curated news excerpts & citations
Tim Dickinson: Trump vs. Earth
…
The danger posed by Trump begins with climate denial. On day one, the administration pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord — the international framework for lowering global greenhouse emissions. Not content to simply abdicate leadership, Trump has preached global warming denial on the (literal and proverbial) international stage. At the U.N. General Assembly in February, the president called climate change “the greatest con job perpetrated by the world.”
The administration has now made climate denial official U.S. policy. In February, the EPA jettisoned the “endangerment finding” that designated carbon dioxide as a pollutant, subject to limitations under the Clean Air Act. …
…
The move to rescind the endangerment finding was based in part on the findings of a “climate working group” that was secretly assembled by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, himself a former fracking executive. The group — which downplayed the dangers of climate change — was later found to have been operating illegally. Because, of course it was. But its work product was, egregiously, allowed to stand.
Alastair Marsh @ Bloomberg: How Microsoft Spooked the Global Carbon Removal Market
-
Jack Hopkins: The Strait Just Called His Bluff
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two ships in Hormuz today. A third was disabled. The President told you this navy no longer existed.
(Jack Hopkins more…)Georgi Kantchev, Jared Malsin and Summer Said @ WSJ: Air War in Iran Gives Way to Crippling Stalemate in Hormuz
Lara Seligman, Marcus Weisgerber and Alexander Ward @ WSJ: Pete Hegseth Fires Navy Secretary John Phelan
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 22, 2026
…
Then, on May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death on the Senate floor shortly after a speech in which Sumner had called out those who were forcing enslavement on Kansas and insulted a relative of Brooks. Southern lawmakers and newspapermen alike cheered the violence against an elected representative in the Capitol. Lawmakers refused to expel Brooks, and one newspaper editor wrote: “We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks…. If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding every day.”But the attack on Sumner was a bridge too far for his colleague, Massachusetts representative Anson Burlingame. On June 21, he stood up in Congress to call out as inferior Brooks and the system of enslavement he defended. Burlingame was sick and tired of buying peace by letting southerners abuse the North. Enough, he said, was enough.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
-
ReligiousLiberty.TV: The Crooked Diamond: How Slave Traders Reshaped the Nation’s Capital
… The district’s permanent non-voting status in Congress, the condition that statehood advocates rightly call a democratic anomaly, was made structurally worse by the 1847 retrocession. Had the Virginia cession remained, the district’s population would be larger, its economic base broader, and the political case for representation harder to dismiss. The crooked diamond is not merely an aesthetic curiosity. It is a monument to a decision made, in part, to protect human bondage, and its jagged edge still marks where democratic accountability was quietly traded away.
(ReligiousLiberty.TV more…)
-
Jason Sattler: Now Is the Time to Demand They Close the Camps
-
Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond @ Washington Post: Trump fought to keep the ballroom fundraising contract secret. Here’s what’s in it.
…
The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public.
(Jonathan Edwards and Dan Diamond @ Washington Post more…)
-
Amandla Thomas-Johnson @ EFF: Google Broke Its Promise to Me. Now ICE Has My Data.
In September 2024, Amandla Thomas-Johnson was a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa when he briefly attended a pro-Palestinian protest. In April 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting his data. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson’s information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement.
…
The consequences of what happened to me are not abstract. I left the United States. But I do not feel that I have left its reach. Being investigated by the federal government is intimidating. Questions run through your head. Am I now a marked individual? Will I face heightened scrutiny if I continue my reporting? Can I travel safely to see family in the Caribbean?
(Amandla Thomas-Johnson @ EFF more…)
-
Brian Beutler: What Happened To Consumer Sentiment?
The vibecession came for Donald Trump—then he started a war.
(Brian Beutler more…)Paul Krugman: Bad Vibes and Broken Promises
More thoughts on the roots of Americans’ anger about the economy
-
James Eagle: Why rearmament did not kill social spending
(James Eagle more…)
-
Katelyn Jetelina @ Your Local Epidemiologist: Peptides, explained: Answers to your top questions
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - 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