curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Paul Krugman:
News of the Weak (Labor Market)
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The surprise fall in employment — 23,000 jobs lost, when the consensus forecast was for around 80,000 gained — made headlines. … this report also revised data for several earlier months down, so the broader picture of job growth in Trump’s “golden age” is significantly worse than it seemed.
Now, very low job growth — around 26,000 a month over the past year — doesn’t mean the same thing it would have a few years ago. Why? Because anti-immigrant policies have drastically slowed the growth of the pool of potential workers. …
On the other hand, the fact that job growth has slowed so sharply puts the lie to claims that anti-immigration policies would free up jobs for the native-born. …
… Wage growth keeps falling, suggesting weak worker bargaining power:
Malcolm Ferguson @ TNR: Fox News Struggles to Spin Yet Another Bad Jobs Report
Matt Grossman @ WSJ: … fewer people were actively looking for work
Lauren Almeida, Alicia Chen @ Guardian: Trump orders new 15% tariff on key material for solar panels and microchips
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Victoria Valenzuela @ Truthout:
It’s Not Just Delaney. Immigration Jails Have Had Hundreds of Hunger Strikes.
(Victoria Valenzuela @ Truthout more…)Ashley Vaughan: ICE Attacked Me for Attending a Peaceful Protest
The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor speaks out on modern-day state violence.
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Michael Thomas:
Amazon is backing what could be the largest natural gas power plant ever built in the United StatesThe company confirmed to Cleanview that it has acquired a site in Pecos County, Texas, where it plans to build an AI data center campus powered by on-site natural gas generation. Permits for the gas plant reveal that it would use 35 turbines to generate up to 7.65 gigawatts of power. It would be entirely disconnected from the Texas electricity grid — at least initially.
(Michael Thomas more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – August 7, 2026On Tuesday, August 4, Erin Banco, Mike Stone, and Jonathan Landay of Reuters reported that the U.S. has used “virtually all” of its highly accurate long-range missiles that can strike accurately from a safe distance. Sources told the journalists that the dwindling missile supplies could make it more difficult for the U.S. to deter Russia and China.
The journalists reported that the shortages contributed to President Donald J. Trump’s decision not to resume massive strikes against Iran.
…Also yesterday, Seligman and Yoko Kubota of the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence assesses that the depletion of U.S. munitions has made it more likely that Russia will try to fracture the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in the next few years by attacking a NATO nation.
Global affairs columnist David Rothkopf wrote today in the Daily Beast that replenishing the munitions stockpiles Hegseth and Trump have depleted will take years and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
…Republican senators have responded to the crisis in national security and the slowing economy by voting to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in a Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee hearing on July 29. …
…Normally, a contempt vote would then go to the full Senate, where it would need 60 votes, but Paul likely knows there are not 60 senators willing to agree to the measure. So, as Sabrina Siddiqui and Sadie Gurman of the Wall Street Journal report, he is bypassing the Senate and asking Vice President J.D. Vance to certify the report and refer it directly to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to insist that vandals, not a poor installation, caused the damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and to demand that Pirro prosecute the wrongdoers. …
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Mitch Jackson: Talk and They Charge You. Stay Quiet and They Charge You.
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Mike Scarcella @ Reuters:
US appeals court blocks Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project- Appeals court gives administration 14 days to seek Supreme Court review
- Opinion says Congress must approve reshaping White House
- Trump vows to appeal to Supreme Court, says ballroom structure needed to protect from attacks
(Mike Scarcella @ Reuters more…)
Edith Olmsted @ TNR: Trump Majorly Flips Out as Judges Rule His Ballroom Is Illegal
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James Eagle:
US measles cases are the highest in 35 years
(James Eagle more…)Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: RFK Jr.’s Medical Malpractice, & Trump’s Pay-to-Play Presidency
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Jennifer Rubin: Undaunted in Kansas
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Joyce Vance: What Trump’s New Birthright Citizenship Orders Actually Do
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Matt Burgess @ Wired: Sensitive Info Goes Into ‘No Reply’ Emails Constantly. This Guy Sees It All
tinyapps.org: Why plain text email, 2026 edition
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
- August 1: Edwin Lopez-Cornejo
- 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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