curated news excerpts & citations
Heather Delaney Reese: The First Lady Knows What’s Coming
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A trivial note. That’s what she called a warm, familiar email to a woman now serving 20 years in federal prison for sex trafficking minors.
And then she said something that I think reveals more than she intended. When explaining her connection to Epstein, she told the American people, “Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach.” She said it as if moving through rooms with men like Epstein is simply part of the lifestyle when you’re wealthy, connected, and inside those circles. She wants us to believe that proximity to a monster was just the cost of being elite.
(Heather Delaney Reese more…)
Borowitz: BREAKING: Another Statement From Melania
BREAKING: In the early hours of Friday, when everyone else at the White House was fast asleep, Melania Trump made the following statement:
Good morning.
The lies linking me with the disgraceful Donald J. Trump need to end today.
William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift @ Bulwark: Melania Throws Donald Under the Bus
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 10, 2026
It feels like something shifted in the United States this week after President Donald J. Trump threatened on Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” As professor of human rights, global affairs, and philosophy Mathias Risse of Harvard University’s Kennedy School noted, the Geneva Conventions prohibit “acts or threats of violence whose primary purpose is to terrorize civilians.” He notes that Trump’s threat terrorized 90 million Iranians by threatening them with genocide.
Trump has continued to struggle to assert his power over Iran since Tuesday, and has continued to fail. Yesterday former secretary of state John Kerry told Jen Psaki of The Briefing that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and George W. Bush to strike Iran, and they all refused him. Only Trump was willing to go along.
But negotiations have been rocky all along, and today Trump warned that if Iran didn’t come to a peace deal, the U.S. would launch even deadlier attacks. …
…Raskin asked the White House physician to “[c]onduct a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of the President, including a formal cognitive screening instrument, and publicly release the results; [p]rovide a detailed report on the President’s current mental and physical health status, including any medications he is currently taking and their potential cognitive side effects; and [m]ake yourself available for a briefing, under oath, with Members of the Committee on the results of this assessment.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Lisa Needham: America learns about “personalist regimes” the hard way
Truth Social posts are no way to run a country (or war).
Remember how there were endless fights over whether it was appropriate to say President Trump was a fascist? Well, that one seems pretty well-settled now.
But Trump’s second-term swath of destruction doesn’t only prove that the fascist moniker is apt. It also shows that America is living under a personalist regime, and it’s wrecking us.
Consider the whiplash of Tuesday’s genocidal threat to wipe out Iran’s entire civilization, one that hung in the air all day while everyone desperately hoped he’d reverse himself before his self-imposed deadline. Everyone knew full well that the outcome would be based completely on Trump’s whims, not part of any larger military strategy. It wasn’t going to be the product of robust, informed debate among cabinet officials. The world had to just wait to see where Trump’s vibes landed circa 8pm Eastern time.
(Lisa Needham more…)
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Jennifer Rubin: Calls for impeachment should be commended
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
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Parisa Hafezi, Maya Gebeily, Enas Alashray and Ahmed Tolba @ Reuters: Iran demands ceasefire, assets before peace talks
Iran said today that blocked Iranian assets must be released and that a ceasefire must take hold in Lebanon before peace talks can proceed, throwing last-minute doubt over negotiations scheduled for Saturday in Pakistan.
Emer Moreau @ BBC: EU airline industry warns of fuel shortages if Strait of Hormuz stays closed
Paul Krugman: From Drill, Baby, Drill to Toll, Baby, Toll
The Iran debacle and global power
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Konrad Putzier @ WSJ: Inflation Soared to 3.3% in March, Driven by Higher Gasoline Costs
The reading, the first major inflation report since the Iran war began, came in at its hottest level in two years
(Konrad Putzier @ WSJ more…)
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Antonio Regalado @ MIT Technology Review: What’s in a name? Moderna’s “vaccine” vs. “therapy” dilemma
Is it the Department of Defense or the Department of War? The Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America? A vaccine—or an “individualized neoantigen treatment”?
That’s the Trump-era vocabulary paradox facing Moderna, the covid-19 shot maker whose plans for next-generation mRNA vaccines against flus and emerging pathogens have been dashed by vaccine skeptics in the federal government. …
(Antonio Regalado @ MIT Technology Review more…)Rita Rubin @ JAMA: How mRNA Vaccines Could Help Treat Cancer
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Ryan Devereaux @ Intercept: A Redditor Criticized ICE. Trump Is Trying to Unmask Them by Dragging the Company to a Secret Grand Jury.
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Christina Pagel: What’s Happened in America While You Were Watching the Iran War
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
ICE deaths 2026 – They deserve remembrance and justice.
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - 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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