curated news excerpts & citations
Harriet Torry @ WSJ: AI Investment Boosted Economic Growth, While Consumers Tapped the Brakes
GDP grew at a 2% rate in the first quarter, improving after shutdown-induced slowdown
U.S. economic growth picked up in the first quarter as businesses invested heavily in artificial intelligence, rebounding from a fourth quarter dented by a government shutdown.
At the same time, the economy didn’t expand as fast as economists expected, weighed down by softer consumer spending growth.
Paul Krugman: The Logic of NACHO
On Wall Street, TACO — Trump Always Chickens Out — has abruptly been replaced as a favorite meme by NACHO — Not a Chance Hormuz Opens. As a result, oil futures have soared.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 30, 2026
Today G. Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers noted that Trump has hit a new low in overall job performance and in his handling of the economy, at -22.2 and -40.3, respectively. Those numbers reflect the percentage of people who approve of his handling of an issue minus those who disapprove. Indeed, Morris noted that Trump’s approval rating on the economy is so low it “literally broke the scale of this graph on my data portal.”
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The upcoming elections are definitely on Trump’s mind. He called in to NewsMax today, saying: “It is a problem I’m not on the ballot. And I have to convince—Everyone says if I was on the ballot we’d win in a landslide. I have the best, I have some of the best poll numbers I’ve ever had.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: Being a Dissident Is ‘A Way of Being’
Gal Beckerman’s How To Be a Dissident is not a guide for how to resist authoritarianism. Rather, Beckerman explores the mindset of dissidents. The volume is less than 200 pages but densely packed with fascinating accounts of global dissidents over thousands of years, from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to Baruch Spinoza to Diogenes to Henry David Thoreau (and many whose names will not be familiar).
To be a dissident (literally to “sit apart” from the Latin) is not, Beckerman says, a “political stance” or the equivalent of “being outspoken” (especially in countries where free speech is largely protected). Rather:
It is something much more profound. Being a dissident means trying to close the distance between what you believe and how you act. It means understanding the conditions that allow you to be yourself, and not accepting any violation of them. And it means doing all this when there are great risks involved. You feel you cannot do otherwise.
On one level, his accounts of dissidents’ experiences (e.g., exile, torture, death) are a testament to their remarkable courage. However, these are people who could not help but dissent. They could not live with themselves by simply going along with the status quo. It is who they are, a reminder that dissent is not “a distinct moment of action, not as a choice, but a way of being.”
(Jennifer Rubin more…)Rebecca Solnit: Notes on Violence and Voice
- On the Myth of Violence’s Utility
- Toward a Democracy of Voices
Steward Beckham: The Cost of the Comforting Lie
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Vic Verbalaitis @ Daily Beast: Pentagon Pete Blows Up at Hearing Before Being Shut Up by Republican
Nicole Charky-Chami @ RawStory: Hegseth team blindsided over use of secret messaging apps: ‘Going to take that as a yes’
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Caleb Ecarma: An oligarch’s dystopian scheme to discredit journalism with AI
A Peter Thiel-funded startup launched this month will use an “AI jury” to “subject the media’s claims to systematic investigation and judgment.” That same system of AI adjudication assigns a numerical value — the so-called “Honor Index” score — grading the trustworthiness of individual reporters. And for a starting price of $2,000, anyone can pay for the company to review and adjudicate complaints they may have about a news outlet or reporter.
(Caleb Ecarma more…)Tony Ho Tran @ Slate: Elon Musk Is Probably Going to Lose the OpenAI Case
… Winning, at least in the legal sense, doesn’t appear to be Musk’s main goal. What the trial offers him is an opportunity: a very public forum in which to challenge OpenAI’s story, drag its leadership through potentially embarrassing discovery and testimony, and inflict as much pain as possible on his rivals.
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Rook T. Winchester: OPERATION SWIPE RIGHT
The Department of Homeland Security would like you to know that it is very serious and very powerful and you should be very afraid of it. It has a $60 billion annual budget. It has military-grade surveillance equipment. It has helicopters — actual helicopters — which it deployed over residential Minneapolis neighborhoods to intimidate people whose primary offense was living there.
It also, as it turns out, has agents who will tell a woman they met on Tinder exactly where tomorrow’s raid is going to be if she seems interested enough.
(Rook T. Winchester more…)
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Mike Ludwig @ truthout: More Details Emerge of Trump’s Secret Use of ICE to Spy on Critics
Uriel J. García @ Texas Tribune: Texas DACA recipient detained again after ICE deported him, then allowed his return
Liliana Segura @ Intercept: Who Decided to Indict Kilmar Abrego Garcia Over a Years-Old Traffic Stop?
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Opinion by Michael Daly @ Daily Beast: Trump wants to build a new ballroom when we already have a better one
The national capital already has a bigger, more beautiful ballroom than the $400 million one that President Donald Trump is seeking to build at the White House.
(Opinion by Michael Daly @ Daily Beast more…)
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Kathryn Rubino @ Above the Law: A Judge Just Turned The Government’s Own ‘Reconsider’ Motion Against Them And It’s Glorious
Paradoxically, it is now the court’s turn to ask the government to reconsider. They should. They won’t, but they should.
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Gideon M-K: Ivermectin Can’t Cure Cancer
I can’t believe it’s 2026 and I’m still writing about ivermectin
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Decoding Fox News: Fox News is the Defiant Parent in the Principal’s Office
A condensed overview of 21 hours of Fox News for the week ending 4/26/26
Decoding Fox News: Trump’s CBS 60 Minutes Interview: What Aired and What Was Cut – TRANSCRIPT ONLY
This is a new post since the paywall on the video version tripped some folks up.
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
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