Thom Hartmann: She Stepped Onto a Sidewalk in Boston — and Vanished Into Trump’s Shadow State
Masked ICE agents are now snatching dissidents off the streets like a scene from Stalin’s Russia. This isn’t speculative fiction. It’s happening right now, in America…
This is how it begins.
Tuesday night, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk was going out to a restaurant to meet friends when masked federal ICE agents dressed in street clothes seized her off a public sidewalk and disappeared her. Her apparent crime was co-authoring an op-ed critical of Trump and Netanyahu.
Where is she now? At first, nobody knew. As her attorney told The New York Times:
“We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her.”
Then it was revealed last night — as the video of her kidnapping went viral — that she’s been transported to a violent ICE facility in Louisiana. Yeah, that place. Without any legal due process that anybody can identify.
Louise: The Sidewalk Where She Vanished
Where did she go, that girl with dreams? Into the night, into the screams
Charlotte Clymer: You Are Not Special in a Fascist State
I promise you that.
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Jennifer Rubin: How to beat back Trump’s divide & conquer strategy
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In a real sense, the collective action problem—no one stands up to the MAGA onslaught because no one else is doing it—now permeates much of civil society (including the press, law firms, and universities). Tech barons feel compelled to cough up $1M for Trump’s inauguration because they don’t want to risk being left off the podium. Paul Weiss capitulates for fear other firms will do the same. Faced with oppressive, powerful forces, it is much easier to go along to get along, keep your head down, and not call attention to oneself. (Hence, the entire Republican Party capitulating to Trump.)
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It is called a collective action problem for a reason—it is hard to break the passivity cycle. But that does not mean it is impossible.For starters, activists must direct much more attention to intermediary institutions and individuals.
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Second, opportunities to influence wary law firms, universities, and other civil society actors abound.
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Finally, the American people can make a difference. You have already set an example. In mass demonstrations that far outpace the number seen in Trump 1.0, ordinary Americans have proven that they are the least afflicted by the collective action problem. The willingness of thousands of Americans to speak out and show up should encourage fellow Americans to protest these efforts to divide and conquer law firms, universities, and other aspects of civil society. To sustain that movement, every individual can join, support, or initiate some type of peaceful protest. Ordinary people can also use their purchasing power (and choice of university) to make value-based decisions.
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Heated: Secret Energy Department “hit list” targets renewable energy industry
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The existence of the “hit list” was first reported by E&E News on Friday. The “hit list” is a collection of clean energy projects already awarded billions of dollars in grants and loans under the Inflation Reduction Act, bipartisan infrastructure law, and annual appropriations. The DOE is now seeking to cancel these projects. The list will be submitted to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget, according to two people familiar with the plan.Among many other proposed cuts, the “hit list” includes six long-duration energy storage projects that have already had $156 million in federal funding obligated under the bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The grants for those projects were awarded in 2023, and “seen as vital for turning variable wind and solar production into a reliable, round-the-clock power source,” Canary Media reported at the time.
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Intercept: The Real Outrage About the Yemen Signal Group Is That It Called for Attack on Civilian Home
“We had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 26, 2025
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The messages reveal that President Trump was not part of the discussion of whether to make the airstrikes, a deeply troubling revelation that raises the question of who is in charge at the White House. As the conversation about whether to attack took place, Vice President J.D. Vance wrote about Trump’s reasoning that attacking the Houthis in Yemen would “send a message”: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.” Later, he texted to Hegseth: “if you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again. Let’s just make sure our messaging is tight here. And if there are things we can do upfront to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities we should do it.”Axios: Signalgate scrambles MAGA’s messaging machine
Bulwark: Who You Gonna Believe, Hegseth or Your Lyin’ Eyes?
Team Trump team’s dishonest damage control made the Signal scandal worse for themselves
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The administration’s shambolic responses have only served to energize the story and help it break through into the mainstream. When the White House loses Barstool Sports’s Dave Portnoy, it’s time to rethink the messaging strategy.Daily Beast: Mike Waltz Says He’s Never Met Jeffrey Goldberg. Here’s a Photo of Them Together
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“I can tell you for 100 percent: I don’t know this guy… Wouldn’t know him if I bumped into him, if I saw him in a police lineup,” he told Laura Ingraham. “I certainly wasn’t reaching out or talking to him at all… I didn’t see this loser in the group. It looked like someone else.”
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In 2021, renowned public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy posted a photo of him speaking to a crowd during the launch of his book and documentary The Will to See: Dispatches from a World of Misery and Hope, which probed humanitarian crises across the world during the pandemic.The photo shows Waltz smiling up at the French philosopher speaking from the podium. Right behind the national security adviser was Goldberg, standing with his hand in his pocket.
Guardian: Republican senators break ranks to call for investigation of Signal leak scandal
Senior GOP figures warn of potential ‘significant political problem’ for Trump administration in rare sign of unrest
Politico: Trump allies are starting to notice Hegseth’s growing pile of mistakes
Some White House and Pentagon officials now believe Hegseth is the one who messed up in the Signal chat scandal by sending sensitive details on his phone.
NY Times: Signal Chat Leak Angers U.S. Military Pilots
Men and women who have taken to the air on behalf of the United States expressed bewilderment after the leak of attack plans. “You’re going to kill somebody,” one pilot said.
The intelligence breach was bad enough, current and former fighter pilots said. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s refusal to acknowledge that he should not have disclosed sensitive information about when American fighter pilots would attack sites in Yemen, they said, was even worse.On air bases, in aircraft carrier “ready rooms” and in communities near military bases this week, the news that senior officials in the Trump administration discussed plans for an impending attack on Signal, a commercial messaging app, angered and bewildered men and women who have taken to the air on behalf of the United States.
TNR: Trump Throws Tantrum Over Judge Assigned to War Plans Group Chat Case
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“How disgraceful is it that ‘Judge’ James Boasberg has just been given a fourth ‘Trump Case,’ something which is, statistically, IMPOSSIBLE. There is no way for a Republican, especially a TRUMP REPUBLICAN, to win before him. He is Highly Conflicted, not only in his hatred of me—Massive Trump Derangement Syndrome!— but also, because of disqualifying family conflicts,” Trump wrote past one o’clock in the morning on Thursday.Brian Klaas: On Power and Stupidity
Why do so many fools end up in positions of authority?
When the fools leading the world’s most powerful country accidentally text war plans to a journalist, it’s time to ask an obvious question:Why do so many idiots end up in power?
Wired: SignalGate Isn’t About Signal
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The only sense in which SignalGate is a Signal-related scandal, White adds, is that the use of Signal suggests that the cabinet-level officials involved in the Houthi bombing plans, including secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, were conducting the conversation on internet-connected devices—possibly even including personal ones—since Signal wouldn’t typically be allowed on the official, highly restricted machines intended for such conversations. “In past administrations, at least, that would be absolutely forbidden, especially for classified communications,” says White.
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Jay Kuo: Grateful for Healthcare and Medical Science
As I process stunning headlines about 20,000 in job cuts announced to the federal workforce at Health and Human Services, I want to give a shout out today to modern medicine and our healthcare workers.
My son Ronan was born four weeks early. The first 24 hours of his life he was on oxygen, and the first 48 on an IV drip. He’s only just learning how to eat small amounts of his mother’s milk, so they are feeding him primarily through a tube.
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Law & Chao: Trump’s Election Law Issue Spotter
Are You Smarter Than Pam Bondi?
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Issue spotters use intentionally ridiculous scenarios to test a lawyer’s analytical skills. And so do the legal documents pumped out daily by the Trump administration! They hope to bombard us with as many flagrant violations of the law as possible so that we’ll give up and knuckle under.We will not. Instead we will approach the recently signed executive order, captioned “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” as the giant election law issue spotter that it is.
Get out those blue books!
- Pick Those Cherries
The order begins by suggesting that the United States has weak election security compared to other countries - Hunting Sasquatch
In Section 2, President Trump promises to “enforce the Federal prohibition on foreign nationals voting in Federal elections.” - Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act
During the 2024 election, Trump supporters spun themselves up about supposed fraudulent ballots by Americans voting abroad. Today the president is apparently happy to make it harder for overseas military members to vote if he can stick it to a group which organized against him. - Spot ‘Em All
Section 7 of the executive order instructs the Department of Justice to prosecute states that allow for the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots “received after Election Day.”
Pencils Down
If you spot nothing else, you can at least see Trump’s executive order is wildly unconstitutional. It manages to usurp both judicial and congressional authority, and the statutes it relies on are either taken out of context or state the opposite of what Trump cites them for. It is difficult to imagine that this attempt to wrest control of elections from the states will survive judicial review, even with this Supreme Court.Class dismissed.
- Pick Those Cherries
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Public Notice: Trump’s hopeless tariffs confusion, explained by a historian
“The president seems to believe he can impose prohibitively high tariffs *and* collect revenue, which you can’t do.”
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But scratch the surface of this bluster and it quickly becomes clear that Trump’s ideas about tariffs and their alleged benefits are a combination of confused and baseless. For instance, when he was asked last month if he’s considered directing federal agencies to study how tariffs will actually impact prices, Trump indicated it hadn’t crossed his mind.Dan Rather: Hire Clowns, Get a Circus
Trump’s horrible, terrible, no good, very bad week
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TNR: Kari Lake Forced to Backtrack on Trump Order to Avoid Legal Fight
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty just got a massive win.
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Daily Beast: Trump Demands Congress Defund NPR and PBS ‘IMMEDIATELY’ in Late-Night Meltdown
WHO’S AFRAID OF BIG BIRD?
The president lashed out America’s public broadcasters, saying both were “arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party.”
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Daily Beast: ICE Barbie Kristi Noem Finds Shocking New Place to Film Promo Video
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center was the site of her latest warning to undocumented immigrants.
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Big Picture: Can Trump Really Just Eliminate The Department Of Education?
Trump’s strategy for dismantling the DoE is coming into focus, and Democrats are fighting back
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Or as the Trump White House’s Orwellian press release puts it:President Donald J. Trump Empowers Parents, States, and Communities to Improve Education Outcomes
Yes, this EO is being framed by the administration as one of Trump’s famous “sending it back to the states” issues, even though, as we know, such a federalist approach only appeals to Trump when it suits him politically (see also how Trump spun the overturning of Roe v Wade during last year’s election.)
Trump is perfectly happy to wield presidential power over everything from voting rights to women’s sports. In Trump’s mind, the states—not to mention parents—are not to be trusted on those issues.
But in the case of education, according to the text of Trump’s EO,
The Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities…
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Fox News: Trump pushes to ‘restore truth in American History,’ end DEI at Smithsonian
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Daily: American Kids in Germany Protest Trump’s Cuts
So much for the idea that all of the troops support the Republican president as hundreds of students at multiple U.S. military bases in Germany are protesting Donald Trump’s cuts to DEI.
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Ken Klippenstein: A Trump Doctrine Emerges
The Trump administration turned longstanding U.S. policy on its head this week by stating that foreign governments like Russia, China and Iran don’t really want to pick a fight with the United States.