curated citations to news sources
JON KARL: What do you make of Pam Bondi saying she’s gonna go after hate speech? A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech
TRUMP: We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.
Sky News: ‘You’re hurting Australia’: Donald Trump brutally unleashes on ABC journalist
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ABC’s Global Affairs Editor John Lyons questioned President Trump about his business activity.
“You’re hurting Australia – in my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. They want to get along with me,” President Trump said.
“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you.”
FreePress: Pam Bondi vs. the First Amendment
At last, something we can all agree on: The attorney general has no idea what she’s talking about.
FreePress: Defying the Assassin’s Veto: Grace in a Time of Violence
The day after segregationist and presidential candidate George Wallace was shot five times in an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed, one hospital visit set Wallace on a new path. Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress and to run for president, met with Wallace in a show of force against political violence, and showed him grace. Eli Lake recounts the story—and explains its resonance today.
Sarah Jones: British Media Puts American Media to Shame with Longest Reel of Untruths Trump Fact-check
It’s titled: Trump v the Truth, and sadly, this highlights the lack of rigorous fact-checking of the Trump regime from U.S. media.
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Bulwark: Discouraged? Yes. Despairing? No.
Charlie Kirk’s killing and the degradation of the rule of law raise difficult questions about our future. But they don’t foreclose a positive one.
…Failure is a possibility. And it’s pretty difficult to read the news, and to reflect on where things seem to be going, and not to wonder if that possibility isn’t approaching a probability. Certainly I felt that way as I continued my morning labors, making my way through the rest of the news: The vice president of the United States threatening opponents of the Trump administration; the attorney general of the United States assaulting the right of free speech; and leading Democrats squabbling about what to say about their nominee for mayor of New York, and about what to do about a possible government shutdown only two weeks away.
But politics, like life, is full of twists and turns. Just as a healthy confidence in our national well-being can become an unhealthy complacency, so can understandable discouragement about our situation turn into unwarranted despair.
There are levers of resistance, from state governments to the private sector, from elite organizations to popular mobilization. There are models of resistance to injustice and authoritarianism in our own history, of course, and abroad—in Ukraine today for example. The authoritarians have vulnerabilities, even if they work diligently to hide them.
(Bulwark more…)Jennifer Rubin: Talking Points Won’t Cut It
How to respond to a massive campaign of censorship and oppression
Jack Hopkins: The MAGA Defections Have Begun: Here’s Who Trump Fears Most
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Root: All the Times America Has Repeated Its Racist Past And Why You Need To Know This
From the failed promise of Reconstruction to Trump’s attacks on immigration, Americans keep repeating history… but is anyone really paying attention?
Daily Kos: Trump doesn’t want you to see the scars of slavery
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Lev Parnas: Putin’s Oil Empire in Flames
Ukraine cripples Putin’s oil lifeline as Trump gives him free reign to terrorize civilians
…Ukraine just lived through one of the most intense nights of this war. Last night was relentless—drones, rockets, destruction raining down on civilians. And while this was happening, Donald Trump has basically walked away, leaving Putin with free reign to unleash terror on innocent families.
Last night, Russia launched 113 drones at Ukraine. Ukrainian defenders took down 89, but 22 still got through, striking six different locations. In Zaporizhzhia alone, 10 rockets slammed into the city. Homes burned, trucks and buildings destroyed, and families torn apart. One person was killed, 18 injured—including two children.
…But don’t think for one second that Ukraine is sitting quietly. They are fighting back in ways that are shaking the Kremlin at its core. Ukrainian drones have struck refineries across Russia, forcing Putin to shut down vital oil processing units.
(Lev Parnas more…)NY Times: A No-Fly Zone Over Ukraine? The Challenges for the West Would Be Huge.
Slate: Trump’s Doomed “Golden Dome” Isn’t Even Our Worst Military Boondoggle Right Now
Poland suggested such a zone after a major Russian incursion. But political hesitance and military shortcomings pose clear obstacles.
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Liz Dye: Trump Sues NYT For Tortious Journalisming. Again.
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As always, Trump characterizes his demand for cash as a fight for the little guy.Sarah Jones & Jason Easley: The New York Times Shows How To Handle A Bogus Trump Lawsuit
Unlike CBS and ABC, when Trump came after The New York Times with a $15 billion defamation lawsuit, The Times vowed to fight.
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The New York Times sees Trump’s lawsuit for what it really is.The Trump lawsuits have never been about defamation. The bogus lawsuits have all been about controlling the press and changing how Trump is covered.
Rebecca Solnit:
The clown who wants to win everything all the time so badly has filed the most clownish, shameless, silly, sulky, embarrassing lawsuit of all time, and legal minds everywhere are recoiling in horror while also snickering, and I’m pretty sure that it’s unwinnable, aka another chance to lose, but meant to terrorize and extort instead. Big baby tantrum vibes mashed up with insecure boasts, all proving that being the head of the most powerful nation on earth is not enough for this hungry ghost. Who is suing for $15 billion.
It’s against the NYT and these writers and this book, for not saying he was always wonderful and amazing. The lawyers who wrote this legal document were basically ego masseuses and not at all acting in alignment with libel and defamation law and sometimes not within several thousand miles of those laws.
Sulky about an editorial: “The Board asserted hypocritically and without evidence that President Trump would ‘defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.’” Truth is a defense against libel, by the way.
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 16, 2025
The phrase that kept coming up over the last several days was “make fetch happen.” It’s a reference to the film Mean Girls, when one of the characters tries to make the word “fetch” trendy, using it to mean “cool” or “awesome.” Another character eventually slaps back: “Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen. It’s NOT going to happen!”
Over the weekend, it appeared MAGA leaders were trying to make fetch happen, hoping to distract attention from Trump’s and popular anger about the economy, corruption, the administration’s disregard for the law, and the Epstein files by trying to gin up the idea that the United States is being torn apart by political violence coming from what MAGA figures called “the left,” or “Democrats,” or just “THEM.”
Their evidence was the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last Wednesday in Utah, although the motive of the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, remains unclear. Today the state of Utah indicted Robinson on seven counts, including aggravated murder. But a 2024 report from a research arm of the Department of Justice itself noted that “[s]ince 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists.” Julia Ornedo of The Daily Beast reported that the Department of Justice removed the report from its website after the shooting.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Jay Kuo: Is Charlie Kirk Their Reichstag Moment?
Trump and the GOP are itching to exploit Kirk’s murder to expand their authoritarian aims
The Trump regime is sure acting like it’s found its “Reichstag” moment.That of course refers to the burning of the Reichstag parliament building in Germany in 1933, an incident the Nazi Party then used to justify suspension of civil liberties and an authoritarian takeover.
In the United States in 2025, the current regime’s “Reichstag moment” is the murder of right-wing provocateur, Charlie Kirk.
Or so it hopes.
(Jay Kuo more…)Bulwark: Republicans Prepare Punishments for Progressives After Charlie Kirk Murder
Bulwark: Charlie Kirk Conspiracy Theories Roil MAGA Media
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Texas Tribune: Student who mocked Charlie Kirk’s death “no longer” at Texas State University as clampdowns continue
The university’s announcement came hours after Gov. Greg Abbott called for the student’s expulsion.
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Slate: Some People Seem Very Determined Not to Face What We Actually Know About Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Shooter
Ken Klippenstein: Leaked Messages from Charlie Kirk Assassin
Accused shooter’s “politics” is not what government and media say
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The childhood friend is a member of multiple Discord chats with Robinson. He described the group as trying to grapple with Robinson’s motive just like everyone else.
(Ken Klippenstein more…)emptywheel: Tyler Robinson: Guns, Gaming, and Gay
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Jason Easley: Cory Booker Nails Kash Patel For Not Protecting Kids
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) asked FBI Director Patel if he reassigned FBI agents from stopping predators to immigration. Director Patel’s answer was to evade.
Jason Easley: Adam Schiff Breaks Kash Patel With Epstein Questions
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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