curated news excerpts & citations
Dean Obeidallah: Dr. John Gartner: “I’m predicting that Donald Trump will kill more people than Hitler”
… Dr. John Gartner—a psychologist and founder of Duty To Warn—who for years had been raising red flags about Donald Trump’s cognitive decline. … But this is the first time he said something as blunt as, “I’m predicting that Donald Trump will kill more people than Hitler.”
Before you dismiss this as over the top, keep in mind … He has now seen Trump’s reaction to war and the joy it brings him. That is why Dr. Gartner has upped his warning. Plus it’s not just Dr. Gartner alerting us–36 leading medical experts recently signed a letter to Congress warning that Trump is mentally unfit to serve.
As Dr. Gartner explained in our discussion this week, during the Iran war we’ve seen Trump enjoy the bombing and killing of people. “Donald Trump is becoming pure, sadistic id with no brakes, with no frontal lobe,” he explained.
(Dean Obeidallah more…)
Allison Quinn, Mary Papenfuss @ Daily Beast: White House Reveals Secret New Hospital for Trump, 79
The president’s much-talked-about ballroom now inexplicably could double as a hospital.
Joseph Gedeon, Cate Brown @ Guardian: Pentagon quietly shut legally required program to prevent civilian deaths by military, watchdog finds
Jason Sattler: Why Trump can’t quit Stephen Miller
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Joyce Vance: Selma Rejects Jim Crow 2.0
Half of the population in Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma is located, was African American in 1965. But less than 2% of the county’s registered voters were Black. That wasn’t for lack of trying. They were excluded by systematic racism. Leaders like John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr. understood that being denied rights was intolerable, and that nothing would change until Black Americans had the same ability to exercise the right to vote that white citizens did.
…Protest is brewing again in Selma. In the wake of Callais, and the overt gerrymandering and dilution of the Black vote that the Supreme Court now says is legal, protestors marched today.
(Joyce Vance more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 16, 2026
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Three years after the Brown v. Board decision, in the face of massive resistance to desegregation in the South, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to protect the right of Black Americans to vote, using the federal government to overrule the state laws that limited voter registration and kept Black voters from the polls. To prevent the passage of the first federal civil rights legislation since 1875, South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond launched the longest filibuster in U.S. history, speaking for 24 hours and 18 minutes.
…Today, thousands of Americans, including eighteen members of Congress, traveled to Selma and Mongomery to call Americans to action to protect voting rights. Pastor Kenneth Sharpton Glasgow told Joseph D. Bryant of Alabama news site AL, “This moment is bigger than Democrats or Republicans. This is about democracy itself. This is about whether Black communities, poor communities, rural communities, formerly incarcerated people, and marginalized voices will continue to have representation and political power in America.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Cody D. @ Root: In Selma, Voters Explain How They’ll Turn Their Fury Into a November Win
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Ian Aikman @ BBC Mundo: Trump warns Taiwan it cannot declare independence, and the Taiwanese government responds that it is “a sovereign country.”
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Rook T. Winchester: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS ELISABETTA TAI FERRETTO?
An Epstein accuser vanished into U.S. custody. Nobody’s talking.
…Elisabetta Tai Ferretto disappears April 22nd. This is not a quiet moment in American politics. Three million pages of Epstein documents — released by the DOJ in January 2026 — are still detonating across Washington. The political shrapnel is flying in every direction. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is sweating through congressional testimony about why he visited Epstein’s island in 2012, couldn’t remember why, brought his wife and kids, stayed for lunch, says nothing untoward happened, take his word for it. Trump’s name appeared more than thirty-eight thousand times in the released Epstein materials. Former AG Pam Bondi — who once took a $25,000 donation from an Epstein-linked foundation while deciding as Florida AG not to join a fraud investigation against him, and who spent months defying congressional subpoenas demanding she explain what happened to the rest of the documents — was fired as Attorney General right in the middle of all of this.
(Rook T. Winchester more…)Adam Kinzinger: A Saturday Reminder: Don’t Let Them Bury the Epstein Files
A torrent of news cannot bury the truth. We can’t let it.
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Ayden Runnels @ Texas Tribune: $1.7 billion contract awarded “for border wall in Big Bend” amid public confusion over construction plans
The contract comes just a week after Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said the agency would not build a wall in Big Bend National Park.
(Ayden Runnels @ Texas Tribune more…)Adam Lynch @ AlterNet: Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ killed another American company’s factory in a red state
Louise Callaghan @ Times of London: Migrants revived these Midwest towns. Will ICE undo it all?
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Elizabeth Williamson, Adam Goldman @ NY Times: Snorkeling at Pearl Harbor: Kash Patel’s Travels Add to Focus on Ethical Issues
Last summer, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, capped a whirlwind South Pacific trip with a snorkel trip in Hawaii.
There, Navy SEALs used two boats to transport and escort Mr. Patel and nine other people on what a Defense Department email called a “V.I.P. Snorkel” at one of the military’s most sacred sites, the underwater tomb of the U.S.S. Arizona that holds the remains of more than 900 Navy sailors and Marines who died at Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Patel swam in the vicinity of the tomb for 30 minutes, according to the Navy.
Out of respect for the dead entombed in the wreck of the Arizona, rules bar visitors even from wearing swimwear at the memorial. …
(Elizabeth Williamson, Adam Goldman @ NY Times more…)Mark Hertling @ Bulwark: Respect at USS Arizona
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Todd Woody @ Bloomberg: Iran War Boosts Interest in Air-to-Water Technology
Startup Atoco now has a commercial prototype.
(Todd Woody @ Bloomberg more…)
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Lila Shroff @ Atlantic: The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly
Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders don’t agree on much. But both think that AI is a disaster for the working class. The Vermont senator recently wrote that “AI oligarchs do not want to just replace specific jobs. They want to replace workers.” Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, made similar comments last week: Silicon Valley does “not care about the little guy,” he said in a podcast episode titled “Stopping the AI Oligarchs From Stealing Humanity.” This emergent “Bernie-to-Bannon” coalition points to the growing bipartisan anxiety over AI. In polls, the United States ranks among the countries most concerned about AI. America is both the world’s foremost developer of AI and its chief hater.
(Lila Shroff @ Atlantic more…)Hans Christensen: Germany Rejects Palantir
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AnnaMaria Andriotis, C. Ryan Barber @ WSJ: Jho Low, Fugitive Behind 1MDB Scandal, Seeks Pardon From Trump
Malaysian financier recently submitted a pardon request, some 10 years after he disappeared amid a $4.5 billion scandal
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Heather @ Crooks & Liars: Jen Psaki Brings The Receipts In Response To Eric Trump’s Threat To Sue
Norman Eisen: Trump to Redistricting Robbers: Hold My Beer
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
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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