs Iran War and bring stability and sanity to the global economy before it really impacts their economy.
(Malcolm Nance more…)
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CBS: Bodycam footage contradicts ICE claims in deadly 2025 shooting of U.S. citizen
Video of the March 2025 fatal shooting of American citizen Ruben Ray Martinez obtained by CBS News appears to contradict claims by federal officials that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot Martinez because he “accelerated” and “intentionally ran over” another agent with his car. The footage shows that Martinez’s car, a blue Ford Fusion, was stationary or going at a very low rate of speed when he was fatally shot, and the brake lights appear to be on. CBS News reached out to representatives for the Department of Homeland Security seeking comment on the footage and is awaiting a response.
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New York Times: How Talarico Won Texas Democrats With Love, Luck and a Little Restraint
A carefully disciplined campaign that capitalized on viral media, months of organizing and strong outreach to Latino voters helped propel James Talarico to the center of Texas politics.
(New York Times more…)
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Bloomberg: The New EV Charging Dynamic Emerging in the US
The US is seeing a growing electric vehicle paradox. Sales are down but charging companies are expanding and usage is up, indicating there’s a critical mass of EVs on the road.
(Bloomberg more…)
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
- January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
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
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