curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Timothy Snyder:
Trump’s Superpower Suicide in Iran and Russia
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Donald Trump poses, luridly and increasingly absurdly, as a strong man. But he is not seen as such anywhere in the world. And that is for very good reason: in his year and a half of office, he has brought about what can only be described as a superpower suicide. …
The war in Iran is a strategic catastrophe. The United States has gained nothing from the thousands of deaths and the billions of dollars spent. In a few days, the Americans wasted munitions (including missile interceptors) that a wiser country could have used to win a war or to defend itself. The United States has been forced to reduce its presence in bases in the Middle East and even to withdraw strategic bombers from Great Britain — something unimaginable during earlier wars in the Middle East and during the Cold War. The Strait of Hormuz has become an Iranian strategic weapon, with the United States unable to open an oil route that was perfectly functional before Trump began his war of whimsy. Iran’s allies are now attacking American allies with impunity throughout the region. The Houthis just attacked the airport in Riyadh, and there is not much anyone can now do about it.
From the beginning, there was no chance that Trump could win such a war. Although the United States was by far the stronger military power, it was governed by people who have no idea how war works. The Americans seemed to have convinced themselves that other countries would fold in the face of a combination of missiles and bluster; when this did not happen, there was no plan B. There was not really even a plan A: just gender-affirming projectiles and a cornucopia of self-praise.
…
World oil prices are high because of Trump’s Iranian misadventure and his strategic defeat. So, following the logic of his own character rather than the logic of events, Trump blames Ukraine. I spent much of last month in that country, where the injustice of these accusations was painfully palpable.
Russia was destroying Ukrainian power infrastructure with ballistic missiles and even Ukrainian gas stations with drones. The missiles are now getting through now because the Americans no longer supply interceptors, which they either fired pointlessly over Iran or refuse to give or sell. Ukrainians trying to get gas risk their lives. Meanwhile, Americans face higher prices at the gas pumps because their president has chosen to fight and lose a war in Iran.
(Timothy Snyder more…)
Summer Said @ WSJ:
Direct hits on two Riyadh airport terminals by Iran-backed militants were deadliest attack in kingdom in more than a decade
Dean Blundell:
The Diesel Lie: Trump Breaks His Own Russia Law to Buy the Midterms/Make Billions For The Trump Crime Family
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Mindy Belz:
Ebola won’t stopThe Ebola outbreak in Africa is not done yet. Health officials are redoubling precautions and contact tracing efforts after Kenya this week confirmed its first case of the deadly infectious disease, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives in Democratic Republic of the Congo since the outbreak began in May.
A 40-year-old Kenyan businessman became one of its latest victims, diagnosed at a Nairobi hospital two days before he died on Monday. Despite symptoms from as early as mid-September, he did not have fevers that would trigger a test as he traveled across three countries. His infection went undetected through airports in Uganda and Kenya, bordering countries with strict protocols already in place.
(Mindy Belz more…)
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Chris Geidner:
Federal judge orders an immediate end to DHS’s pro-Trump propaganda ads
DOJ does not defend legality of DHS’s pro-Trump propaganda ads in fed’l court in N.Y.
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Peter Beck:
Analyzing hundreds of recent criminal cases to explore how pervasive corruption is in one federal agency
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Lawrence Winnerman @ Blue Amp Media:
A developer cloned Adobe’s suite in a week with an AI modelOn September 30, a developer named Brandon Thomas started posting code to GitHub. Within a week he had 7 repositories up, each a free, open-source stand-in for an Adobe product: Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, After Effects, InDesign, and Acrobat. He wrote them in Rust, a coding language, with Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5, a model that had been on sale for 8 days when he started. He says he “one-shotted Photoshop.” That means he gave the AI tool one detailed instruction, and then let it run until it was complete. Adobe charges $69.99 a month for the suite. The clones cost nothing.
(Lawrence Winnerman @ Blue Amp Media more…)Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen @ Apple Insider:
There’s a vibe-coded Adobe Creative Suite clone, and it’s pretty good
ICE Detention Expansion Tracker
A field guide to claims
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
- September 18: Carlos Josue Marchena Marchena
- August 31: Pierre Damas Bel
- 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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