curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Broad Daylight News:
Who Pays When Washington Forces Coal Plants to Stay Alive
At first this looked like a strange energy policy story. The Trump administration says the country is heading into an electricity emergency, and there’s real substance behind that claim. AI is devouring power, data centers are multiplying, manufacturing is growing, and electricity demand is rising for the first time in years after a long stretch of flat consumption. Trump’s own Department of Energy said as much in July, warning of a “pressing need for additional electric transmission infrastructure.”
Then, barely a month later, Energy Secretary Chris Wright canceled three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors covering parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska and the Dakotas, dismissing them as leftovers from the previous administration’s climate agenda. That explanation runs into a basic problem. Power lines aren’t Democratic or Republican. They don’t care whether the electricity moving across them came from coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, wind or solar. Transmission is just the highway that gets electricity from where it’s cheap to where it’s needed, and more of it usually means more competition and lower prices for consumers.
That detail makes what the administration is doing with coal a lot more interesting, because while Washington is making transmission harder to build, it’s simultaneously using federal emergency powers to keep aging coal plants running, even ones the utilities that own them had already scheduled for retirement. And in more than one case, the utilities themselves have said out loud that this isn’t a good deal for their customers.
(Broad Daylight News more…)
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Marlon Weems:
Farm Bankruptcies Are Rising Again. Tariffs Are Making It Worse.
… Chapter 12 filings more than doubled from their 2023 low by 2025, just as renewed tariff pressures threaten to add more stress to an already strained farm economy.
(Marlon Weems more…)
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Kathianne Boniello @ MEDIAite:
The Hidden Cost of Iran’s Drone Strikes: Hit on Logistical Hub Reportedly Helped Spark Navy Supply ProblemAlleged supply problems on the USS Abraham Lincoln can be traced back in part to the start of the Iran war, when an Iranian drone strike took out a key American logistical hub in Bahrain, according to a report.
Iran’s assault, which came right at the start of the war in response to joint U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran, destroyed a significant part of the Navy’s base in Bahrain, including a long-relied upon logistical facility, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The loss of the convenient port has made it tough to resupply the Lincoln and its 5,000 sailors and Marines, who have now been deployed more than eight months as the war has dragged on.
(Kathianne Boniello @ MEDIAite more…)Sophia Yan @ Telegraph:
Iran tells Trump to ‘accept the reality of defeat’Judiciary chief says US president is a ‘fully fledged loser’ as country insists Strait of Hormuz will stay under Iranian control
Daniel Ruetenik @ CBS:
Abandoned Russian tanker leaking oil off Oman coast, threatening environmental disasterZeteo:
7 Things About Afghanistan the U.S. Wants You to Forget, Five Years After Kabul Fell
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Joyce Vance:
Trump rules, not the rule of lawNewly anointed Attorney General Todd Blanche has been busy. But instead of doing justice, he’s been doing the president’s political bidding. A violation of the Hatch Act, if anyone believes the Attorney General should follow the law. One of the Act’s major prohibitions is against using a federal job to influence an election. Although federal employees can, technically, campaign on their own time, the Attorney General is on the clock 24/7. Presidentially appointed, Senate confirmed officials like Blanche can only participate in partisan political activity in a purely personal (not official) capacity.
(Joyce Vance more…)Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – August 15, 2026…
Using Bove to swear in Blanche looked like a victory lap for the Trump team. Although the press was excluded, two other Trump loyalists, FBI director Kash Patel and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, attended Blanche’s swearing-in.Retired conservative judge J. Michael Luttig told MS NOW: “Todd Blanche now becomes the symbol of Donald Trump’s corruption of the rule of law in America and the actual ruin of the Department of Justice of the United States. This is another shameful act of acquiescence, if not obeisance, by the Senate Republicans; they will bear this badge of shame the rest of their lives.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Mitch Jackson:
While You Slept, Trump’s Own Regulator Approved His Family’s Crypto BankDavid Edwards @ RawStory:
Contempt charges sought after Trump DOJ staffer ‘stumbles’ through Epstein hearing
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Josh Marcus @ Independent:
BBC wants to interview Jared and Ivanka Trump as part of its defense in Trump defamation lawsuitThe broadcaster argues the Trump family was close to president as he worked on infamous January 6 speech at heart of the case
Sarah Jones, Jason Easley:
The BBC tried to serve subpoenas to Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner as part of the discovery process in Trump’s defamation lawsuit, but was blocked by the Secret Service.
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Xylom:
Toxic Lakes Are Not Just a Kashmiri Problem
(Xylom more…)Summer Maxwell @ Bloomberg:
US utilities are struggling to connect a flood of new energy storage projects
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Jason Sattler:
How MAGA Uses X to Literally Prosecute the Left
(Jason Sattler more…)Gil Duran:
YouTube Moves to Ban Nerd Reich Podcast… Someone is obsessed with deleting our channel. YouTube is playing along.
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
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 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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