curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Chris Geidner:
SCOTUS rejects Trump admin’s request to enforce new USPS mail ballot restrictions
The brief order denying DOJ’s request for a stay of a lower court order blocking the rule only prompted noted dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito.
…
The order means the rule will not be in effect for the 2026 elections — a point key to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s decision to join the court majority in denying the Justice Department’s stay request.
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We’re not out of the woods, by any stretch, but this order was a necessary condition to doing so.
(Chris Geidner more…)
Joyce Vance:
A Day for Good Legal News
Jacob Knutson @ Democracy Docket:
Homeland Security officers are illegally accessing state voter data, new whistleblower alleges
Steve Vladeck:
The Language of Supreme Court Stays
Jennifer Rubin:
50 Days to the Midterms
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Heather Cox Richardson:
Letters from an American – September 14, 2026This morning, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Joshua Kaplan, and Alex Mierjeski of ProPublica broke the news that Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the wedding of Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson in May. Kremlev attended the wedding along with a large group of Russians whose presence, the journalists note, puzzled the other guests.
This news reveals an extraordinary development, the journalists note: “a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family.”
Frank Montoya Jr., a retired FBI official who worked in senior counterintelligence roles, told the reporters: “If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something. This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”
…Later in the day, news broke that the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security had released a report detailing how the now-closed detention camp in the Florida Everglades, offensively dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” violated the standards of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The report says the center failed in six categories: medical care, food service, personal hygiene, recreation, environmental health and safety, and special management units.
…… Nick Corasaniti and Hamed Aleaziz reported in the New York Times on another whistleblower, this one alleging that in their zeal to find noncitizens on voter rolls, inspectors under the direction of top Homeland Security leaders may have broken state laws. …
Taken together, the administration’s continued flirtation with Vladimir Putin and his associates, its use of our tax dollars to imprison immigrants in substandard conditions, and its determination to rig the 2026 election add up to an attempt to establish an authoritarian government.
Aside from the public outrage over the day’s stories, there are other signs that the administration’s position is weakening. …
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Adam Gramegna @ Military.com:
Two US Teens Planning to Enlist in Marines Claim to Have Been Assaulted by ICE AgentsThe mother of one of the individuals, 17, said her son is now having second thoughts about serving in the military.
(Adam Gramegna @ Military.com more…)
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Claire Healy , Churchill Ndonwie, Romy Ellenbogen @ Miami Herald:
Detainees confined to small metal cages at Alligator AlcatrazThe state-run immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” violated a host of federal and state detention standards, according to a new government report.
At the center, which cost an estimated $1 billion and closed on June 25, detainees lacked adequate living space, access to showers, legal information and clean water, and some were confined in a small metal cage, according to the Sept. 11 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
(Claire Healy , Churchill Ndonwie, Romy Ellenbogen @ Miami Herald more…)Dean Blundell:
Trump’s own inspector general just confirmed the torture boxes at Alligator Alcatraz. I stood in Dachau’s bunker two weeks ago. Same size cage. Same euphemism. Same nine-year runway if nobody stops itVictoria Valenzuela @ Truthout:
Families Are Fighting Draconian No-Contact-Visit Policy at California ICE Jail
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John M. Sandy @ Dispatch:
Taking Down the Confederate Flag Is Not Woke
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Hafiz Rashid @ TNR:
Trump, 80, Appears to Forget About January 6 AltogetherDonald Trump told a reporter who asked about a recent post of his that he had no clue what she was talking about.
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Joseph Cox @ 404 Media:
Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT ChatsHumans are reading ChatGPT users’ prompts to improve OpenAI’s models, and those chats can include sensitive, personal information, according to leaked internal documents and real prompts seen by 404 Media.
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Mitch Jackson:
The Interview the Trump Administration Did Not Want You to SeeYour government tried to stop you from seeing this. On September 10th, the FCC threatened Jimmy Kimmel, his network, and even his local ABC stations for the crime of interviewing a candidate for the United States Senate. Kimmel refused to back down. He pulled the conversation off the public airwaves, moved it to YouTube, and sat down with Texas Senate candidate James Talerico anyway. Watch what happens when a candidate takes hard questions with no notes and no script, and ask yourself why anyone in Washington would want that hidden from you.
(Mitch Jackson more…)
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Andrew Torrez, Liz Dye:
Trump’s DOJ Lawyers Leap In To Save Trump’s Personal LawyersBecause these two things are the same.
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Paul Offit:
RFK Jr sees the current outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases as a small price to pay for what he believes will be a long-term reduction in chronic illnesses.… For RFK Jr., the United States is the new Samoa. During the next two years, he will continue to discourage vaccination and hold up a series of bogus, poorly constructed, critically flawed studies showing that vaccinated children are at greater risk for chronic diseases than unvaccinated children. He’ll call them “gold-standard” studies.
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Spencer Kimball @ CNBC:
Trump administration repeals Biden era greenhouse gas requirements for power plants- The EPA repealed Biden-era requirements that existing coal plants and new natural gas plants control 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions.
- It also also proposed a sweeping action that would eliminate all remaining greenhouse gas rules for power plants.
- Power plants are the second-largest source of these planet-warming emissions in the U.S. behind the transportation sector, according to the EPA.
(Spencer Kimball @ CNBC more…)
Zahra Hirji, Ari Natter, Jennifer A Dlouhy @ Bloomberg:
Rules for Power Plants Targeted in New US Climate Rollback
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Heather Delaney Reese:
One reporter cut right to the chase, asking about China and President Xi’s upcoming trip to Washington, D.C., and whether Trump plans to ask him about reports that entities in China may have provided Iran with satellite imagery that was used when three American military members were killed.Trump’s response was, “They do what we do.” And then he added, “Uh, I think he’s behaved reasonably well, and we behave reasonably well. You know, when they say that China spies on us, I say you’re right, and we spy on them, too. You know, we spy on them, too.”
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Ruth Ann Crystal MD:
Dr. Ruth Report, 9/13/26
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 31: Pierre Damas Bel
- 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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