curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Timothy Snyder:
Our Trade War Against Ourselves
Treating Canada as an Enemy Leaves us Weaker in Every Way
Dean Blundell:
Canada Just Robbed Harvard, MIT and the NIH in Broad Daylight
Here’s a number Donald Trump will never say out loud: 48. That’s how many of America’s top researchers quietly walked out of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, UCSF, the University of Michigan and the National Institutes of Health this summer, and walked into Canadian universities with a cheque from Ottawa in their hand and a look on their face like someone who just got out of a bad marriage.
On Thursday, Mélanie Joly stood up at UBC in Vancouver and announced the first 64 Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada. Three quarters of them came from the United States. All four of the top-tier, highest-paid distinguished chairs came from the US. The federal government is putting $504 million behind them over eight years, plus another $37 million to recruit 63 younger researchers over the next year, all of it under a $1.7 billion talent program Carney’s government launched in December while everybody was watching the tariff fight.
The announcement was already in the works. It just happened to land less than a week after trade talks with Washington collapsed and Canada got shoved into a full-blown trade war with a country that used to be our friend. So yes, the timing was a gift, and Joly took the gift. She called it a hinge moment in Canadian history and said Canada is doubling down on science while other countries walk away from it.
(Dean Blundell more…)
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Carl Davidson:
Securing Voter Lists and Mail Ballots from MischiefPresident Donald Trump appears determined to take out two birds with one stone: to help ICE assemble lists of non-citizens for mass deportations, and to weaponize the U.S. Postal Service in a campaign to suppress voting by mail.
(Carl Davidson more…)
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WSJ:
Trump Takes the Oil in VenezuelaThe deal recalls the famous Cuba scene in ‘The Godfather Part II.’
Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – August 30, 2026One of our founding myths is that of George Washington and the cherry tree. …
On Friday, Rick Maese of the Washington Post reported that despite orders from U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes saying that she wanted advance notice before the government took down more than ten trees from the East Potomac Golf Links or brought equipment larger than a sedan onto the property, the Trump administration has taken down more than sixty trees in apparent preparation for Trump to redesign the golf course.
…One of the trees they have cut down is a cherry tree.
It seems like the writers for the 250th season of American democracy are becoming increasingly desperate to get the country’s attention.
On Friday, Trump announced: “The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY! …
There are reasons to greet this announcement with skepticism.
… an executive in the oil industry told the journalists that the deal was “built on a legal environment that does not exist. The Venezuelan constitution does not allow for anyone other than [Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company] to own rights to oil and gas in the country,” the executive pointed out.
….“So, let me get this straight,” national security reporter David Rothkopf wrote. “[T]he US illegally attacks a country, kidnaps its president, threatens its government with massive military force, gets them to hand over to US control a huge portion of their national assets, hails the billions it has already brought in and promises billions more[,] but we don’t know where the money’s going, how it is going to benefit the US, if it is going to benefit the US, who’s privately going to benefit, what side deals have been struck with the corrupt leaders of their country or ours, & we are supposed to celebrate this act of aggression and theft that violates international law and that could well turn out to be a massive mafia-style shakedown scheme to benefit the anti-democratic forces in Venezuela and the US, the president’s friends and supporters, possibly the president and his family?”
Rothkopf appears to have understood the point of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Hans Christensen:
Sweden Sends Forces to Finland/Russia Border
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Konstantin Toropin, Cara Anna, Ben Finley @ AP:
US strikes Iranian rocket launchers on the Strait of Hormuz in first military action in weeksLucian K. Truscott IV:
Iran could sit back and add up who wasted the most money on the most expensive-to-replace missiles
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD:
Dr. Ruth Report, 8/30/26
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Marcy Wheeler:
Corruption Is a ProcessSam Levine @ Guardian:
Trump’s DHS is using an obscure law to secretly snoop on journalists, non-profits and unions: ‘It’s outrageous’Brendan Rascius @ Independent:
ICE plans to spend up to $2M on robot dogs
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Heather Cox Richardson: Week Fourteen in 250 to 250
Last week was the fourteenth week of videos from the 250 to 250 Project that we’re producing to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Our hope was for the videos to emphasize the agency of Americans—mostly everyday Americans—to change the country. Each falls into a category that defines what it means to be an American, including community, democracy, innovation, mobility, civil rights, education, conservation, and creativity.
Lots of fun ones this week, with terrific narrators including some very old friends and some very new ones.
https://www.youtube.com/@twofiftytotwofifty
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Last Days in Two Nations
Climate.us
formerly Climate.gov
Climate Solutions Explorer
Have I Been Flocked?
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
Mike Ludwig @ truthout: ICE Says 51 People Died in Custody Under Trump. Experts Say That’s an Undercount.
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- August 1: Edwin Lopez-Cornejo
- July 19: Jose Chajon-Raxon
- July 14: Juan Jairo Coronilla Duran
- July 13: Joan Sebastian Guerrero
- July 7: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
- June 4: Mamuka Artmeladze
- 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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