curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Chris Geidner:
What Monday’s Supreme Court election order ruling is and is not
The Republican majority gave Trump a temporary win. It could be short-lived — or it could “foment chaos,” as Justice Jackson wrote, calling out the majority in unusually direct terms.
Marc Elias:
Cremated remains, fake explosives and your ballot
… a rule released by the U.S. Postal Service on Friday night: “Although ballot mail does not present precisely the same operational issues as cremated remains or replica explosives, it is unquestionably sensitive mail that raises unique operational considerations.”
A mail-in ballot does not pose a health risk. It will not cause panic if exposed to the public. It’s a piece of paper marked with a pen that is only dangerous to authoritarians wishing to rule rather than govern with the consent of their citizens.
Joyce Vance:
The Supreme Court Weighs In
… two caveats before we go any further:
- This is not a decision that Trump’s EO is lawful.
- Judge Talwani also issued a separate, nationwide injunction in the League of Women Voters case. That injunction stays in place, at least for now.
Steve Vladeck:
Making Sense of the Mail-in Ballots Ruling
( more…)
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Miles Taylor:
Trump has resumed killing people without trial.The president’s illegal boat strikes resumed this weekend after a mysterious two-month pause.
Early Monday, U.S. Southern Command announced that the military had carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on a small boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two people. The Pentagon says the vessel was trafficking drugs. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. We’ll never know because they destroyed all evidence, and the two people aboard were not stopped, searched, arrested, charged, or tried. They were obliterated from the air on the say-so of a classified Trump “kill order” no U.S. court has ever reviewed.
(Miles Taylor more…)
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Ken Klippenstein:
HSI is doing the dirty work for the Trump administrationNested within ICE is an American Stasi with the power to target U.S. citizens. Called Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, it is the country’s second-largest criminal investigative agency behind only the FBI — though with broader authorities.
But the most dangerous feds in America may also be the most incompetent. The Justice Department’s ongoing attempt to turn 15 Minnesota anti-ICE activists into a sprawling “Antifa” conspiracy opened a rare window into HSI, with disclosures that are equal parts creepy and hilariously inept, …
(Ken Klippenstein more…)Rook T. Winchester:
Minnesota’s Newest Concentration Camp Opens Its Doors
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Edward Wong @ NY Times:
Trump Administration Aims to Revoke Visas of Foreign Citizens Applying for Asylum
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Dean Blundell:
An American International Airport Just Ran Out Of Jet Fuel. The Oil Crisis Isn’t Coming. It’s Here And Landed In Buffalo Last Night.
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Thom Hartmann:
Trump Revives Herbert Hoover’s Nightmare and Canada Fights Back
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Hans Christensen:
Russia Demands Finland Ban DemonstrationsNick Turse @ Intercept:
Pentagon Spokesperson Admits There’s a Secret Blacklist of JournalistsWhen pressed about the Iran war, a CENTCOM press official threatened to put an Intercept reporter on a “list of people to disregard.”
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Martha Muir @ Financial Times:
Trump tried to curb clean energy. It’s booming anyway.Capacity will rise by a record 45GW this year, according to S&P Global Energy.
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Madeleine O’Neill @ Court Watch:
It’s difficult to access immigration court records under an increasingly antiquated federal rule. An army of volunteers is working to change that.
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Mitch Jackson:
one door the pardon power cannot close…
The headline says $1.7 billion in restitution, fines, and forfeitures erased by presidential clemency since January 2025.
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Phenix S Halley @ Root:
A Black Chicago Woman’s Fight for Self-Defense Ends With Bombshell Plea AgreementThe Keshia Golden case has sparked a broader conversation about Black women, domestic violence and whether self-defense is equally recognized by courts.
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Karen Attiah:
The Washington Post Fired Me. I Fought—and Won My Job Back.Nearly a year after being wrongfully fired for my comments on race, gender and violence, an arbitrator has ordered my immediate reinstatement.
…I wasn’t the only one posting about Charlie Kirk. Apparently, to Adam O’Neal, if you are a white male contract columnist, like Marc Theissen, you can post on Twitter about “fck the media and liberal democrats” and encourage the doxxing of Kirk critics and still have your job.
(Karen Attiah more…)
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Merrilee Proffitt @ Internet Archive:
Archiving Democracy: How the U.S. End of Term Web Archive Preserves Government History
(Merrilee Proffitt @ Internet Archive more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – August 24, 2026On Friday night, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from talks with officials from the Trump administration over new tariffs of 50% Trump had imposed on $28 billion of Canadian products. …
…But as soon as he won reelection in 2024, Trump began to emphasize that he intended to use “economic force,” specifically tariffs, to pressure Canada into joining the U.S. as its 51st state. …
…Trump’s new attack on Canada might not make economic or political sense for the U.S., but it seems to make sense for a decaying president.
Trump is flailing in Iran, and so—as national security scholar Tom Nichols pointed out in The Atlantic after Trump nonsensically attacked South Korea, another longstanding and loyal ally—he is looking to reassert his dominance. Trump doesn’t dare to cross the leaders who actually threaten the U.S., those like Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Instead, Nichols writes, he is trying to make himself feel better by “kicking America’s allies, the nations he can punish without fear that they will kick him back.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Last Days in Two Nations
Climate.us
formerly Climate.gov
Climate Solutions Explorer
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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