curated citations to news sources
Closer to the Edge: Go Make Good Trouble
When Silence Becomes Surrender, Raise Your Voice or Get Out of the Way
John Lewis was not some relic of civil rights past, ossified in marble and forgotten in schoolbooks. He was a living, breathing, fire-blooded example of what happens when the human spine refuses to bend — even when batons come down hard enough to fracture it. At twenty-five, he stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge knowing the weight of what waited on the other side: troopers in riot gear, clubs raised, gas canisters at the ready. They didn’t disappoint. They cracked his skull, spilled his blood, and thought that might silence him. But Lewis didn’t just get up — he kept marching. He wore his scars like credentials, proof that the struggle for justice isn’t a metaphor, it’s a street fight waged with discipline, dignity, and defiance. And if he were here today, he’d be the first one through the police line, smiling like a man who’s been here before.
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He would tell us that Good Trouble is a muscle — it only works if you use it. He’d tell us that July 17th is not a date to commemorate passively, but a test to see if we’ve remembered how to fight. Every protest today is a question aimed at the American conscience: do we still have one? Every chant, every sign, every drumbeat in the street is a challenge to the cowards in power who bet that fear would keep us home. If you’re tired, good — tired means you’ve been paying attention. But the only cure for that exhaustion is movement. Rest if you must, but never quit the march.
Because while Trump and his regime sharpen their knives on the bones of the vulnerable, they hope we stay polite. They hope we stay online, arguing about etiquette while they redraw the borders of power in their image. They hope that the threat of violence, of arrest, of surveillance is enough to keep the masses meek. But they forget that the skull they cracked in 1965 did not break the spirit behind it. John Lewis stood back up, bruised but defiant, and he’s daring us now to do the same.
If you think one march doesn’t matter, remember that every revolution begins with people deciding that today is the day they won’t just take it anymore. Today is that day. July 17th. If you’re not already in the streets, get there. If you’re not holding a sign, make one. If your voice hasn’t gone hoarse yet, you’re not shouting loud enough. History isn’t asking politely — it’s banging on the door, demanding to know where the hell you are.
(Closer to the Edge more…)
Jennifer Rubin: John Lewis’s Enduring Example
We have no right to give up on democracy or our fellow Americans
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – July 16, 2025
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Trump’s political success has stemmed in large part from his projection of dominance, and perhaps part of supporters’ willingness to cut ties to him comes from his recent behavior, which projects confusion. On Saturday, at the FIFA Club World Cup trophy ceremony, Trump seemed to miss the signal that he should leave the stage as the winning team celebrated, and had to be maneuvered behind the players.Yesterday he fell asleep on stage at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. At the same event, Trump told what CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale called “an especially odd imaginary tale,” claiming that his uncle, a MIT professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had taught Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Trump recounted a conversation with his uncle about Kaczynski, but in fact Kaczynski didn’t go to MIT, and Trump’s uncle John died more than a decade before Kaczynski became famous, so Trump and his uncle could not have identified him as the Unabomber. Today, Trump called chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell a “terrible Fed chair” and added: “I was surprised he was appointed.”
Trump was the president who appointed him.
Finally, today Trump’s Department of Justice fired longtime employee Maurene Comey, who had prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. To bring things full circle, Maurene Comey is the daughter of James Comey, the Republican former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whom Trump fired for refusing to drop the FBI investigation into ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Judd Legum and Noel Sims: A massive Trump scandal. Minuscule media attention.
Historically, financial entanglements with foreign nationals has been covered as a scandal. Times have changed.
NBC: New U.S. assessment finds American strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites
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Dispatch: The Real Reason Donald Trump Hates Europe
The administration’s Europhobia has its roots in spurned love.
Donald Trump’s second term has so far been much more radical than his first. But even among the broad range of extreme measures taken by the administration in areas from higher education to immigration, its apparent hostility to Europe stands out. This seeming animosity once again made the headlines over the last few days when Trump threatened that he would, by August 1, impose 30 percent tariffs on the European Union.During his first term, Trump had hardly been a friend of Europe. His dislike for moderate leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel was palpable, his insinuations that America might leave NATO constant. But during his second term, the administration’s hostility to the continent has gotten even more intense. Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland. He has berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an infamous meeting in the Oval Office. And even before the latest tariff threat, Trump had taken an especially tough line on trade with Europe.
(Dispatch more…)
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Lisa Needham: Goodbye, separation of church and state
Churches now have extra special speech rights, thanks to Trump.
Lisa Needham
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ProPublica: RFK Jr. Wants to Revolutionize a Program That Supports Childhood Immunizations. The Results Could Be Catastrophic.
- Little-known but Vital: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is targeting a little-known program that underpins childhood immunizations in the U.S. by paying people who suffer rare side effects from shots.
- A Serious Risk: Dramatic changes to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program risk driving drugmakers from the market, threatening access to shots, experts say.
- A Fragile System: The program underscores the fragility of America’s childhood immunization program at a time when Kennedy is renewing debunked claims about the dangers of vaccines.
TNR: Medicaid Cuts? Yes. But the GOP Is Quietly Cutting Medicare, Too.
A little understood aspect of the big, ugly bill could cause devastating problems for seniors and others.
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AXIOS: Trump’s China retreat
(AXIOS more…)
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Intercept: Trump Administration Deports Five Men to Eswatini, Expanding Global Gulag in Africa
It’s the latest development in Donald Trump’s efforts to outsource immigrant detention to poorer countries beset by violence and human rights abuses.
NY Times: African Nation Says It Will Repatriate Migrants Deported by U.S.
The Trump administration sent five deportees to Eswatini, an African kingdom, saying that their own countries would not take them. But Eswatini says it will send them home.
(NY Times more…)Intercept: ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court
ICE attorneys fighting to deport immigrants are able to obscure their identities — no masks required.
Intercept: CBP Agents Can Have Gang Tattoos — as Long as They Cover Them Up
U.S. immigration officials have sent people to CECOT because of what they deemed gang tattoos. CBP grooming standards allow them.
LA Times: Army vet calls for investigation after being detained for three days in ICE raid”
A U.S. Army veteran who was detained during the massive immigration raid in Ventura County last week said Wednesday that he wants “a full investigation” into how he could have been held behind bars for three days despite being an American citizen.
“What happened to me wasn’t just a mistake,” he said in a written statement. “It was a violation of my civil rights. It was excessive force.”
404 Media: Flight Manifests Reveal Dozens of Previously Unknown People on Three Deportation Flights to El Salvador
Hacked data obtained by 404 Media reveals dozens more people on deportation flights to El Salvador who are unaccounted for. “We have not heard from these people’s families, so I think perhaps even they don’t know,” one lawyer said.
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Ken Klippenstein: Hegseth’s New Dress Code of Honor
Eyelash extensions and facial hair are out; government-funded laser hair removal is in
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Clean-shaven soldiers, however, aren’t going to bring the U.S. military closer to an end to the war in Ukraine or create greater security in the Middle East. More creases aren’t going to help tackle the challenges of drones and artificial intelligence, or fight the new Cold War with China.In fact, Hegseth seems to be taking a page out of the Russian military playbook, which upon suffering over one million casualties in Ukraine, is also trying to stress appearances over serious failures of policy and humaneness.
Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has launched his own campaign to improve troop discipline by clamping down on non-standard haircuts, according to British intelligence, which assessed that this caused him to be “focused on presentation over substance.” In Russia’s case, a laughably undisciplined and corrupt force indeed needs to reform. But emulating Gerasimov is more of an insult to the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.
(Ken Klippenstein more…)Thom Hartmann: The Manhood Trap: From Epstein’s Island to Musk’s Baby Farm — How the Right Redefined Masculinity as Control
Underneath the memes, podcasts, and tradwife fantasies lies a dangerous agenda: train young men to reject equality, fear women’s power, and embrace authoritarianism disguised as masculinity…
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LAWdork: The future of the Voting Rights Act is at the Supreme Court
A fight over whether individuals can sue under the key civil rights law has been percolating in the Eighth Circuit for the past two years. Also: The latest out of DOJ.
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Guardian: Ukraine wing of US-founded terrorist group says it was involved in killing of intelligence officer in Kyiv
The Base, a far-right group with suspected links to Russia, said killing of Ivan Voronych was ‘only the beginning’
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Al Jazeera: Trump repudiates draft letter to fire US Fed chair Powell
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Trump floated the idea and showed a draft of a letter firing Powell in a meeting with around a dozen Republican lawmakers on Tuesday night, according to The New York Times and Bloomberg News, citing unnamed sources, as the president polled them if he should and indicated that he likely would. The president has acknowledged the poll, but has denied that there was such a letter.Liz Dye: Can Trump Actually Fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell?
It’s … complicated.
Daily Beast: Murdoch Paper Sends Blunt Message to Trump on Threat to Fire Fed Chair
LIVE WITH YOUR CHOICES
The Wall Street Journal has advice for Trump after his threat to ax the top central banker: “Don’t do it.”
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arsTECHNICA: Trump sues Corporation for Public Broadcasting directors who refused to be fired
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James Eagle: Nvidia bigger than entire stock markets
(James Eagle more…)
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Mary Geddry: The Crown Prince, the Hoax, and the World’s Saddest Flex
Trump’s Bahrain meltdown had everything: imaginary trillions, Epstein panic, and a mystery man who called him “the greatest president of all time.” America, we are not OK.
Daily Beast: GOP Rebel Trolls Trump With Sarcastic Suggestion He Should Pardon Maxwell Over Epstein ‘Hoax’
RELEASE HER!
Kentucky firebrand Thomas Massie reignites long-running feud by twisting Donald Trump’s Epstein excuse back on him.emptywheel: Pam Bondi Fired the Avenger of Sex Trafficking Victims on Donald Trump’s Personal Authority
I’ve often said that, this time, Donald Trump has chosen poorly of which people to make political martyrs.
Less than eight hours after proclaiming that the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was just some “new SCAM” perpetrated by Democrats, about four days after he first attempted to float the wildly illogical claim that the Epstein “Files [were] written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration,” DOJ fired Jim Comey’s daughter, Maurene.
According to the NYT, the letter terminating Ms. Comey cited Article II authority.
Ms. Comey was informed of her firing in a letter that cited Article II of the Constitution, which describes the powers of the president, according to two of the people.
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Decoding Fox News: Fox News: Jeffery Epstein? I Don’t Know Her
A condensed overview of 16 hours of Fox News for the week ending 7/13/25
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
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