curated news excerpts & citations
WSJ: U.S. Loses 92,000 Jobs in Widespread and Unexpected Downturn
The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a sign that the job market continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.
The hiring numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.
The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%.
(WSJ more…)
WSJ: Kuwait Cuts Oil Production as Fallout From Iran Conflict Intensifies
Oil is backing up across the Persian Gulf with the main export route constricted
Jonathan Larsen: Pentagon Eyes Defending “Armageddon” Briefings
Religious-freedom group claims a Pentagon source reports some are defending the briefings as personal speech
People’s World: Minab’s 165 murdered schoolgirls: The silence that exposes Western moral selectivity
Raw Story: Hegseth’s ‘quiet death’ strike may constitute a war crime
Responsible Statecraft: After sinking Iranian ship, did the US Navy commit a war crime?
Hegseth says rules of engagement are ‘stupid’ but leaving survivors to drown violates laws America helped to put in place after World War II
Malcolm Nance: We Could be at War in Iran for a Decade
Apparently no one in the White House or the Pentagon reads history. The United States spent 12 years bombing air defense and targets in Iraq and we didn’t stop until we invaded.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – March 7, 2026
The Reverend Jesse Jackson died on February 17, 2026, at age 84. Tying together the past and the future, this weekend’s annual commemorative crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge will honor his legacy.
The past that his legacy will honor is rooted in March 7, 1965, when marchers set out across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, headed for the state capital at Montgomery.
The trigger for their march was the shooting death of an unarmed 26-year-old, Jimmy Lee Jackson, but their journey had begun a full three years before, in 1963, when Black organizers in the Dallas County Voters League launched a drive to get Black voters in Selma registered. They had chosen Selma because while there were more Black people than white people among the 29,500 people who lived in Selma, the city’s voting rolls were 99% white.
In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, but the measure did not adequately address the problem of voter suppression. In Selma a judge had stopped protests over voter registration by issuing an injunction prohibiting public gatherings of more than two people.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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NY Times: For Xi, Trump’s Embrace of War Proves China Needs More Power
China is learning lessons from the war in Iran. Chief among them, the United States may pose an even greater threat than Beijing thought.
The sudden and furious attacks by U.S. and Israeli forces on Iran this past week, including the killing of the country’s supreme leader, are confirming Xi Jinping’s worldview that hard power is king.
For years, Mr. Xi, China’s top leader, has warned his country about American military hostility and directed his generals to build a world-class army, or what he called a “Great Wall of Steel,” strong enough to deter the United States and ensure peace on Beijing’s terms.
“It is necessary to speak to invaders in the language they know,” Mr. Xi once said. “That is, a war must be fought to deter invasion, and a victory is needed to win peace and respect.”
Mr. Xi’s more than decade-long pursuit of the power to fight fire with fire is now given added urgencybecause of President Trump’s unapologetic use of military force, which is threatening governments and disrupting a global order that China increasingly sees itself as eventually leading.
(NY Times more…)
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Terrence Goggin: A TRUMP HIGH RISK GAMBIT: The 82nd Airborne Is About To Seize An Iranian Chokepoint, Kharg Island And Adjacent Oil Infrastructure (moving 2.7 million barrels per day), Within A Matter of Days
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Rebecca Solnit: Visions of Life / Agents of Death: On Love Thy Neighbor and Love Thy Nature
Donald Trump’s world is a dead and lonely world, a world in which everything is for sale and nothing really means anything and no one else matters. …
…The Epstein case is about the treatment of women and girl-children as commodities to be exploited with utter disregard for their needs, desires, dignity, humanity, the insistence on no connection, no relationship, no empathy, and the treatment of the whole gender as somehow less than human. It is not a coincidence that Jeffrey Epstein was a financier: he seemed to find satisfaction in the transformation of young female human beings into property without rights and agency. He even joked about Trump selling a “depreciated” woman to him.
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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Mediaite: Reporter Who Documented ICE Activities Arrested and in Detention
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Dissent in Bloom: The Same Families Who Tried to Overthrow FDR Are Running The Government Right Now
A documented trail of money, think tanks, and personnel from the 1934 Business Plot to Project 2025.
(Dissent in Bloom more…)
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Paul Krugman: Renewable Energy and National Security
Donald Trump’s attack on Iran will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. One consequence even I wasn’t thinking about, but which is already clear after less than a week, is that Trump has made a strong new case for renewable energy.
(Paul Krugman more…)
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Washington Post: Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces, officials say
The targeting information has included the locations of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East, the officials said.
…The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.
(Washington Post more…)Adam Kinzinger: What Does Russia Have on Trump? Americans Deserve an Answer
As Russia reportedly shares intelligence with Iran that could endanger American forces, the White House chooses to ease pressure on Moscow instead of confronting it.
For years I’ve tried to avoid the easy question that floats around American politics. It’s the one people ask quietly in private conversations and loudly on cable news panels: what exactly does Russia have on Donald Trump? I’ve generally resisted going there because speculation is cheap and politics already has enough of it. Accusations without proof often become just another partisan talking point. But there comes a moment when a pattern becomes so obvious that refusing to even ask the question starts to feel dishonest. Today feels like one of those moments.
…At some point the United States has to draw a line and make it clear that helping our enemies target American forces is unacceptable. Russia cannot simultaneously act against U.S. interests and expect economic concessions from the same government it is undermining. If these reports about Russian assistance to Iran are true, the response should be immediate and decisive. American troops deserve nothing less.
(Adam Kinzinger more…)
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Shanley Hurt: Evidence Optional: When Vaccine Policy Becomes a One Man Decision
DOJ’s courtroom argument says RFK Jr. can choose the evidence, and the rest of us can “take it up with politics.”
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The timing is what makes this argument so grotesque. The government is effectively telling a judge that vaccine guidance is a political question best settled through electoral pathways while measles, yes measles, the disease we once declared eliminated, continues to move through the country. Measles is not subtle. Measles is not “a little rash.” Measles is pneumonia and encephalitis and hospital wards filling with children whose parents thought this was something that happened in history books and old photos.Now zoom out: what the DOJ is really asking for is not just permission for Kennedy to do what he wants, it is a precedent.
(Shanley Hurt more…)
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truthout: Florida Has Deemed All Existing Intro to Sociology Textbooks Illegal and Produced Its Own
The Board of Governors overseeing the new curricula includes roofing contractors, insurance execs, and no professors.
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Bloomberg: Global Warming Has Significantly Accelerated
Planetary warming has significantly accelerated over the past 10 years, with temperatures rising at a higher rate since 2015 than in any previous decade on record, a new study showed.
(Bloomberg more…)
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Marisa Kabas: Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid
(Marisa Kabas more…)
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Daily Beast: Trump Lets Slip Why He Just Humiliated His Top Goon on TV
VERY MESSI
“I don’t want him to get too popular,” the president said at a White House event alongside soccer royalty.
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Decoding Fox News: Fox News: Operation AVOID Epstein Fury
A condensed overview of 32 hours of Fox News for the week ending 3/1/26
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
- January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
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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