curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Janna Brancolini @ DailyBeast: White House’s Situation Room Meltdown Over Epstein Exposed
Donald Trump’s top advisers needed to convince the president’s supporters he cared—even though he clearly didn’t.
Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan @ NY Times: Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files
On July 17, 2025, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, President Trump’s top officials filed into the White House Situation Room — the secure bunker where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s national security team, watched the raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.
Ten days earlier, the Justice Department and the F.B.I. had jointly released a memo that bluntly stated that their review had found no “client list” of powerful men for whom the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had allegedly procured underage girls and young women. Intended to put to rest years of speculation and end the pressure campaign to release the voluminous material in the department’s possession, the memo instead had the opposite effect, setting off a backlash that was notably loud among the MAGA base.
And it was about to get worse: The Wall Street Journal was preparing a damaging article about Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The president’s desperate attempts to kill the story had failed. His team now had to get everyone onto the same page about how to counter the growing swarm of attention. They needed a gesture of transparency to appease an increasingly angry base, but also a way to convey the message that the president was sympathetic to his supporters’ concerns. Which itself was a problem, because he clearly wasn’t.
Jason Easley: Democrats Have All The Info They Need To End Trump And Vance With A Real Epstein Investigation
Jennifer Rubin: The President Is Bonkers
What we can do about it
… now is precisely the time to demand a robust debate in public, in Congress, and on the midterm campaign trail about the gravity of leaving a patently unfit, raving lunatic in the Oval Office. In light of the grave danger Trump poses, pro-democracy forces must educate the public, compel legacy media to cover his breakdown as vigorously and consistently as they did Joe Biden’s health after his 2024 debate, and pressure Republicans to remove or at least restrain him.
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Mary Geddry: Shooting in a More Moderate Manner
Good morning! Eight days ago, asked to define the word “ceasefire,” Donald Trump offered this: “in that part of the world, ‘ceasefire’ is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.” He said it with a smile, to laughter from the officials behind him. “It’s not bad. But it’s true.”
This morning, the shooting is no longer especially moderate. The United States and Iran traded fire overnight in the sharpest escalation since the April 8 truce, American strikes on southern Iran, Iranian missiles and drones on U.S. targets in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. The “ceasefire” is still, officially, in effect, simply redefined down to the point where it can survive almost anything, including its own violation.
(Mary Geddry more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 10, 2026
Today a report from the Department of Labor showed that inflation in May hit its highest level since early 2023, reaching an annual rate of 4.2%, up from 3.8% in April. The Federal Reserve likes to keep inflation at 2%. Energy costs are the biggest driver of that inflation, with fuel oil up 59% and gasoline up 41% over their costs last year. Airline fares have risen 27%. Fruits and vegetables are up 6% over their cost a year ago.
… a reporter in the Oval Office asked President Donald J. Trump if he was concerned about the inflation number. Trump answered:
“No, I love it. The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why?”
And then his speech slid into a fantasy rewriting of the history of his war on Iran and his decision to launch it.
…Christoph Koettl and Christiaan Triebert of the New York Times confirmed reports from Iran that U.S. strikes destroyed what appears to have been a drinking water facility. They note that targeting civilian infrastructure can be a war crime under international law.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Alastair Marsh, Olivia Raimonde, Frances Schwartzkopff @ Bloomberg: Why Sustainable Finance Hasn’t Moved the Needle on Climate Change
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Elisabeth Marnik, Ph.D. @ Your Local Epidemiologist: New OMB rule could break science in the United States
- Political appointees would decide which science gets funded, and peer review would be explicitly sidelined or ignored.
- Grants could be canceled at any point, without warning, in the middle of ongoing work.
- Researchers would have a harder time communicating their findings without pre-approval from the federal government.
(Elisabeth Marnik, Ph.D. @ Your Local Epidemiologist more…)
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Jason Koebler @ 404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
For months during the summer of 2024, Jarmarus Brown, an Orange City, Florida police officer, ran his ex-girlfriend’s license plate through the Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) system lookup database at least 69 times. He searched for the license plate belonging to her mom at least 24 times, and searched for the license plate belonging to her dad at least 15 times. Brown’s searches were happening so often, and were so commonplace, that even one of his colleagues noticed Brown researching his ex-girlfriend’s whereabouts while the law enforcement officers sat in their police cruisers, according to court records obtained by 404 Media.
(Jason Koebler @ 404 Media more…)
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Jay Kuo: The GOP and the Unfalsifiable Claim
It’s not a new Harry Potter book. It’s the GOP’s latest strategy for explaining away its utter lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Liz Dye: MAGA’s kayfabe meltdown over California primary
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Jess Piper: Unhinged
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When I logged into my old Facebook to start scrolling for treasures, a post from a local woman caught my attention because I saw my State Senator’s name. I paused to read the long post about the same meeting I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and my Senator’s smug appearance in town.The lady writing the post had a different point of view. She was gushing praise for our lawmakers who showed up “when they didn’t have to.”
What? Showed up when they didn’t have to?
That is one of the biggest responsibilities in being a Representative — they are supposed to show up and listen, but they rarely do, so I don’t think they need praise for doing the bare minimum, but it wasn’t my post, and I digress.
The lady went on for a few paragraphs, and then towards the end of her post, she referenced the folks in the audience who were “unhinged.” She had an apology for the lawmakers who were subjected to questions — unhinged questions from a constituent.
Reader, she was likely referencing me.
(Jess Piper more…)
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Christina Pagel: 10 days behind the headlines in Trump’s America
Covering civil rights, detention, science and press freedom
(Christina Pagel 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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