curated news excerpts & citations
Matt Johnson @ Bulwark: Trump Is Repeating Putin’s Blunder
Both men thought they could start easy, quick regime-change wars at minimal cost.
THE IDEA THAT INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITIES are major drivers of world history is often dismissed as overly simplistic. …
In fact, without taking into account the particular personalities of two major world leaders, it’s hard to explain two of the most important international events of the last five years: Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Donald Trump’s recent attacks against Iran.
The CIA doesn’t know exactly when Vladimir Putin decided to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it was likely sometime in the first half of 2020. According to a recent Guardian report on how U.S. and British intelligence exposed Putin’s war plans, “During those months, Putin passed constitutional amendments to ensure he could stay in power beyond 2024. Then, locked away in isolation for months during Covid, he devoured books on Russian history and pondered his own place in it.” In the summer of 2021, Putin published a long essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” which made the case that Ukraine is an inseparable part of Russia.
This partially explains why Putin thought the war in Ukraine would be easy—he believed many Ukrainians would accept Russian control of their country. …
(Matt Johnson @ Bulwark more…)
-
NY Times: Why Little Was Done to Head Off Oil’s Strait of Hormuz Problem
Geography and regional rivalries have prevented Gulf countries from finding a true alternative to the strait, which the war with Iran has effectively shut down.
(NY Times more…)
-
Bloomberg: Iran War-Fueled Pollution Put Millions at Risk
Tehran already had polluted air, but it’s being made worse by Israeli and US airstrikes on oil infrastructure.
(Bloomberg more…)
-
NY Times: The [Venezuelan] Oil Tankers Trump Seized Are Costing the U.S. Millions of Dollars
Although President Trump said seizing tankers would be a financial boon, the cost of maintaining just one aging ship has already reached $47 million.
(NY Times more…)
-
HuffPost: Trump Appears To Endorse Eugenics In Wild Fox News Clip
“Their genetics are not exactly … your genetic,” he told Brian Kilmeade.
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 14, 2026
March 15 is a crucially important day in U.S. history. As the man who taught me to use a chainsaw said, it is immortalized by Shakespeare’s famous warning: “Cedar! Beware the adze of March!”
He put it that way because the importance of March 15 is, of course, that it is the day in 1820 that Maine, the Pine Tree State, joined the Union.
Maine statehood had national repercussions. …
(Heather Cox Richardson 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
Leave a Reply