curated news excerpts & citations
Michele Hornish: He Worked Alone; We Have Each Other
… Dashrath Manjhi: “This hill had given us trouble and grief for centuries. The people had asked the government many times to make a proper road through the hill, but nobody paid any attention. So I just decided I would do it all by myself.”
And so, armed with a simple chisel, a hammer, and a shovel, Dashrath began – single-handedly – to cut a path through solid rock.
… And twenty-two years after heaving the first shovelful, Dashrath Manjhi broke that mountain.
… And in doing so he created a road that meant freedom, giving people from 60 villages access to markets, healthcare, and jobs that now were just five kilometers away. Children who used to walk eight kilometers to school could now get there in three. Now with easier access to healthcare, some lives were literally saved. Other lives were made simpler, better, safer. …
… while this story inspires me because of what one man did, it also breaks my heart because of what could have been. What would have happened if everyone else in the village had pitched in after that first year? Rather than having a road in 22 years, perhaps they would have had a road in 10. Or 5. Or two.
… We are still standing in front of a mountain. But now, we’re not standing alone. Now there are other people, like you, on our left and right, setting cracks in the rock, shoveling stone, and pushing boulders out of the way. We can already see the crack in the mountain. We’re not as far from the other side as we thought. We just have to put our shoulders to it. So pick up your chisel. Go grab your shovel.
(Michele Hornish more…)
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Thom Hartmann: Republican Drafts a Bill That Would Make Joseph McCarthy Blush
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Texas Congressman Chip Roy is preparing to introduce legislation he’s calling the “MAMDANI Act,” named after Zohran Mamdani, the recently elected democratic socialist mayor of New York City, that would let the federal government bar entry to, deport, and strip naturalized citizenship from any person who advocates for or is “affiliated with” what Roy calls “totalitarian” movements. The list includes, from Rep. Roy’s webpage:“[A] socialist party, a communist party, the Chinese Communist Party, or Islamic fundamentalist party, or advocates for socialism, communism, Marxism, or Islamic fundamentalism.”
The bill targets people who “write, distribute, circulate, print, display, possess, or publish” material supporting socialism or any of those other ideas.
“Possess?” That single word means that owning a copy of Marx’s Das Kapital, or a pamphlet from a Palestinian solidarity group, or a battered paperback of Howard Zinn — or maybe even one of my books on the New Deal — would be enough to make a green-card holder or a naturalized citizen “inadmissible or deportable.”
(Thom Hartmann more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – April 21, 2026
There is the unmistakable feeling that the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus.
…For his part, Trump blamed the Democrats for the chaos in U.S. diplomacy. “The Democrats are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran,” his social media account posted yesterday. The post insisted “it will be done RIGHT, and we won’t let the Weak and Pathetic Democrats, TRAITORS ALL, who for years have been talking about the Dangers of Iran, and that something has to be done, but now, since I’m the one doing it, belittle the accomplishments of our Military and the Trump Administration. This is being perfectly executed, on the scale of Venezuela, just a bigger, more complex operation.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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L O L G O P: The Epstein victims get Nothing. Donald Trump’s feelings get a grand jury.
The DOJ of Donald Trump, former best bud of Jeffrey Epstein, reviewed six million pages of documents about Epstein and released three million of them. The president’s lawyers, let’s be honest, claimed to have found nothing worth prosecuting. Meanwhile, as we scroll, a grand jury in Florida is investigating whether investigating Donald Trump was itself a crime.
(L O L G O P more…)
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Robert Reich: The fog of Trump’s War
Jennifer Rubin: We can agree Iran has not agreed to anything
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John Timmer @ ARStechnica: Global growth in solar “the largest ever observed for any source”
The International Energy Agency says we’ve entered the Age of Electricity.
(John Timmer @ ARStechnica more…)
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Paul Krugman: The Vindication of Bidenomics
(Paul Krugman more…)
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Hans Christensen: World Immunization Week 2026 – Celebrating 154 Millions of Lives Saved
Across the world, vaccination has saved an estimated 154 million lives since 1974. USA has left WHO and vaccination initiatives. The world is getting together to fill the gaps.
WSJ Editorial Board: Oncologists vs. the FDA and RFK Jr.
Doctors who treat melanoma are shocked by a drug’s rejection.
Paul Offit: The Death of Public Health
Robert F, Kennedy Jr, the nation’s #1 public health official, isn’t interested in public health.
Katelyn Jetelina and Megan Ranney @ Your Local Epidemiologist: Gun violence, domestic violence, and the systems that fail us
Well, I tried to sit down to write the usual “health weather report” (ticks, diseases, etc.) that comes out on Tuesdays. But a tornado-like event came roaring in over the weekend, reminding all of us of the massive public health problem Americans continue to face: Firearm violence.
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Warren P. Strobel and Ellen Nakashima @ Washington Post: Two CIA officers die in Mexico accident after counternarcotics operation
Alicia Civita @ Latin Times: Sheinbaum Warns of Sanctions After 2 U.S. Officials Die in Chihuahua, Says “There Is No Permission” for U.S. Operations
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Gil Duran: How to Purge Palantir
And how I got permanently banned from X
(Gil Duran more…)Dean Blundell: Canadian Research Lab Just Identified US/MAGA Funded Network of 20 YouTube Accounts, 4,500 Videos, And 40 Million Views Pushing U.S. Annexation on Alberta.
The accounts are more pro-annexation than the actual separatists. That, right there, is the tell.
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Emanuel Maiberg @ 404 Media: This AI Tool Rips Off Open Source Software Without Violating Copyright
Malus, which is a piece of satire but also fully functional, performs a “clean room” clone of open source software, meaning users could then sell software without crediting the original developers.
(Emanuel Maiberg @ 404 Media more…)
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Brian Merchant: Monterey Park becomes the first city in California to ban “all data centers within city limits”
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Devlin Barrett @ NY Times: Civil Rights Group Says It Is Under Investigation by Justice Dept.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is best known for investigating hate groups, has been accused by Republicans of unfairly targeting conservative and Christian organizations.
Joyce Vance: DOJ claims the Southern Poverty Law Center was “paying off” the Ku Klux Klan. The group’s track record and common sense suggest otherwise.
Chris Geidner: The SPLC indictment, the Klan history behind it, and the ignominy of Todd Blanche
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Borowitz: Patel Hopes to Look Sober by Scheduling Joint Appearance With Hegseth
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- 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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