curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Miles Taylor:
The government ejected our film crew from the Washington Monument.
It tells you everything about why we made this documentary.
We arrived on an ordinary weekday and got tickets like everyone. To be clear, the Washington Monument permits cameras. Tourists and social-media influencers film up there every single day. So we brought in our handheld cameras, got waved through by the first set of guards, and cleared the physical security screening zone. Nobody raised an eyebrow. In fact, they specifically inspected our equipment and gave us the go-ahead.
Then we got to the top of the monument and started rolling. I spoke about how the corruption in Trump’s Washington was so blatant that you could see it everywhere, pointing through the little windows to the specific locations where the president has defaced the nation’s capital or engaged in corruption — from the torn-up reflecting pool to the Kennedy Center to the ground where he’s building a soaring arch in his own honor, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial.
That’s when two National Park Service (NPS) staff approached and asked us to stop filming.
(Miles Taylor more…)
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Mike Brock:
Too Big to NationalizeWhen a business becomes critical infrastructure, its relationship with society alters. If SpaceX builds a near-monopoly on satellite internet, no matter how objectively good the product is, and its CEO then uses it to conduct foreign policy according to his own politics and against the interests of the United States, the company has violated the public trust. Full stop.
(Mike Brock more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – October 22, 2026Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman of the Wall Street Journal reported today that Trump called Elon Musk yesterday to ask him to stop throttling Starlink’s military-grade communications system, Starshield, in Ukraine. …
… it is simply astonishing that the president of the United States, the commander in chief of the United States military, is suggesting he had to negotiate with a private citizen to tell him to stop interfering with American foreign policy.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Zeteo:
Sunday, Brazil will elect a new presidentFlávio Bolsonaro, a right-winger who supports military rule and has a laundry list of scandals to his name, is currently ahead of Lula.
Bill McKibben:
Amazon deforestation by sitting president
(Bill McKibben more…)
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German Lopez @ NY Times:
We Know How to Fix Homelessness. Look at Denver.Homelessness, all appearances to the contrary, is a long-solved problem. We know both the causes and the cure. You wouldn’t think that’s the case from visiting many U.S. cities. Stymied by political and financial hurdles, progressive bastions — including Los Angeles, Seattle and Burlington, Vt. — appear to have given up. They have surrendered public spaces to the homeless and their encampments to the point that it’s difficult to describe these spaces as truly for the public anymore.
Denver shows what happens when a city puts into place proven policies with determination and focus. Not only has it significantly reduced homelessness; it embarrasses every other urban jurisdiction that has failed to deal with its Covid-era surge of homeless encampments. Other cities no longer have an excuse.
(German Lopez @ NY Times more…)
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Adam Gramegna @ Military.com:
DOD Memo Greenlights DHS Use of Military ‘Heat Ray’ at US-Mexico Border
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Robert Kuttner @ American Prospect:
Is Paris Burning?…
The French mess is best understood in three dimensions that are all connected—the social, the economic, and the political. Socially, the protests, which caught the government by surprise in their ferocity, are mainly symptoms. The most severe riots since the famous events of 1968 began with high school students, who are ostensibly fed up with tattered schools and inadequate materials. But what they are really despairing about is the absence of life chances and hope.
(Robert Kuttner @ American Prospect more…)
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Apoorva Mandavilli @ NY Times:
C.D.C. Ignored Request From States to Validate a New Measles Test
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Samantha Cole @ 404 Media:
This Woman’s Living a CashApp Scam NightmareCan you imagine sitting in jail for days without knowing why, and then finding out that it’s because someone hacked CashApp to impersonate you?
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David Lat:
‘Lawyer’ Vs. ‘Attorney’: Is This A Thing?
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Decoding Fox News:
In a Last-Ditch Effort to Save Trump Fox News Throws Immigrants Under the Bus
The January 6Memory Project
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
Mourning Those Who Have Died in ICE Custody
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
- October 17: Emiliano Andrade-Covarrubias
- 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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