curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Deuce Davis:
A Juneteenth Journey Through America’s Original Sin
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These nine films are a journey into the way cinema depicts America’s original sin, and watching them in sequence has made this Juneteenth all the more meaningful. As Frederick Douglass once asked what the Fourth of July meant to the slave other than hypocrisy, it is crucial to remember that America is as notable to history for its contributions to the perpetuation of ethnonationalist authoritarianism as it is for the possibility of multicultural democracy. The movies have spent a century telling us which of those two we are. The truth is that we have always been both, and the lie each film tells is just another way of choosing which one to look at.
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 19, 2026
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Cliff Schecter @ Blue Amp Media: The Jeffrey Epstein Lesson: Predators Don’t Survive Without Protectors
The Real Scandal Isn’t The Predator. It’s The Institutions That Protect Them.
Gil Duran: How JD Vance Became an Epstein Class Errand Boy
The vice president serves two men with deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein
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Hamed Aleaziz @ NY Times: ICE Spent $700 Million on 7 Warehouses. Now It Wants to Get Rid of Them
Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to sell or give away most of the 11 warehouses it bought to detain migrants, reversing course on a signature initiative.
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Lucian K. Truscott IV: Trump has called out the National Guard to protect his floating chunks of badly-applied and criminally contracted paint from tourists
They are the D.C. National Guard, who were deployed by Donald Trump last summer to protect the streets of Washington from marauding muggers. Now that their job is more aesthetic, they still carry sidearms. They are wear bullet-proof combat vests. And they have been assigned by Donald Trump to patrol the edges of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to protect floating slabs of freshly-applied American Flag Blue paint from being carried away by tourists as souvenirs.
I am fully cognizant that my eager coverage of the Reflecting Pool debacle might seem rather misplaced, even petty. After all, ICE agents are still out there arresting undocumented migrants and taking them away to so-called “detention centers” that resemble nothing less than a system of concentration camps around the country. RFK Jr. is still figuring out ways to either confuse people about vaccines or outright deny them to those seeking protection from serious diseases. Trump and his family are still keeping themselves occupied by enriching themselves at taxpayer expense.But the algae growing at breakneck speed in the Reflecting Pool and the apparent disintegration of the paint that Donald Trump personally chose to cover its bottom, and which he inspected while the job was being done, is just plain delicious because it is of a piece with not only Trump’s two presidencies, but his entire life.
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WSJ: Trump Explains Why He Cut a Deal With Iran
He makes a startling admission of U.S. weakness against Iran’s oil weapon.
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Brian Schwartz, Natalie Andrews,
Alexander Ward @ WSJ: ‘I’m the President and You’re Not’: Trump Tests His Power and Frustrates the GOPThe president has made a series of decisions that have confounded Republicans and are challenging his grip on the party
Mike Allen @ AXIOS: Trump’s all-powerful “Great Man” theory
President Trump declared on “The Axios Show” yesterday that he’s discovered “no limits” to his power since going to war with Iran.
(Mike Allen @ AXIOS more…)Heather Delaney Reese: The President of the United States thinks there are no limits to his power
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Miles Taylor: “Keep your mouth shut,” he demanded. I’m glad I didn’t listen.
Donald Trump’s cronies tried very hard to keep me — and you — quiet. Because we ignored them, we’re on the path to rescuing our country.
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Paul Krugman: Donald Trump, Champion of Renewable Energy
His humiliating defeat in Iran has sealed the deal
On Wednesday the Interior Department announced that it would pay the energy developer Invenergy $765 million not to develop three offshore wind farms. This is the third such payment by the Trump administration to undo offshore wind projects that have been years in the planning. Trump has so far committed $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars to killing renewable energy projects. The administration has also tried to stop offshore wind farms already under development — moves that have been blocked by the courts — while the Pentagon has been refusing to grant routine permits for onshore wind projects.
Yes, $2.5 billion to destroy already-approved, cost-effective clean energy projects while Americans are suffering from soaring electricity prices thanks to data centers and high gasoline prices.
Yet here’s the irony: Donald Trump’s disastrous Iran war has delivered a huge boost for renewable energy around the world — except in the U.S.. Trump has so far done more to shift the global economy away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy than any other single individual in history.
(Paul Krugman more…)
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Catherine Rampell @ Bulwark: Trump’s One Big Beautiful Hunger Crisis
His solution to the food affordability crisis is to cut programs that help people afford food.
(Catherine Rampell @ Bulwark more…)
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Brian Merchant: Understanding the Luddites in the age of AI
(Brian Merchant more…)
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
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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