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Oliver Darcy: Canceling Kimmel

Inside ABC, emergency meetings were convened after the FCC chair’s Jimmy Kimmel threat, with the late-night host ready to respond on-air—but Disney brass ultimately decided to bench the marquee talent instead.
(Oliver Darcy more…)

Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 17, 2025

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Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”
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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.

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Dispatch: The Coming Tripolar World Order

A new defense strategy could squander America’s post-World War II advantage.

In words and actions, key foreign policy decision-makers within the Trump administration seem to be signaling a shift away from the United States’ global leadership role. If borne out, these changes are likely to usher in a new tripolar international system in which the United States, Communist China, and revanchist Russia divvy up spheres of influence. The result? A more dangerous world for Americans everywhere.
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We will woefully miss the day when the U.S., through maintenance and vigilance, enjoyed an order that upheld free trade and fostered the continued expansion of human liberty. If we wish to remain a superpower, we should choose to act like one.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 14, 2025

At 10:22 on the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies’ lounge. It killed the four girls instantly. Standing at the sink in the back of the room, Addie’s sister Sarah survived with serious injuries.
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For white supremacists in Birmingham, the children and the 16th Street Baptist Church where they had organized were the symbols of the movement that had beaten them.
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Al Jazeera: Venezuela condemns US destroyer for hostile occupation of fishing vessel

US military action against a Venezuelan boat sparks condemnation and troop deployments

Venezuela has accused the United States of illegally boarding and occupying one of its fishing vessels in the country’s special economic zone, further escalating tensions between Caracas and Washington.

In a statement on Saturday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the vessel, carrying nine “humble” and “harmless” fishermen, was intercepted by the US destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Friday.
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Bill McKibben: A Tale of Two Countries

Two superpowers, one behaving pathetically
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China first. Remarkable new details emerged yesterday of a trend we’ve been talking about for years in this newsletter: the rapid spread of clean energy and its associated appliances not only in China but in all the countries increasingly in their sphere. The folks at the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins published a huge new study detailing the “rapid scale- up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments.”

Investment volume: Chinese firms have pledged at least USD 227 billion across green manufacturing projects. A high-end estimate approaches USD 250 billion. This surge of overseas green manufacturing investment is unprecedented; it now surpasses the USD 200 billion (in current 2024 dollars) invested by the US over four years of the Marshall Plan, at a time of similar American dominance of manufacturing in key industries.

I want you to go back and reread the last sentence of that paragraph—bigger, in real dollar terms, than the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan, of course, was what America spent to rebuilt the world in the wake of World War II, and it was a key driver of what became the most prosperous economy the world has ever seen. The American century was built in no small part on making sure that our allies (and enemies) in the Second World War recovered and were fitted into our trading system. Now the Chinese are doing the same thing, except somewhat bigger and faster. …
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Sarah Jones: Male Shooter of Two Teenagers Was ‘Radicalized by Some Network’

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Holly allegedly murdered two teenagers because was radicalized by extremism. The details of which kind of extremism have not yet been identified, but when we combine any kind of extremism with easy access to guns, we get gun violence.
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It’s unfortunate that school shootings are so frequent in our country that they no longer get a lot of news coverage. They are not held up as shocking tragedies that we can and must speak up about, but rather as inevitable events that we must harden ourselves to, as if we have all agreed that the deaths of school children to guns are a price we are willing to pay.
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BBC: Trump faces major headache with incidents in Qatar and Poland

Into the two big foreign policy arenas sucking up much of the Trump administration’s time and effort come two major challenges in less than 24 hours.

Israel’s air raid on the offices of Hamas in Doha and a Russian drone incursion deep into Polish airspace represent two massive headaches for the White House.

And, arguably, two major affronts to the president’s authority.

After all, these are conflicts – Ukraine and Gaza – US President Donald Trump said he would deal with swiftly and decisively.

In each case, a leader he sees as a natural, if problematic ally – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – has thrown a massive spanner in the wheels of White House peace-making.
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Wired: US Taxpayers Will Pay Billions in New Fossil Fuel Subsidies Thanks to the Big Beautiful Bill

The Trump administration has already added nearly $40 billion in new federal subsidies for oil, gas, and coal in 2025, a report released Tuesday finds, sending an additional $4 billion out the door each year for fossil fuels over the next decade. That new amount, created with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this summer, adds to $30.8 billion a year in preexisting subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. The report finds that the amount of public money the US will now spend on domestic fossil fuels stands at least $34.8 billion a year.
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2024 Derek Hunter: Kamala’s newest lie: Trump will send the army after you

… So now we have another lie: the “enemy within” lie. This is a 33-second clip of an interview Trump did with Maria Bartiromo. It started circulating Monday in left-wing circles with the claim that, were he reelected, he would consider using the military against his political opponents.
(2024 Derek Hunter more…)

Bulwark: Understanding Trump’s Pivot to “Crime”

Where does Kamala Harris go to get her apology?

NY Times: Trump Says Having ‘a Little Fight With the Wife’ Should Not Count as a Crime

President Trump said that offenses that happen at home should not undermine his record of crime reduction in Washington.
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“Just a casual dismissal of domestic violence as a crime,” Sarah Longwell, a longtime Republican political strategist, wrote on social media.

Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 8, 2025

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The administration appears to be in a rush to replace democracy with a dictatorship before the whole administration collapses. On Saturday, Elliott Morris of Strength in Numbers reported that 46% of Americans—almost half of them—“strongly disapprove” of the job Trump is doing as president while only 24% “strongly approve, a 22% enthusiasm gap.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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