curated citations to news sources
Al Jazeera: Venezuela condemns US destroyer for hostile occupation of fishing vessel
US military action against a Venezuelan boat sparks condemnation and troop deployments
Venezuela has accused the United States of illegally boarding and occupying one of its fishing vessels in the country’s special economic zone, further escalating tensions between Caracas and Washington.
In a statement on Saturday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the vessel, carrying nine “humble” and “harmless” fishermen, was intercepted by the US destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Friday.
(Al Jazeera more…)
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Jason Easley: Apology Not Accepted: Brian Kilmeade Must Be Fired For Suggesting Euthanizing The Homeless
Brian Kilmeade tried to walk back his Nazi-like comment that the homeless should be euthanized, but if people can get fired for speaking truth about Charlie Kirk, Kilmeade should be booted from Fox.
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Crooks & Liars: ‘Vacation Home’: It Sure Looks Like The Trump Admin Lied About Lisa Cook
The document, dated May 28, 2021, was issued to Cook by her credit union in the weeks before she completed the purchase and shows that she had told the lender that the Atlanta property wouldn’t be her primary residence. The document appears to counter other documentation that Cook’s critics have cited in support of their claims that she committed mortgage fraud by reporting two different homes as her primary residence, two independent real-estate experts said.
The question is, why did Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte accuse Cook of claiming both homes as her “primary residence” when records show that isn’t true? It’s almost as if everyone in Trump’s political orbit is a liar. And they want her out asap.
(Crooks & Liars more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 13, 2025
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In contrast, Reuters reported last week that unlike Cook, Pulte’s own father and stepmother claimed primary residence tax exemptions for two homes in different states. When that news broke, one of the towns in which they reside removed their primary residence exemption and charged them for back taxes.Trump hoped to use the allegations against Cook to advance his control of the Federal Reserve. Now the revelation that those allegations appear to be false highlights the degree to which this administration is attempting to achieve control of the country by pushing a false narrative and getting what its officers want before reality catches up. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered this technique in the 1950s when he would grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then flit to the next target, leaving fact checkers panting in his wake. By the time they proved he was lying, the news cycle had leaped far ahead, and the corrections got nowhere near the attention the lies had.
While McCarthy eventually went down in disgrace, the right wing adopted his techniques of controlling politics by creating a narrative. Spin turned into a narrative that denigrated opponents as anti-American, and then into the attempt to construct a fictional world that they could make real so long as they could convince voters to believe in it. In 2004, a senior advisor to President George W. Bush told journalist Ron Suskind that people like him—Suskind—lived in “the reality-based community”: they believed people could find solutions based on their observations and careful study of discernable reality. But, the aide continued, such a worldview was obsolete.
“That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” the aide said. “We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
But once you have untethered the political narrative from reality, you are at the mercy of anyone who can commandeer that narrative.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Jess Piper: Don’t Bring Us Into This
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The issue for me is the knee-jerk reaction of the right to blame folks on the Left with no basis for that blame. They hurled death threats and threats of jail and harm to people on the Left with no justification and within minutes of Kirk’s death.
(Jess Piper more…)
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Jonathan Cohn: The Real Reason Trump Is a Threat to the Economy
It’s not just the agenda. It’s also the shambolic, vibes-based way he’s pursuing it.
WITH HIS BROAD SHOULDERS, thick arms, and even thicker New England accent, ironworker Daniel Langlais is exactly the sort of American who is supposed to love Donald Trump’s policies. But Langlais says he is dumbfounded by some of the president’s recent decisions, especially the one that halted work on an energy project off the coast of Rhode Island.
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But what really seems to irk Langlais is the potential waste resulting from Trump’s decision, and not simply because it’s possible the nearly complete wind turbines will end up just sitting out there off the coast, doing nothing, a slowly rusting monument to what might have been.
(Jonathan Cohn more…)
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BBC: Animal shelter workers hospitalised after FBI uses furnace to burn seized meth
(BBC more…)
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Lev Parnas: Trump’s NATO Letter Exposes His Deal with Putin
A reckless letter reveals he’ll only act against Russia if it benefits him, not democracy or freedom.
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Jason Easley: Hypocrite Mike Johnson Called For Violence Against Gavin Newsom, But Now He Wants Calm
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wants the temperature to cool after Charlie Kirk got killed but three months ago, he called for political violence against Gov. Gavin Newsom.
…This is the same Mike Johnson who responded when asked if Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) should be arrested:
“I’m not going to give you legal analysis on whether Gavin Newsom should be arrested. But he ought to be tarred and feathered, I’ll say that. He’s standing in the way of the administration of carrying out federal law. He is applauding the bad guys and standing in the way of the good guys. He is a participant, an accomplice.
(Jason Easley more…)
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Thom Hartmann: Chapter 1: Save us from the utopians
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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