curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Clarence Williams, Madaleine Rubin, Alan Feuer @ NY Times:
White Nationalists March in Washington Amid 250th Anniversary Celebrations
A large group of masked men wearing the markings of a well-known white nationalist group marched with flags and chanted “reclaim America!” in Washington on Saturday morning, as the capital city prepared for the main events celebrating the United States’ 250th birthday.
Lev Parnas:
The Most Disturbing Image of America’s 250th Birthday
While America celebrated its 250th birthday, one photograph forced us to confront an uncomfortable question: Have we begun accepting the unacceptable?
Heather Delaney Reese:
400 white supremacists marched through D.C. on July 4th and Trump said nothing
His silence is approval
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Ami J. Shah @ HuffPost:
Limited States of AmericaMy 9-Year-Old Son’s School Rejected His Essay On George Washington. I Was Shocked When I Found Out Why
…He imagined what it would mean to write to the first president of the United States 250 years after American independence, to explain the country we became, and the country we still struggle to be. He wrote about technology and the internet. About climate change. About voting rights and misinformation. About the strange reality of living in a world where humanity can communicate instantly across continents while simultaneously struggling to speak kindly to the person next door.
And then there was the paragraph that prompted the adult conversations.
“Our current president,” he wrote, “wants to make it a Limited States of America, only offering good things to a few people that he likes, instead of all Americans.”
Limited States of America.
When I first read the phrase, I had two immediate reactions.
The first was parental pride. Not because I necessarily want my fourth grader becoming America’s youngest political commentator, but because, aside from being clever, the phrase reflected something more important: synthesis. He was attempting metaphor. Critique. Historical comparison. He was trying to wrestle with the gap between ideals and reality using language as his tool.
My second reaction was something closer to grief. Not because the school objected to it, but because my 9-year-old had already absorbed enough of the national mood to write it in the first place.
(Ami J. Shah @ HuffPost more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – Juky 5, 2026
Going into the weekend during which Americans celebrated the 250th anniversary of the day on which the Second Continental Congress accepted the Declaration of Independence, President Donald J. Trump was facing a whole lot of bad news.
There was the war on Iran. …
…And then there were the stories about corruption. …
…The Great American State Fair opened on June 25 after a number of musical acts backed out, saying they had been misled into thinking the event was backed by the bipartisan America 250. Once open, the fair was plagued with electrical issues, sparse exhibits, and heat. A model of the proposed triumphal arch looked cheap and quickly began to come apart. Visitors were few and far between, and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported that aerial images of the empty mall so enraged Trump that White House officials deleted them from official and personal social media accounts.
And on June 25, in response to a lawsuit by journalist Katie Phang, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered acting attorney general Todd Blanche to produce key documents from the Epstein files by July 2 or show cause why the Department of Justice is refusing. On July 2 it refused to produce the material, saying its redactions and omissions were within the scope of the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
…And so, on Friday night, the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Trump flew to South Dakota to deliver a speech at Mt. Rushmore in which he claimed he and his supporters are at war against an enemy here at home: communists.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Cliff Schecter, David Shuster, Justin Wolfers @ Blue Amp Media: Trump Made $2 Billion. His Own Voters Lost It.
Mitch Jackson: We Are Not Communists. And He Knows It.
(Mitch Jackson more…)
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Jameel Jaffer @ NY Times: Fine, Don’t Prosecute the President. But Release Jack Smith’s Report.
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Broad Daylight News: Tennessee’s Own Corruption Cases Just Became National Evidence
Two Tennessee corruption pardons reveal a much larger pattern: an increasingly political clemency system that bypasses the Justice Department, rewards insiders, and raises new questions about how presidential pardons are being used.
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Michael Fanone: They Lost at the Supreme Court. Now They Want to Ban Pregnant Women From the Country.
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Adam Kinzinger: Things About America Today The Founders Would Be Proud Of
It’s not just our technology and wealth
(Adam Kinzinger more…)
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Robert Reich: How To Begin the Mending?
Ten steps
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Heather Cox Richardson: Week Six in 250 to 250
This was the sixth week of videos from the 250 to 250 Project that we’re producing to honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
We designed 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.
Yesterday marked the date the Second Continental Congress adopted the final wording of the Declaration, but the members didn’t actually sign the Declaration until August 2. We thought it would be fun to continue the videos throughout July and into August, launching the nation’s 251st year with some historical inspiration. So there’s more coming.
https://www.youtube.com/@twofiftytotwofifty
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Thom Hartmann: Chapter 5: The Seventy-Year Legal War
Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: “Who Killed the American Dream: The Greatest Political Crime Ever Told”
(Thom Hartmann more…)
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
- 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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