curated news excerpts & citations
Raven Nightshade: Deportation on the Rich Man’s Runway
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Their vans crept down the road: a death-march of the American Dream.
Why I Was There
Because silence is complicity.
Because witnessing is the smallest possible act of courage in a country addicted to looking away.
Because our relatives have stood here before, on this exact land, swallowed by the same machine of American cruelty.
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We like to pretend these things happen in the shadows.
They don’t.
They happen right next to us at the airport where we pick up loved ones, at the hangar where the rich store their toys, at the same gates where the American Dream pretends it can be reached with enough hard work and TSA-approved liquids.
Yesterday, I watched that dream die again.
And the worst part?
Most people will never know.
Many people will never care.
But some of us will remember. Some of us will speak.
Because someone has to.
(Raven Nightshade more…)
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Rebecca Solnit: Revolutionary Weather (and the Baboon in the Ruins)
Everything changed in the last few weeks. The Republicans, assumed by themselves and too many others, to be unstoppable got stopped again and again. Public opinion manifested in many ways: as an election that went hard against them, by a once-loyal Trumpist who turned on him, as a remarkable shift in Congress that saw Republicans in both houses at the very least afraid to vote against releasing the Epstein files, as elected Democrats standing up against the right and the lies, as people all over the country standing up valiantly for their neighbors against the administration’s violently lawless ICE raids.
Many Republicans saw that Trump was in decline, possibly rapid decline, and that their future lay not in the slavish deference we’ve seen for nine years but in separating themselves from him. These changes often happen like a change of weather; the winds are coming from another direction; the cold that arrives overnight promises that winter has arrived, or the thaw that spring is coming.
…No one knows where we go from here. A nation stable for centuries has been radically destabilized just in time for the 250th anniversary since John Adams coauthored that founding document of defiance of a king. The past is not a template for a viable future, and while the stability that ended on January 20, 2025, was better than this, it had severe flaws and injustices. Even if it didn’t, it will never be January 19, 2025 again. The end of Trump will either be the beginning of a national reconstruction/recovery project, or the point at which this country falls apart. How we go forward is improvisational, which is to say it’s up to us.
It always was.
p.s In a city with a history of segregation and violence, this image of solidarity moves me deeply. And yeah, Indivisible is doing essential work and I’ll try to donate again before the year is out.
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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WBUR: White House spokeswoman Leavitt now has a family connection to an ICE arrest
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt now has a family connection to the ICE actions sweeping the country — her nephew’s mother was arrested by agents in Revere earlier this month.
(WBUR more…)Brian Allen: Karoline Leavitt’s Family Caught in Trump’s ICE Dragnet, And the Political Fallout Is Only Beginning
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What This Means Politically- The optics are devastating
A White House press secretary being forced to respond, or avoid responding, to her own family being detained by the enforcement system she defends is the exact kind of story Republicans absolutely hate.It exposes the central flaw in Trump’s crackdown narrative:
The line between “criminals” and “families” is not as neat as the administration pretends.
- It undermines Leavitt’s moral positioning
Leavitt has regularly framed immigration enforcement as an issue of national security and public safety.
But when it’s her family caught in the dragnet?
Silence.
… - It proves what immigrant communities have been saying for decades
Under Trump, ICE doesn’t just target “dangerous criminals.”
- The optics are devastating
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CNN: Trump brushes off concerns about Witkoff’s interactions with Russians as leaked transcript roils Washington
President Donald Trump brushed off concerns about his special envoy Steve Witkoff’s engagements with the Kremlin after a new phone call transcript provided rare insight into how the president’s top negotiator advised his Russian counterpart.
In the October 14 audio recording reviewed and transcribed by Bloomberg, Witkoff counsels top Russian foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov on how Russian President Vladimir Putin should approach a call with Trump.
…“For those who oppose the Russian invasion and want to see Ukraine prevail as a sovereign & democratic country, it is clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he?” Bacon wrote on X.
(CNN more…)Alternet: Leaked transcript proves ‘childlike’ selfishness drives Trump
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By “talking more hopefully” Egger said Witkoff meant “a lot of flattery about how successful Trump’s negotiation in Gaza was and how glad Russia is that he is a ‘man of peace.’”According to the transcript, Ushakov got the message: “I agree with you that Putin will congratulate. He will say Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so and so.”
(Alternet more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – November 25, 2025
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In response, protesters organized “Tesla Takedowns,” gathering at Tesla dealerships to urge people not to buy the vehicles. The protests spread internationally. In March, Trump advertised Teslas on the South Lawn of the White House to try to help slumping sales, to no avail.In September, consumers flexed their muscle over parent company Disney’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show on ABC after pressure from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr over Kimmel’s comments following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. About three million subscribers canceled Disney+ in September, while Hulu, which Disney owns, lost 4.1 million. Monthly cancellations previously had averaged 1.2 million and 1.9 million, respectively. While not all of those cancellations could be chalked up to consumer anger over Kimmel’s suspension—Disney subscription prices went up at around the same time—Kimmel was back on the air in five days.
Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s.
In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. As the first general secretary of the National Consumers League, Florence Kelley, put it: “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to have responsibility.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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James Eagle: Advanced economies carry far more debt than emerging markets
The world feels as if it is shifting under our feet. You can see it in the places we borrow from, the places we study in, the rivers that shaped us, the companies that survived disruption and the leaders now walking away from the top job. … The old anchors of stability are not as firm as they once were.
(James Eagle more…)
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NY Times: $10 Billion and Counting: Trump Administration Snaps Up Stakes in Private Firms
The Trump administration is trading billions of dollars of taxpayer money for ownership stakes in companies. The unusual practice shows no sign of slowing.
(NY Times more…)
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NY Times: A Year Later, Donors to Trump’s Transition Come to Light
A 46-person list includes billionaires and people he went on to appoint to positions of power.
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Daily Kos: The Trump phone goes the way of all Trump scams
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Why the delay? Well, the government shutdown, according to the customer service representative.Not really beating the accusations that the Trump Organization is inextricably connected with the presidency here. If it’s just a private project of President Donald Trump’s sons, then why would it be affected by the government shutdown?
(Daily Kos more…)
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Decoding Fox News: The Epstein Files, Groceries and the Commie Mamdani – Fox Will Say Anything to Try to Save Trump
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 11/23/25
(Decoding Fox News more…)
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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