curated citations to news sources
Michelle Goldberg: Trump Has Reawakened the Resistance
Before this Saturday’s enormous nationwide No Kings protests, Leah Greenberg, a founder of Indivisible, one of the groups behind the demonstrations, worried that too many people had lost faith in their collective ability to stop Donald Trump from remaking America in his tawdry autocratic image. Her group realized that they needed “to reverse the sense that Trump is inevitable, that he’s going to win,” she told me.
When Trump first took office in 2017, it seemed to much of the country a shocking fluke caused by the democratically dubious Electoral College, and his stunned opponents rose up in furious rejection. …
This time around, there’s less hope and more resignation. …
…The No Kings protests, held on the same day that Trump was hosting a military parade in Washington, were meant to challenge that assumption. They succeeded, with Trump’s help.
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But what really made No Kings feel like a potential turning point was the juxtaposition with Trump’s anemic parade in Washington, which fell on his birthday, though it was ostensibly held to celebrate the Army’s 250 anniversary. Videos showed tanks squeaking down the street in front of viewing stands that were more than half empty. The Wall Street Journal, no left-wing rag, described the crowd as “sparse” and “subdued.” A display that was meant to be bombastic and menacing instead looked pathetic.
(Michelle Goldberg more…)
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: U.S. Abandons Seeking Peace in the Middle East & Gov. DeSantis Gives Floridians the OK to Kill Protesters
- Kareem’s Daily Quote: Today’s quote explains why there is a brutal campaign to control art in America.
- US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state: In one of the most shocking and destructive policies in my lifetime, the U.S. is no longer seeking to bring about peace in the Middle East (even though Trump promised he’d accomplish it within 24 hours).
- GOP tax bill would cost poor Americans $1,600 a year and boost highest earners by $12,000, CBO says: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Aren’t we supposed to be stopping that disparity rather than increasing it?
- DeSantis Says Drivers Can Hit Anti-ICE Protesters With Their Cars: Yup, a sitting governor just gave the thumbs up for Floridians to kill protesters.
- ‘We will kill you’: Florida sheriff warns protesters not to attack deputies: Florida continues its quest to be the dumbest state in the country.
- Trump Turns Presidency Into His Cash Cow With $600M Haul: How have your finances been doing since Trump took office? Because his have been doing great.
- Kareem’s Video Break: Sometimes love knows no bounds.
- Kareem’s Sports Moments: I wish I had this kind of focus.
- Beach Boys Sing “Don’t Worry Baby”: In honor of the recent death of Brian Wilson, let’s listen to a classic.
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DeSantis Says Drivers Can Hit Anti-ICE Protesters With Their Cars (The Daily Beast)WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT: DeSantis has permitted the people of Florida to commit violence against protesters if the person “thinks” they might be in danger. That’s the end of law and order.
SUMMARY: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a new “zero tolerance” policy on ongoing protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), encouraging motorists to strike demonstrators who make them feel “threatened.” “If you’re driving on one of those streets and a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis said on The Rubin Report podcast. “You don’t have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.” DeSantis’ remarks came the day after 26-year-old Zachary Degross was arrested for threatening to “plow” through any protestors he saw gathered in Jacksonville, Florida. “You have a right to defend yourself in Florida,” DeSantis said. Protests in Los Angeles erupted last week over ICE raids in the city, prompting President Donald Trump to send in the National Guard.
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Sarah Jones: No Secret Police: California Bill Bans Masks for ICE
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Daily: Lawrence O’Donnell Shows That Kristi Noem And Her Security Committed A Crime Against Sen. Alex Padilla
Lawrence O’Donnell pointed out that what happened to Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was more than horrifically undemocratic. It was also a crime.
Lawrence O’Donnell said:What you see on that video of what they did is a crime. It is a crime against democracy, and it fits the elements of federal and state crime on false arrest. Just because the officers involved gave up trying to execute and complete that arrest does not mean that they did not violate the law. The federal code on unlawful detention says it is a violation of law if an officer apprehends arrests or confines any person without legal justification.
And the way to prove that legal justification is to charge the person with a crime who you’ve decided to handcuff and throw on the floor of a federal building. But they didn’t do that because Senator Padilla committed no crime. Senator Padilla gave them no reason to legally do what they did.
(Daily more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 16, 2025
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MAGA loyalists have continued to radicalize in the wake of the shootings, spreading disinformation that blamed the violence on Democrats or joking about the event. Walker Orenstein of the Minnesota Star Tribune debunked the disinformation spread by MAGA loyalists, noting that Boelter was not close to Walz, who simply okayed his reappointment to a bipartisan board that then-governor Mark Dayton had put him on in 2016. According to his roommate, Boelter was a “strong supporter” of Trump.Emily Anderson Stern and Robert Gehrke of the Salt Lake Tribune called out Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) for his behavior in the aftermath of the shootings. Lee joked about the killings and falsely blamed the violence on his political opponents, tying the shooting to Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) responded: “This was an incredible woman, her husband, her two kids—yesterday on Father’s Day, there was no Father’s Day for them. They lost both their parents…. This is not a laughing matter, and certainly what we’re seeing is an increase in violence, and this evil man who did this—this is not a joke.”
Of Lee’s behavior, influencer George Takei wrote: “Utah voters: Are these really your values? Mike Lee is the best you can do?” After Lee pinned one of his disturbing tweets to the top of his social media timeline, Tim Miller of The Bulwark wrote: “This is less of a political matter than a sign of deep mental illness.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Ken Klippenstein: How Minnesota Police Fueled Insane Conspiracy Theory About Assassin
Elon Musk, US Senator Mike Lee link Vance Boelter to Gov. Tim Walz
Closer to the Edge: George Santos Writes a Letter to Senator Mike Lee
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9News: Jury returns verdict in MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s Denver defamation trial
A jury found MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell liable in the defamation case brought by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer.
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War Horse: ‘They’re Taking Shirly’: An Army Sergeant Thought His Family Was Safe. Then ICE Deported His Wife
For tens of thousands of U.S. service members with undocumented family members, there’s no guaranteed protection from immigration raids.
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Independent: Trump officials reverse pause on immigration raids targeting farms and hotels
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Bulwark: They Did Nazi It Coming: Antisemites Furious as Meme Coin Scheme Unravels
An antisemitic podcaster famous for hosting Kash Patel tried his hand in crypto. It didn’t end well.
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arsTECHNICA: New COVID variant swiftly gains ground in US; concern looms for summer wave
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Guardian: Why a professor of fascism left the US: ‘The lesson of 1933 is – you get out’
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AP: G7 leaders try to salvage their summit after Trump’s early exit
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404 Media: AI Scraping Bots Are Breaking Open Libraries, Archives, and Museums
AI bots that scrape the internet for training data are hammering the servers of libraries, archives, museums, and galleries, and are in some cases knocking their collections offline, according to a new survey published today. While the impact of AI bots on open collections has been reported anecdotally, the survey is the first attempt at measuring the problem, which in the worst cases can make valuable, public resources unavailable to humans because the servers they’re hosted on are being swamped by bots scraping the internet for AI training data.
“I’m confident in saying that this problem is widespread, and there are a lot of people and institutions who are worried about it and trying to think about what it means for the sustainability of these resources,” the author of the report, Michael Weinberg, told me. “A lot of people have invested a lot of time not only in making these resources available online, but building the community around institutions that do it. And this is a moment where that community feels collectively under threat and isn’t sure what the process is for solving the problem.”
(404 Media more…)
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Dean Blundell: Trump’s Physical And Mental Health Issues On Display at G7 Summit: Leaves A Day Early After Humiliating Himself.
“Unsteady” and “Alarming”: Trump left G7 summit early as questions about his declining health ramp up
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
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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