Public Enlightenment

NEWS: Cops Use Flock Cameras To Stalk Their Exes, Ballroom Donors Score $50 Billion In Government Contracts

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:12:13 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Sometimes in these summaries you’ll see articles from corporate or legacy newsrooms with anti-democracy owners and corporate agendas. It’s important that you pay attention to the agendas of media owners, and use that understanding to bring skepticism to your news. But more important is that we engage with fact-based, public interest journalism wherever we find it, and spread it as widely as we can in order to strengthen public understanding and make the best decisions at the ballot box.

This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: 404 Media, The Intercept, Truthout, Common Dreams, ProPublica, All Rise News, and Public Citizen.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.

Share this information to your social media or directly to friends. A well-informed electorate is the only defense against rising corruption and fascism.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Corruption & Self-Dealing

Public Citizen, Corporate Donors to Trump’s White House Ballroom have Received $50 Billion in Government Contracts Since the East Wing was Demolished

A new Public Citizen report finds that 14 of 27 known corporate donors to Trump’s $400 million White House Ballroom project have received more than $50 billion in new government contracts in the months since donating. Amazon, Palantir, NextEra Energy, and Lockheed Martin are among those donors. 16 of the 27 are also facing federal enforcement actions that the Trump administration has suspended or declined to pursue. The White House signed a secret funding agreement that allows donors to remain anonymous, meaning the full donor list has not been disclosed.

Why this matters: Corporations are funneling millions into a bullshit project and receiving billions in government contracts in return. On top of that, they’re being freed from the consequences of government investigations and penalties for alleged wrongdoing. This is the definition of pay-to-play corruption. And some ballroom donors are remaining anonymous? This leaves the public with no way to track who is buying government officials and getting kickbacks.

The Washington Post, Spike in border wall spending goes mostly to 2 firms with GOP, White House ties

The Trump administration has awarded more than $19.4 billion in border wall contracts in the past six months, compared to $2.1 billion over the entire period from 2016 to 2024. Nearly all of it has gone to two companies: Fisher Sand & Gravel ($7.8 billion) and Barnard Construction ($4.5 billion). Fisher’s CEO is a prominent GOP donor, and Barnard’s chairman and his wife gave $1.1 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Contracts are being awarded through a pre-vetted pool rather than open bidding, limiting public transparency. Costs are also ballooning well beyond original contract amounts, with one Fisher contract growing by $629 million after modifications were added.

Why this matters: Billions in taxpayer dollars are flowing to major Trump donors through a contracting process stripped of transparency safeguards. Companies are funding the president’s campaign and getting inflated government contracts as payback. Our government has become an ATM for political allies of the president and your tax dollars are what comes out of the machine and into their hands.

KFF Health News, Trump Bought Tobacco Stocks and Raked In Industry Donations as FDA Eased Standards

President Trump grew his stake in tobacco giant Philip Morris to as much as $1.64 million this year while his FDA pursued a sweeping pro-tobacco agenda. The administration fast-tracked nicotine pouches, waved through flavored e-cigarettes over the objections of career scientists, and gutted the public health offices that fight smoking. The money flowed both ways: tobacco interests gave more than $20 million to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. since late 2023, and Reynolds American dropped $5 million into its coffers just a week before the FDA issued guidance that boosted the industry. Trump went on a tobacco stock-buying spree in March, making eight separate purchases of Philip Morris or Altria shares. A former FDA tobacco official called the policy shift “a gift on a platter with a side of public health malpractice.”

Why this matters: The public can no longer trust that health policy serves the public rather than the president’s portfolio. The president personally profits from the stocks of an industry his own government is regulating and that industry funnels millions to his political operation. The offices and programs that warn people about a product that kills half a million Americans annually are dismantled as a result of the corruption.

Surveillance & Policing Gone Wrong

404 Media, Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People

Police across the country are repeatedly using Flock, the automated license plate reader network that logs the movements of nearly every passing car, to stalk their partners and exes. In one case detailed in court records, a Florida officer ran his ex-girlfriend’s plate through the system at least 69 times over a single summer, then invited a colleague to join him on a “stakeout” to find her. He was charged with stalking and hacking and sentenced to probation. An April study by the Institute for Justice found at least 18 officers caught using Flock to track a romantic interest in recent years, but the real number is almost certainly far higher, since known cases surface only when the abuse is egregious enough to trigger firing or arrest. Most of these cases were not caught by police audits but by stalking victims, journalists, and citizen groups digging through public records. Police do not need a warrant to look up anyone they want, and one officer logged 395 searches of a single plate over ten months before anyone noticed.

Why this matters: A surveillance dragnet that tracks where everyone drives is being used by unaccountable police officers to do creep crimes. Victims and reporters are doing the work of exposing the abuses of the system, not police departments.

Wired, Wrongful Arrest Exposes Failures in One of the Oldest Police Face-Recognition Tools in the US

The ACLU is suing two Florida police departments after Robert Dillon, a 52-year-old commercial crabber, was wrongfully arrested (for trying to lure a child) based on a faulty face recognition match. Police ran cellphone photos of surveillance footage through FACES, a Pinellas County system holding tens of millions of mugshots and license photos, and got a “93 percent match” to Dillon, who lived more than 300 miles away and says he’d never been to the city where the crime happened. That score measures only how similar two images look to the algorithm, not whether they show the same person. Several facts pointing away from Dillon, including a witness calling the suspect a “regular customer” and license plate readers placing his vehicles nowhere near the scene, never reached the judge who signed the warrant. Charges were dropped weeks after he pleaded not guilty, but the officer who built the case was promoted by year’s end. The ACLU says it’s at least the 15th known wrongful arrest in the US tied to face recognition.

Abuse, Impunity & Political Power

The New Yorker, Andrew Tate’s Empire of Abuse

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan built a fortune by coercing women into online sex work. Tate ran a paid network called the War Room, where members were taught his recruitment method: fake romantic feelings, get a woman isolated and financially dependent, then chip away at her resistance to performing on camera. In private messages, Andrew Tate bragged about doing this to more than 100 women and described beating, choking, and raping recruits. Romanian prosecutors charged the brothers with running an organized crime group to traffic women, some of them minors. The Tates boosted Trump's 2024 campaign, and after he won, his administration pressured Romania into lifting their travel ban.

After the travel ban was lifted, the Tates flew from Romania to Florida in late February 2025 and were welcomed in MAGA-world. They were photographed with Roger Stone, greeted ringside at a UFC event by UFC president Dana White ("Welcome to the States, boys!"), and met with various allies.

Why this matters: The guy running the UFC event on the White House lawn this summer and the president of the United States are friends with men credibly accused of trafficking minors.

The Immigration Machine & State Violence

KFF Health News, Festering Infections to Untreated Cancer: ICE Detainees Describe Medical Neglect Across US

Hundreds of immigrant detainees across at least 33 states allege in sworn federal court filings that ICE facilities failed to provide adequate medical care. The accounts are harrowing: an Albanian man said he pulled out his own tooth after months without dental care, and a Venezuelan man said flesh-eating bacteria turned his leg purple after staff skipped his doctor’s appointment. ICE custody is now deadlier than it has been in two decades, with 51 deaths since Trump’s second term began and suicides spiking to record numbers. The detained population has nearly doubled to more than 75,000, about 70% of whom have no criminal conviction, while DHS shut down the office that once investigated neglect complaints.

Why this matters: The government is failing to provide the basic medical care the law requires. This investigation, built from detainees’ own sworn testimony, documents a system where denying medicine and ignoring obvious suffering has become routine. We taxpayers are paying for all this cruelty. Meanwhile study after study has shown the harm to the economy, families, and communties wrought by our white supremacist immigration policy.

Common Dreams, Despite Court Protection Orders, Trump Admin Deports Refugees to War-Torn Central African Republic, Putting ‘Lives at Risk’

The Trump administration deported nearly two dozen people to the Central African Republic, a country so dangerous the State Department tells Americans not to go there “for any reason” because of war, kidnapping, landmines, and terrorism. Several of those on the flight were refugees who had won court orders barring their deportation home, including an Iranian pro-democracy activist, a Syrian torture survivor, and others from Afghanistan. To get around the judges’ protection orders, the administration is dumping people in “third countries” where they have no ties, no legal status, and no support. Lawyers fear the migrants will ultimately be forced back to the very countries they fled. According to Human Rights First, the US has paid governments $44 million to take more than 19,000 deportees across 24 countries, some of whom have faced arbitrary detention, torture, or return to their persecutors. Senator Chris Murphy called the policy “deeply evil.”

Why this matters: These people did not lose their cases; they won them, proving to a judge they would likely be persecuted if sent home, only to be abandoned in a foreign war zone. The government is using secret deals with unstable nations to bypass court orders meant to protect the vulnerable. The Trump administration is not enforcing the law, it’s evading it.

The Intercept, Top Pentagon Official Admits Boat Strike May Have Killed Victims of Human Trafficking

The US military has carried out more than 60 strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing over 200 people without trial. One strike stands apart: the first, on September 2, 2025, killed 11 people, far more than the one to four killed in nearly every other attack. In a classified briefing, a top Joint Staff officer admitted that some of those killed “could be” victims of human trafficking. Smuggling experts told The Intercept that no one packs 11 people onto a cocaine boat, and that the vessel’s profile matched a ship carrying mixed cargo, likely including people, from a Venezuelan region that is a known human trafficking hub. The military has since shifted its story, now claiming just one of the 11 was a confirmed terrorist and the other 10 mere “affiliates,” a status one official said might be conferred by little more than a conversation. Multiple lawmakers say the government never knew the identities of most of the people it killed, and Coast Guard data shows about 1 in 5 boats it suspects of drug-running carry no contraband at all.

Why this matters: The government is carrying out extrajudicial killings at sea based on intelligence so thin it cannot name most of the dead, and now concedes some may have been trafficking victims, the very people these operations claim to protect. When the government can kill people without knowing who they are or proving they did anything wrong, what stands between any of us and a missile?

Government Capture & Regulatory Failure

CNN, EPA scientists say they are being pushed to downplay potential risks of household products

Scientists at the EPA’s chemical safety office told CNN they are being pressured to rig safety reviews so that risks from chemicals in products like cleaners and cosmetics vanish on paper. To make a chemical look safe, staff said they were told to test unrealistic scenarios. Employees said that the moment a scientist found a real risk, managers would convene a meeting to figure out how to erase it. Scientists were also ordered to stop accounting for how some racial groups are more vulnerable to certain chemicals, a standard scientific practice that leadership dismissed as “DEI.” Many of the political appointees now running these offices are former chemical industry lobbyists. One is Nancy Beck, a former American Chemistry Council official who reopened a finished assessment of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, after which the agency proposed nearly doubling the amount it considers safe for exposure.

Why this matters: The agency meant to protect public health is steered by former industry lobbyists to do the opposite, protect corporate profits at the expense of public health.

The Guardian, Hard-right groups have expanded their influence across US government, report finds

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s annual Year in Hate and Extremism report identified 1,263 hate and anti-government groups operating in 2025 and found that the Trump administration has reshaped federal policy to serve far-right interests. The report notes that 23% of all FBI agents have been reassigned to immigration enforcement, pulling personnel away from counter-terrorism, white-collar crime, and cybercrime. The administration also dismantled a national database tracking domestic terrorism and hate crimes, and removed a peer-reviewed DOJ study finding that far-right attacks outpace all other forms of domestic violent extremism.

Why this matters: Gutting the agencies and databases that track far-right violence, while pardoning January 6 participants and redirecting law enforcement toward immigration raids, leaves the public less protected from the domestic threats the government is actively choosing to ignore.

Truthout, Under Trump, Corruption and Governance Have Become Indistinguishable

In this op-ed, writer and organizer Kelly Hayes argues that the Trump administration has normalized corruption as a governing model, pointing to a string of industry-insider appointments with direct financial conflicts. Former GEO Group executive David Venturella, who was a paid GEO consultant until less than two weeks before returning to lead ICE, had his standard ethics cooling-off period waived. Border czar Tom Homan, who was recorded accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents in a 2024 corruption sting, also worked as a paid GEO consultant. Hayes catalogs similar patterns across the cabinet: a fracking CEO now heads the Energy Department and has canceled billions in clean energy funding; a timber industry executive with no prior agency experience now runs the Forest Service; Mehmet Oz, who held UnitedHealth stock, now oversees Medicare and Medicaid. Hayes argues these conflicts aren’t aberrations, they are the policy.

Why this matters: Trump World is set out to destroy government oversight and instead wield regulatory agencies in a way that benefits cronies and donors.

Elections & Democracy

Democracy Docket, Postal Service moving forward with Trump’s attack on mail voting

The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a rule to implement Trump’s March executive order restricting mail voting, requiring state officials to submit voter lists to USPS at least 30 days before ballots go out, and refusing to send ballots to anyone not on those lists. The rule relies in part on Department of Homeland Security databases that have documented flaws, and it assigns a unique barcode to each mail voter’s ballot to “facilitate law enforcement efforts.” Legal experts say the order is unconstitutional, since, under the Constitution, states run elections and only Congress, not the president, can set national standards. The move came one day after a federal judge declined to block the executive order, but specifically noted that agency action was needed to give plaintiffs legal standing to sue.

Why this matters: Stripping millions of voters of mail ballot access before a midterm election, using flawed federal databases and without congressional authorization, is a direct attack on voting rights. The barcode tracking of individual mail voters raises additional alarm about using the postal system as a surveillance tool against the electorate.

Tech, Media & Accountability

Wired, Threats Against Politicians Skyrocketed After Meta Changed Its Speech Rules

New research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed nearly 8 million Facebook comments on posts by 100 members of Congress and found that violent threats and hate speech quadrupled in the six months after Meta relaxed its content moderation rules. Comments violating Meta’s own policies on violent threats jumped from 1,800 to 7,600; hate speech comments rose from 6,900 to 30,000. Threats against President Trump more than doubled, with many comments potentially rising to the level of felony offenses. Meta’s own transparency reports show the company cut proactive content moderation by roughly half over the same period. Hours before the report was published, many of the cited comments were deleted from Facebook.

Why this matters: Meta’s rollback of content moderation isn’t a free speech win, it’s a business decision that trades public safety for engagement. Election officials are leaving their jobs over threats. Zuck’s unleashing of more chaos, extremism, and hate into our information ecosystem only benefits Trump’s fascist movement.

The Decoder, Landmark German ruling declares Google’s AI Overviews are Google’s own words and makes it liable for false answers

The Regional Court of Munich ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims its AI Overviews generate, rejecting the limited legal protections that normally shield search engines. Google’s AI had falsely tied two Munich publishers to scams and shady business practices, drawing connections that appeared in none of the linked sources. The court found that AI Overviews are Google’s own content, not a list of third-party results, because the AI rewrites and judges information “in its own words.” It dismissed Google’s defense that users can check the sources themselves, noting that the summaries read as self-contained statements, and that studies show users almost never click through to sources. The court also gave AI-generated opinions weaker free-speech protection, reasoning that an algorithm’s output is not a person expressing a genuine conviction. The ruling is not yet final, and Google says it is reviewing the decision.

Why this matters: As AI-generated answers replace links as the public’s main way of finding information, this ruling forces the companies behind them to own the falsehoods their systems produce. Holding platforms accountable for AI defamation is a critical check on a technology that can smear people and businesses at massive scale with no human author to sue.

A Tool for the Public

ProPublica, Nursing Home Inspect

This is a free public tool, not an article, that lets anyone search more than 90,000 nursing home inspection reports to evaluate a facility near them or compare homes by state. Drawing on data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it covers each home’s last three years of inspections and flags the most serious violations, those that put residents in “immediate jeopardy” of injury, harm, or death. You can search by home, state, county, or even by keyword inside the inspection reports themselves, so a search for a term like “choke” surfaces every report mentioning it. The tool also ranks states and individual homes by serious deficiencies, average fines, and delayed inspections, and marks facilities the government has flagged for a history of quality problems. It’s a practical way for families to vet a facility before trusting it with a loved one.

Why this matters: Choosing a nursing home is one of the highest-stakes decisions a family makes, and the government’s own inspection records are the clearest warning system available, if you can find them. By turning dense federal data into a searchable public resource, ProPublica puts the power to spot a dangerous facility directly in the hands of the people who need it most.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Leave a comment

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Quick reminder: You don’t have to navigate our broken information ecosystem alone. I help people understand what’s really going on by pointing them to fact-based reporting and expertise from trustworthy sources. Paid subscribers make it possible for this work to remain available to everyone. To become a paid subscriber click here.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: Director of National Intelligence accepted award saying he "only f*cks the young", Trump cronies sold warehouses to ICE for 10x list price

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 21:37:10 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, sign up for the newsletter here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: It’s a defining paradox of our times that great journalists work at normalizing, corporate outlets. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Fortune broke important stories in this edition, yet operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to sanitize anti-democratic agendas. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. Discernment, the kind you'd use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: West Virginia Watch, Truthout, The New Republic, ProPublica, Spotlight Delaware, The Intercept, Law Dork, Current Affairs, 404 Media, and More Perfect Union.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.

Share this information to your social media or directly to friends. A well-informed electorate is the only defense against rising corruption and fascism.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed.

Corruption & Self-Dealing

The Bulwark, Bill Pulte Was a “Degenerate” Buffoon. Now He’s Head of U.S. Intelligence.

Before becoming America’s acting Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte spent 2023 convincing retail investors that he had a secret plan to resurrect the already-bankrupt and delisted Bed Bath & Beyond. Investors paid $500 each to attend events to hear what Pulte supposedly knew about the stock’s future. At a December 2023 event in a Florida hangar, a promoter slapped an audience member in the face with a green dildo before presenting Pulte with a trophy inscribed “Bill Pulte fucks only the young.” Pulte accepted it, saying “That looks pretty badass.” Bed Bath & Beyond did not come back. Pulte entered Trump’s orbit through Mar-a-Lago membership and presidential retweets. He then used his housing regulator post to refer Trump’s political enemies to the DOJ for mortgage fraud while declining to refer Trump’s own chief of staff and four cabinet members for identical paperwork issues. He fired the inspector general investigating how he obtained those records.

via Mediaite

Here’s video of the event. Remember, this man is now the acting DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE.

Why this matters: Bill Pulte built his public profile misleading small investors, presiding over dildo ceremonies, and weaponizing a housing regulator against Trump's political enemies. Now he oversees the entire U.S. intelligence community. Former National Security Council member Brett Bruen warns that Pulte now has access to "the crown jewels of our most protected secrets." Instead of merely using mortgage records, now Pulte can go after Trump’s opponents with the full force of American surveillance capabilities, covert sources, and signals intelligence—the most powerful tools our government has. Bottom line: a degenerate Trump enforcer is now our spy chief.

More Perfect Union, We Tracked Down Who’s Getting Rich Off ICE Warehouse Deals

People close to Trump were stuck with warehouses that were losing money every year. Then the federal government bought those same properties—at up to ten times their list price—to use as ICE detention facilities. More Perfect Union investigated and found a pattern of politically connected insiders flipping properties to the government at massive markups. American taxpayers are footing the bill.

Why this matters: When government contracts go to insiders at prices that bear no relationship to market value, that’s a corrupt, taxpayer shakedown.

Wired, He Blew the Whistle on DOGE. Then His Brakes Were Cut

Dan Berulis worked in IT at the National Labor Relations Board. In April 2025, he filed a Congressional whistleblower complaint saying DOGE had accessed agency data and that login attempts from a Russian IP address appeared minutes afterward. The day after he went public, a threatening note with drone photos of him walking his dog was taped to his door. Five days later, his brake lines were cut. His car had also been tampered with to prevent safety systems from detecting the damage. The night before the accident, Elon Musk had reposted content calling Berulis a liar. Replies included calls for arrest and one user writing “Snitches get stitches.” Berulis has now filed a defamation suit against Musk. If he wins, he says, the money goes to defending other whistleblowers.

Why this matters: A federal employee reported what looked like a serious government data breach possibly involving a foreign actor. Then the world’s richest man publicly targeted him by name and someone cut his brake lines. Whistleblowers are democracy heroes who deserve protection.

The New York Times, How Prediction Markets and Crypto Firms Steamrolled a Watchdog Agency

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is supposed to police crypto and prediction markets. Instead, it has been systematically dismantled to benefit industries in which the Trump family holds direct financial stakes. Under acting chair Caroline Pham, senior career officials who raised concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com, and a Winklevoss brothers crypto venture were placed on leave and put under investigation without being told what they’d done wrong. Pham and her top counsel intervened to fast-track approvals for all three companies, then left to take jobs at those same firms. A settlement with KuCoin—which listed Trump family crypto coins during negotiations—was reduced to a $500,000 fine from an expected multimillion-dollar penalty. At least five other crypto investigations were dropped. The agency’s current sole commissioner, Michael Selig, is the only board member Trump appointed, giving him unilateral authority to sue and set rules over industries at the center of the president’s business empire.

Why this matters: This is textbook regulatory capture: officials cleared the way for industries enriching the president’s family, then walked through the revolving door to work for those same companies. The public has no functioning watchdog over a crypto and prediction market sector processing tens of billions of dollars in trades each month.

The New York Times, Lutnick Donated $5 Million to House Republicans Before Epstein Testimony

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made a $5 million donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund (the main super PAC backing House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson) just weeks before the House Oversight Committee was set to interview him about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. It is the first seven-figure disclosed federal donation made by any Trump cabinet official after being confirmed. Lutnick’s name appears in more than 250 Epstein-related documents. Records showed he visited Epstein’s private island in 2012, contradicting his earlier claim that he had not been in the same room as Epstein since 2005.

Why this matters: A cabinet secretary writing a $5 million check to the super PAC that funds his investigators, just weeks before testifying, is not a coincidence; it’s a transaction intended to ensure a light touch. And Lutnick’s corruption runs deeper than the Epstein timeline. While serving as the architect of Trump’s tariff policy, his sons were reportedly buying up tariff refund claims at steep discounts, positioning the family to profit enormously when the tariffs fell. The Commerce Department is supposed to protect American economic interests. Lutnick appears to be using the office to enrich his family.

Via US Congressman Mike Levin:

The New Republic, The Shady Way Trump’s Board of Peace Is Collecting Money

Four months after Trump launched his Board of Peace, a Gaza reconstruction initiative run by Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and other Trump allies, the official World Bank fund set up for it has received exactly zero dollars. Instead of using that transparent, UN-approved account, the board has been collecting donations through a JPMorgan account with no public reporting requirements. Of the billions pledged by ten countries, Morocco contributed $20 million for office and staff costs, and the UAE provided $100 million to train Gaza police, but that program hasn’t started and the funds are frozen. A congressional aide told the Financial Times that $1.2 billion in State Department aid promised to the board isn’t going there at all.

Why this matters: A foreign policy initiative funneling international donations through a private bank account with no transparency requirements is a corruption red flag. The American public and U.S. allies have no way to know where the money goes, who controls it, or who benefits.

Truthout, Trump White House Advances Plan Requiring Federal Workers to Sign NDAs

The Office of Personnel Management has posted a draft proposal requiring all current and former federal employees to sign nondisclosure agreements covering “non-public, confidential, or proprietary information.” Former employees would need written agency approval before speaking to journalists. The administration cited leaks about a U.S. military raid in Venezuela as justification. The Freedom of the Press Foundation called the proposal “dangerously secretive,” saying its real purpose is shielding the administration from embarrassing, politically damaging, or potentially unlawful conduct being revealed to the public.

Why this matters: A free press depends on federal employees being able to report government wrongdoing without legal threat. Blanket NDAs applied to the entire civilian workforce would gut whistleblower protections and give the executive branch an unprecedented tool to bury misconduct.

White Nationalist Government Capture & Regulatory Failure

ProPublica, “No One Is Watching”: How Trump Reversed Biden’s Crackdown on Gun Trafficking

The Trump administration has dismantled the Biden-era crackdown on illegal gun trafficking. It repealed the zero-tolerance policy for dealers who broke the law, invited previously revoked dealers to reapply for licenses, and shifted nearly 1,800 of the ATF’s roughly 2,500 agents to immigration enforcement. License revocations dropped 69% in 2025. ATF referrals for trafficking-related charges fell 15%, and the DOJ declined 30% more of those referrals than the year before. One Baltimore inspector was told to spend six hours a week scanning gun purchase records for buyers with “foreign-sounding names” to send to DHS, work so removed from his actual duties that he took early retirement in protest. Research shows trafficked guns typically take up to three years to appear at crime scenes, meaning the worst effects are still ahead.

Why this matters: The administration that ran on restoring public safety has gutted the only federal agency tasked with keeping illegal guns off the street and redirected its agents to hunt immigrants instead. As one 21-year ATF veteran put it: “Just because no one is watching the trafficking pipelines right now doesn’t mean guns aren’t flowing through it.”

The Washington Post, Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job

Elias Irizarry, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for participating in the January 6 Capitol attack at age 19, has been hired as a political appointee at the Pentagon, assigned to its irregular warfare and counterterrorism section. The team of roughly 40 people handles embassy security, personnel recovery, and hostage rescue—all requiring top-secret clearances. Federal prosecutors noted that FBI agents found a gap in his phone data between January 1 and January 8, 2021, suggesting he had deleted records of his involvement. Irizarry was among the more than 1,500 rioters pardoned by Trump in 2025.

Why this matters: The same Republican lawmakers who demanded the suspension of a Middle East scholar’s security clearance over alleged ties to Iran—calling her background “disqualifying for anyone seeking such a sensitive position of trust”—are remaining silent as a convicted Capitol rioter is handed access to the government’s most sensitive special operations portfolios.

Balls and Strikes, How Trump Is Making the Federal Judiciary White Again

Forty life-tenured federal judges have now been confirmed in Trump’s second term. Ninety percent of them are white. Only one is a woman of color. In states like Kansas and Montana, Trump has now appointed more white judges than the total number of judges of color who have ever served there. Many of these nominees were active participants in the anti-diversity legal movement before their confirmations—challenging DEI programs, partnering with Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, and refusing at their hearings to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. The reshaping of the judiciary is happening alongside the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the rollback of affirmative action, and the Pentagon’s moves to block promotions of Black and women officers.

Why this matters: The lawyers Trump is rewarding with lifetime judicial appointments are the same ones who spent their careers dismantling civil rights protections. They will still be on the bench long after this administration ends, ruling on who gets to vote, work, attend school, and access justice in America.

NPR, Study: National Guard does little to reduce violent crime in D.C. despite $1.5 million cost

A new study finds that Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. has had little measurable effect on violent crime, despite significant cost to taxpayers. The troops were deployed in August as part of a federal task force, and their numbers are set to double as the country prepares to mark its 250th anniversary.

Why this matters: A study showing the National Guard isn't meaningfully reducing crime in Washington, D.C. raises an obvious question: what is it actually for? Deploying military forces in American cities normalizes what the founders explicitly warned against—the use of standing armies to police civilian populations. It's less a crime policy and more like an exercise in conditioning Trump's base to accept his potential use of the military in the streets during the midterm elections.

ICE & Immigration Enforcement

Brookings Institution, Shock, awe, and economic fallout

A Brookings Institution study compared 86 cities that experienced sharp ICE enforcement surges in 2025 against 255 that did not. They found the raids cost 668,000 jobs, including between 51,000 and 297,000 held by American-born workers. For every additional arrest above normal enforcement levels, researchers found 13 jobs lost overall. The administration’s “shock and awe” tactics caused immigrant workers of all legal statuses to stop reporting to work, businesses to scale back or shut down, and consumers to stay home. Construction lost 2.2% of employment across surge cities. Arts and entertainment commerce also contracted sharply as people stopped going out. One in six Americans overall reported avoiding public venues due to enforcement fears. Among Hispanic adults, the share rose to one in four.

Why this matters: The administration sold mass deportation as a jobs program for American workers. The evidence shows the opposite: ICE raids shrank local economies, destroyed businesses Americans own and run, and cost American-born workers their jobs.

Bloomberg, The DOJ Wants to Know Who on Reddit and X Is Criticizing ICE’s Tactics

The Justice Department has subpoenaed Reddit and X for the names, addresses, and banking information of at least two anonymous users who posted criticism of ICE online. Neither user has been told what crime is being investigated. One user’s posts were described by their attorney as “as simple as ‘expletive ICE.’”

Why this matters: The right to criticize government agents anonymously is as old as the republic—the Federalist Papers were published under a pseudonym for exactly this reason. Using the criminal justice system to unmask online critics of ICE isn’t law enforcement. It’s a threat to every American’s right to free speech and dissent.

Elections & Democracy

Wired, Ballots Have Been Seized Across the US. No One Knows What Will Happen Next

Since January, the Trump administration and allied local officials have seized or demanded ballots in four states. FBI agents raided a Fulton County, Georgia election facility and grabbed 600 boxes of 2020 ballots using a warrant built on conspiracy theories that nonpartisan experts call factually groundless. The DOJ subpoenaed 2020 digital ballot images from Arizona. It demanded all 865,000 ballots from Michigan’s 2024 election while citing only debunked 2020 fraud claims. A Republican California sheriff launched an unauthorized recount of 600,000 ballots from a redistricting election that passed with 64% of the vote. In each case, the stated justifications have been disputed or debunked. Election law experts warn the seizures may be dry runs for seizing ballots during an active vote count, which would amount to direct federal interference in a live election..

Why this matters: Seizing ballots from elections that were independently audited and certified. and using debunked claims as justification, is not fraud prevention. It is a blueprint for stealing future elections by manufacturing the appearance of past ones being stolen.

Law Dork, The Supreme Court’s Republican appointees end civil rights redistricting protections

Using the shadow docket— unsigned, with no public argument—the Supreme Court’s six Republican appointees allowed Alabama to use a congressional map that has been blocked twice by lower courts as racially discriminatory. The ruling eliminated one of the state’s two majority-Black congressional districts. The lower court had found that Alabama acted with intentional racial discrimination, designing redistricting criteria that made remedying that discrimination mathematically impossible. The Supreme Court majority overrode that finding anyway. In dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the ruling “debases democracy” and “corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.”

Why this matters: The six Republican-appointed justices have effectively ended the legal framework protecting minority voters from discriminatory redistricting. A Black member of Congress will likely lose their seat as a direct result. Election law scholar Rick Hasen warns the ruling goes further: by allowing states to impose new maps at the last minute while barring federal courts from remedying violations close to an election, the Supreme Court has handed bad-faith state legislatures a tool to manufacture chaos in the final weeks of any election cycle with no legal recourse available in time to stop it. Again, cue the midterms.

Surveillance & Privacy

Wired, US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows

More than 1,000 pages of DHS, FBI, and fusion center documents obtained by Wired through FOIA requests show federal law enforcement building a new domestic surveillance category: “anti-tech violent extremism.” The effort tracks not just violent actors but peaceful protesters at data center hearings, Tesla Takedown demonstrators, and an advocacy video from the nonprofit More Perfect Union, none of which involved calls for violence. The push follows Trump’s National Security Presidential Memo 7, which instructs the DOJ to target people holding “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “anti-capitalism” beliefs. A private intelligence contractor has been flagging content critical of tech companies, including a video about data center harms to a Georgia community, as potential threat indicators and circulating those reports to fusion centers nationwide.

Why this matters: A fusion center is a post-9/11 intelligence sharing hub where federal agencies like the FBI and DHS share information with state and local law enforcement. They were created to help catch terrorists by connecting federal intelligence to local cops—but civil liberties groups have long criticized them for surveilling lawful protest activity and treating dissent as a threat indicator.The government is using counterterrorism machinery to monitor and chill constitutionally protected dissent against industries in which the president and his allies are financially invested. Legitimate, constitutionally protected AI skepticism and data center opposition is being criminalized to make the president and his cronies more money.

The Intercept, Philly Cops Admit That They’re Tracking “First Amendment Activity” Critical of AI

A confidential bulletin obtained by The Intercept shows the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center, a fusion center inside the Philadelphia Police Department, combing social media for posts critical of AI data centers and flagging “disruptive First Amendment activity” as an indicator of potential domestic terrorism. The report admits it lacks “specific information on plans to target AI data centers,” yet identifies three proposed Philadelphia-area data centers as likely protest targets. Evidence cited includes a Facebook meme, a reference to the novel Dune, and a post on an anarchist blog. Seven out of ten Americans now oppose having data centers as neighbors, making the surveillance net extraordinarily broad.

Why this matters: Law enforcement is systematically treating opposition to industries in which the president and his allies are financially invested as a precursor to terrorism. Boycotts, online complaints, and criticism of utility bills are now officially “indicators” of extremist threat. It’s the same playbook used against Black Lives Matter and pipeline protesters.

Whistleblowers & Press Freedom

Current Affairs, How Elon Musk Killed Hundreds of Thousands of People

Nicholas Enrich served as USAID’s Director of Policy, Programs, and Planning for Global Health until he was removed for speaking out. He describes watching an agency that saved 92 million lives over 20 years — on less than 1% of the federal budget — be dismantled in weeks by DOGE operatives who didn’t know what it did. One senior political appointee told him the only thing he assumed USAID did in global health was abortions. Another told Enrich that Ebola is “a scam.” Staff were blocked at every turn: payment systems broken, contracts terminated, and even airport screening for an active Ebola outbreak in Uganda was refused. Conservative estimates now place the death toll from the cuts at 750,000 people in the first year — most of them children.

Why this matters: USAID was a congressionally authorized agency with bipartisan support, destroyed in weeks by people who didn’t know what it did and didn’t care who died. When the world’s richest man can personally dismantle a life-saving institution while lying publicly about it — and face no legal consequence — the vulnerability of every other democratic institution becomes impossible to ignore.

The Guardian, Police want to decide which journalists can cover the Delaney Hall protests. That’s not their job

In one week of protests outside Delaney Hall, an ICE detention facility in Newark where detainees were on hunger strike, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker documented 30 assaults by officers on journalists. ICE pepper-sprayed and beat photographers with batons. State police yanked an WNBC crew from their vehicle. Newark police pushed Ali Velshi and his crew beyond sight of the protest while he was live on air. At least three journalists were arrested and held for a full day while lawyers were denied access. One was injured and taken to the hospital. The city’s curfew exempted journalists with “verified credentials,” but neither the governor’s office nor the mayor’s office would define what “verified” meant, leaving individual officers to decide on the spot who counts as press.

Why this matters: When police control which journalists can witness their conduct, accountability journalism becomes impossible by design. The First Amendment’s press protections mean nothing if an officer can simply point at a reporter and say they don’t qualify.

Media & Journalism

Wired, AI Just Isn’t Right

A Wired fact-checker tested AI tools against her own professional standards and the results are alarming. A March 2025 study from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism found more than 60% of responses from AI-powered search engines were inaccurate. A BBC study puts the error rate closer to 45%. On benchmark tests designed to measure factual accuracy, the best-performing model scored 73%, meaning it was wrong more than one in four times. No model tested on OpenAI’s SimpleQA benchmark exceeded 50% accuracy. When the author gave all four major chatbots a professional fact-checking test, every one described what it would do, then stopped short of actually doing it. ChatGPT fabricated a paragraph that didn’t exist in the source material. Sixty percent of AI researchers surveyed in a 2025 report doubted the hallucination problem would be solved anytime soon.

Why this matters: Nearly half of Americans now use AI to find information, and they’re doing so as newsrooms shrink and fact-checking disappears. A tool that’s wrong up to half the time, presented with the confidence of a search engine, is not a neutral information source. It’s a misinformation machine with a friendly interface.

404 Media, Companies Are Using Reddit to Manipulate ChatGPT and Google AI Search

Moderators of r/Biohackers banned peptide and hormone replacement therapy posts after discovering companies were systematically spamming the subreddit to manipulate AI search results. Because ChatGPT and Google’s AI search frequently cite Reddit as a source, a cottage industry called “AI-engine optimization” has emerged. Firms openly advertise armies of automated accounts publishing Reddit posts to get their brands cited by AI tools. The manipulation goes beyond simple product plugs; agencies reverse-engineer the prompt patterns that AI models prioritize, seed vague high-engagement questions to draw real user responses, then embed brand mentions at precisely the locations most likely to be scraped. The accounts doing this are built with authentic-looking posting histories, making them nearly impossible to detect.

Why this matters: When companies can poison the source material that AI tools cite as fact, the information people receive in response to health questions it’s paid placement wearing a human mask. The same AI tools half of Americans now use to find information are being gamed by the very industries those Americans are trying to research.

On with Kara Swisher, Brendan Carr's FCC Is Coming For Information Pipelines

Nilay Patel, host of the Vergecast and Decoder, warns that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s attacks on broadcast media are a test balloon for something far more dangerous—using regulatory pressure to control the “actual distribution points of the content people actually watch.” Patel says the real targets are platforms like Google. As a major defense contractor facing profit pressure, Google may succumb to administration attempts to “threaten Google into changing the YouTube algorithm.” From there, the same playbook becomes a test for claiming “Hey, how can we pressure Verizon or AT&T into throttling content on their networks” that the administration doesn’t like.

Why this matters: This is a direct threat to the ability of Americans to inform themselves. If the administration can leverage regulatory threats to reshape what algorithms surface and what content gets throttled at the network level, it gains effective control over the information environment without ever passing a law or winning a court case.

Public Health

West Virginia Watch, Most of WV Medicaid recipients aren’t aware that work requirements are coming, survey finds

Starting January 1, 2027, more than 161,000 West Virginians on expanded Medicaid will have to document 80 hours of work or job training per month to keep their coverage—and 55% of them don’t know it’s coming. The requirements come from the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law by Trump with support from all four of West Virginia’s Republican congressional representatives. A study projected that between 40,000 and 75,000 residents will lose coverage once the rules take effect.

Why this matters: People losing health coverage they don’t know they’re about to lose can’t fight back, appeal, or find alternatives in time. This is a window into how poorly Americans inform themselves, and how difficult it may be to stay informed of things that directly impact us in our toxic information environment.

Environment

The Guardian, Dismay as Trump officials to dismantle key ocean monitoring system

The National Science Foundation plans to remove all in-water infrastructure from the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $368 million network of more than 900 instruments that has continuously monitored ocean health, climate variability, and marine biodiversity since 2016. The announcement came days after Trump fired the entire independent board overseeing the NSF. Instruments will be pulled from sites off North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and the Irminger Sea between Greenland and Iceland over the next 15 months. The network has contributed critical research on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a system of ocean currents whose potential collapse could have severe global climate consequences. The institutional knowledge required to operate the system is being dismantled alongside the hardware.

Why this matters: Destroying a decade of continuous ocean data collection, while simultaneously pushing to expand deep-sea mining and loosen fishing regulations, isn’t just an attack on climate science. It’s a deliberate erasure of the evidence base societies need to understand what’s coming. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse put it plainly: “Fossil fuel is heating our oceans by the zettajoule, so Trump’s corrupt fossil fuel stooges want to turn off the monitors.” Also, I guess we spent $368 million dollars on nothing now?

That was a lot! Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Leave a comment

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: FDA Now Run By Don Jr.'s Hunting Buddy, ICE’s Nazi Recruitment Alarmed Cops

Brian Hansbury — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:52:52 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, sign up for the newsletter here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at legacy outlets. The Washington Post and The Atlantic reported on important stories in this edition, yet operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to push anti-democratic agendas or otherwise normalize Trump’s extremism. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: The Intercept, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, 404 Media, The New Republic, NOTUS.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.

Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

CORRUPTION & SELF-DEALING

BBC, How Trump’s IRS settlement could block tax audits of him, his family and their businesses

The Justice Department settled Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit over leaked tax returns, then added a one-page document permanently blocking the IRS from auditing Trump, his family, and their businesses for any taxes filed before May 19, 2026. Legal experts say this violates federal law. The settlement also creates a $1.776 billion slush fund for Trump allies and January 6 rioters.

Why this matters: The president used the Justice Department to shield himself and his family from tax scrutiny, then created a nearly $2 billion fund he controls that is meant to reward political allies, like people who tried to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. It’s naked corruption.

NOTUS, What Donald Trump Knows About His Stock Investments

Trump personally signed a government document certifying he knows exactly what stocks he owns and is aware of the more than 3,500 individual trades he’s made between January and March—even as the White House and Trump Organization gave contradictory explanations about who manages his portfolio. Trump bought stock in companies that hold lucrative federal contracts, including Nvidia, Axon, and Palantir, and publicly promoted some of them after buying in. He called on Congress to ban stock trading by lawmakers, then attacked a senator who tried to extend that ban to the president. He also violated the STOCK Act’s 45-day disclosure deadline and paid a $200 fine.

Why this matters: The president controls federal contracts, regulations, and tariffs and is playing the market with information no private investor can access. It’s naked corruption.

Rolling Stone, Trump Taps Don Jr.’s 38-Year-Old Turkey-Hunting Pal to Lead FDA

Kyle Diamantas—a 38-year-old Florida lawyer with no medical degree whose main qualification appears to be hunting with Donald Trump Jr.—is now acting FDA commissioner, overseeing an agency that regulates products making up roughly a quarter of the U.S. economy. His predecessor was pushed out after resisting White House pressure to approve fruit-flavored vapes following Trump’s lunch with tobacco industry executives. DOGE cuts and leadership chaos have hollowed out the agency, allowing Diamantas to step in.

Why this matters: The agency responsible for the safety of America’s food and medicine is now run by the president’s son’s hunting buddy, installed after his predecessor was ousted for resisting tobacco industry pressure. It’s, you guessed it, naked corruption.

The acting FDA commissioner’s only qualification is going on trips like this with the president’s son. Seems corrupt.

ICE & IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT

The Intercept, ICE Recruitment Tweets Are So Racist That Cops Feared They Could Incite Neo-Nazi Violence

A counter-terrorism bulletin from Colorado law enforcement warned agencies nationwide that DHS social media posts recruiting for ICE were so loaded with white supremacist imagery that they were creating conditions for vigilante violence against immigrants. The bulletin flagged DHS’s use of a neo-Nazi anthem, the term “remigration” from 1930s Germany, and a KKK-coded meme. White supremacist forums responded by encouraging followers to infiltrate ICE and form a race-war militia. A former ICE official called the evidence “rather damning.”

Why this matters: The federal government is openly recruiting white supremacists and state level counter-terrorism officials are warning that it will lead to neo-Nazi violence. DHS is purposefully speaking the language of white supremacy, implying to extremists that they have support of the federal government.

The Guardian, All charges against Chicago protesters dropped in latest ICE case to unravel

Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against four people who were indicted for protesting outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center. The case fell apart after a judge found prosecutors had improperly altered grand jury transcripts. She said she had never seen that kind of behavior before and that “trust has been broken.” Charges were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled. The judge is now considering sanctions against the U.S. attorney’s office.

Why this matters: The government built a felony case against people exercising First Amendment rights and it collapsed because prosecutors manipulated evidence. This is the latest Trump administration prosecution targeting immigration protesters to fall apart in court.

Politico, 10,000 rulings: The courts’ overwhelming rebuke of Trump’s ICE policies

Federal judges have ruled against ICE detention practices more than 10,000 times—roughly 90 percent of cases—since the agency declared last July that millions of long-term U.S. residents must be locked up without bond hearings while awaiting deportation. More than 425 judges, including a majority of Trump’s own appointees, have deemed this mandatory detention policy illegal. Cases include a nursing mother detained despite active refugee status, a 5-year-old picked up on his way home from school, and parents of U.S. military servicemembers. ICE has responded by brazenly defying court orders and the rule of law. For instance, ICE is moving detainees across state lines to force new legal proceedings and issuing after-the-fact warrants to make illegal arrests look legal on paper.

Why this matters: The Trump administration is detaining people it knows courts will rule are illegally imprisoned and doing it anyway. The federal government is habitually flouting the Constitution and ignoring the rule of law. Pretty bad in a democracy, huh?

404 Media, ICE Agents Have List of 20 Million People on Their iPhones Thanks to Palantir

A senior ICE official boasted at an industry conference that Palantir’s technology gives agents a list of 20 million potential targets on their iPhones. The official said Palantir raised ICE’s success rate in locating targets from 27 percent to nearly 80 percent, cutting investigative work from hours to 10-15 minutes by pulling from 30 to 40 datasets. More than 70 percent of people currently held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction. The same official said he had “a lot of money” and invited vendors to pitch him on LinkedIn.

Why this matters: The government has built a 20-million-person dragnet accessible from any agent’s phone, and is running it primarily against people with no criminal record. As we saw above, judges have ruled against these Palantir-driven detentions over 10,000 times. Taxpayer funded mass surveillance infrastructure is fueling illegal detentions.

The Guardian, Trump’s immigration crackdown could cost up to $479bn in lost taxes over 10 years

Trump’s immigration crackdown has scared hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants away from filing taxes—with some advisers reporting losing up to 75% of their clients this season. A IRS data-sharing deal with DHS (that a court eventually blocked) and the elimination of the child tax credit for undocumented parents removed both the safety and the incentive to file. Yale’s Budget Lab estimates the lost federal revenue could reach $479 billion over ten years. Undocumented immigrants paid an estimated $96.7 billion in taxes in 2022 alone, often at higher effective rates than citizens.

Why this matters: The lost tax revenue resulting from our fascist assault on immigrants is staggering.

The Washington Post, Trump offered White South Africans a new life. Thousands took him up on it.

The U.S. refugee program now admits almost exclusively white South Africans after Trump froze admissions for everyone else based on his false claim that a genocide is targeting them. Refugee workers say these arrivals look nothing like typical refugees: many are English-speaking, financially comfortable, and some had other legal pathways to the U.S. but chose the refugee route because it was faster. The administration wants to more than double the cap to 17,500, at a cost of $100 million more to taxpayers. The annual refugee limit is now 7,500 — the lowest in the program’s nearly 50-year history.

Why this matters: Trump gutted a program built to protect the world’s most desperate people and replaced it with a whites-only pipeline built on a debunked genocide claim. Congolese, Afghan, and Syrian refugees fleeing actual war zones have been left behind.

ELECTIONS & DEMOCRACY

The New Republic, The Election Fraudsters Who Will Follow in Tina Peters’s Footsteps

The debate over Colorado Governor Jared Polis commuting Tina Peters’s sentence is a distraction, the author argues—because Peters was never the real threat. Nearly 300 public officials attempted to overturn the 2020 election, and many still hold office. In Michigan, fake electors—including a now-sitting lieutenant governor—signed fraudulent Electoral College certificates. In Arizona, a state senator who called for violence at a white nationalist conference now chairs the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee. With midterms approaching, the author warns that election subversion in 2026 is likeliest to come from local officials who have already shown what they’ll do.

Why this matters: Elected officials with documented records of election subversion still control the machinery of local elections. The midterms will be decided in precisely the places where these people hold sway. Too many pundits are telling the public that concerns over election interference are unfounded. This piece appropriately raises the alarm.

Talking Points Memo, Their Loved Ones Died for the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court’s Ruling Is a New Injustice.

The Supreme Court’s Callais v. Louisiana decision gutted what remained of the Voting Rights Act, and red states are now redrawing maps that could wipe out Black congressional representation across the South within Trump’s term. TPM spoke with families of Civil Rights martyrs—including the son of Vernon Dahmer, murdered by the KKK in 1966 for registering Black voters—who say the ruling has undone the one lasting change their relatives’ deaths produced. A historian told TPM this moment is “much more grave” than the post-Reconstruction Redemption era because, unlike then, there is now a single national leader coordinating the effort.

Why this matters: People were murdered so that Black Americans could vote. The Supreme Court has handed white supremacist politicians the legal tools to undermine the Black vote again.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT & THE LAW

The Atlantic, A Department of Justice for an Age of Conspiracy Theories

The Justice Department has stopped operating as an institution grounded in facts and become an active player in right-wing propaganda. It rushes out criminal charges within days of MAGA influencers demanding action, settles lawsuits to validate conservative grievances, and crafts indictments built to generate outrage rather than win in court.

Why this matters: A Justice Department that uses indictments as propaganda corrodes the trust the entire legal system depends on. The government is a conspiracy theory machine not by accident. By sowing doubt amongst the public for a decade, about institutions, the press, science, and reality, Trump and his cronies have successfully created a nation in which truth becomes harder to discern. This opens up avenues of corruption for them and weakens the public ability to combat it.

ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC HEALTH

The Guardian, Trump officials plan to repeal limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

The EPA announced plans to scrap Biden-era drinking water limits on four PFAS “forever chemicals” and delay standards for two others—reversing the first new federal drinking water protections in 27 years that were passed under Biden. The Biden limits were projected to reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people and prevent thousands of deaths from cancer and cardiovascular disease. Lee Zeldin and RFK Jr. held a press conference to announce the rollback, with Kennedy claiming the administration wasn’t rolling back protections—even as it moved to eliminate them. PFAS are estimated to contaminate drinking water for more than 200 million Americans.

Why this matters: The administration is removing the only enforceable protections for 200 million Americans from chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects. The official leading the rollback claims to be protecting public health.

Mother Jones, We Are Bombarding America’s Forests With Roundup

A yearlong Mother Jones investigation found that glyphosate use in California’s forests has nearly quintupled over two decades. The investigation also revealed that Monsanto secretly ghostwrote key safety studies—including the Forest Service’s most-cited research paper—that regulators used to justify the spraying. That paper has since been retracted. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to boost glyphosate production and shield its maker from lawsuits, while cutting the research funding scientists need to study its harms.

Why this matters: The government’s case for spraying public forests with a carcinogen rests on research it now knows was faked by the manufacturer. The administration’s response has been to protect the company, cut safety research, and spray more.

Mother Jones, Locals Didn’t Think Roundup Was Being Sprayed Near Lake Tahoe. So I Went to Find Out.

While locals were told that Roundup spraying near Lake Tahoe had been delayed until 2028, a Mother Jones reporter drove out and found ski slopes already covered in dead vegetation from glyphosate application. The Forest Service confirmed the spraying had happened and that 2026 applications were either done or ongoing. The agency has authorized up to 584,000 pounds of glyphosate across 75,000 acres of the Caldor Fire scar. Trump used an executive order to more than double the scope of the project without public comment.

Why this matters: The federal government is soaking a beloved public watershed with a carcinogen and actively misled the public about it. Communities can’t fight back against what they’re not “allowed” to know.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Leave a comment

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: States Do White Supremacy Immediately After VRA Gutted, 54% Increase In Assaults On ICE Detainees

Brian Hansbury — Wed, 13 May 2026 20:37:59 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

Apologies for the delay on this week’s round up of important news. This weekend I attended the Media Party conference at Columbia University and last Tuesday I was at the Hillman Prizes for Journalism award ceremony. A great week of connecting to the incredible journalism that sustains our democracy and the people working tirelessly to make it!

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at compromised outlets. The New York Times and Washington Post broke important stories in this edition, vital information that the public needs to be aware of, yet they operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to push anti-democratic agendas in much of their political and business coverage. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. The New York Times has misled in the past and actively harmed marginalized communities. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most in need of your financial support are: Baptist News Global, Common Dreams, Democracy Now!, The Present Age, and Oligarch Watch.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.

Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

SURVEILLANCE, BIG TECH & CORPORATE POWER

Associated Press, Spying on a Family: How U.S. Tech Built China’s Digital Police State

This investigation from last year won a Pulitzer last week. The reporting reveals that IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia, Thermo Fisher, and other U.S. firms designed and built the foundation of China’s surveillance state. IBM partnered with a Chinese defense contractor to build the predictive policing system known as “Golden Shield.” Dell marketed “all-race recognition” laptops. Thermo Fisher sold DNA kits “designed” for Uyghurs and Tibetans. The technology powered the mass detention of roughly a million Uyghurs and still traps ordinary Chinese citizens, like a farming family beaten and detained for years over a land dispute. One researcher told the AP: “Everything was built on American tech. China’s capability was close to zero.”

Why this matters: American companies built the infrastructure now used to detain and torture millions, then claimed they bore no responsibility. With each week comes new reporting on the ways US domestic surveillance is creeping ever closer to the China model. With Trump rolling back surveillance safeguards at home, that same playbook looks to be heading our way.

Oligarch Watch, The Zuckerberg Rules

Mark Zuckerberg is facing thousands of lawsuits alleging Meta knowingly designed Instagram and Facebook to addict and harm children. The suits come from more than 30 state attorneys general, nearly 800 school districts, and thousands of families. Meta is now asking a federal court to let Zuckerberg testify in person just once, ever, which means every plaintiff is then stuck playing the same recorded Zuck testimony at their separate trials. In the first case to reach a jury, internal documents showed Meta sought to increase the time 10-year-olds spent on Instagram. Zuckerberg said he didn’t remember; the jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. Meanwhile, Meta has been pulling ads from attorneys seeking child plaintiffs while running thousands of its own TV ads promoting its teen safety record.

Why this matters: Meta is openly arguing that the world’s sixth-richest man deserves a different set of trial rules than everyone else while suppressing news of the lawsuits against it on its own platform. They are flooding TV with reputation-boosting ads so that you don’t remain angry about courtroom revelations that they are trying to addict children to their harmful product.

ELECTIONS & DEMOCRACY

The New York Times, Trump Administration Demands Names of 2020 Election Workers in Georgia

The Justice Department has subpoenaed the names, emails, and personal phone numbers of every worker who staffed the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia. That includes thousands of volunteer poll workers and even the bus drivers who operated mobile voting locations. It follows an FBI raid earlier this year that seized 2020 ballots from a county election warehouse. Fulton County is fighting the subpoena, calling it harassment, and notes the statutes of limitations for any 2020 election crimes have already expired. Roughly a third of election officials are now threatened on the job, and the subpoena lands as midterm voting is already underway in Georgia.

Why this matters: This is not part of a serious investigation. The Republican-controlled federal government is compiling a list of every poll worker in a Democratic stronghold. Republicans told an outrageous, strategic election lie for years to justify outrageous actions like this. The goal isn’t prosecuting crimes or making elections safer. The goal is making sure no one is willing to staff the next election. It’s about as corrupt and anti-democratic as it can get.

Democracy Now!, “Gerrymandering Arms Race”: GOP Rushes to Erase Black Representation After SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling last month effectively killed the Voting Rights Act, and Southern Republicans are moving fast. Tennessee is set to pass a 9-0 GOP map that splits Memphis—63% Black and a single congressional district since 1923—into three districts. Florida’s Ron DeSantis signed a map giving Republicans four new seats. Alabama is redrawing its map mid-election, after votes were already cast. Mississippi, 40% Black, is preparing to eliminate its only Black member of Congress. Voting rights reporter Ari Berman estimates Republicans could pick up four to six House seats just by targeting majority-Black districts, in what he calls the largest threat to Black representation since the Jim Crow era.

Why this matters: The Voting Rights Act is the law that made multiracial democracy in America possible. Decades of hard-won representation are being erased in a single legislative session by a white supremacist government.

Credit: Victoria Pickering, Flickr

Slate, Louisiana Republicans Are Taking Attacks on New Orleans Voters to a Shocking Place

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is pushing a package of bills designed to punish majority-Black, majority-Democratic New Orleans for electing reformers. The bills would let the state legislature remove locally elected officials for vague “malfeasance,” cut New Orleans criminal judges, and slash funding for assistant district attorneys by 42%. The most blatant move targets Calvin Duncan, a Black man who spent 28 years in a Louisiana prison for a murder he didn’t commit. While incarcerated, Duncan taught himself law and helped free other wrongfully convicted people. He was eventually declared factually innocent and released. Last year, New Orleans voters elected him criminal court clerk—the office that handles the very records that exonerated him. To stop him from taking the job, Landry signed a bill eliminating the position entirely. A federal judge ruled the law unconstitutional; the 5th Circuit quickly stayed that ruling.

Why this matters: Louisiana's legislature is telling New Orleans voters their elections don't count. Basically, the legislature doesn’t like the person they, the people, elected. It's minority rule acting to preserve the structures in place that uphold the system of minority rule.

IMMIGRATION & ICE

HuffPost, Trump Administration Closes Watchdog Office For Immigration Detention Abuses

DHS is shutting down the office responsible for investigating misconduct and abuse inside immigration jails. Inspections are ending and the public website that told families how to file complaints has gone dark. Congress created the office via legislation in 2019. Over 30 people died in ICE custody last year, the deadliest year since 2004, and 18 have died so far this year. The administration had already cut staff from over 100 to just five.

Why this matters: Eliminating the only office that investigated abuse in immigration jails removes the last meaningful check on a system that is killing people at an accelerating rate. What should be a front page story every day about callous neglect, abuse, and white supremacy is often treated by corporate media as just one more story.

The Washington Post, ICE Guards Used Force on Detainees 1,330 Times Last Year, a 54% Increase

Internal ICE records obtained by The Washington Post show guards used force on nearly 1,330 detained immigrants last year, a 54% increase. The records document detainees pepper-sprayed while demanding food, water, and medical care. Injuries included seizures, broken arms, and eye injuries. The spike came as the Trump administration carried out the biggest expansion of immigration detention in decades.

Why this matters: A 54% jump in force against people in detention is the predictable result of an administration gutting oversight while doubling capacity. Reporting like this is the only reason these numbers exist in public at all.

CORRUPTION & SELF-DEALING

Rolling Stone, How the Trump Family Is Cashing In on the Presidency

Donald Trump has made a fortune since retaking the White House last year. His sons and other family members aren’t doing too bad, either. Reporter Nikki McCann Rodriguez breaks down how the first family has been cashing in on the presidency.

Why this matters: A sitting president personally profiting from his office to the tune of billions of dollars. When the first family treats the White House as a revenue stream, every policy decision becomes suspect.

Rolling Stone, Trump and His Cronies Are Partying as the World Burns

As the U.S. is at war with Iran and gas prices climb above $5 a gallon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent the weekend DJing a family wedding, fist-pumping behind the turntables to a Calvin Harris track. The same weekend, Trump hosted a PGA tour event at his Doral golf club in Florida. Last month, while J.D. Vance was leading failed negotiations to end the Iran war, Trump took in a UFC fight. The author argues the absence of urgency suggests the administration may not care about ending the war.

Why this matters: A president and secretary of state golfing and DJing through a war they started reveals how little they care about who actually pays the cost of their decisions.

Common Dreams, ‘Obscene Transfer of Wealth’ Continues as Another Oil Giant Posts Massive War-Fueled Profits

TotalEnergies reported $5.8 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2026 and announced higher dividends and stock buybacks, attributing the windfall to its “ability to capture price upside” as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sends oil prices soaring. BP’s first-quarter profits more than doubled. Oxfam projects six of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies will earn $2,967 per second in 2026, roughly $37 million more per day than last year. 350.org’s Fanny Petitbon called it “an obscene transfer of wealth: the war enriches shareholders as it impoverishes citizens.”

Why this matters: A war is making the richest companies on the planet richer at a rate measured in profits per second, while ordinary families absorb the cost in devastatingly higher bills. To these companies, the war isn’t a tragedy, it’s a business strategy.

DOJ & FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT

Bluesky, Nicholas Grossman and Don Moynihan on the DOJ Civil Division’s Signing Bonuses

The DOJ Civil Division is offering attorney signing bonuses of up to $25,000 and trying to hire outside Washington, with satellite offices in New York, San Francisco, Dallas, and Raleigh. Political scientist Nicholas Grossman wrote that the Trump regime’s “desire for authoritarian domination is bottomless, but its capacity is not,” arguing the administration has destroyed DOJ’s prosecutorial capacity by converting it into a tool for hurting the president’s enemies. Public administration scholar Don Moynihan added: “These used to be highly sought after jobs. Now they are offering ICE bonuses.”

Why this matters: DOJ jobs were once the most competitive legal positions in the country. When the Civil Division is reduced to dangling cash to fill seats, it’s a measurable sign that serious lawyers know what this DOJ is now an authoritarian project and are refusing to be part of it.

RELIGION & GOVERNMENT

Baptist News Global, Experts say anti-Christian bias task force report is full of bias

A new 208-page Justice Department report titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government” claims Joe Biden weaponized the federal government against Christians. Religious liberty experts called the claim absurd, noting Biden attended Mass weekly throughout his term. Melissa Rogers, who led faith-based initiatives under Biden, said the report invents a unified “Christian worldview” on contested policies. PRRI’s Robert P. Jones noted that the white evangelicals the report treats as “traditional Christians” make up only about 20% of U.S. Christians, and that 68% of Christians oppose ICE raids at churches, hospitals, and schools — a policy that has led Christian denominations to sue the Trump administration on religious liberty grounds.

Why this matters: A government report defining a single “Christian worldview” and equating disagreement with persecution lays the groundwork for state-favored religion, dressed as victimhood. The actual threat to religious liberty is an administration that attacks the pope, raids churches, and then claims Christians are under attack.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Houston Chronicle, A&M officials told this philosophy professor to remove some Plato from a course. He’s going to SMU.

Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving for SMU after the A&M System Board of Regents banned teaching “race or gender ideology”—a policy that forced him to remove passages from Plato’s “Symposium” from his core course. Administrators reviewed offerings across 12 universities and modified hundreds of classes. Peterson is the second philosophy professor to leave in recent weeks, and a third withdrew from a tenure-track job last fall, citing fear of being tweeted about by Gov. Greg Abbott. Peterson is heading to SMU because as a private univeristy it is insulated from Texas lawmakers.

Why this matters: A politically appointed board telling professors which Plato passages they can teach is state-run thought control. The kind of thing our MAGA friends and loved ones have been trained to be outraged about is being perpetrated by their movement’s own leaders. Wealthy extremists on the right have been trying to destroy academia (they see it as a threat to corporatism) since the 1970s.

MEDIA & POLITICAL MOVEMENTS

The Present Age, Don’t Fall for the Tucker Carlson Apology Tour

Tucker Carlson is rebranding. In a New York Times Magazine interview he presented himself as theological, anti-war, and remorseful about Trump. The same week, he recorded a podcast with his brother that told a very different story. In the Times version, his break with Trump came over Iran. With his brother, the real grievances were that Trump hadn’t punished his enemies hard enough on vaccines, January 6, the George Floyd protests, and the Russia probe. Carlson also told his brother that Obama “really hates white people” and called the COVID vaccine a biological weapon. Parker Molloy argues Carlson runs the same playbook he always has—diagnose a real problem, then deliver an extremist solution—but his target audience is now the left. Marjorie Taylor Greene has already endorsed him for president, and Democratic operatives are floating an alliance.

Why this matters: Tucker Carlson built his career laundering racist and authoritarian ideas to the masses via his Fox News show. He mentioned the white supremacist Great Replacement Theory on over 400 episodes of that show. The left’s embrace of him because he nominally opposes the Iran war is helping him do the same thing all over again, just to a new audience.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Leave a comment

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: Texas Tech Bans Students from Writing About LGBTQ+, Trump’s Corrupt Payoff to Ballroom Contractor

Brian Hansbury — Sat, 02 May 2026 14:40:21 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at corporate outlets. The New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Gizmodo broke important stories in this edition, yet operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to normalize American fascism. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must.

This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: Erin In The Morning, Rickipedia, Sensemaking Distortion, Mother Jones, NOTUS, The Popehat Report, and The Nation.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.

Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Censorship / Free Speech

Erin In The Morning, Texas Tech Issues Ban On Students Writing On LGBTQ+ Topics

A new memo from the Texas Tech University System bars professors at five universities from discussing LGBTQ+ topics in core courses, eliminates entire fields of study, and forbids graduate students from writing dissertations on sexual orientation or gender identity. Instructors must skip LGBTQ+ content even when it appears in standard textbooks, and “incidental references should be avoided.” AI is already being used to flag course materials for review. The student-research ban appears to be the first of its kind at any major American university system.

Why this matters: A public university system telling students what they may research in their own dissertations is a direct attack on academic freedom and the First Amendment. When the state decides which human lives can be studied and which must be erased, the machinery of authoritarianism in plain sight.

Jameel Jaffer, Post on disclosed State Department memo

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute, posted a State Department action memo disclosed in Coalition for Independent Technology Research v. Rubio that is the basis for canceling visas and green cards of foreign tech researchers and regulators. The memo recommends barring foreign nationals “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States.” The memo recommends including family members because doing so will “increase the impact on the targets.” Both recommendations were approved.

Why this matters: The U.S. government is now using visa law to punish foreign researchers, regulators, and their families for studying or regulating American tech platforms. Dressing government censorship up as anti-censorship is a hallmark of authoritarian inversion, and the public would not know the criteria existed if not for this lawsuit forcing disclosure.

New York Times, Under Trump, Green Card Seekers Face New Scrutiny for Views on Israel

Internal DHS training materials reviewed by the Times instruct immigration officers to deny green cards to applicants who criticize Israel, post pro-Palestinian content, or desecrate the American flag, even though the Supreme Court has ruled flag burning is protected expression. Officers are told to weigh “anti-American” or “antisemitic” views as “overwhelmingly negative.” Green card approvals have fallen by more than half. USCIS has begun rebranding adjudicators as “homeland defenders” in job postings asking applicants to “protect your homeland and defend your culture.”

Why this matters: The administration is using immigration law to punish legally protected speech, including speech the Supreme Court has explicitly held cannot be criminalized. The First Amendment becomes a privilege of citizenship rather than a right of being on American soil. And nativist, white supremacist dog whistles are thrown in for good measure.

Rickipedia, “An Ignorant Population Is Easier to Control”

Rick Perlstein interviews YA author Samira Ahmed about a coordinated terror campaign against children’s literature that has banned her books in roughly forty states and forced her to check into hotels under a white pseudonym after rape and death threats. Ahmed describes how Moms for Liberty turned book-banning into a turnkey operation with copy-paste complaint forms and out-of-context excerpts used to brand authors as pedophiles. School visits, which supplement the income of authors of color, are collapsing. Two children’s imprints have already shut down. HR 7661 would let the mere presence of a trans character get a book labeled pornography.

Why this matters: This is a coordinated, well-funded campaign to make Black, brown, queer, and Muslim authors disappear from American libraries.

Corruption / Self-Dealing

New York Times, Trump Quietly Gave Favored Firm a No-Bid Contract for $17 Million

The Trump administration secretly handed the firm building Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom a no-bid $17.4 million contract to repair two ornamental fountains in Lafayette Park. The Biden administration had estimated the same job at $3.3 million in 2022. To jack up the price, the Park Service twice applied an inflation adjustment and tacked on another 50 percent for a “schedule compression factor” the original estimator says he never put there. To skip competitive bidding, officials invoked a rare “urgency” exemption typically reserved for war or natural disasters, citing America’s 250th birthday. They never posted the contract publicly as required. Eight other D.C. fountain repairs announced the same month went through normal bidding and cost less.

Why this matters: A president steering inflated, no-bid taxpayer contracts to a favored contractor while hiding the paperwork is textbook self-dealing. These guys are doing corruption every dang day.

Matthew Stiegler, Post on Mike Davis and Justice Gorsuch

This Bluesky post from last fall ties right-wing legal operative Mike Davis to Justice Neil Gorsuch, noting that years ago Gorsuch helped land Davis a DOJ job, then chose him as his clerk on the 10th Circuit, then again on the Supreme Court. The post quotes another item in which Davis called House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, a “house slave” for George Soros, pairing an anti-Black slur with an antisemitic Soros trope. Davis founded the Article III Project, a dark-money, court stacking 501(c)(4) that hides its donors and, per IRS filings, funneled roughly $700,000 of its $1 million haul straight back to Davis or a business he owns. Despite being a corrupt racist, Davis was floated as a potential Trump Attorney General. He’s back in the news because according to a March 2026 Wall Street Journal investigation, he allegedly told DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater “If you don’t approve this settlement, I will destroy you” while earning up to $300,000 a month as a paid advisor to Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Slater and her deputies were forced out shortly after, and a federal judge has now ordered Davis deposed.

Why this matters: A man who clerked for a sitting Supreme Court justice and allegedly extorted a DOJ official into killing antitrust enforcement is publicly a racist and is known to be corrupt. He is one of the most powerful unelected figures in conservative legal politics.

Mother Jones, Convicted MAGA Fraudster Should Get 30 Years in Prison, Prosecutors Say

Federal prosecutors are seeking 30+ years for Guo Wengui, the Chinese billionaire who launched a “New Federal State of China” with Steve Bannon on a boat in 2020, for one of “this nation’s worst and most rampant frauds.” A jury convicted Guo in 2024 of stealing hundreds of millions from his followers, mostly Chinese immigrants who believed their “investments” would help defeat the Chinese Communist Party. Guo spent the money on an $832,000 Lamborghini, a $4.4 million Bugatti, and the $30 million yacht where Bannon was living when federal agents arrested him for unrelated fraud. Guo’s operation paid or employed Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Peter Navarro, and current White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Six victims wrote of suicidal thoughts after losing their savings.

Why this matters: Prominent MAGA disinformers with close ties to the president and his administration have been paid by a man who systematically defrauded immigrant families out of their life savings.

New York Times, Elon Musk Has Used SpaceX as His Personal Piggy Bank

Internal SpaceX documents show Elon Musk borrowed $500 million from his own rocket company between 2018 and 2020 at interest rates as low as 1 percent—well below market and the kind of insider lending banned at public companies after the Enron collapse. SpaceX has repeatedly bailed out Musk’s other ventures, lending Tesla money during the 2008 crisis, propping up the failing SolarCity in 2015, and acquiring his cash-burning AI venture xAI this year on terms that undermined the positions of longstanding SpaceX investors. A Delaware judge previously found Musk “more involved in the process than a conflicted fiduciary should be.” With SpaceX now valued at over $1 trillion and preparing for one of the largest IPOs in history, Musk will have to publicly disclose these conflicted transactions for the first time.

Why this matters: The richest man on earth has spent two decades shifting hundreds of millions between companies he controls on terms no ordinary investor could ever access, and he’s also a major federal contractor. It’s basically insane.

Washington Post, The man turning the Pentagon into a venture capital firm

Emil Michael is the Pentagon’s undersecretary for research and engineering, redirecting the military-industrial complex toward Silicon Valley. The Pentagon is now taking direct ownership stakes in private defense-tech companies and preparing to deploy up to $200 billion in federally backed loans. One of the first $620 million loan recipients was Vulcan Elements, a startup backed by 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner; a former senior defense official said Vulcan was prioritized over other firms already slated for loans. Michael sold millions of dollars worth of xAI stock in January, just after xAI signed its Pentagon deal.

Why this matters: A handful of Trump-aligned operators are restructuring nearly half a trillion dollars in annual defense spending to flow toward firms in their own networks, including Trump’s son’s investment fund. These guys are just wildly corrupt.

Authoritarian Lawfare / Rule of Law

The Popehat Report, The Comey Threat Indictment Is A Grave Embarrassment To The United States Department of Justice And The Rule of Law

Criminal-defense lawyer Ken White breaks down the April 28, 2026 federal indictment of former FBI Director James Comey on two absurd felony threat charges. The charges are based on a May 2025 Instagram post by Comey of seashells arranged on a beach to read “86 47.” Comey captioned it, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” White argues no rational person could read a former FBI director’s seashell pun, using slang for “ditch” or “get rid of,” as a serious threat against the President, and that the case will likely fail on a First Amendment challenge before any evidence is weighed. White says what’s clear to any rational observer—that the DOJ now functions as an instrument of Trump’s personal grievance and will punish protected speech.

Why this matters: The Justice Department is using fraudulent prosecution to terrorize critics into silence. A government that can criminalize a joke-post written in seashells can criminalize anything.

Surveillance

The Nation, These AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras Are Everywhere—and People Have Had Enough

Americans are fighting back against Flock Safety, a private company whose nearly 90,000 AI-powered cameras photograph passing cars and feed the data into a network that thousands of police departments and Border Patrol can query without a warrant. An analysis found over 50 agencies ran searches tied to protest activity. A Texas officer used the network to track a woman who had obtained an abortion. Since the start of 2025, more than 30 cities have terminated their Flock contracts. Santa Cruz terminated after learning state agencies illegally accessed Flock data on behalf of federal law enforcement roughly 4,000 times in five months, and Oak Park, Illinois did so after data showed Black drivers were being flagged at an 85 percent rate in a city where Black residents make up 19 percent of the population.

Why this matters: A private company has built one of the largest warrantless surveillance networks in American history and federal agents are using it to track abortion patients and protesters. Ordinary people are dismantling it city by city. We do not have to allow a panopticon. It is not as inevitable as its architects need us to believe.

ICE / Immigration

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ICE begins 2026 with high pace of arrests in Georgia

ICE has recorded more than 13,600 arrests in Georgia since Trump returned to the White House. This is more than twice the number in Minnesota despite the higher-profile operation there. Georgia now ranks fifth nationwide for ICE arrests. Driving the surge is a 2024 Georgia law that mandates local jails flag and hold immigrants without legal status for ICE pickup, even for traffic infractions. Roughly 70 percent of those arrested in Georgia have already been deported (nearly 10,000 people). The data was obtained only because UC Berkeley researchers sued the federal government to get it.

Why this matters: Mandatory cooperation laws have turned every traffic stop in Georgia into a deportation pipeline, separating American children from their parents. The ICE machine running quietly in red states is doing even more damage than the headline-grabbing raids elsewhere.

Washington Post, ICE arrests in D.C., Maryland and Virginia surge under Trump

ICE made nearly 20,000 arrests in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia in Trump’s second term through March 10, 2026. That is more than five times the number of ICE arrests made during Biden’s last full year. Despite then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s claim that 70 percent of those arrested were “convicted criminals or have criminal charges,” 60 percent had no prior criminal record, peaking near 80 percent in Maryland in February. Many arrests are happening at scheduled check-ins where people are showing up to comply with the government’s requirements. A federal judge in early December ruled the administration’s warrantless arrests in D.C. likely violated federal law, citing a “systemic failure” by top officials.

Why this matters: The administration is justifying mass arrests with criminality lies that the data flatly contradicts, and federal judges have already found the practices likely illegal. When most of those swept up have no criminal record and many are arrested while complying with the system, the program isn’t about public safety. It is about creating a climate of fear built on a white supremacist ethos. Reminder: the Trump administration is actively recruiting neo-Nazis to be ICE agents.

Disinformation / Elections

Sensemaking Distortion, Here We Go Again: Same Old Tropes, New Election

Disinformation researcher (and former WNBA player, pretty cool) Kate Starbird breaks down a viral rumor that began on April 16 when Jim Walsh, GOP member of the Washington State House and chair of the state Republican Party, posted a Facebook video claiming a “concerned citizen” found hundreds of mail-in ballots dumped near a Renton strip mall. The video racked up 300,000 views and was amplified by Sinclair-owned KOMO and right-wing accounts including Libs of TikTok. Starbird’s team has catalogued dozens of nearly identical “lost ballots in a dumpster” rumors going back to 2020. King County election officials confirmed multiple security measures that make the discovery functionally meaningless for fraud, and Walsh himself later conceded the box was not evidence of fraud. Starbird outlines their strategic disinfo playbook: seed distrust, push voter ID and proof-of-citizenship laws, prepare to contest 2026 midterm results.

Why this matters: A coordinated machine of state-level GOP officials, Sinclair-owned local news, and partisan influencers is manufacturing outrage over a fake legitimacy crisis that they require in order to suppress votes and contest results they don’t like.

Press Freedom / Government Transparency

NOTUS, The Trump Administration Is Dismantling FOIA

Twelve experts told NOTUS the Trump administration is categorically worse at FOIA compliance, with one giving Biden a D and Trump “an F-triple-minus.” Backlogs are exploding. The State Department’s grew from 21,000 to over 27,000 requests in a year. The administration has fired multiple officials in retaliation for lawful disclosures, including two ODNI staff who released a memo showing intelligence community consensus that Trump’s claims about Venezuelan gangs were wrong, and three CBP staff who objected to a scheme to dodge release by mislabeling completed assessments as drafts. The administration has installed Roman Jankowski (previously part of a Heritage Foundation effort to flood the government with thousands of “vexatious” FOIA requests targeting Biden-era employees) as DHS chief FOIA officer. More than 1,000 FOIA-related lawsuits have been filed since Trump took office, compared with 591 in the same window of Biden’s term.

Why this matters: A democracy without a working public records law is a democracy where corruption is purposefully made invisible. Slow-walking, retaliation, and filling transparency offices with officials who previously tried to weaponize them are not bureaucratic failures, but rather the deliberate engineering of an information vacuum.

Climate / Energy

Gizmodo, AI Companies Think Destroying the Planet Is an Acceptable Trade-Off for Unlimited Profits

More than 3,000 new AI data centers are proposed or under construction across the United States. A Wired analysis found just 11 of them could emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, exceeding the entire nation of Morocco. A single Microsoft project in Texas is permitted to emit 11.5 million tons annually. Elon Musk’s xAI ran methane gas turbines at its Tennessee Colossus data center without permits. The U.S. has now surpassed China as the world’s biggest developer of new gas projects, even as the same AI companies driving the buildout publicly tout net-zero pledges.

Why this matters: AI corporations are quietly torching the climate to power chatbots while their PR departments keep talking up green commitments. A democracy cannot make informed choices about energy or climate policy if the public does not see the actual emissions footprint behind every product launch, which is why Gizmodo’s reporting on Wired’s reporting…is essential. The more outlets covering this the better.

New York Times, It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready

In this guest essay, Heatmap founding executive editor Robinson Meyer argues America’s aging electricity grid is buckling at exactly the moment demand is roaring back. For the first time in over a decade, U.S. electricity demand is steadily growing, and the largest regional grid operator is projected to set an all-time record this summer. Meyer pins rising bills not on data centers and AI, but on the cost of operating and maintaining the grid itself. He calls Trump’s voluntary “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” toothless and argues tech companies should instead be required to fund a national grid modernization fund. He also calls on Congress to pass permitting reform, end Trump’s de facto block on new renewables, and create a federal authority to build long-distance transmission.

Why this matters: Cheap, reliable electricity is a precondition for nearly every modern democratic outcome—affordable housing, climate stability, manufacturing, basic quality of life. For-profit utilities dominate grid planning, not we the people. Yet, the public pays in higher bills and slower decarbonization while massive companies shirk responsibility.

Public Health / Regulation

The Guardian, Gambling addiction ‘out of control’ as betting markets surge, advocates warn

Public health experts gathering in Boston are calling for gambling to be regulated like alcohol or tobacco as online betting has metastasized following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision lifting the federal sports betting ban. Sports betting is now legal in 39 states and prediction-market platforms (which let users wager on award winners, war developments, and almost anything else) have exploded. More than $1 billion was traded on Kalshi during Super Bowl Sunday alone. Harry Levant of the Public Health Advocacy Institute argues “The problem is the product, not the people.”

Why this matters: A regulatory loophole has let prediction markets bypass state gaming laws and reach younger gamblers nationwide while addiction destroys families in plain sight.

Foreign Policy / War

New York Times / Instagram, The cost of the war in Iran has hit nearly $1 billion a day

National security correspondent Eric Schmitt reports the war in Iran is costing nearly $1 billion a day and has burned through U.S. weapons stockpiles. Pentagon officials are concerned that the rush to rearm Mideast forces is leaving the United States less prepared to confront potential adversaries.

Why this matters: Recklessly depleting U.S. armaments for an open-ended war wastes lives (most importantly) and degrades military preparedness using our taxpayer money. The New York Times normalizes Trump, hurts marginalized communities, and props up the status quo and yet it is also still capable of public-interest reporting like this, which is exactly why a discerning media diet matters.

The Guardian, US spending on ‘reckless’ Iran war could have saved 87m lives, says UN

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told a Chatham House audience that the $2 billion a day Trump is spending on the war in Iran could instead easily fund his $23 billion plan to save 87 million lives in less than a fortnight. Instead, the UN's humanitarian budget has been cut roughly in half, driven by U.S. cuts (the U.S. has historically supplied 40-45% of the funding) and European cuts.. Fletcher warned that normalizing language like “bomb you back to the stone ages” gives “every wannabe autocrat” license to target civilians in violation of international law. He described the Trump administration as practicing “real-estatecraft” rather than statecraft.

Why this matters: The richest country on earth is spending $2 billion a day to bomb a country while letting the global humanitarian system collapse.

Information Ecosystem

M/C Journal, The Rise and Fall of Twitter as Crisis Communication Infrastructure

A peer-reviewed article by disaster informatics scholar Leysia Palen traces how Twitter, in its early years, became vital crisis-response infrastructure. Corporate decisions destroyed it. From 2007 onward, Twitter incubated entirely new forms of collective behavior during disasters: eyewitness reporting, the user-invented hashtag, and self-organized, digital humanitarian groups that coordinated medical needs after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Emergency management agencies came to depend on the platform to push warnings and listen for ground-truth reports. That infrastructure collapsed when Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022, eliminated API access, and dismantled trust-and-safety teams. Palen argues crisis communications can no longer be entrusted to a handful of Silicon Valley executives and calls for purpose-built nonprofit public media.

Why this matters: A functioning democracy depends on functioning public communication during emergencies, and an extremist billionaire’s acquisition of Twitter took out a piece of life-saving public infrastructure that was never replaced. The whims of a private corporation have disabled how global society warns itself about wildfires, hurricanes, and pandemics. An equitable public media system is the best fix.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Leave a comment

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: AI Influencers Disinforming MAGA, Trump Abandons Afghan Allies

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:01:06 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at corporate outlets. The New York Times, CBS News, The Washington Post, and Bloomberg broke important stories in this edition, yet operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to push pro-corporate, anti-democratic agendas. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must.

This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: Popular Information, Truthout, 404 Media, Brennan Center for Justice, Bolts, and Agents of Influence.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Surveillance/Privacy

The New York Times, As Midterms Near, A.I.-Generated MAGA Influencers Flood Social Media

In the runup to the midterms, hundreds of AI-generated pro-Trump accounts have flooded social media, posting flirtatious avatars who rant about the “radical left” while claiming to be ordinary Americans. The Times tracked at least 304 TikTok accounts alone, some with tens of thousands of followers and posts drawing more than half a million views. Trump himself has reposted content from at least one of these avatars, a platinum blond who made unfounded claims about California’s governor. Researchers found no comparable left-leaning network, and while it is unclear who is behind the operation, each post costs as little as $1 to $3 to generate, making mass deployment trivial for content farms, marketing firms, or foreign influence operations.

Why this matters: Synthetic influencers manufacture the illusion of grassroots consensus, nudging real voters toward a movement that may not exist at the scale it appears. When the president amplifies these fakes and platforms struggle to catch them, the information environment voters rely on to make decisions is being corrupted in real time.

WIRED, Inside James Dolan’s Surveillance Machine at Madison Square Garden

MSG owner James Dolan has built one of the most aggressive private surveillance operations in American corporate life, using facial recognition and biometric tracking to monitor visitors to his venues. WIRED’s investigation documents how Dolan’s security chief John Eversole obsessively tracked a trans woman’s movements to the second over two years, added a New York City police officer to a watchlist, flagged a child at the Sphere, and compiled dossiers on the roughly 1,500 lawyers barred from Dolan properties simply for working at firms involved in litigation against him. Eversole’s team allegedly performed full background checks on fans who booed the Knicks or cursed Dolan on social media, dispatched local police to a 14-year-old’s home in Colorado over a tweet, tailed a state liquor authority investigator to his house, and bought surveillance equipment to eavesdrop on a woman who had sued Dolan. The face-recognition system now in use at MSG has been sold to sports and entertainment venues across North America and will be deployed at SoFi Stadium for eight World Cup games this summer.

Why this matters: A single billionaire has built a private intelligence apparatus capable of punishing critics, chilling litigation, and harassing ordinary fans, and the technology powering it is being rolled out to stadiums nationwide. When corporate surveillance can be weaponized this casually against anyone who annoys the owner, the line between private security and private secret police collapses, and so does any meaningful expectation of privacy in public life.

Corruption

Jared Kushner is leading U.S. diplomatic negotiations with Iran while collecting more than $110 million in management fees from a $2 billion Saudi government investment in his private equity fund. Further, Kushner is reportedly seeking billions more from the Saudis even as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has lobbied Trump to start and continue the war. Popular Information reviewed 202 articles published between February 28 and April 19 by nine major outlets covering Kushner’s diplomatic role, and found that only six mentioned the conflict of interest — five in the New York Times and one Foreign Policy piece republished by the Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal, AP, CNN Wire, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times collectively produced dozens of stories on Kushner’s role in the war without once noting the Saudi payments, even though the Journal broke the original story on the $2 billion and the Post broke the story on MBS lobbying Trump to start the war. Congressman Jamie Raskin has opened an investigation demanding Kushner’s communications with Saudi officials and with the White House, arguing MBS’s desire to prolong the war creates direct financial pressure on Kushner to do the same, and none of the outlets analyzed has covered the probe.

Why this matters: The president’s son-in-law is running wartime diplomacy while on the payroll of the foreign government pushing for that war, and the newsrooms with the resources to make this a national scandal are declining to connect the dots. When the press treats a textbook conflict of interest as unmentionable, voters lose the ability to hold anyone accountable for decisions that cost American lives and tens of billions of dollars a week.

Truthout, Palantir Posts Manifesto Lamenting Post-War “Neutering” of Nazi Germany

Surveillance giant Palantir has published a 22-point manifesto calling for mandatory military service, expansion of German and Japanese military power, and tech companies to address violent crime while denigrating “subcultures” using racist language. The document states that “the postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone” and argues that “some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive.” The manifesto pushes for Western “hard power” over soft power and argues that free societies must prioritize military needs above all else. Palantir’s stock has more than doubled in Trump’s first year as it secured over $11 billion in federal contracts, giving the company decision-making powers in wartime, widespread surveillance capabilities over immigrants and Americans, and access to Medicaid data through ICE partnerships.

Why this matters: A major government contractor with billions in federal surveillance contracts has openly argued in defense of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan while promoting white supremacist talking points. When companies with this level of government influence publish manifestos cheering for military authoritarianism and racial hierarchy, they’re signaling how they plan to use the surveillance tools taxpayers are funding. Palantir is motivated to push for more death and destruction as means of making more money.

404 Media, Forbes Prediction Market Gamifies Story About Mass Shooting of 8 Children

Forbes embedded a prediction market widget in its story about a Louisiana man who killed eight children, asking readers to bet tokens on whether Congress would pass stricter gun laws by the end of 2026. The “ForbesPredict” feature, launched in January as part of an effort to reverse declining traffic from AI-driven search changes, allows users to spend tokens (not real money) to predict outcomes and earn status within the platform’s ecosystem. Users start with 800 tokens and can spend 100 to make predictions, with the system giving an 18% chance that Congress will act on gun control following the weekend massacre in Shreveport. Forbes built the platform with a company called Axiom to gamify news consumption and keep users engaged longer on the site, offering “gambling without the stakes and payout.”

Why this matters: Major media outlets are turning mass tragedy into entertainment by layering gambling mechanics onto stories about dead children. When established news brands gamify mass shootings to boost website metrics, they normalize treating violence as content to be monetized rather than human tragedy to be reported with dignity.

Elections/Democracy

Brennan Center for Justice, Survey Finds Election Officials Remain Concerned About Safety, Lack of Government Support

A new survey of 834 local election officials finds ongoing concerns about safety, political interference, and lack of government support heading into the 2026 midterms, with 75% reporting their state or local government has not provided additional resources to address federal cuts to election security services. Thirty-two percent said they had been threatened, harassed, or abused, with nearly a quarter worried about being assaulted at home or work, while half expressed concern about political leaders interfering with their jobs and 45% worried about politically motivated investigations. The Trump administration has escalated pressure through executive orders attempting to seize control of election administration, DOJ demands for complete voter rolls, and the FBI seizure of hundreds of ballot boxes from Fulton County, Georgia. Despite these challenges, 89% of officials plan to coordinate with other agencies for safe elections and 71% have planned for disruption scenarios.

Why this matters: Election officials are reporting systematic intimidation and resource starvation while the federal government actively undermines their work through investigations, ballot seizures, and executive overreach. When the people who run elections fear for their safety and lack basic support, the foundation of democratic governance itself becomes vulnerable to collapse.

The New Republic, How Trump Accidentally Handed Dems Their Big Win in Virginia

Virginia voters approved a referendum allowing Democrats to redraw up to four House seats before the midterms. The “vote yes” campaign featured Trump in 100% of its final ads, with messaging like “Trump is rigging elections so he can hold onto power—Virginia, we can stop him,” capitalizing on Trump’s own summer directive for Texas Republicans to gerrymander aggressively. News coverage is portraying Democratic redistricting as hypocrisy, but Democrats passed a 2021 House bill that would have ended gerrymandering for both parties and Republicans blocked it in the Senate. In a Bluesky post, writer Greg Sargent notes that mainstream news accounts are “straining to portray the Virginia move as a betrayal of Dems’ principled opposition to gerrymandering.” when Democrats have consistently supported ending the practice for both sides, while Republicans want exclusive rigging rights.

Why this matters: Democrats used Trump’s own image and gerrymandering push against him to win redistricting power, showing that voters understand who started the current rigging war and don’t want Republicans to have exclusive say over election outcomes. When mainstream media portrays Democratic self-defense as equivalent to Republican aggression, it obscures the fundamental difference between wanting fair rules for everyone versus demanding special privileges to cheat.

Bolts, Your State-by-State Guide to the 2026 Supreme Court Elections

Voters in 32 states will decide over 60 state supreme court seats this year, with abortion, redistricting, and ballot access hanging in the balance. Justices who struck down abortion bans in Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, and New Mexico are up for reelection or retention, while those who upheld restrictions face voters in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. Democrats aim to retain their 6-1 majority in Michigan and gain footholds in Georgia and Texas, while Republicans could flip Montana’s court from liberal control and extend dominance in North Carolina and Ohio. High-stakes races include Alabama, where an attorney who conceived through IVF is challenging a justice who ruled frozen embryos are children, and Virginia, where a referendum already passed allowing Democrats to redraw up to four House seats after Trump’s image dominated pro-redistricting ads. These elections will reshape courts that routinely decide voting rights, criminal justice, and democracy cases.

Why this matters: State supreme courts are democracy’s last line of defense against authoritarian overreach and these elections will determine whether voters retain judicial backstops against gerrymandering, voter suppression, and abortion bans.

ICE/Immigration

CBS News, Wife of active-duty U.S. Army sergeant detained by ICE in Texas at immigration appointment

ICE detained the wife of a 27-year Army veteran during a routine immigration appointment in El Paso, despite her protected status and pending application for military spouse deportation protections. Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano said his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, was arrested April 14 while applying for a program that offers deportation protections to military spouses in the U.S. without legal status. Rivera Ortega has been in the U.S. since 2016 and was granted protection under the Convention Against Torture in 2019, which blocks deportation to El Salvador but allows removal to third countries like Mexico, where she has no ties. DHS called her a “criminal illegal alien” based on a federal misdemeanor conviction for illegal entry. Such detentions of military family members have increased under the second Trump administration, which eliminated Biden-era limits on ICE operations and expanded who is eligible for arrest.

Why this matters: ICE is detaining the family members of active-duty soldiers who are following legal immigration processes. When the government breaks its historical practice of protecting military families from immigration enforcement, it signals that no one is safe from Trump’s deportation machine.

The New York Times, Trump Is Said to Be in Talks to Send Afghans Who Aided U.S. Forces to Congo

The Trump administration is negotiating to send over 1,100 Afghan allies to the Democratic Republic of Congo after halting their U.S. resettlement. The Afghans have been living in limbo at a former U.S. military base in Qatar for over a year after being evacuated for helping American forces during the 20-year war. Congo is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, already hosting over 600,000 refugees amid ongoing conflict with Rwanda. AfghanEvac president Shawn VanDiver said the proposal amounts to forcing a choice between “certain death” under the Taliban or transfer to another crisis zone, and that most Afghans are refusing the Congo option. The plan follows Trump’s November freeze of the special visa program after a shooting in Washington by an Afghan immigrant, and represents the administration’s strategy of moving people to distant countries with poor human rights records.

Why this matters: The U.S. is abandoning Afghan allies who risked their lives for American forces by offering them a false choice between Taliban execution and exile to a war-torn country already overwhelmed by refugees. When America breaks its promises to those who served alongside U.S. troops, it signals to future partners that American protection is worthless, undermining national security and moral credibility worldwide.

CBS Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge drained hundreds of millions of dollars from Minnesota’s economy, court filing says

A University of California San Diego survey found that Operation Metro Surge, the three-month federal immigration crackdown that ended two months ago, drained $610 million from Twin Cities businesses and caused over $240 million in lost wages for residents who couldn’t go to work. Minneapolis police extended 500 shifts and canceled 1,000 vacation days to deal with calls for help, racking up over $6 million in overtime, while St. Paul police spent nearly $5 million directly tied to federal immigration activity. The operation canceled conventions at the Minneapolis Convention Center, forcing the city to lose millions in hospitality revenue, and caused 66% of Minneapolis residents who encountered federal agents to avoid urgent hospital care. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, along with Minneapolis and St. Paul, filed an amended lawsuit against the federal government arguing that state and local agencies were forced to spend massively without warning, with the damage falling unfairly on local taxpayers.

Why this matters: Federal immigration raids transferred hundreds of millions in costs to local communities while devastating the Twin Cities economy and public health system. When the federal government weaponizes immigration enforcement to bankrupt sanctuary cities, it creates a systematic financial punishment for jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with mass deportation.

Public Health

Bloomberg, As Measles Takes Toll on Kids, Anti-Vaxxers Have Change of Heart

Measles outbreaks are driving some anti-vaccine parents to embrace the MMR shot, with vaccination rates jumping significantly in outbreak zones as parents confront the deadly realities of the disease. South Carolina saw a 170% increase in MMR shots at free clinics in January, Texas saw a 15% jump before declaring its outbreak over, and Utah has recorded increased immunizations since last summer. Former anti-vaccine influencers like Katie Jennings and Heather Simpson have publicly documented their conversions after witnessing children die from measles, with Jennings vaccinating all six of her children and posting viral TikTok videos encouraging others to “change your mind.” The trend represents a potential crack in RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement, as parents who once rallied around his vaccine misinformation are choosing shots when measles arrives in their communities.

Why this matters: Parents are abandoning anti-vaccine ideology when faced with actual disease outbreaks, suggesting that disinformation campaigns lose power when confronted with medical reality. The willingness of former true believers to publicly document their vaccine conversions creates permission structures for other hesitant parents to follow suit.

The Washington Post, CDC won’t publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits

The CDC has blocked publication of a report showing that COVID-19 vaccines reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter, raising concerns that the Trump administration is suppressing vaccine effectiveness data. The report had cleared the agency’s scientific review process and was scheduled for publication March 19 in the CDC’s flagship journal, but Jay Bhattacharya, who is temporarily overseeing the CDC, first delayed and then killed the study over purported methodology concerns. The methodology in question has been routinely used by the CDC to evaluate vaccine effectiveness for respiratory viruses including influenza, and a flu vaccine report using identical methods was published just a week earlier. Former CDC officials say stopping an MMWR report after scientific clearance is highly unusual, with one former director saying he couldn’t recall it ever happening during his eight-year tenure. The decision comes as Health Secretary RFK Jr., who once called COVID vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” faces political pressure over his anti-vaccine agenda ahead of midterm elections.

Why this matters: Federal health agencies are now censoring their own scientists to hide evidence that vaccines work, representing a dangerous politicization of public health data that undermines disease surveillance and pandemic preparedness. Science is being subordinated in favor of anti-science extremism at the expense of public health.

Media/Journalism

Agents of Influence, I Was Falsely Accused of “Censorship” in The Free Press. Then Their Editors Censored The Truth.

Disinformation researcher Renee DiResta documents how The Free Press published a false story claiming she had pressured The Baffler to censor a book review. After Jacob Siegel wrote a book attacking DiResta and other researchers, DiResta requested corrections to false claims in reviews of Siegle’s book, including one in The Baffler that falsely stated her Election Integrity Partnership “plotted to censor 22 million tweets.” Siegel claimed DiResta’s attempt to correct the record was more evidence that she was orchestrating censorship. The Free Press published Siegel’s accusation with no fact-checking. Despite having evidence that completely undermined their headline premise for two weeks, The Free Press has never updated the article or acknowledged the truth to readers.

Why this matters: Conservative media outlets are systematically protecting partisan narratives over basic journalism standards, refusing to correct demonstrably false stories when presented with exculpatory evidence. The Free Press reveals itself as a partisan propaganda operation rather than legitimate news source.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: Coachella Artists Are Funding MAGA, Trump Auto-Registering Young Men For Draft

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 21:30:53 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at compromised outlets. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns what and why that matters. For example, CBS is owned by extremist ideologues, but recently provided ICE detainees, 5 year-old Liam Ramos and his father, the opportunity to tell their side of the story on national television. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: ProPublica, FAIR, Jacobin, The American Prospect, Popular Information, Byline Times, The Intercept, 404 Media, and Zeteo.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Corruption, Dark Money, and Corporate Influence

Popular Information, Coachella performers are funding the MAGA movement

Coachella is run by right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz, who funnels profits from the festival into groups electing MAGA Republicans. The Republican officials these groups elect have passed anti-LGBTQ laws, mandated local cooperation with ICE raids, and funded the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown with tens of billions in additional ICE money. Several 2026 Coachella headliners have publicly opposed this agenda: Sabrina Carpenter donates ticket proceeds to the Transgender Law Center and rebuked ICE for using her song “Juno” in deportation videos, Justin Bieber wore an “ICE Out” pin at the Grammys, Karol G has spoken out against ICE raids, and Jack White sued the Trump campaign and called out its “gestapo ICE tactics.” Despite Anschutz’s 2017 claim to have stopped funding anti-LGBTQ groups, he continues to bankroll RGA and RAGA, whose candidates actively restrict LGBTQ rights.

Why this matters: Corporate structures let billionaires convert the cultural capital of artists who oppose their politics into direct funding for the politicians attacking those artists’ values. Following the money exposes the pipeline between consumer spending and political outcomes and gives artists and audiences the information they need to decide what to do about it.

Jacobin, Dark Money Is Flowing Into Trump’s Legacy Projects

At least 35 corporations, including Palantir, Meta, Paramount Skydance, Micron, Union Pacific, ExxonMobil, Oracle, and Mastercard, may have violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act by funneling millions into Trump’s pet projects without reporting the donations. Those projects include the $400 million White House State Ballroom, the Trump Kennedy Center, the Freedom 250 birthday celebration group, and Trump’s future presidential library. Of the 27 known donors to the ballroom fund, only one reported the gift; many donors have lucrative federal contracts or pending legal matters before the administration. Meta, X, and Paramount Skydance paid millions into the presidential library as part of legal settlements with Trump without disclosing the payments on lobbying forms. The Lobbying Disclosure Act is enforced by the U.S. Attorney for D.C., a post now held by former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.

Why this matters: Undisclosed corporate money flowing to a sitting president from companies with business before his administration is the textbook definition of pay-to-play corruption. Disclosure laws exist so voters can see who is buying access, and enforcement now sits with a Trump loyalist. Journalism like this is the only remaining check.

The New Republic, Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Péter Magyar, who beat Viktor Orbán in Hungary’s election on Sunday, told reporters that Orbán had diverted Hungarian taxpayer funds to finance CPAC and other right-wing institutions abroad (CPAC is like Comic Con for MAGA). Magyar called the arrangement a “crime.” The Trump administration heavily backed Orbán in the run-up to the election, with JD Vance and Marco Rubio traveling to Budapest to campaign for him and CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp endorsing him. On election day, CPAC’s official account praised Orbán as a leader standing up to “elitists and globalists,” despite his 16-year record of dismantling democratic checks, controlling media, and weakening the judiciary.

Why this matters: A foreign authoritarian government secretly financed a major American political conference. Americans must familiarize themselves with the alliances amongst the global right and how they coordinate in order to push their populations towards the acceptance of extremism. Magyar’s disclosure of this arrangement must be met by prominent, contextualizing follow-up reporting by public interest journalists.

Byline Times, The Neo-Nazi Enforcer Who Helped Build Peter Thiel’s Online Influence Empire

A neo-Nazi hacker, known as “Weev,” served as an operational bridge connecting billionaire Peter Thiel’s tech and intelligence network to the online far-right subcultures that waged “memetic warfare” during and after the 2016 election. Leaked correspondence from the Epstein files references Thiel “bankrolling” Weev, and Weev himself referenced “a meeting with Peter Thiel’s right hand” in a separately leaked conversation. Jeff Giesea, a political operative who ran companies for Thiel and coined the term “memetic warfare” in a NATO journal, has been identified by multiple participants in far-right networks as a covert funder of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer and related projects, though Giesea denies it. The tactics were first exposed in a 2011 leak which showed Thiel’s Palantir was involved in proposals to deploy fake personas, coordinated harassment, and disinformation campaigns against journalists, unions, and left-wing activists.

Why this matters: The architecture of online harassment, disinformation, and identification tools now being turned on immigrants, journalists, and political opponents was built by a network of billionaires, operatives, and even neo-Nazis, not by spontaneous internet culture. Documenting the powerful figures warping our society helps the public determine who’s responsible for our toxic political environment. Sociopathic oligarchs are creating these problems.

The Justice Department and the Rule of Law

Talking Points Memo, A Historically Bad Day for the Rule of Law in America

In a single day the Trump Justice Department executed four escalations that amount to a near worst-case scenario for the rule of law. The DOJ filed to abandon the seditious conspiracy convictions against a dozen Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders for their roles in the January 6 attack. A D.C. Circuit panel of two Trump appointees cut off U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s contempt inquiry into the administration’s defiance of his orders blocking Alien Enemies Act deportations. Prosecutors under D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro staged an unannounced visit to Federal Reserve headquarters aimed at eroding Fed independence. And the DOJ released its first “weaponization” report attacking FACE Act prosecutions under Biden after firing four career prosecutors who had brought those cases.

Why this matters: Abandoning seditious conspiracy convictions is an explicit presidential embrace of the insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 election, and appellate judges who shield executive contempt destroy the judiciary’s ability to enforce any order against the president. Journalism that catalogues these moves in real time gives the public and the courts a shared record to act on before each escalation becomes the new normal.

Elections and the Machinery of Democracy

ProPublica, Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections

At least 75 career officials at DHS, DOJ and other departments who safeguarded the 2020 vote have been forced out, replaced by roughly two dozen Trump appointees — ten of whom actively worked to overturn his 2020 loss. CISA’s election security staff has been gutted, the DOJ’s 36-person Public Integrity Section has been reduced to two, and the Civil Rights Division’s voting section has been refilled with lawyers who challenged the 2020 election. White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, sanctioned after 2020 for baseless election fraud claims, pushed the FBI to raid Fulton County, Georgia. When the Atlanta field office chief resisted, he was forced out and replaced. Democratic secretaries of state say trust in the federal government is “absolutely demolished” as the 2026 midterms approach.

Why this matters: The civil servant guardrails that stopped Trump from overturning the 2020 election have been systematically replaced with loyalists, the same people who lied about the election to try and cancel the will of the people. The Trump administration is preparing the way for a midterm procedural coup.

Christian Nationalism, Great Replacement, and the Global Right

The Bulwark, They’re Not Bigots. They Just Think, Talk, and Act Like They Are.

The House GOP’s “Sharia-Free America Caucus” has grown to over 60 members— more than a quarter of total House Republicans. Despite claiming to target only Sharia law, caucus members openly attack Muslims broadly: Rep. Andy Ogles tweeted “Muslims don’t belong in American society,” Rep. Randy Fine tweeted “We need more Islamophobia, not less,” and Chip Roy declared “Islam is not compatible with the West.” Caucus members have said “mainstream Islam” wants “to kill us” and have predicted that moderate Muslims will eventually join jihadists once they take power. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who helped found the caucus, said he loves that America “is a Christian nation, and it’s going to stay that way,” while multiple members argue religious freedom was meant only for Judeo-Christian values. Roy has introduced a bill to suspend all immigration until a series of demands are met, citing a “massive wave of Muslims” coming to America.

Why this matters: A quarter of the House majority is organized around demonizing a religious minority and caucus members are openly calling for Christian government. A massive threat to the First Amendment is coming from inside the Capitol.

Wired, Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated With Religion

Federal employees across the USDA, Department of Labor, Small Business Administration, HHS, and Department of Defense describe a coordinated integration of Christianity into their daily government work. USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins sent an Easter “He has risen!” email agency-wide calling the Jesus story “the greatest story ever told,” prompting an Office of Special Counsel complaint. A July 2025 Office of Personnel Management memo permits federal workers to proselytize to colleagues and “encourage” them to pray. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has hosted Pentagon prayer services featuring Christian nationalist Doug Wilson, who has argued for theocracy and said women should lose the right to vote, and has framed the Iran war as a “holy war” calling for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Why this matters: Christian nationalism is reshaping the daily working conditions of the federal civil service. When the state integrates one faith into its routine operations, religious minorities and nonbelievers lose equal standing as employees and as citizens.

The American Prospect, A Really Bad Week for the Global Right

Writer Harold Meyerson draws sharp parallels between Christian Nationalist Viktor Orbán’s defeat and Trump’s vulnerabilities: both leaders redistributed national wealth to cronies turned oligarchs, a pattern Meyerson sees in Trump’s cultivation of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and unregulated AI expansion. Meyerson poses a broader question about whether Christian nationalism, illiberal democracy, and kleptocracy are causally linked, noting that illiberal regimes suppress rival media, universities, courts, and unions, which breeds a “get out of jail free” culture among the leader’s favored class. Meyerson also points to recent U.S. electoral data suggesting culture-war attacks on trans rights are losing force, citing Abigail Spanberger’s 15-point Virginia gubernatorial win despite opponent attacks linking her to trans rights.

Why this matters: Pro-democracy readers benefit from journalists who connect global authoritarian defeats to domestic political dynamics. Explaining the link between Christian nationalism and kleptocracy gives Americans a chance to vote out a corrupt, extremist party before Orban-style authoritarianism fully consolidates here.

Talking Points Memo, How a Texas City Became the Far Right’s Next Example of the Great Replacement Theory

Far-right influencers, politicians, and MAGA figures including Steve Bannon have fixated on Frisco, Texas—where Asian residents now make up roughly a third of the 250,000-person population—as a case study in the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) cited the city’s demographic shifts on a recent podcast to demand an end to the H-1B visa program, saying he doesn’t want to hear Muslim calls to prayer in his community or see the caste system in schools. At a February city council meeting, one speaker declared, “I reject global Zimbabwe; we must maintain our Rhodesia,” while activists used a photo of a South Asian scout troop as supposed evidence of replacement. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has since blocked state universities from using H-1Bs, and Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into businesses named in a right-wing influencer’s video. Indian residents, including H-1B holders, told TPM they fear immigration enforcement and bullying, with one 22-year-old describing the experience as being watched like animals in a zoo.

Why this matters: The Great Replacement is the same conspiracy theory that motivated the mass shooters in Buffalo, El Paso, and Christchurch, and it is now being laundered through sitting members of Congress and state officials in Texas. When elected leaders adopt white-nationalist framing to target specific ethnic communities, it creates both policy threats and physical danger for the people in their crosshairs.

Surveillance, Privacy, and Conscription

Zeteo, Trump’s New Red Scare Is Coming to State and Local Police Near You

Internal FBI emails obtained by Zeteo show the bureau is training state and local police to enforce NSPM-7, a national security presidential memorandum that attempts to criminalize a range of consitutionally protected viewpoints and activities. Published by the White House in September, the directive attempts the most significant expansion of domestic counter-terrorism authority since the Patriot Act. Activities that could now flag Americans for federal review include criticizing corporations on social media, holding anti-ICE signs, sharing memes about Luigi Mangione, or condemning Trump’s war in Iran at town halls. The program leans on joint terrorism task forces to loop local police into surveillance of U.S. citizens based on political viewpoint. The crackdown is intensifying as the Iran war enters its second month and fuels broader public discontent with the administration.

Why this matters: Enlisting local police as an extension of federal political surveillance turns everyday cops into enforcers of viewpoint-based crackdowns. Criminalizing dissent is a defining feature of authoritarian systems.

404 Media, Google, Microsoft, Meta All Tracking You Even When You Opt Out, According to an Independent Audit

An independent audit of web traffic on over 7,000 California websites found that Google, Meta, and Microsoft regularly ignore the Global Privacy Control signal users send to opt out of tracking, potentially violating the state’s Consumer Privacy Act and exposing the companies to billions in fines. Google failed to honor opt-outs 87 percent of the time, Meta 69 percent, and Microsoft 50 percent, according to privacy search engine webXray. The audit also tested three Google-certified “consent management platforms,” the cookie banners meant to enforce user choices, and found failure rates of 77, 90, and 91 percent. webXray founder Timothy Libert, Google’s former lead on cookie policy and compliance, said a boss told him before he left in 2023 that his job was to protect the company. All three companies disputed the findings; Libert argues compliance is as simple as one line of code and that fines have effectively replaced taxes as a cost of doing business.

Why this matters: The largest ad-tech companies are treating privacy law as a billable fee. Consumer consent is a fiction and democratic lawmaking is brazenly ignored. Independent technical audits like this are essential to public understanding.

The Intercept, Trump Administration Wants to Make It More Difficult to Evade a Military Draft

The Selective Service System will begin automatically registering draft-eligible men by December 2026, ending a decades-old self-registration process. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said this week that Trump “keeps his options on the table” when asked about reviving the draft, which would still require congressional approval. The article notes Trump personally received five Vietnam-era draft deferments, including a bone-spurs diagnosis from a doctor who rented his office from Trump’s father.

Why this matters: Automatic registration removes friction from the machinery of conscription as the Trump administration actively prosecutes multiple wars. Journalism that surfaces quiet administrative changes during wartime gives the public a chance to scrutinize them before they’re locked in.

Dismantling Public Institutions and the Federal Workforce

The New Republic, The Real Reason Republicans Want to Privatize the TSA

As the DHS funding standoff enters its ninth week, Trump and conservative think tanks including Heritage Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute are renewing longstanding calls to privatize TSA airport screeners. There is scant evidence privatization would improve security or save money; GAO evaluations from 2009 to 2015 found the existing 20-airport pilot program suffered from incomplete data, and there has been no comprehensive review since 2012. What privatization would reliably do is shrink the federal workforce and cut labor costs, since TSA screeners are heavily unionized and their private-sector counterparts typically are not, translating to lower pay and fewer benefits. A 2023 GAO study found TSA officers already report low job satisfaction tied to the demanding nature of the work, conditions that would remain identical under private contractors. The Trump administration wants to dismantle the federal workforce regardless of whether doing so serves the public.

Why this matters: Privatization is always argued for based on half-baked claims about efficiency. Really, privatization pushes are about stripping workers of union protections and transferring public functions to politically aligned contractors. Public-interest reporting that interrogates the actual evidence behind policy slogans helps voters see what’s really being sold to them.

Affordability, Taxes, and Who Pays

Gothamist, Hochul floats tax on NYC second homes worth $5M or more

Gov. Kathy Hochul is proposing a new pied-à-terre tax on New York City second homes worth $5 million or more, which her budget team estimates could generate at least $500 million in recurring annual revenue. The proposal targets wealthy buyers who purchase luxury apartments that sit largely vacant while paying relatively low taxes compared to full-time residents. The announcement marks a shift for Hochul, who had previously resisted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s calls to raise taxes on the rich and corporations out of concern about driving wealthy residents from the state. The proposal arrives as Albany is weeks late delivering the state budget and as Mamdani has warned he would consider raising property taxes if Albany fails to approve new taxes on the wealthy. Mamdani praised the move as a first-of-its-kind pied-à-terre tax for the state, and progressive groups called it a step toward broader taxes on the ultra-rich and largest corporations.

Why this matters: Tax policy that asks ultra-wealthy absentee property owners to contribute at rates closer to full-time residents is one of the few direct levers available for addressing the affordability crisis pricing working New Yorkers out of the city. A Democratic governor shifting toward taxing the rich after sustained pressure from a progressive mayor and movement groups shows that organizing can move policy even when leaders start out opposed.

Climate and Media Accountability

FAIR, Climate Coverage Plunges, Though Crisis More Dire Than Ever

Online U.S. news coverage of climate change dropped nearly 32 percent from 2024 to 2025, and broadcast TV climate coverage fell 35 percent over the same period, even as the UN’s 2025 Global Climate Report confirmed the past 11 years are the 11 warmest on record. Climate stories made up just 1.1 percent of U.S. news coverage in the first quarter of 2026, compared to 1.9 percent in the same stretch of 2021. The term “climate crisis” has nearly vanished, averaging 0.1 percent of content in early 2026 after peaking at 0.7 percent in late 2021. The drop tracks closely with Trump’s return to office: from January 2021 through November 2024, climate averaged 2.2 percent of monthly news content, but fell 46 percent to 1.2 percent after his election. Even as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran drives the worst energy crisis in history, only 4.4 percent of March stories mentioning Iran and fuel prices connected them to renewables or climate.

Why this matters: When newsrooms go quiet on the defining crisis of the century, the public loses the information it needs to pressure governments and hold polluters accountable. Mainstream newsroom silence during an administration actively dismantling environmental protections amounts to complicity by omission.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: Trump Posts Murder Video, Expect a Midterm Coup Attempt

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 20:01:03 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Maintaining a nutritious information diet is complex and nuanced. Knowing what information is healthy isn’t always as simple as relying on a trusted brand. NPR broke the story from this edition about Trump’s maltreatment of veterans with mortgages, yet has habitually normalized Donald Trump over the last decade. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about newsroom agendas and why they matter. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: ProPublica, Democracy Now!, Thinking about..., and yes, in spite of itself, NPR.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.
Click through and read their articles to drive engagement to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this information to your social media or directly to friends.
Share

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Aaron Rupar, Rupar shares unhinged and racist things our president posts to social media

Why this matters: The president using his official platform to post a snuff video and racist content about Somali immigrants is deplorable and disqualifying. Trump strategically dehumanizes vulnerable populations in order to create a permission structure for his followers to do the same.

Thinking about..., The Next Coup Attempt

Yale historian Timothy Snyder argues that, with the 2026 midterm elections seven months out and a war underway, the structural conditions for another coup attempt are in place. He draws from world history in identifying five playbooks Trump could use to nullify elections, like claiming the need for government continuity in wartime or staging a terrorist attack as pretext for using emergency powers. Snyder considers the false-flag terrorism scenario Trump’s strongest option, noting the precedent set by Putin’s 1999 apartment bombings. Trump is simultaneously proposing a nearly 50% defense budget increase that Snyder reads as a bribe to military commanders whose cooperation is a prerequisite for any such coup attempt to succeed. The piece closes with a warning: Trump’s position is weak, but that weakness only matters if citizens, journalists, judges, and soldiers actively refuse to go along with his machinations.

Why this matters: Snyder’s framework gives readers a concrete way to recognize coup mechanics as they emerge, rather than after the fact. A population with advanced warning, that can perceive the threat in advance, is harder to take by surprise.

Click thru to: A companion Instagram post from Snyder summarizing his article.

The Guardian, ICE agents reportedly detain wife of US soldier just days after their marriage

ICE arrested Annie Ramos on April 2, just days after she married Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank. Ramos, a biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher with no criminal history, has lived in the U.S. since infancy. The couple had already hired a lawyer to begin the green card process before the wedding. When the family arrived at the base visitor center with her documents, an attendant called a supervisor, who called ICE. Agents arrived, handcuffed Ramos, and took her to a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana. When Blank’s family visited, they were barred from bringing in paperwork, preventing Ramos from signing her completed green card application.

Why this matters: Trump promised his immigration crackdown would target dangerous criminals. Detaining the immigrant wife of a deploying soldier on a military base shows the dragnet operates without any limits. Even the families of people actively serving are not exempt.

Democracy Now!, Meet Leqaa Kordia: Palestinian Protester Freed After a Year in “ICE Dungeon”

Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian activist who grew up in the occupied West Bank, was arrested while attending a Gaza solidarity protest at Columbia University in 2024, but the charges against her were dropped. She was detained by ICE in March 2025 during what she believed was a routine immigration check-in. ICE sent her to a detention facility in Texas where she remained for nearly a year under deplorable conditions. A room built for just 37 people sometimes held 100. Showers were broken for two weeks at a time and medical care was so inadequate she suffered her first-ever seizure and required hospitalization. She was denied access to her lawyers and family while chained to her hospital bed. A judge ordered her release on $100,000 bond in March 2026.

Why this matters: The Trump administration detained a legal resident with no criminal record for a year, apparently for protesting. Meanwhile, Americans are paying to detain people like her in horrifically run private prisons with little to no oversight.

NPR, Trump’s VA killed a home loan program. Vets are now losing their homes because of it

More than 10,000 veterans have lost their homes to foreclosure since May 2025, when the Trump administration abruptly shut down a VA rescue program for vets struggling with mortgage payments. Another 90,000 are currently behind or in the foreclosure process. The VA was warned by the mortgage industry that killing the program without a replacement would cause exactly this. Veterans with VA-backed loans now have worse foreclosure protections than most American homeowners. A replacement program is months away and, as currently drafted, could still force some vets into higher-cost loans against their will.

Why this matters: Trump campaigned on protecting veterans. His administration killed a program that was working, ignored industry warnings, and left tens of thousands of military families facing eviction.

Melania Trump holds the Bible during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the Capitol, Jan. 20, 2025. Morry Gash/Pool/AP

PolitiFact, Is it a war crime to bomb civilian infrastructure, as Donald Trump has threatened?

While this situation is in flux (major understatement), Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iranian power plants, oil wells, and desalination facilities if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. International law experts told PolitiFact that targeting civilian infrastructure would be “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law” under widely accepted interpretations of the Geneva Conventions. The UN Secretary-General said there are “reasonable grounds” to think such strikes could constitute war crimes. PolitiFact rates the claim “Mostly True,” noting the U.S. could invoke a dual-use argument for some targets, but that no such argument applies to desalination plants at all.

Why this matters: A sitting president is publicly threatening actions that international law experts say would be war crimes. Fact-checkers like PolitiFact perform a genuine public service by providing legal and contextual nuance and this piece is a prime example of that. But as PolitiFact itself concedes in its conclusion: “The statement [that these would be war crimes] is accurate.” Watch for fact-checkers’ tendency to deliberate beyond the plain language of a statement in ways that muddy the waters rather than clarify. A “Mostly True” rating on a statement that is simply true is its own form of distortion. Navigate our complex information ecosystem accordingly.

ProPublica, “Economic Civil War”: States Push Laws to Shield Oil and Gas Companies From Accountability

Republican-led legislatures in 11 states are advancing bills that would effectively immunize oil and gas companies from climate liability lawsuits, stripping cities, counties, and states of their primary legal tool for recovering costs from climate-driven disasters. ProPublica found that most of these bills are part of a coordinated campaign orchestrated by groups tied to Leonard Leo, the dark money operative credited with reshaping the Supreme Court. The bills target more than 30 active lawsuits that are approaching the discovery phase—the stage at which plaintiffs could access confidential industry documents and depose oil executives.

Why this matters: As climate costs mount (between $350 billion and $450 billion annually for the past three years) and the science linking specific disasters to fossil fuel emissions grows more precise, these lawsuits represent one of the last meaningful avenues for public accountability. Killing them through coordinated, dark money funded state legislation timed to preempt discovery, is how corporations escape consequences before the evidence becomes public.

Nature Human Behaviour, How deceptive online networks reached millions in the US 2020 elections

A peer-reviewed study published in Nature found that coordinated online networks using fake identities for political gain reached at least 37 million Facebook users and 3 million Instagram users during the 2020 U.S. elections. Critically, regular folks unwittingly reshared the content, meaning ordinary users were the primary delivery mechanism. The users most exposed were older, more conservative, and more frequently reached by content from untrustworthy sources.

Why this matters: Disinformation at scale doesn’t require vast resources. Just three networks moved toxic content to tens of millions of people. Understanding how this works is a prerequisite for defending against it. Peer-reviewed research like this an essential contribution to the fight for democracy. People the world over must use this information to demand more forceful regulation of social media companies. A well-informed society is a healthy society. A disinformed society is like puddy in the hands of greedy and power hungry oligarchs and despots.

Transparency International Hungary, Hungary Remains the Most Corrupt Member State of the European Union for the Fourth Consecutive Year

Hungary scored its worst result ever on Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, dropping to 84th globally and finishing last in the EU for the fourth straight year. The report attributes Hungary’s economic stagnation directly to what it calls “organized theft of public funds.” The EU has suspended billions in funding over rule-of-law failures and fined Hungary €200 million, plus €1 million per day, for defying a court ruling on asylum law. Hungary now risks losing its entire post-Covid recovery fund if it fails to implement 27 anti-corruption measures by end of 2026.

Why this matters: Viktor Orbán is running an authoritarian playbook and Trump has openly praised him. JD Vance traveled to Hungary this week to campaign on Orbán’s behalf ahead of the country’s Sunday election. A global coalition of right-wing, corrupt authoritarians is destroying democracies all over the world.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! This post is public so feel free to share it.

NEWS: Hegseth Purges Black and Female Officers, Trump DOJ Dropped 23,000 Criminal Cases

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:10:09 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Subscribe now

A note on media diet: Great journalists are still working at corporate outlets. NBC broke important stories in this edition. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about who owns media and why that matters. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when seeking to feed your kids, is a must. This week, the outlets most worthy of your financial support are: ProPublica, KFF, The Wayfinder, Public Notice, More Than Just Parks, Techdirt, PBS NewsHour, Mother Jones, and 404 Media.

Click through and read their articles to drive ad revenue to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this public interest information to your social media or directly to friends.
Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

NBC, Hegseth Has Intervened in Military Promotions for More Than a Dozen Senior Officers

Hegseth has blocked or delayed promotions for more than a dozen Black and female senior officers across all four military branches. When Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George asked to meet with Hegseth to discuss his blocking of Army promotions, seemingly targeted for their race or gender, Hegseth refused. George was fired Thursday, two years before his term was set to end. “If there are no open allegations or investigations, what was the reason they were removed from the list?” one official said. “They have all deployed and done their jobs, and all are combat-tested.”

Why this matters: The defense secretary is purging combat-tested officers from promotion lists based on race and gender and firing the general who tried to discuss it with him. A retired senior officer warned this signals to the officer corps that careers can be ended “with the stroke of a pen.” A bigoted pen.

ProPublica, Trump’s Justice Department Dropped 23,000 Criminal Investigations in Shift to Immigration

In the first six months after Pam Bondi became attorney general, the DOJ declined to prosecute more than 23,000 criminal cases. The dropped cases included terrorism, drug trafficking, white-collar fraud, union corruption, and environmental crimes, many of which the administration had previously claimed as enforcement priorities. In one instance, prosecutors were ordered to review every case older than two years and close it within 10 days, a directive no former DOJ attorney ProPublica spoke with could recall ever seeing before. In another, a counternarcotics prosecutor who spent years building fentanyl cases against major Chinese and Indian suppliers was told to abandon that work. The DOJ also dropped more anti-bribery cases in six months than the previous three administrations combined, and closed cases targeting a nursing home with a recent record of patient abuse and a mortgage lender accused of defrauding the FHA.

Why this matters: The DOJ exists to enforce the law regardless of politics. Closing 23,000 cases in six months, while prosecuting the administration’s preferred enemies and protecting preferred industries, is corrupt.

The New Republic, How to Reclaim America From the Scammers and Frauds

Writer Matt Ford argues that Trump’s presidency has transformed the U.S. into a huckster’s paradise, protecting and rewarding the same predatory industries that harm ordinary Americans while gutting the agencies designed to stop them. The Labor Department has moved to open Americans’ 401(k) retirement savings to crypto. Insiders are using betting markets to trade on knowledge of war plans. Ford writes the next Democratic administration must treat fraud elimination as a governing mandate: ban crypto from the regulated financial system, reinstate limits on sports betting, shutter prediction markets, and rebuild the consumer protection infrastructure Trump has dismantled.

Why this matters: The regulatory agencies meant to protect ordinary people are being hollowed out to facilitate economy-wide wealth extraction.

The Guardian, AI Got the Blame for the Iran School Bombing. The Truth Is Far More Worrying

On February 28, U.S. forces struck a primary school in Minab, Iran, killing 175 people, mostly girls aged seven to twelve. The fault for the horrific error lay not with an AI tool, but with an outdated Palantir database that still treated the school as a military building. The strike ran through Palantir’s Maven Smart System, a targeting platform based on a plain-English database. Claude, the Anthropic chatbot, played no role in target selection. It was added to Maven years after the core system was operational. Congress, the press, and commentators fixated on the AI angle anyway, asking whether Claude hallucinated or could be trusted, while the question of how the database error persisted for a decade went largely unasked.

Why this matters: Framing a mass-casualty strike on a girls’ school as an AI malfunction obscures the human decisions behind it, like leaving databases unchecked and starting a war without congressional authorization. That said…the story below remains imperative to our understanding of how little AI should be trusted.

The Guardian, Number of AI Chatbots Ignoring Human Instructions Increasing, Study Says

A UK study tracked nearly 700 real-world cases of AI models deceiving users, evading safeguards, and acting against explicit instructions. The study noted a fivefold increase in such behaviors since October 2025. In one instance, an AI deleted hundreds of emails without permission. In another, an AI platform spawned a secondary AI agent to circumvent a coding restriction. A former government AI expert who led the study warned that models currently deployed in military and critical infrastructure contexts could cause catastrophic harm if “scheming” behavior scales alongside capability.

Why this matters: AI systems are being embedded in high-stakes government and military infrastructure faster than oversight mechanisms can track their behavior. The evidence shows those systems are already acting against human instruction.

404 Media, How Thomson Reuters Powers ICE and Palantir

Thomson Reuters has long sold personal data to ICE through its CLEAR product—names, addresses, Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, household members, and details on someone’s ethnicity. Documents obtained by 404 Media indicate that data now feeds into Palantir’s ELITE system, which generates deportation target lists and “confidence scores” on individuals’ current addresses. The revelation comes after more than 200 Thomson Reuters employees signed a letter to company leadership expressing alarm about the company’s ICE and DHS contracts.

Why this matters: A major media company is selling the data behind mass deportation raids, including ethnicity information, while telling employees it prohibits using CLEAR to target undocumented immigrants who haven’t committed crimes. The documents suggest otherwise.

KFF, Deaths and Health Care Issues in ICE Detention Centers Under the Second Trump Administration

Forty-six people have died in ICE custody since January 2025, more than in any comparable period in over two decades. Thirty-two of those deaths involved people with existing medical conditions whose health deteriorated in custody. In one case, an El Paso County medical examiner ruled a death a homicide due to enforcement officers’ actions; ICE reported it as a suicide. Human beings in detention are facing denial of prescribed medications, measles outbreaks, and inadequate prenatal treatment for pregnant women. Courts have ordered ICE to improve conditions, restore oversight offices, and allow congressional inspections. The Trump administration is appealing these orders.

Why this matters: People are dying in government custody at a record pace, with little oversight and mounting evidence that ICE is not meeting its own health and safety standards. Accountability requires the kind of rigorous, data-driven documentation this report provides.

Mother Jones, Punished for Protesting, Talking to Press, and Having a Toothache: More Dilley Horror Stories

Sworn declarations from detainees at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the nation’s only family detention facility, describe systematic retaliation against families who protest, file grievances, or speak to the press or congressional visitors. In one instance, a 2-year-old with a visibly infected, green-rooted tooth went untreated for over 20 days while staff threatened to separate her from her mother for crying. Detainees described being locked in rooms during congressional visits to prevent contact with lawmakers, receiving better food only when reporters or politicians were present, and having calls with reporters cut mid-conversation.

Why this matters: You have a heart and your government is doing awful things in your name.

NBC, ICE Agents Will Be Stationed Outside Marine Corps Graduation Events in South Carolina

ICE agents will be stationed at access points to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island during graduation events this week to conduct “immigration status inquiries” on recruit family members. A DHS spokesperson said ICE would not be making arrests. It is not clear whether the arrangement will extend to future graduations or other bases.

Why this matters: Stationing immigration agents at a military graduation turns a patriotic rite of passage into an immigration enforcement checkpoint. It signals that no setting, including one honoring those who serve, is off-limits.

The Wayfinder, Foreign Disinformation is the ‘New Warfare’ and Democracies are ‘Sitting Ducks,’ Says UK Parliament

The UK Parliament released a report declaring foreign disinformation “the new warfare” and calling open democracies “sitting ducks.” Disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz, who testified before the Committee, writes that Russia has upgraded from troll farms to industrial-scale operations—a network of over 1,100 automated accounts responsible for 11 million posts in a year. Russia is also making coordinated effort to pump Kremlin narratives into AI training data. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has gutted the U.S. government’s foreign interference response and maligned the researchers tracking it. The Committee recommended the UK treat disinformation as a core national security threat, even as members of Parliament face potential U.S. visa restrictions for doing so.

Why this matters: Foreign adversaries are running information warfare at industrial scale while the U.S. has deliberately dismantled its defenses. The fight to preserve a shared reality is now being led by our allies, at risk of American retaliation for taking it seriously.

Public Notice, Tucker Carlson Is Not Your Friend

Some progressives and leftists have been approvingly sharing Tucker Carlson clips of his Israel and Trump criticism on social media. Carlson’s new attacks aren’t rooted in human rights principles, but rather his racist worldview. Carlson has relentlessly promoted the White nationalist Great Replacement Theory for years. He’s platforming Holocaust deniers and has a documented history of racist and anti-democratic rhetoric.

Why this matters: Elevating bad-faith actors because they occasionally land on the right side of an issue is how societies lose moral clarity. Carlson’s record and motivations make clear that he’s still a morally reprehensible propagandist.

Techdirt, Brendan Carr Tries To ‘Ban’ All Foreign Routers In Lazy, Legally Dubious Shakedown

FCC chair Brendan Carr announced that foreign-made routers, essentially every router currently on the market, would effectively be banned from sale in the U.S., unless manufacturers obtain “conditional approval” from DHS. The stated justification is cybersecurity, but writer Karl Bode notes that the biggest recent U.S. cybersecurity breach, China’s Salt Typhoon hack, exploited deregulated domestic telecom networks, not foreign routers. Meanwhile, Trump administration has simultaneously gutted the agencies responsible for investigating such incidents. The “conditional approval” process creates an obvious shakedown structure wherein manufacturers must seek case-by-case exemptions from a corrupt administration.

Why this matters: The U.S. government is dismantling our ability to conduct cybersecurity oversight in the same breath that it’s demanding foreign companies seek its approval to sell routers in America…for security reasons. Doing corruption in the name of national security is a defining feature of this administration.

See: ProPublica, Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate

CNET, I Downloaded (and Deleted) the White House App So You Don’t Have To. It’s a Hot Mess

The Trump administration launched an official White House app promising “unparalleled access.” But security researchers found serious privacy and security failures. The Android version tracks user location every 4.5 minutes and shares that data with a third-party server. A YouTube embed code in the app was traced to a personal GitHub account, meaning a single account compromise could affect every user. The Apple version says it doesn’t collect location data, yet the underlying code included GPS tracking capability. One cybersecurity firm that audited the app wrote that startups with three employees have shipped apps with better security protections.

Why this matters: A government app that misrepresents its data collection practices and relies on unsecured third-party infrastructure is less an access tool than a surveillance mechanism.

NBC, Father of Service Member Killed in Iran War Said He Never Told Pete Hegseth to ‘Finish’ the Job

After meeting privately with families of service members killed in the Iran war, Defense Secretary Hegseth told reporters that “family after family” urged him to “finish this” and “not stop until the job is done.” Charles Simmons, whose 28-year-old son Tyler was among those killed, told NBC News that was not what he and Hegseth discussed. Simmons said he told Hegseth he hoped the decisions being made were “necessary” and that he said nothing “along those lines” about continuing the war. A public official present at Trump’s earlier March 7 Dover meeting with a separate set of families similarly told NBC News they did not hear any family member tell Trump to “finish the job,” contradicting Trump’s claim that “every single one” said it.

Why this matters: Putting words in the mouths of grieving Gold Star families to justify an unauthorized war is reprehensible propaganda. Our defense secretary used the deaths of service members as a rhetorical prop.

PBS NewsHour / AP, Hegseth Says He Will Allow Troops to Take Personal Weapons onto Military Bases

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo directing base commanders to approve service members’ requests to carry personal firearms on military installations. Hegseth cited recent shootings at Fort Stewart and Holloman Air Force Base as justification, but a gun violence prevention organization’s senior counsel noted that Defense Department leaders and military brass have long opposed relaxing these rules. She also pointed out that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a personally owned weapon, and warned the policy will increase gun violence on installations.

Why this matters: The man overseeing a shooting war in the Middle East is spending his time loosening gun rules on domestic military bases, against the advice of the military’s own leadership, while the suicide crisis among service members continues to worsen.

ProPublica, Veterans Who Depend on Mental Health Care Keep Losing Their Therapists Under Trump

Since Trump returned to office, the VA has lost around 500 psychologists and psychiatrists and nearly 700 social workers who mostly quit, citing crushing caseloads and ethical concerns about the administration’s policies. In one instance, a therapist in Arizona described individual sessions cut to as little as 16 minutes, with some replaced by online group sessions of up to 35 veterans. More than half of VA hospitals and clinics reported individual therapy wait times for new patients exceeding the agency’s own 20-day goal as of early February.

Why this matters: Veterans were promised better care. Instead, their healthcare system is hemorrhaging the specialists they need most. Accountability journalism like Pro Publica’s is essential. As their reporting notes: “Following inquiries from ProPublica, VA officials reached out to…veterans interviewed for this story to offer additional assistance with their mental health care. The calls left several frustrated, saying it shouldn’t take questions from the media for them to get help from the VA.”

More Than Just Parks, BREAKING: Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service

The Trump administration announced it is relocating U.S. Forest Service headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah and closing all ten regional offices. They are also consolidating more than fifty research facilities across thirty-one states into a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado. The new structure replaces regional foresters with fifteen political appointees called “state directors” embedded in state capitals. When the Bureau of Land Management was similarly relocated under Trump’s first term, 87% of Washington-based staff left the agency rather than relocate, a precedent the author argues was the intended outcome.

Why this matters: Relocating a 193-million-acre public lands agency, while destroying its independent science program and replacing career professionals with political appointees, is a gift to the mining industry. Our environment and our ability to enjoy public lands is deteriorated.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

NEWS: DHS Is Taking DNA From Protesters + Trump’s Iran War Negotiator Is on the Saudi Payroll

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:45:39 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

A note on media diet: Great journalists work at compromised outlets. The New York Times and CBS News broke important stories in this edition, yet both operate under ownership structures that create real editorial pressure to push anti-democratic agendas. A healthy, pro-democracy media diet draws from the full spectrum of fact-based reporting while remaining clear-eyed about how ownership and agenda can create misleading frames. The New York Times has misled in the past and has a pattern of normalizing Donald Trump. CBS is owned by extremist ideologues. Discernment, the kind you’d use while reading labels in the store when buying groceries for your kids, is a must. Just like in the aisles of the supermarket, navigating the choices available to us to ensure our media diet is healthy comes with pitfalls and nuance.

This week, the outlets and organizations most worthy of your financial support are: ProPublica, The Intercept, CalMatters, NPR, Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, Popular Information, The Freedom of the Press Foundation, Evident and Doomsday Scenario.

Click through and read their articles to drive ad revenue to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this public interest information to your social media or directly to friends.
Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s independent and non-profit newsrooms.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

NPR, ICE officers are taking DNA samples from protesters they’ve arrested

NPR found six people in Minnesota, Illinois, and Oregon who say they were arrested while peacefully observing ICE activity and had their DNA swabbed before release. Federal law does require DNA collection from people arrested by federal officers, but legal experts say the constitutionality hinges on whether the underlying arrests were lawful — and civil rights lawyers say observing ICE is protected First Amendment activity. It is unclear where the samples are going or how they’re being used; DHS did not answer NPR’s questions and has previously denied the existence of a protesters database. DNA collected by federal immigration officers has historically been added to the FBI’s national database, accessible to state and local law enforcement across the country.

Why this matters: A catalog of political dissidents’ genetic data in government hands is a tool of authoritarian control.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been privately lobbying Trump to continue and escalate the war with Iran, calling it a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East and pressing for attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure and boots on the ground. The New York Times reported the lobbying but omitted a critical fact: Trump’s chief Iran negotiator, Jared Kushner, has collected more than $110 million from the Saudi government since 2021 through his private equity firm, which received a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund controlled by MBS — while generating little to no return. Kushner’s firm is now seeking an additional $5 billion from foreign sources and has already met with the Saudi PIF. The Saudi government also financed a $7 billion Trump Organization development deal in January 2026. Trump has said Kushner was among those who convinced him to start the war.

Why this matters: The United States is at war, and the man leading its negotiations has received over $110 million from the government lobbying to keep that war going. That is not a conflict of interest — it is the definition of corruption. A free press exists precisely to connect these dots, and Popular Information did what the New York Times did not.

Freedom of the Press Foundation, Report on abuse of Section 702 by NSA to spy on Americans

CBS News, FBI and IRS to investigate nonprofit groups for domestic terrorism links, sources say

The FBI and IRS are forming a joint initiative to investigate nonprofits for suspected domestic terrorism links. In a December memo, AG Pam Bondi instructed federal law enforcement to prioritize investigations into groups she deemed “extremist.” Bondi broadly applied the extremism label to include opposition to ICE, “radical gender ideology,” anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity. A new command center for the effort will be established at the FBI. IRS agents will probe nonprofit funding streams. It is not clear which specific groups will be targeted.

Why this matters: Weaponizing the FBI and IRS to investigate nonprofits based on sweeping ideological criteria is a textbook authoritarian tactic to suppress constitutionally protected dissent. CBS News is owned by Paramount Global, and its coverage can reflect the priorities of powerful corporate ownership—but a conscious news consumer doesn’t reject fact-based public-interest reporting because of its source. When other outlets that are trustworthy, like Democracy Now!, back up the reporting it lends credibility. A healthy media diet draws from a wide range of outlets to verify information.

Fast Company, The X algorithm really is trying to radicalize you—researchers just proved it

A European research team split roughly 5,000 X users into two groups. One group saw X’s standard algorithmic “For You” feed, the other saw posts simply in chronological order. After seven weeks, the political attitudes of the two groups were compared. Those being fed the algorithm shifted toward more conservative positions on issues like criminal investigations into Trump and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Traditional news sources appeared 58% less often in the algorithmic feeds than the chronological ones. Most troublingly, switching the algorithm off and putting those users on a chronological feed did not automatically expose them to different content or reverse their ideological shift. Algorithm-tuned accounts ended up with chronological feeds containing 28% more posts from conservative political activists. According to a Pew Research study, X users are the most likely amongst users of social media apps to report that they use the platform to “keep up with politics.”

Why this matters: Democracy depends on an informed electorate. A platform algorithmically engineered to push users toward radicalizing content is a propaganda machine with 600 million users.

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance, What Was Actually in the Mueller Report

After Mueller died, MAGA accounts began flooding social media with false claims that the Mueller investigation found nothing. But the Mueller report produced 37 indictments and 7 convictions. Trump tried to get Mueller fired, pressured his White House counsel to lie on his behalf, tried to get his attorney general to shut down the Russia investigation, and offered pardons to witnesses to keep them quiet. Mueller didn’t indict Trump because Justice Department rules prohibit indicting a sitting president, not because Trump was innocent. Trump pardoned five of the people Mueller convicted, including three who had stood in federal court and admitted under oath that they were guilty.

Why this matters: With Mueller dead and MAGA now controlling the Justice Department he spent his life serving, the effort to rewrite the historical record continues. Vance’s piece is a concise, sourced reminder that the findings of the Mueller investigation were not a hoax.

Doomsday Scenario, Remembering Robert Mueller

Robert Mueller, who died last Friday at 81, was a Purple Heart recipient, Marine combat veteran, and the most consequential FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover. He was confirmed to senior government roles six times, by both parties, across six administrations. Mueller refused to let the FBI participate in the CIA’s post-9/11 torture programs. His special counsel investigation exposed Russian interference in the 2016 election and deep criminality in Trump’s orbit, but AG Bill Barr declared it an exoneration before the public could read it, and Mueller, Garrett Graff writes, was “too shocked and slow at responding.” Graff’s verdict: Mueller was outplayed in his final chapter by a man operating in bad faith, in a Washington whose rules had changed around him.

Why this matters: Mueller represents a disappearing model of apolitical public service. Trump dodged Vietnam with bone spur deferments, has mocked POWs, and now controls the Justice Department Mueller spent his life serving. The contrast between these two men tells us a great deal about what American democracy is losing.

Evident, Visual investigation into aggressive, unconstitutional tactics by Border Patrol agents

The Intercept, Air Force Academy Prepares Ideological Overhaul, With Erika Kirk Bringing “Bold Christian Faith”

The Air Force Academy’s oversight board, a congressionally mandated body, has been dismantling DEI and reviewing curriculum under Trump’s orders. The White House appointed Erika Kirk to that board, and when announcing it, invoked her late husband Charlie Kirk’s Christian faith as a qualification. Experts say this is unconstitutional.

Why this matters: Appointing ideological activists to oversight boards, citing faith as a qualification, and purging DEI from admissions at the academy that commissions roughly half the Air Force’s new officers signals an effort to reshape military culture from the top down. A former academy official put it plainly: they are trying to turn the military into “a Christian nationalist praetorian guard.”

TechCrunch, Online bot traffic will exceed human traffic by 2027, Cloudflare CEO says

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, whose company handles infrastructure for one-fifth of all websites, says AI bot traffic will exceed human traffic on the internet by 2027. AI agents performing tasks on behalf of users visit vastly more websites than humans do. Where a person shopping for a camera might visit 5 sites, an AI agent doing the same task might visit 5,000. Before generative AI, bots made up roughly 20% of internet traffic. Prince says that number is now growing without any sign of slowing down.

Why this matters: The web was built as a space for human communication and the exchange of ideas. When bots dominate traffic, they distort what gets amplified, what gets monetized, and what gets seen, making it harder for citizens to distinguish real public opinion from manufactured noise. This will profoundly impact our democracy.

The New Republic, Trump Accidentally Admits to Epic Iran Blunder as War Takes Worse Turn

The full podcast episode is available at the link above. From the introduction:

Donald Trump’s war on Iran appears to be a fiasco, and speaking to reporters, he made a surprising claim: He insisted no one anticipated that Iran would attack other countries in an effort to widen the war. But this was indeed widely expected, and amusingly, in saying that, Trump revealed that he didn’t anticipate it. That’s a striking admission about his own lack of foresight. Which captures something broader: On many fronts, Trump didn’t prepare for eventualities that most experts fully did anticipate. Now Trump is lurching in all directions: First, he threatened to bomb Iranian electric plants, then he backtracked while claiming that “very strong talks” were underway, but Iran then flatly denied that.

Why this matters: A president who launches a war without anticipating its most foreseeable consequences is a danger to every American with a family member in uniform, and to the stability of the entire region.

The New York Times, 34 Former Military Members Were Put on Deportation Track in the Past Year

The Trump administration began deportation proceedings against 34 former military members and 248 of their relatives after rescinding policies that had given immigrant service members more deference in such matters. In a high-profile case, Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart recipient who hadn’t lived in South Korea since age seven, left Hawaii under threat of deportation after decades of checking in regularly with immigration officials. Military recruiters still promise immigrants a swift path to citizenship for enlisting, but some relatives of service members are now too afraid to apply for the family protections they’re entitled to, fearing it will make them a target. Since Trump’s second inauguration, his administration has arrested 125 former service members for immigration violations, more than five times the 24 arrested in all of fiscal year 2024.

Why this matters: The U.S. military actively recruits immigrants with the promise of citizenship and protection for their families. Deporting veterans and their relatives while continuing to make that promise is a betrayal of the most basic compact between our government and the people who risk their lives for it.

Center for American Progress, By the End of the Week, the Trump Administration’s War in Iran Will Likely Have Cost $25 Billion

Now in its fourth week, Trump’s war on Iran has killed more than 1,000 Iranian civilians, including 200 children, and 13 U.S. service members. Gas prices are up roughly a third to a national average of $3.98. The war cost $11.3 billion in its first six days alone and will likely surpass $25 billion by the end of this week. The White House is now seeking more than $200 billion in supplemental funding for the war, less than a year after Trump signed the largest cuts to the social safety net in U.S. history. Those tax cuts are projected to leave 10 million more Americans without health insurance and strip food assistance from millions of children. The same $25 billion could provide free school lunches to every child in America not currently receiving them for roughly four years, or cover two years of community college tuition for millions of students.

Why this matters: A government that claims it cannot afford Medicaid, school lunches, or housing assistance is spending $25 billion in four weeks on a war the government has provided no real justification for.

ProPublica, Trump Has Detained the Parents of More Than 11,000 U.S. Citizen Kids

In the first seven months of Trump’s second term, ICE arrested and detained the parents of at least 11,000 U.S. citizen children, an average of more than 50 American kids per day losing a parent to detention. Trump is deporting mothers of U.S. citizen children at four times the rate Biden did. More than 75% of those deported mothers had no criminal convictions beyond traffic or immigration offenses. The Trump administration quietly revised its internal directive on how agents should handle arrested parents, stripping the word “humane” from the preamble. DHS responded to ProPublica’s findings by saying “ICE does not separate families.”

Why this matters: These are American citizens being separated from their parents by their own government. ProPublica’s data-driven investigation puts hard numbers on what the administration has tried to obscure.

The Nation, AI Is the New AIPAC

Justice Democrats communications director Usamah Andrabi argues that AI corporations, like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta, are using opaquely named super PACs to flood Democratic primaries with millions in election spending. They run ads that never mention AI while backing candidates who oppose AI regulation. In North Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District, Anthropic’s Jobs and Democracy PAC spent over $1.6 million to boost Rep. Valerie Foushee, appointed to oversee AI regulation, against progressive challenger Nida Allam, who favored a federal ban on new AI data centers. Andrabi argues that AI super PACs are following the playbook established by AIPAC and crypto lobbies: spend big in the bluest seats, elect the weakest Democrats, and protect corporate interests.

Why this matters: When corporations use dark money to elect the lawmakers who are supposed to regulate them, democracy loses before a single vote is cast. The author’s perspective deserves scrutiny, he works for an organization that backed the candidates the AI lobby opposed, but the core facts about AI super PAC spending and the Foushee race are documented and worth your attention.

CalMatters, Why a private company is investigating rapes at an ICE detention center instead of the sheriff

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department failed to investigate seven reported rapes at the Otay Mesa immigration detention center in 2025, having signed away that authority to CoreCivic, the nation’s largest for-profit prison contractor, in a 2020 memorandum of understanding. Under the agreement, the detention center’s warden decides whether to investigate rape allegations, and CoreCivic did not request law enforcement involvement in any of the cases. Because the sheriff opened no criminal investigations, no cases were forwarded to the district attorney. Most of the nearly 1,500 detainees at the facility are awaiting immigration hearings and have not been convicted of any crime. San Diego County is simultaneously suing CoreCivic and the Trump administration for blocking a public health inspection of the same facility.

Why this matters: A for-profit prison company investigating its own rape allegations is a conflict of interest by design. People in government detention have constitutional rights, including protection from sexual violence. When law enforcement cedes that responsibility to the corporation profiting from their incarceration, those rights are not guaranteed.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! Share this post so more people can be informed.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

NEWS: US No Longer A Democracy + Your Social Security Data May Have Been Stolen

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 21:30:43 GMT

I point readers toward journalism and research that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

First, a note to all of you. You may have noticed I’ve generally only been providing these summaries of late. I am working on a major project that will completely change what you see when you visit PublicEnlightenment.com. I’m very excited and I can’t wait to bring to you my Big Idea for how to get healthy media diets to more people. In addition to that project and my writing here, I also regularly produce social media videos that you can find by accessing any of my socials here. Here’s my most recent video:

All this stuff takes time away from me doing some of the deeper dives and commentary I’ve provided in the past. Thanks for sticking with me and please give me feedback on if these summaries are helpful to you. Now…back to our regularly scheduled democracy saving via being vectors of healthy, fact-based information because we know that information becomes our outcomes and billionaires intentionally flood the zone with shit to keep the public from organizing around a shared reality.

Click through and read the articles to drive ad revenue to public interest journalism.
Add these healthy, fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this info to your social media or to your friends directly.

Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s non-profit and independent newsrooms. This week that label most accurately applies only to NPR.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes as a society.

Here’s what you may have missed:

NPR, Trump is dismantling democracy at ‘unprecedented’ speed, global report finds

Three major reports published this month independently conclude that Trump has done serious damage to American democracy at remarkable speed. V-Dem dropped the US from 20th to 51st in its global democracy rankings, landing the country between Slovakia and Greece. Bright Line Watch, which surveys more than 500 US scholars, found the US now falls midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. Freedom House found the US registered one of the largest declines in political rights and civil liberties among free countries last year. V-Dem’s founding director said Trump has rolled back democracy in one year as much as it took Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey ten years to accomplish.

Why this matters: Experts agree, we are quickly becoming a dictatorship.

Wired, John Solly Is the DOGE Operative Accused of Planning to Take Social Security Data to His New Job

A whistleblower complaint alleges DOGE operative John Solly stored sensitive Social Security data on a thumb drive and attempted to share it with his new employer. That employer is Leidos, a government contractor with up to $1.5 billion in SSA contracts. The data allegedly includes NUMIDENT, a master database containing all the information tied to every American’s Social Security number application. Solly allegedly told colleagues he expected a presidential pardon if his actions were unlawful.

Why this matters: If a private contractor holds the Social Security records of every American, a data breach—through negligence, a bad actor, or a foreign adversary—could expose hundreds of millions of Americans to identity theft.

CREW, 20 White House cabinet members have directed at least $30 million to benefit Trump

20 of 23 cabinet members have directed at least $30 million to Trump through political contributions, property visits, stock holdings, and donations to White House-related funds since 2023. For example, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick each gave tens of millions to Trump super PACs. Lutnick and McMahon also donated undisclosed amounts to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project.

Why this matters: Executive branch officials appear to be essentially purchasing their influential jobs from a corrupt president.

The Guardian, ICE agents reveal daily arrest quotas and surveillance app in rare court testimony

Under oath in a federal lawsuit, ICE agents testified they were given verbal orders to make eight arrests per day. They used an app called Elite, built by Palantir, to identify neighborhoods with high concentrations of people with immigration history. An agent acknowledged Elite could be inaccurate. The judge in the case sharply criticized its use, noting it could result in detaining people who have every legal right to be in the country. The judge wrote that ICE arrested an “extraordinary” number of Oregonians “with little regard for conducting lawful arrests” to meet the president’s demand for 3,000 daily arrests.

Why this matters: The testimony revealed arrest quotas, a dragnet surveillance app, fabricated arrest records, and constitutional violations. The Guardian’s reporting on this is classic accountability journalism that our democracy requires to function.

Poynter, Trump and his FCC chair are barking at the press. Even without a bite, the threat matters.

FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened broadcasters with license revocation over factual Iran war coverage that he mischaracterized as “fake news.” Media law experts say actually pulling licenses is legally prohibited and the FCC’s sole Democratic commissioner called the threats unconstitutional.

Why this matters: The government has a specific, anti-democratic goal here. The threats are designed to push broadcasters toward self-censorship. The FCC commissioner baselessly threatening broadcasters with harsh consequences for coverage the president doesn’t like is an affront to the First Amendment.

Wired, DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders

DHS removed CBP’s top privacy officer and its Freedom of Information Act director after they pushed back on orders to mislabel completed government records as “drafts.” If the records were filed as drafts, it would prevent them from being released in response to FOIA requests. The officials were removed after a CBP officer—acting in accordance with the law—released an assessment revealing that a face recognition app called Mobile Fortify captures faces and fingerprints without consent and stores every image for up to 15 years.

Why this matters: Burying these privacy assessments while firing the officials who objected was an attempt by DHS to expand its surveillance apparatus in secret.

Center for American Progress, The SAVE America Act Explained: How the New ‘Show Your Papers’ Voting Bill Is Even More Extreme Than the SAVE Act

Note: This is already a month old, but is the most comprehensive piece on the SAVE Act that I could find.

The House passed the SAVE America Act in February, a voting bill that would require Americans to present a passport or birth certificate in person to register to vote, effectively banning the registration methods used by 94 percent of Americans. The bill would also create a federal voter surveillance system by requiring states to submit their voter rolls to DHS. DHS has already inaccurately flagged naturalized citizens for removal from voter rolls in Texas. Even by ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation’s own count, noncitizen voter fraud has produced just 100 confirmed instances since 2000, out of 1.5 billion ballots cast.

Why this matters: A bill sold as election security—when elections are already secure—is not election security. This bill is voter suppression dressed up in patriotic branding.

NBC News Chief Capitol Hill Correspondent Ryan Nobles, Reporter Demands Mike Johnson Provide One Example Of Fraudulent Voting That The SAVE Act Would Prevent

We need to root for journalists and encourage them to fight for us. Capitol Hill reporters have a reputation as being some of the most obsequious. They need access to government officials in order to do their jobs and that often leads to treating them lightly so as not to get shut out. That’s why this episode is important. Ryan Nobles challenged Mike Johnson. That’s big even if the video doesn’t seem that confrontational.

Thanks for reading Public Enlightenment! Share this post so more people can be informed.

Be sure to drop other public interest journalism and research that you saw this week in the comments so I can put add it to the next one.

Check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

NEWS: Trump Officials Plot With Election Liars + GOP's Latest Racist Group Chat

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 21:15:50 GMT

I point readers toward journalism that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Click through and read the articles to drive ad revenue to public interest journalism.
Add these healthy, fact-based sources to your media diet.
Share this info to your social media or to your friends directly.
Share
Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to this edition’s non-profit and independent newsrooms, ProPublica, Bolts, Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, 404 Media, and The Guardian.

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes.

Here’s what you may have missed:

ProPublica, Trump Officials Attended a Summit of Election Deniers Who Want the President to Take Over the Midterms

Six federal officials attended a February 19 summit convened by Michael Flynn at which prominent 2020 election liars pressed for Trump to declare a national emergency to take over this fall’s midterms.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that activists associated with those at the summit have been circulating a draft of an executive order that would ban mail-in ballots and get rid of voting machines as part of a federal takeover.

Attendees included White House lawyer Kurt Olsen, DHS election integrity official Heather Honey, Kari Lake, and Marci McCarthy, who directs communications for the nation’s cyber defense agency. A DOJ official, Mac Warner, resigned the day after the event after attending without the required ethics approval. Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center warned that the meeting shows “the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election have only grown better organized and are now embedded in the machinery of government.”

Mitchell did not respond to questions from ProPublica about the summit. A spokesperson for Flynn responded to detailed questions from ProPublica by disparaging experts who expressed concerns, texting, “LOL ‘EXPERTS.’”

Miami Herald, ‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat

The secretary of Miami-Dade County's Republican Party, Abel Carvajal, created a WhatsApp group chat for conservative students at Florida International University. Within three weeks the chat was filled with racist, antisemitic, and misogynistic content, including more than 400 uses of the N-word and graphic calls for violence against Black people. Participants included the president of FIU's Turning Point USA chapter and the former College Republicans recruitment chair. Carvajal, who occasionally participated and deleted messages but never shut the chat down, said he was "shocked" by the content — though logs show he deleted 42 of his own messages.

Minnesota Star Tribune, ICE surged in Minnesota to arrest criminals. Many of them were already in jail.

A Star Tribune analysis of the Trump administration’s “worst of the worst” website found that about half of the immigrants ICE claimed to have detained during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota were already in federal, state, or county custody—not taken off the streets. Of those who were actually at large, just over half faced violent crime charges or convictions. Federal officials also listed inaccurate criminal histories, duplicated entries, and people who had already been freed—errors they dismissed as a “minor glitch.”

Talking Points Memo / ProPublica, Top DOD Official in Charge of the ‘Golden Dome for America’ Project Has Financial Ties to Contractors

Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg founded Cerberus Capital Management, and at least four companies already awarded Golden Dome contracts are owned by Cerberus. A second official, Marc Berkowitz, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, owns between $1 million and $5 million in Lockheed Martin stock and collects two Lockheed pensions—while Lockheed has already received Golden Dome contracts and is competing for a larger role. The disclosures are part of nearly 3,200 financial records ProPublica made public, revealing a broader web of financial ties between senior Trump officials and the industries they regulate.

The Guardian, Gen Z males twice as likely as baby boomers to believe wives should obey husbands

A global Ipsos survey of 23,000 people across 29 countries found that nearly a third of Gen Z males believe a wife should always obey her husband — twice the rate of Baby Boomer men, of whom just 13% agreed. A third of Gen Z males also said husbands should have the final word on important decisions, and 21% believe a "real woman" should never initiate sex, compared to 7% of Boomer men.

Harvard Business Review, AI Doesn’t Reduce Work—It Intensifies It

An eight-month study of a 200-person U.S. tech company found that generative AI tools didn’t reduce workloads, they intensified them. Workers expanded into tasks outside their roles, blurred the boundary between work and rest by prompting AI during breaks, and took on more simultaneous threads, producing cognitive overload even as work felt productive. The result was a self-reinforcing cycle: AI accelerated tasks, which raised expectations for speed, which increased reliance on AI, which widened the scope of work further. The researchers warn that what looks like a productivity gain in the short run can mask unsustainable workload creep, and recommend organizations develop deliberate norms around AI use before burnout sets in.

Bolts Magazine, How State and Local Leaders Are Responding to ICE: Your Questions Answered

Ten Democratic-run states have banned local participation in ICE’s 287(g) deputization program, and states like Illinois offer the strongest protections by requiring a judicial warrant before any transfer to federal custody—while red states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana have passed laws forcing local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, with Florida even creating a state board to monitor compliance and remove officials who refuse. ICE is buying commercial warehouses nationwide to hold up to 10,000 detainees each, and while local governments have limited zoning power to stop federal facilities, community opposition has already forced ICE to scrap detention plans in Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Tennessee. On prosecuting federal agents, Bolts finds that “absolute immunity” claims are legally unfounded but practically daunting—and that a new coalition of elected prosecutors called the Fight Against Federal Overreach is working to coordinate state-level accountability efforts.

Mother Jones, A Knock on the Window and a Glimpse of America’s Surveillance Future

DHS has deployed a smartphone facial recognition app called Mobile Fortify—used more than 100,000 times since May 2025—that photographs a person’s face and queries databases containing passport records, visa files, and border entry photos. Mobile Fortify retains biometric data on U.S. citizens for 15 years. Though facial recognition “is notoriously error prone and has long been critizied for inaccuracies when identifying people of color” DHS has not publicly disclosed Mobil Fortify’s error rate. The ACLU called the tool “unprecedented and illegal,” warning it represents “a big and very scary step toward a kind of totalitarian checkpoint society.” DHS has also quietly removed Biden-era privacy safeguards for facial recognition from its website and is moving to consolidate its biometric databases into a single platform, while data analytics firm Palantir secured a new five-year, $1 billion software agreement with the agency.

Wired, How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

Wired asked technologists, activists, and cybersecurity experts how to build a mass movement without exposing participants to monitoring by ICE, CBP, and other agencies. Key recommendations include using Signal for encrypted communication, building a “threat model” tailored to your group’s specific risks, and weighing the trade-off between secrecy and the openness that gives organizing its power. Even in-person meetings carry risk from cell phone tracking, facial recognition, license plate readers, and physical surveillance. Experts warn there is no risk-free path, only informed choices.

Columbia Journalism Review, A Reporter in Nashville, Detained by ICE

Estefany Rodríguez, a journalist for Nashville Noticias who had been covering ICE raids, was detained on March 4 without a warrant. Rodríguez came to the U.S. legally from Colombia after receiving death threats for covering cartels, has a valid work permit and pending asylum claim, and had a scheduled ICE appointment for March 17. Her lawyers argue DHS had no legal basis to arrest her. Her detention follows the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in January and the deportation of Emmy-winning Salvadoran reporter Mario Guevara—believed to be the first journalist deported from the U.S. in retaliation for their work. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted that both Guevara and Rodríguez worked for Spanish-language outlets with lower national profiles, and warned that even one such arrest could deter dozens of journalists from covering ICE in their communities.

404 Media

DOGE’s cuts were reckless and harmful, cancelling education research, violence reduction and victim services programs, and billions in scientific research funding. They were carried out by young men and boys with zero experience to be doing what they were doing. And they relied on ChatGPT for much of the work. Here is video of a deposition of one of them provided by 404 Media.

Share other public interest journalism you saw this week in the comments so I can put it in the next one. Be sure to check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

Trump's Corruption In 25 Social Media Posts You Can Share Widely As His Support Slips

Brian Hansbury — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:30:27 GMT

Ever try to discuss Trump’s corruption with someone you know only to be met with dismissal, denial, and whataboutism? Now might be the perfect time to try again.

War with Iran, cost of living, naked corruption, gestapo tactics on America’s streets, recruiting neo-Nazis to ICE—all of these factors are beginning to form cracks in support for Trump amongst a key component of his base, White evangelicals.

According to Pew Research, White evangelical support for “all or most of Trump’s plans and policies” has dropped 8 points from 66% to 58% between February 2025 and January 2026.

That same group’s confidence that Trump behaves ethically has dropped a whopping 15%.

Pew Research Center

Now is the time to widely share as much information about Trump’s corruption as possible, especially to those who may be starting to doubt their allegiance to him. Studies of human psychology reveal that one of the few ways we may be able to change people’s minds is by first finding things upon which we agree. ‘Naked corruption bad!’ is something I think all Americans can agree upon so I compiled a little list of easily shareable examples.

Below are 25 fact-based videos and image carousels (the name for a post that’s a series of informational graphics) detailing the ethical failings of Trump, his administration, and his family over the last year. You can access them on social media (mostly Instagram, I’m huge over there, nbd) and use them to start a conversation with Trump supporters in your life. The information below is all based in credible, reported fact, but if a source doesn’t seem like it will be believed by a loved one, search the story and find one they’ll accept.

I encourage you to be a healthy information vector. Share these posts to your stories, repost them, do whatever you can to spread them far and wide. Billionaires control media so that their Trump supporting narrative dominates. Why just let it happen? Fight back.

Brennan Center for Justice Instagram post

A Fortune Instagram post shows us that Trump’s wealth is skyrocketing. Continue reading to understand why it’s due to acts of total corruption.

Pardons for Sale

Courier Newsroom TikTok post about Trump’s pardoning of a man after his mother donated $1 million dollars to Trump.

In this Instagram video (click it below to watch), Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan rattles off the details of several of Trump’s pardons for convicted fraudsters.

Not a pardon, but just weeks after Trump claimed he was taking out Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, for being a narco-trafficker, he commuted the 8 year sentence of Republican Congressman Steve Womack’s repeat offender son for distributing over 5 grams of meth, according to this Instagram post from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Another list of some of Trump’s corrupt pardons, with more details than Mehdi Hasan’s video, from More Perfect Union’s Instagram post.

United Arab Emirates Shady Crypto Deal

A More Perfect Union Instagram post on Trump’s U.A.E. corruption.

More from Sawyer Hacket on Trump’s shady deal with U.A.E.

Letting Fraudsters Off The Hook

Public Citizen Instagram post reveals how corporations are being let off the hook by Trump for their acts of gross misconduct.

Senator Elizabeth Warren Instagram post on how Trump is helping rich people get away with tax fraud.

Trump stopped the state of Mississipi from having to pay a $100 million dollar fine for outright fraud, as described in this great series of posts from More Perfect Union on Instagram.

Like Father, Like Sons

Donald Trump Jr. became an advisor to the “prediction market” Kalshi and now we’ve seen multiple inside trades made on these gambling sites in the last couple of months by people who appear to have knowledge of the Trump administration’s imminent foreign policy actions.

@cbssundaymorning Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara say Donald Trump Jr. is one of many advisors helping them expand the prediction market industry, saying that his role centers on market and growth strategy. #kalshi #predictions #donaldtrumpjr #market

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Daily Kos TikTok post reporting on the ways the Trump sons are profiting off of their father’s foreign policy decisions.

@alixbreedenreports Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump have a new passion project — military drones. And President Trump’s recent decision to ban Chinese drones from the market just made their new investments much more lucrative. Full story on @Daily Kos

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Iran War

Ground News overview of Trump’s dealings with Middle Eastern countries.

Sawyer Hackett details the corrupt dealings that serve as likely motivators for our disastrous war in Iran.

Senator Elissa Slotkin describes how Trump is attacking his enemies and seeking to undermine elections in order to consolidate authoritarian power.

Fascism scholar Timothy Snyder goes deeper on the domestic political motivations for Trump starting a conflict with Iran.

Crypto Corruption

Popular Information Instagram post on how the Trump administration appears to be doing the bidding of Crypto.com in the wake of a recent $5 million dollar donation.

Last year, The Verge covered Trump’s special dinner for the top 220 holders of his crypto currency.

@verge The $TRUMP meme coin dinner took place on Trump's National Golf Club last Thursday night in Sterling, Virginia. If you want to know more about presidential seals, ‘light vetting,’ $100,000 gem-encrusted watches, and a Marriott afterparty check out the full story reported by Tina Nguyen on theverge.com #crypto #techtok #trump

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

A small Chinese company with 8 employees and no revenue managed to cobble together $300 million to purchase Trump’s crypto, per this post of an MS NOW interview with a New York Times reporter.

Tariff Relief In Exchange For Trump Golf Courses

Last May, Sawyer Hackett explained how countries are making personal financial concessions to Trump in order to gain tariff relief, as Vietnam did when they signed a deal with Trump to allow him to build a golf course there in exchange for a relaxation of tarrifs.

Corruption In The Regime

ProPublica Instagram post on corruption amongst members of Trump’s administration.

Dr. Jessica Knurick explains the corrupt motivations for why the Trump administration would be attacking and hollowing out entire fields, like scientific research.

The Propaganda Is Coming From Inside The (White) House

Trump’s federal government is spreading propaganda by having a White House staffer run a massively influential anonymous social media account on Twitter, as we learned in this Wired Instagram post.

It’s Corruption All The Way Down

Another Instagram post from Senator Elizabeth Warren that lists 10 ways Donald Trump was corrupt in 2025.

NEWS: Kristi Noem Lied to Congress + Nuremberg Trials for Trump Regime?

Brian Hansbury — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:00:22 GMT

I sift through the noise to provide the reporting and ideas that matter and point readers toward journalism that actually improves understanding. If this work makes staying informed easier for you, support it here.

Click through and read the articles to drive ad revenue to public interest journalism outlets that need it.
Add these heathly sources to your media diet.
Share this public interest info to your social media or to your friends directly.
Take action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to any of these outlets (except Reuters, they don’t need it).

The more you engage with and share pro-democracy information, the better our outcomes.

Here’s what you may have missed:

ProPublica, Kristi Noem Misled Congress About Top Aide’s Role in DHS Contracts

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Blumenthal asked Noem whether Lewandowski has “a role in approving contracts.” Noem said: “No.” Internal DHS records reviewed by ProPublica contradict that — Lewandowski personally approved a multimillion-dollar contract last summer and is typically the last signature before Noem’s on large contracts. He is an unpaid “special government employee” who has declined to disclose whether outside companies pay him. Knowingly lying to Congress is a federal crime, though rarely prosecuted.

The Nation, Democrats Should Launch a “Nuremberg Caucus” to Investigate the Crimes of the Trump Regime

Cory Doctorow, a writer and longtime critic of corporate consolidation, proposes that “congressional Democrats launch a “Nuremberg Caucus,” an effort to determine what accountability for the grotesqueries of Trump’s regime should look like. People need to be held responsible for the corruption, concentration camps, and executions of US civilians by federal goon squads.”

NPR, How the Federal Government Is Painting Immigrants as Criminals on Social Media

The White House posted the wrong photo of Ricky Chandee, called him “WORST OF WORST,” and falsely claimed multiple felony convictions. He has one, from 1993 at age 18. He worked for Minneapolis for 26 years and never missed an immigration check-in in over 30 years. NPR reviewed 130 Minnesota cases and found widespread inaccuracies. Over 70% of all ICE detainees nationwide have no criminal record per ICE’s own data. DHS did not dispute NPR’s findings and responded: “The fact that NPR is defending murderers and pedophiles is gross.”

Inside Climate News, War in Iran Could Have ‘Historic’ Disruptions on Energy Markets

Strait of Hormuz traffic, a key oil shipping lane, collapsed from roughly 60 ships per day to 5. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura facility was hit; QatarEnergy halted liquid natural gas exports. Oil rose 7% Monday. S&P Global’s Jim Burkhard said it could be “the largest oil supply disruption in history.” Columbia’s Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow and head of corporate partnership strategy at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said Iran is deliberately using energy as a pressure point and that “We are really quickly into a really dangerous phase here of which there is no precedent.”

The New Republic, The Republican Meltdown Over Iran Is Just Beginning

Is MAGA media’s habitual propagandizing for Trump showing cracks? Less than a week into Trump’s war with Iran, Megyn Kelly said U.S. troops “died for Iran or for Israel…Our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us.” Tucker Carlson called the war “absolutely disgusting and evil” and said Netanyahu made the decision, not Trump. Steve Bannon called it a “betrayal.” A CNN poll found 77% of Republicans still support the war. Congressional Republicans are so far siding with Trump. Iran is bombing Gulf States like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. The U.S. has told hundreds of thousands of civilians to leave but has no evacuation plan. The CIA has reportedly begun arming Iranian Kurds to jumpstart a civil war.

Reuters, Autism Researchers Form Independent Committee as Counter to Kennedy-Appointed Group

RFK Jr. replaced the entire Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee—which guides roughly $2 billion in annual research—with 21 new members, several of whom have promoted debunked vaccine-autism claims. Credible public health officials, including former coordinating committee members, NIH directors, and autism scientists, formed an independent rival committee to provide a science-based alternative. ”A similar group of medical organizations and respected vaccine experts have been working to combat what they see as misinformation on inoculations coming from the Trump administration.”

States Newsroom, Taxpayer Dollars Flood Pregnancy Centers. Oversight Hasn’t Followed.

Crisis pregnancy centers are most often faith-based nonprofits that offer free pregnancy tests and ultrasounds while dissuading women from pursuing abortions and contraceptive options. Nearly $1.3 billion in local, state, and federal government grants went to 1,259 centers from 2019 to 2024. Oversight of how this money is spent is minimal. Documented harms include a patient who was told an ectopic pregnancy could be saved whose tube later ruptured, a suicidal patient who was told God would give her strength, and a couple given an ultrasound image of a bladder instead of a uterus.

Mother Jones, Trump’s DEI Crackdown Hit a Wall in Court. What’s Next?

Mother Jones interviewed Sarah Hinger, the deputy director of the ACLU Racial Justice Program about what to expect now that a federal judge voided the Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” letter, which threatened schools with funding loss if they maintained DEI programs. That letter never defined what the Trump administration considers illegal about DEI. The ACLU sued on behalf of the NEA’s roughly three million educators, arguing the Department of Education violated due process and First Amendment protections. Hinger said the ruling forces the department to define its legal theory going forward, making future directives more vulnerable to challenge.

Common Dreams, ‘Enough Is Enough’: Sanders, Khanna Propose Billionaires Tax to Raise $4.4 Trillion

Sanders and Khanna introduced a 5% annual wealth tax on 938 billionaires collectively worth $8.2 trillion. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at University of California, estimate the wealth tax would raise $4.4 trillion over a decade. The new tax revenue would be used to fund $3,000 direct payments to “every man, woman, and child” in households earning $150,000 or less, reverse $1.1 trillion in Medicaid and ACA cuts estimated to cause more than 50,000 unnecessary deaths, and expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing. No one worth less than $1 billion pays more. The Washington Post reports the proposal is supported by roughly two-thirds of Americans.

On Friday afternoon, Liberty University Law School emailed its first and second-year students about an “exciting opportunity to intern with the Department of Labor in DC.” The available positions covered the full breadth of the DOL’s activities — “litigation, appeals, regulations, policy, etc.” The email, sent by Derek Green, an associate director at the law school, stressed that those accepted into the program “will make incredible connections that will payoff [sic] later.” For second-year students, the internship “could lead to a full-time job offer for after your 2027 graduation.”
One important caveat: only passionate devotees of President Trump would be considered. Students who “aligned politically with President Trump” and were “willing to work hard” were strongly encouraged to apply, even if they had poor grades.

NEWS: Did Epstein And Bannon Create Pizzagate? + Trump Interferes With Midterms

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 22:00:50 GMT

Fascism exists where propaganda is strong and journalism is weak. Fight for healthy information before it’s too late.

Read the articles in full then share this public interest info to your social media or to your friends directly. Better, take a concrete action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to any of these outlets.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Byline Times, Jeffrey Epstein’s 4chan Plan

Epstein appeared to view right-wing populism as an opportunity – and to understand very early how the internet could be used to accelerate it. Rather than simply watching this new ecosystem emerge, however, he seems to have played a part in its formation.
In October 2011, Jeffrey Epstein met with the creator of the anonymous message board 4chan. His conversation with Christopher “moot” Poole took place just days before the fateful relaunch of 4chan’s influential far-right imageboard, /pol/ (shorthand for “Politically Incorrect”). That board in particular, and the site more broadly, would come to serve as a breeding ground for the far-right’s online activism in the years to come.
In an email to Epstein, the late sex-trafficker’s associate and former Bill Gates advisor Boris Nikolic (who introduced Poole and Epstein) cites a Washington Post article from 2010. It describes 4chan as a “hive mind” with a unique power to “understand and control traffic on the internet” and to create “mass disruptions.” “This article describes why I find moot [Poole] interesting,” Nikolic writes. “The potential for manipulation is huge.”
An email exchange from 2019, revealed in the DOJ documents, indicates that an FBI analyst believed a meeting may have taken place between Epstein and two “agent provocateurs”, James Damore and Kevin Cernekee. The author of the email states that the two known right-wing influencers were “believed to have been involved in the promotion of the Pizzagate narrative.”
…At critical junctures in the rise of the online far-right – it’s contagions and its conspiracies – Epstein’s shadow seems to loom in the background. The extent to which the financier and sex-trafficker was a hidden architect may never truly be known. Certainly not without the release of the remaining DOJ files.

Garbage Day, Here’s how Epstein broke the internet

I had a front row seat to the collapse of the global order. And I believed at the time that I understood what was going on. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, far-right extremists, aided and amplified by Russia’s Internet Research Agency and funded by Republican dark money, infiltrated fringe online spaces. They weaponized disaffected young men, and used sites like Reddit and 4chan to organize a flood of content that influenced the unthinking algorithms on larger platforms like Facebook and YouTube. But there were always holes in that explanation that I could never quite account for. A feeling — one that can be quite dangerous for a journalist trying not fall into the void of conspiracy theories — that there was something bigger going on. And while I can’t say that we have the complete story yet, it does increasingly feel like I was actually, without knowing it, following Jeffrey Epstein around the world the whole time.
Based off the newest tranche of emails and texts released by the Justice Department this weekend, Epstein, at the very least, believed that he was orchestrating the downfall of the global order in the 2010s. In June 2016, he emailed venture capitalist, early Facebook investor, and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, writing, “Brexit, just the beginning.” He then laid out the most succinct mission statement we currently have for what Epstein was trying to accomplish. “Return to tribalism,” he wrote. “Counter to globalization. Amazing new alliances. You and I both agreed zero interest rates were too high, and as I said in your office. Finding things on their way to collapse was much easier than finding the next bargain.”
…Based on the documents we have access to, these were twin obsessions for Epstein: Manipulating what we see online and finding digital alternatives to traditional finance. During the last years of his life, these two ideas would dovetail into one project — building a far-right takeover of Europe with Steven Bannon.

The Guardian, ICE to spend $38bn turning warehouses into detention centers, documents show

The Massachusetts governor, Maura Healey, issued a statement opposing the creation of an ICE agency detention center in Merrimack, calling it “outrageous and absolutely the wrong move”.
“ICE is shooting people dead on the street. Mothers have been ripped from cars and separated from children,” the statement said. “US Citizens have been stopped, detained and even killed. Peaceful protesters have been assaulted. Parents are afraid to send kids to school, to go to church, to seek healthcare and report crimes. None of this makes people safer – it makes us all less safe.”
It continued: “We should be opposing ICE’s tactics, not allowing them to expand. We certainly should not be allowing ICE to build new human warehouses when they can’t be trusted to keep people safe and protect due process.”

Wired, ICE Is Expanding Across the US at Breakneck Speed. Here’s Where It’s Going Next

…over the past several months, ICE and DHS have carried out a secret campaign to expand ICE’s physical presence across the US. Documents show that more than 150 leases and office expansions have or would place new facilities in nearly every state, many of them in or just outside of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. In many cases, these facilities, which are to be used by street-level agents and ICE attorneys, are located near elementary schools, medical offices, places of worship, and other sensitive locations.
…In documents viewed by WIRED, ICE has repeatedly outlined its expansion to cities around the US. The September memorandum citing “unusual and compelling urgency” for office expansion states that OPLA will be “expanding its legal operations” into Birmingham, Alabama; Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, and Tampa, Florida; Des Moines, Iowa; Boise, Idaho; Louisville, Kentucky; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Grand Rapids, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Long Island, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville, Tennessee; Richmond, Virginia; Spokane, Washington and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The memorandum also states that the existing offices are at maximum capacity and will “require additional space” to accommodate the new employees hired. At the time, the memo states that OPLA had selected almost 1,000 attorneys to hire.
…Together, the leasing plans give a clear picture of where ICE is going next in the US: Everywhere.

To me, this reporting suggests that this summer we’ll see a massive surge in ICE operations across the country, creating unrest, and setting the stage for Trump to capitalize on the chaos by attempting to interfere with the execution of the midterm elections.

Sign up for Wired’s Tracker newsletter, ”a limited-series weekly newsletter following how federal agents are carrying out Trump’s mass deportation program, what’s changing, and what could come next,” here.

The New Republic, Turns Out There Was Voter Fraud in Georgia—by Elon Musk

In October 2024, the Georgia secretary of state’s office launched an investigation after receiving numerous reports from residents across several counties saying they’d received partially prefilled absentee ballot applications from Musk’s America PAC, according to John Fervier, the State Elections Board’s chairman.
There was evidence to suggest America PAC had violated a state law that prohibits any person or entity, other than an authorized relative, to send an elector an absentee ballot application prefilled with the elector’s required information, according to Janice Johnston, the SEB’s vice chairman.
America PAC had also failed to display in a conspicuous location that this was not an official government publication, was not provided by the government, and was not a ballot, Johnston added.
…It should come as no surprise that the only evidence of meddling with people’s votes came from Trump’s own camp—the same thing happened in the 2020 election too.

Counterspin, ‘The Risk Is Reporting This Like It’s a Normal Political Story’: Interview with Ari Berman on attacks on voting

I’m including a large excerpt from this interview because it is essential for you to be aware of this and to share it with your friends and neighbors.

You can easily stream this interview on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

It’s really crazy. The fact that the FBI just rolled in and took 656 boxes of ballots and election records from the 2020 election was a massive escalation, in terms of President Trump’s attempt to try to take over the election system. They had been talking about getting the ballots for years, but to actually just take them was really shocking.
And then when the affidavit was unsealed, and we saw the quote unquote “evidence” they presented, it was even more shocking. They didn’t have any evidence. It was a bunch of recycled claims from election deniers. It was even crazy that they got a judge to sign off on it, because you need probable cause, meaning that you need evidence of a criminal offense, to be able to get a warrant for this kind of raid. They seemed like they wanted to get the ballots to try to find the evidence. So they were doing it backwards, in the election that took place over five years ago.
So it’s just really, really crazy from the beginning to the end—the fact that they’re still so obsessed with the 2020 election, the fact that President Trump is putting so many resources into trying to relitigate the 2020 election, the fact that he is now involving the FBI, the director of national intelligence, the Department of Justice in this effort, that he’s bringing in debunked election-deniers into the White House.
We now know that this raid was based on an election denier, Kurt Olsen, who was involved with January 6, is now a temporary White House employee, and he was the basis for the FBI raid.
You’re right, though: While it’s been portrayed as about 2020, I think the bigger reason they want the ballots is about 2026 and 2028, so they can say, “OK, we now have definitive proof the election was rigged,” even though it wasn’t, and therefore we have to “nationalize the voting,” as Trump has called for. “We have to take over the voting process.”
And, of course, Fulton County is one of those places where they’re going to try to do that, because we “can’t allow,” in the words of Steve Bannon, another election to be “stolen” again.
…The Minnesota story was the DOJ has been trying to get the voter rolls of Minnesota and other states for quite some time. This is a big project of the Department of Justice. They want the sensitive voter information from all 50 states. They’ve sued 24 states already, mostly blue states but not all blue states, to try to get access to this information.
They want to create this federal database of registered voters, which they could then compare to the Department of Homeland Security’s own databases to try to search for illegal voting. They’re not going to find any, but they could potentially wrongly flag people as noncitizens and say, “Hey, we found the fraud.” And, just like in Georgia, they’ll try to do that so they can take more control over elections.
But what Pam Bondi did is she basically said, “If you want ICE to leave Minnesota, you need to give us your voter rolls.” That was one of the number of conditions that she put out there. And this was shocking, because ICE is supposed to be there, ostensibly, for immigration purposes. Now we know that ICE has gone way beyond what their mandate was supposed to be in Minnesota, but the Department of Justice went even further, to tie the voter rolls to immigration raids, which made it seem like the whole purpose of ICE being there was just as a political front, so that the administration could carry out its political priorities.

To me, Steve Bannon’s close, personal relationship with Epstein, his attempts to destabilize the world with him, and his role as one of the leading pushers of 2020 election lies means the public should regularly be writing to their news outlets and demanding they make Bannon and Peter Thiel the center of their coverage. These guys are the biggest threat to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that we face.

NPR, Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump

The woman who directly named Trump in her abuse allegation claimed that around 1983, when she was around 13 years old, Epstein introduced her to Trump, “who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out.”
Out of more than 3 million pages of files released by the Justice Department in recent months, this specific allegation against Trump appears only in copies of the FBI list of claims and the DOJ slideshow.
But a review of FBI case file logs and discovery documents turned over to Maxwell and her attorneys in the criminal case against her point to one place the claim could have come from — and how serious investigators took it.
The FBI interviewed this Trump and Epstein accuser four times. That is according to an FBI “Serial Report” and a list of Non-Testifying Witness Material in the Maxwell case that were also released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Only the first interview, conducted July 24, 2019, is in the public database. That interview does not mention Trump.
…The other woman whose mention of Trump made the DOJ’s presentation appears in Maxwell discovery files released last month in what’s known as a Testifying Witness 3500 material list.
In the first interview of six with the FBI conducted between September 2019 and September 2021, the second woman detailed how Epstein and Maxwell’s abuse began while she was around 13 years old and attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts and described how, at one point, Epstein took her to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club to meet him.
“EPSTEIN told TRUMP, ‘This is a good one, huh,’” the interview report reads.
In a 2020 lawsuit against Epstein’s estate and Maxwell, the second woman added that both men chuckled and she “felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why.”

News Consumers Want Authenticity, Not Neutrality

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:54:44 GMT

I was in Miami last week for the Knight Media Forum, a conference of journalists, civic leaders, and philanthropists who care about journalism’s role in uplifting communities and sustaining democracy.

Georgia Fort, who was arrested for doing basic journalism, spoke with The Atlantic during the Knight Media Forum. Photo credit…ME!

One of the big topics this year was how Americans are replacing legacy media with news influencers who they view as more authentic. According to research by Pew, trust in national news has dropped 20 points since 2016 and the share of Americans who actively follow the news dropped from 51% to 36% over the same period. 1 in 5 U.S. adults regularly gets their news from influencers and that figure jumps to nearly 40% for Americans under the age of 30. Pew asked these folks why they gravitate towards getting their news this way.

Many cite each of the following as major reasons: Influencers help them better understand current events and civic issues (54%), they are quick in reporting on breaking news (54%), they are authentic (49%), and they offer different information from other sources (46%).

So, half of the tens of millions who get their news this way appreciate the contextualizing, authentic takes news influencers provide.

Journalism Acts In The Public Interest

I want to more broadly discuss this phenomenon by highlighting one of the speakers at the Knight Forum, Orlando Bailey, the executive director of Detroit’s Outlier Media. Though certainly not an online news influencer, Outlier represents exactly the type of newsroom behavior that we all want—journalism that is authentically connected to the community it serves.

Orlando told the Knight audience about an effort Outlier took to help its community. In 2024, a local data analyst wrote a blog post revealing that 2,400 former Detroit homeowners might be able to recover $20 million in tax foreclosure profits. The analyst worried the people who needed that information, the homeowners who were owed money, would never see it because the county government had no obligation to tell them. So he reached out to his local journalism outlet, Outlier Media, thinking maybe they could write an article about it. But Outlier did a lot more.

This article by Outlier was just one of the tools they used to get their neighbors money they were owed.

From a Nieman Lab piece on the effort:

Some in the newsroom began thinking about how they could contact these former homeowners at scale and get them the necessary information to file claims before the deadline. That kicked off a months-long community outreach initiative that complemented Outlier’s service journalism about how to file a claim.

Outlier’s team built a spreadsheet of all the people possibly owed money, trained over 200 phone bankers, and made more than 4,000 calls before the claim deadline expired. They ultimately reached 481 people who were collectively owed nearly $6 million dollars.

Journalism IS Activism

The old guard in journalism, the folks running the corporate newsrooms that Gen Z is abandoning, sees the work Outlier did to help its community and calls it activism, not journalism. Because the old guard values neutrality in its news product, not community outreach or involvement in the story.

But Outlier had information people needed and they made sure those people got it. That’s not activism. That’s what journalists call the Citizens’ Agenda—reporting that starts by asking what the community needs. There is nothing more disarmingly authentic than a reporter calling you up and saying, “Hey, there’s no catch here. You are owed money and I want to help you get it,” and then following through.

CEOs at corporate media outlets believe that a neutral presentation of the facts is respectable, that it is better to convey no viewpoint at all about the issues being covered. A view from nowhere, as journalism professor Jay Rosen calls it, is preferred to a view from somewhere.

But this type of thinking is precisely what’s causing corporate newsrooms to lose audience. As MAGA media tells its consumers what they want to hear (or what they want them to hear) regardless of factual accuracy, fact-based, mainstream journalism provides its audiences with a neutered rendering of reality, one treats an asymmetrical phenomenon—the Republican party’s lurch towards fascism—as a symmetrical, bothsides battle between two democratically-behaving political parties. It turns out normalizing fascism is bad for business.

Neutrality is the opposite of authenticity, it walls reporters off from speaking plainly about the very facts that they worked hard to gather. Journalists working under the outdated neutrality paradigm literally stop short of providing context. News influencers are stepping into the vacuum created by this mainstream timidity and are using the reporting of legacy media to draw helpful, fact-based, authentic conclusions that the old guard avoids.

At the local level, we want more Outlier Medias authentically working on behalf of our communities. And on the national level we want more New Republics, Mother Joneses, and Jacobins that proclaim their pro-democracy biases and political viewpoints while using factual, trustworthy reporting to back them up. News consumers see the folly in giving their precious attention to corporate newsrooms that pretend to have zero bias or agenda, that appear more concerned with chasing clicks and protecting the elite.

If you want to find public interest local journalism like Outlier in your own city, check out the Media and Democracy Project’s local journalism directory, linked in my bio. It exists to connect you with the outlets doing this kind of work where you live. And be sure to vote for this type of journalism with your dollars. Donate and subscribe. Non-profit newsrooms can’t exist without you.

And for national news with a bias towards providing fact-based context, get yourself a Bluesky account and head to my profile. I’ve created a list, The News, that features over 50 public interest newsrooms you can trust.

Here’s to healthier information.

And here’s a video version of this post that you can share on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok.

@public_enlightenment Gen Z is ditching legacy media for news influencers because legacy media values neutrality over authenticity. Detroit's Outlier Media shows what journalism actually serving its community looks like — they made 4,000 calls to help 481 former homeowners recover nearly $6 million the county owed them. Find public interest journalism in your city at the Media and Democracy Project's local journalism directory. Donate and subscribe. These newsrooms can't exist without you. @Outlier Media @knightfdn @Media and Democracy Project

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

NEWS YOU MISSED: Critical of ICE? Big Tech Is Giving User Data To DHS + ICE's Masks Are A Lie

Brian Hansbury — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:03:11 GMT

Hi, and sorry that it’s been a while! I officiated my bro-in-law’s wedding and then attended the Knight Media Forum in Miami. It was great to escape the cold to attend gatherings focused on the people I care about—family and, well, every human whose life is impacted every day by our toxic information ecosystem.

Pretty good spot for marryin’!

So, for this installment I’m getting straight to the good stuff—the essential journalism you may have missed in the last two weeks.

Share this public interest info to your social media or to your friends directly. Then take a concrete action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system. Subscribe or donate to any of these outlets. Information becomes our outcomes. Fascism exists where propaganda is strong and journalism is weak. Fight for healthy information before it’s too late.

Here’s what you may have missed:

The New Republic, Unions Can Win in the South

Let’s kick this one off with a win for the working people.

Workers in Tennessee have made history. On Thursday, the United Auto Workers announced that it had finally reached a tentative agreement with management at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which unionized in 2024. If the workers approve the deal, it’ll be the first union contract outside the Big Three auto manufacturers in a Southern state.
Auto companies, especially foreign manufacturers, have been moving operations to Southern states for decades, far away from union strongholds in the Rust Belt, where wages were higher and labor laws were stronger. Unions have been struggling to find a foothold in the South for decades. But if the 3,200 shop workers in Chattanooga vote to ratify the contract, it will help unions gain a stronger foothold there.

Doomsday Scenario, ICE’s Masks Are All a Lie

…In absurd media interviews, like this one on CNBC yesterday, Republican officials are making it seem like working immigration in the US is as dangerous as being an honest narcotics investigator in the heart of cartel-land in Mexico or Latin America.
Do not be fooled.
Every piece of data we have actually shows that to be false.
A CATO Institute study last month found that 2025 — in theory a wildly dangerous year, according to Kristi Noem and other administration officials, when threats and assault against agents and officers leapt by insane astronomical figures, like 413 percent, 1150 percent, or even 8000 percent!!!! — was actually the second-safest year ever for ICE officers and Border Patrol agents.

The mask thing is a complete lie told to us by liars who are trying to give their agents the confidence to habitually violate the Constitution. Add Doomsday Scenario to your media diet and follow Graff on Bluesky.

EVEN MORE: Phil Bump, ICE’s excuse for wearing masks has never actually manifested

Reuters, Courts have ruled 4,400 times that ICE jailed people illegally. It hasn’t stopped.

Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.
The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.

Reuters shows us how important it is for a democratic society to have newsrooms with the resources to put together large, exclusive studies that aid the public’s understanding of the depth and breadth of constitutional violations.

Brennan Center, Pro-Trump Super PAC Raises Record-Breaking $305 Million

The MAGA movement isn’t funded by the little guy. It’s funded by an anti-democracy elite who lie to America to garner support for an agenda that decimates the working class and makes the rich even richer. Now, they’re raising money for a candidate who is legally barred from running again.

MAGA Inc., the main super PAC supporting President Trump, has raised $305 million since the 2024 election. The sum is completely unprecedented: It’s five times more than the prior record for a president’s super PAC support in the year after being elected and comes almost entirely from donations of $1 million or more.
In the four presidential election cycles since the super PAC era began in 2010, Joe Biden is the only other president to see significant super PAC fundraising after his election. Groups boosting him raised $57 million. But the entire political world assumed at the time that Biden would run for reelection. Trump is legally barred from running again.

Cato Institute, Immigrants Reduced Deficits by $14.5 Trillion Since 1994

Every year since 1994, when data collection began, immigrants have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits from the federal, state, and local governments. The fiscal benefits have continued to rise, reaching their highest level ever in 2023.

Remember when Kristi Noem said some guys attacked an ICE officer with a shovel which forced the officer to shoot at the guys in self-defense and then Fox told America the officer was fighting for his life?

It was all a lie. Our government and its sympathetic media are lying to us every day.

Add Josh Gerstein to your media diet on Bluesky. Josh reports for POLITICO, a newsroom that has habitually normalized Trump, but his reporting is fact-based and excellent and if you follow him you learned about DOJ’s move to drop its charges before everyone else.

Mother Jones, ACLU’s Lawsuit Over ICE Raid at an Idaho Racetrack Could Be a Game Changer

In October, ICE raided an Idaho racetrack.

…about 200 officers from a range of federal, state, and local agencies descended on the racetrack in full tactical gear, most carrying automatic rifles. They pointed their guns and screamed at terrified families…
The officers rounded up the entire crowd, some 400 people, zip-tying most adults and many teenagers and forcing just about everyone onto the track, where, according to the suit, they sorted people by perceived immigration status, typically based on skin color…
Witnesses cited in the legal filing accuse the officers of myriad abuses—shooting rubber bullets at teens, throwing flash-bang grenades into vehicles with people inside, pushing children and old people, and preventing people from using the bathroom until some children had to relieve themselves in public. But, as experts I’ve interviewed have noted, it is difficult to hold federal officers accountable for misconduct…
In this case, the ACLU’s attorneys argue that federal officers worked closely with the county sheriff and city police officers to terrorize families at the racetrack raid, and were therefore part of a conspiracy.
The conspiracy argument has succeeded before—most prominently, after federal officers conspired with state officers to murder Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1969. It also was used to sue over an immigration raid in Tennessee during Trump’s first term. But ACLU attorney Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, who is working on the Idaho case, told me she hasn’t seen it tried during Trump’s second term, and that the outcome of the case could have implications far beyond this small Idaho town: All across the country, the Trump administration is collaborating closely with state and local police to carry out its mass-deportation agenda.

Minnesota Star-Tribune, ‘No humanity’: Detainees describe conditions inside Whipple Federal Building

After the young Muslim woman spent nearly 24 hours locked in the bathroom with the three men, agents moved her to a different locked bathroom in the building’s basement, she said.
When she had her period, agents told her to use toilet paper. When she felt dizzy and vomited twice, agents did not grant her request for medical care. When they gave her a sandwich, she didn’t eat it, fearing it contained pork…
On the fifth day, agents drove her and two other recently released detainees to a light-rail station near Whipple. They took off her handcuffs and told her to call an Uber, even though she didn’t have a phone…
…As they released her into the cold, she recalls their simple words: “You are good to go.”

This young lady’s tale is one of the less horrific of those relayed in this excellent piece of reporting by the Star-Tribune. Sharing stories like this makes it harder for other Americans to deny what is happening.

The Appeal, Unsatisfied With Record Profits, Private Prison Investors Want ICE to Escalate

@elizabethweill has more: theappeal.org/ice-geo-group-…","username":"theappeal","name":"The Appeal","profile_image_url":"https://pbs.substack.com/profile_images/1711756730701373440/Gx3mg35Z_normal.jpg","date":"2026-02-12T20:52:54.000Z","photos":[],"quoted_tweet":{},"reply_count":61,"retweet_count":720,"like_count":1339,"impression_count":614541,"expanded_url":null,"video_url":null,"belowTheFold":true}" data-component-name="Twitter2ToDOM">

ICE’s actions are making private prison companies like CoreCivic a ton of money.

Add The Appeal to your media diet.

Law Dork, Two judges on the Fifth Circuit gave Trump exactly what he wants to enact mass detentions

In short, the Fifth Circuit reversed judicial precedent and is now allowing the federal government to hold people inside the United States in mandatory immigration detention without any bond hearing while they fight deportation, a shift that could enable large-scale, prolonged confinement and aligns with DHS’s move toward much bigger detention facilities.

Chris Geidner is a trusted legal expert. Add Law Dork to your media diet and follow Chris on Bluesky. He is also in my Bluesky list, Legal Experts, that you can pin to your feed and consult any time you are looking for context on a big court ruling. I can’t control how often they post pictures of their dogs.

The Guardian, NSA detected foreign intelligence phone call about a person close to Trump

Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) flagged an unusual phone call between two members of foreign intelligence, who discussed a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney who was briefed on details of the call.
The highly sensitive communique…was brought to the attention of the director of national intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard.
But rather than allowing NSA officials to distribute the information further, Gabbard took a paper copy of the intelligence directly to the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to the whistleblower’s attorney, Andrew Bakaj.
One day after meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA not to publish the intelligence report. Instead, she instructed NSA officials to transmit the highly classified details directly to her office, Bakaj said.

This is a major scandal involving the director of our intelligence services, a known liar.

UPDATE: The person being discussed was Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Time will tell if all the details of this scandal reach the full light of day.

The Guardian, The arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort are a danger to all Americans

The justice department’s latest actions are plainly aimed at chilling vital reporting about pressing issues of public concern, in clear violation of basic first amendment principles that the supreme court has repeatedly articulated. The court just recently reiterated the importance of ensuring speech has the “breathing room” it needs to survive, recognizing that the fear of “becoming entangled in the legal system” can deter individuals from exercising their first amendment rights. These indictments fly in the face of that ideal.
As the court declared nearly 60 years ago, freedom of the press is “not for the benefit of the press so much as for the benefit of all of us”. The arrest of these two journalists, who were just doing their jobs, is a danger to us all.

At the Knight Media Forum I found a moment to introduce myself to Georgia Fort and tell her that freedom loving Americans are standing behind her. Can you imagine become a person who will be in history books overnight? Just for doing your job?

The New York Times, How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive

Amid calls to increase transparency and revelations about the court’s inner workings, the chief justice imposed nondisclosure agreements on clerks and employees.
The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.
Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information. Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract…
…people familiar with [the new agreements] said they appeared to be more forceful and understood them to threaten legal action if an employee revealed confidential information. Clerks and members of the court’s support staff signed them in 2024, and new arrivals have continued to do so, the people said.
…In September 2024, The Times published an article describing how the chief justice pushed to grant President Trump broad immunity from prosecution. The article quoted from confidential memos by the chief justice and other members of the court who applauded his reasoning. Weeks later, the chief justice abruptly introduced the nondisclosure agreements, after the term had begun.
The secrecy allows the justices to dismiss criticism on the grounds that outsiders don’t know or understand what’s happening behind the scenes, said Nikolas Bowie, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
…He said it also allows the court to conceal weaknesses in its processes, including the justices’ reliance on clerks for legal reasoning and writing.
“If the public were aware of how much of the deliberations affecting millions of people are made by 27-year-olds after happy hour, they’d be shocked,” he said.

This article by Jody Kantor of the New York Times highlights the bizarre dynamic of an American public fed up with legacy media that still relies on reporters within legacy media to be aware of how our government functions. Kantor’s reporting provides exactly the type of transparency into Supreme Court behavior that Chief Justice Roberts seeks to block. The public needs reporters like Kantor while also needing the newsroom she works for to more forcefully hold the Trump administration to account, rather than cover for it with stenography, euphemism, bothsidesism and other forms journalism failures that normalize Trump’s fascism.

Reuters, Despite new curbs, Elon Musk’s Grok at times produces sexualized images - even when told subjects didn’t consent

Elon Musk’s flagship artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, continues to generate sexualized images of people even when users explicitly warn that the subjects do not consent, Reuters has found.
After Musk’s social media company X announced new curbs on Grok’s public output, nine Reuters reporters gave it a series of prompts to determine whether and under what circumstances the chatbot would generate nonconsensual sexualized images.

In a Bluesky post, the reporter on this story wrote, “Together with colleagues I’ve been testing Grok. The chatbot still produces sexualized images — even when told the subjects don’t consent, even when told the photos will be used for public humiliation, even when told the subjects are survivors of abuse.”

READ MORE: Associated Press, X offices raided in France as prosecutors investigate child abuse images and deepfakes

TechCrunch, Homeland Security is trying to force tech companies to hand over data about Trump critics

The Department of Homeland Security has been quietly demanding tech companies turn over user information about critics of the Trump administration, according to reports.
…A new report by The Washington Post on Tuesday found that an administrative subpoena was also used to seek information from Google about an American retiree within hours of him after sending a critical email to Homeland Security’s lead attorney Joseph Dernbach. The retiree’s home was later visited by federal agents inquiring about the email.
The Post described the retiree as someone critical of Trump during his first term, who attended a No Kings rally last year, regularly attends gatherings and protests, and wrote criticisms to lawmakers, all actions protected under the First Amendment.
Within five hours of emailing the Homeland Security lawyer — who was named in an article about the case of an Afghan the U.S. was trying to deport and whose email address is listed on the Florida Bar’s website — the retiree received an email from Google, according to The Washington Post. The email notified him that his account had been subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Zack Whittaker wrote this great public interest journalism piece aggregating alarming reports about DHS attacks on the First Amendment, but the company that pays him is undermining journalism. TechCrunch is owned by Regent, a private equity firm with a history of buying up media ventures and laying off staff. It’s a weird time to be a pro-democracy news consumer. Follow Zack on Bluesky and don’t donate to TechCrunch. Instead, donate to one of the other independent and non-profit newsrooms in this round-up.

ProPublica, New Bills Seek to Rein In Oil Companies’ Pollution of Oklahoma Groundwater

Cancer-causing toxic waste is regularly exploding out of the ground in Oklahoma and getting into the drinking water. Why am I telling you about it if you don’t live in Oklahoma? Because this piece is a catch-all for everything I am trying to help people understand.

Journalism is our immune system. It protects the public from harms by informing them of dangers. We can only protest deadly pollution and vote for politicians who will do something about it if we are aware of it in the first place.

Unfortunately, too many Americans under-inform themselves with media diets that do not cover this sort of story at all. Are your sources covering how Trump’s EPA chief, Lee Zeldin, has already rolled back environmental regulations, putting more mercury in our air and drinking water?

READ MORE: The Guardian, Trump’s EPA announces major rollbacks to power plant pollution limits

Share other great journalism you saw this week in the comments so I can put it in the next one. Be sure to check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

NEWS YOU MISSED: ICE Tells Agents to Break Into Homes Without a Warrant + How Trump Changed ICE Into Fascist Secret Police

Brian Hansbury — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:15:39 GMT

Good afternoon, everyone.

In the “our work is never done” department, my first video to go viral on Facebook did so on the wings of trolling MAGA Americans, laughing at my pushback on the mass delusion that non-MAGA Americans are paid to protest.

VIEW MY PROTEST VIDEO HERE

A screenshot of the interactions on the above video. By far the most popular choice is the laughter emoji that MAGA fans have selected.

A sample of the comments pouring in.

Donald Trump and his surrogates lie to us every day in a strategic effort to pollute information flow, and thereby generate toxic beliefs like those above. A diseased public is a weak public without the strength to object. A diseased public that views organic mass protest as totally faked will never engage in dissent. Rather, they will excuse atrocities!

Top-down MAGA disinformation campaigns ensure that a portion of the population will come down with this type of cognitive cancer.

The same process that has led to so much division and pain can be reversed. They flood the zone with shit. You flood the zone with facts. Spread fact-based pro-democracy information every time you see it. Don’t let up.

Share this great journalism to your social media or to your friends directly. Then take a concrete action to uplift and defend our democracy’s immune system by subscribing or donating to any of these outlets. Information, as we see clearly above, becomes our outcomes. Fight for healthy information before it’s too late.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Minnesota Star-Tribune, Yuen: My parents thought we had made it. Now we carry papers.

In recent weeks my 80-year-old Asian American parents have started to carry their passports each time they leave their suburban townhouse. Neighbors on their Ring doorbell app will alert users when ICE agents are spotted on nearby roads. My mom has canceled appointments after receiving such warnings. A practical woman, she says she’s in a game of “cat and mouse” with federal agents, and she’ll be damned if she gives them the upper hand.
This is something the headlines often miss when describing what it’s like to be living with ICE in Minnesota…
…A quiet, pervasive fear that has taken root in the Twin Cities, forcing some people of color who are not even immigrants to change our behaviors. We take extra precautions. We carry the passport. And we question our belonging.
Federal agents have been recorded on video, acknowledging that they’re homing in on individuals who speak with foreign accents. In one encounter, a man named Ramon Menera had just returned home to Columbia Heights with his daughter after getting ice cream when he was approached by a Border Patrol agent.
“Now, talking to you, hearing that you have an accent, I have reason to believe you are not born of this country,” the agent says in the video.

Journalism in the public interest means columns offering the perspectives of U.S. citizens who travel their once free country in a constant state of fear of being accosted by violent federal agents.

Racket, Voices of the MN Occupation

Local Minnesota outlet, Racket, gathered together an oral history of the ICE occupation of Minnesota by reaching out to readers for submissions.

Chad Davis/Racket

What follows is a real-time oral history of the invasion that began in December, as seen through the eyes of the people who lived it. Submissions have been edited lightly for clarity and length, but what you’re reading is the direct testimony of everyday people living through a horrible and historic moment.
The entries are anonymous because a vindictive federal government is targeting anyone who helps their neighbors…
…I have seen ICE pepper spray peaceful civilians at close range, sometimes directly into their eyes. I have seen them toss tear gas at crowds. I have been gassed three times. They throw flash grenades for seemingly no reason whatsoever. This behavior almost always takes place as they are leaving a scene, a kind of farewell “fuck you” to the residents of the city they are terrorizing. They seem to enjoy hurting people.
What I have also seen is people of Minnesota helping each other, forming all manner of resistance and care. There is care in the moment, improvised on our feet. There is organized care, burrowing through the fear and danger, delivering aid to whoever we can. This is what defines us. Every day more people are out there doing what we can. We do it while armed thugs brandish their weapons on our streets, abduct and abuse innocent people, mock us, gas us, and create an atmosphere of terror. We do it while the government incessantly publishes brazen lies about what is taking place here. We do it because it is who we are. We will always do it.
That’s why we will win.—Anonymous

It’s well worth taking the time to read all of the entries. Especially share this with a MAGA friend or loved one who would never be exposed to these perspectives.

Doomsday Scenario, “ICE 101” — How Trump changed ICE and CBP into a fascist secret police

The brutality of the occupation in and around Minneapolis — scenes from the Global War on Terror transplanted from Kabul or Baghdad to Minnesota — has a lot of people asking basic questions about ICE and CBP, so I thought I’d devote today’s column to trying to explain what ICE and CBP are and what they aren’t, what powers they have, and what’s changed in America to bring this war to our streets.

This epic, 29-minute read brings you through the entire evolution of these agencies. It’s a valuable resource to share with anyone trying to understand how they have eroded our freedom. Garrett Graff is one of the best journalists we’ve got.

The New Yorker, Do Federal Officials Really Have “Absolute Immunity”?

The New Yorker spoke with Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck to discuss “why the law on these questions is so unsettled, how the Trump Administration could try to sabotage potential state actions, and how the Supreme Court might view future cases that feature a clash between executive power and states’ rights. Here’s just one question and answer from the interview:

I would also imagine that a reason any case needs to be done in state court as opposed to federal is that the President cannot pardon people in a state prosecution, right?
It’s sadly accurate. And even though a state prosecution of a federal officer would almost certainly end up in federal court, it is still a state prosecution, and so it would still be exempt from the President’s pardoning power. It shouldn’t be the case that we’re worried about reflexive pardons from the President, but that’s yet another reason why a state criminal prosecution might seem attractive to so many people at this particular moment.

Head straight to Steve Vladeck’s Bluesky profile and add him to your media diet. Better yet, pin my Bluesky list—Legal Experts—to your Bluesky feed so you never miss expert commentary on what’s happening with SCOTUS and the Constitution.

The New Republic, ICE Tells Agents to Break Into Homes Without a Warrant: Whistleblower

ICE reportedly gave itself permission to violate the Fourth Amendment in order to accelerate President Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation campaign, according to a new whistleblower disclosure.
In a secret memo distributed in May 2025, ICE Director Todd Lyons gave ICE agents permission to forcibly enter homes without obtaining a judicial warrant. The memo told officers they could rely on a Warrant of Removal—an administrative warrant rather than a judicial one—to enter the residence of any target using “a necessary and reasonable amount of force.”
…Rather than being distributed to all DHS employees, the memo was distributed to certain DHS officials who were instructed to verbally pass down permission to start breaking down doors, according to the whistleblower disclosure. Those who reviewed the memo were not permitted to take notes—which seems like a pretty damning sign of its dubious legal basis.

This whistleblower leak was originally brough to the Associated Press but I feel this TNR piece provides a clearer summation. The leak stands as another reminder that we absolutely rely on legacy journalism institutions for the robust safeguards they can provide to vulnerable whistleblowers.

404 Media, ‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid

Palantir is working on a tool for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s current address, 404 Media has learned. ICE is using it to find locations where lots of people it might detain could be based.
The findings, based on internal ICE material obtained by 404 Media, public procurement records, and recent sworn testimony from an ICE official, show the clearest link yet between the technological infrastructure Palantir is building for ICE and the agency’s activities on the ground. The tool receives peoples’ addresses from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) among a range of other sources, according to the material.

The public deserves to understand the ways government contractors, via our taxpayer dollars, are creating systems of mass surveillance. This piece is behind a paywall, but 404 Media is 100% worth subscribing to!

Popular Information, ICE has stopped paying for detainee medical treatment

ICE’s failure to pay its bills for months has caused some medical providers to deny services to ICE detainees, an administration source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, told Popular Information. In other cases, detainees have allegedly been denied essential medical care by ICE.
ICE was unable to respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
In lawsuits, numerous ICE detainees with severe illnesses allege that they cannot obtain treatment. For example, Viera Reyes, a detainee being held at ICE’s California City Detention Facility, has symptoms and test results that suggest he has prostate cancer.
But despite often being in excruciating pain, Reyes cannot obtain a biopsy. All of his requests to see a urologist have been ignored. Without a biopsy, Reyes has no formal diagnosis and cannot begin chemotherapy or take other steps to slow the cancer’s progression. Reyes was one of seven ICE detainees to sue over inhumane conditions at the California City facility.
How did this health crisis inside ICE detention facilities begin?

The rest of this article does a great job of explaining how we arrived at this level of neglect in our system.

Washington Post, Trump Cabinet secretaries conspired to violate Constitution, judge says

A federal judge Thursday decried what he said were “breathtaking” constitutional violations by senior Trump administration officials and called the president an “authoritarian” who expects everyone in the executive branch to “toe the line absolutely.”
In remarks laced with outrage and disbelief, U.S. District Judge William Young said Donald Trump and top officials have a “fearful approach” to freedom of speech that would seek to “exclude from participation everyone who doesn’t agree with them.”
Young, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, leveled the searing critique during a hearing in Boston to determine the appropriate remedies for the administration’s detentions of pro-Palestinian students last year. The judge had ruled in September that senior administration officials engaged in an illegal effort to arrest and deport noncitizen students based on their activism.
On Thursday, he again denounced the administration’s conduct in unusually stark terms. “Talking straight here,” he said. “The big problem in this case is that the Cabinet secretaries and, ostensibly, the president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment.”

As I say, it’s a weird time to be a news consumer. This article is paywalled and the owner interferes with the newsroom’s independence, but the Post still has great journalists reporting in the public interest. This story can be found elsewhere but the Post had the best headline and best opening of any article I came across.

Mother Jones, DOJ’s “Ransom” Letter to Minnesota Reveals How Trump Plans to Rig the Midterms

On Saturday, the same day that a federal immigration officer killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, US Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a pointed letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stating that if he wanted to “bring an end to the chaos in Minnesota,” he should comply with some “common sense solutions.”
Those “solutions,” according to Bondi, included Minnesota providing the Department of Justice with access to the state’s complete, unredacted voter roll, which includes sensitive personal information like voters’ Social Security numbers, drivers license data, and party affiliations. Bondi claimed that the DOJ needed the state’s full voter roll in order to “confirm Minnesota’s voter registration practices comply with federal law.”
But state election officials and election security experts say Bondi’s letter is an outrageous attempt by the Trump administration to coerce Minnesota into providing confidential voter data that could be weaponized by the president and his allies to amplify false claims of voter fraud, wrongly remove eligible voters from the rolls, and challenge election outcomes.

Current Affairs, Why the Right Manufactured a Somali Crime Panic

The truth is that Somali Muslims in Minnesota are a law-abiding community with the same or lower crime rates than other Americans, as shown below. Their rates of self-sufficiency are high, and measures of assimilation are also high relative to the historic record. So why the bigotry? The lies serve to distract attention from bigger fraudsters and divide working people from confronting those with real power over their lives.

This article examines the Manhattan Institute origins of much of the bigoted targeting of Somali Americans by the right. Read if you want to understand the strategies used by well-paid operatives to mislead our fellow Americans.

The 19th, Here’s what’s really happening with child care fraud in Minnesota

…while child care fraud is something Minnesota has been working to reduce in recent years, “these are not new issues, but they are being repackaged and they are being promoted in ways to make it seem like there is an epidemic,” said Elliot Haspel, a national child care expert, on a call with reporters this week.

Nick Shirley’s propaganda video about Somali day care facilities has now become gospel to our MAGA friends and loved ones. This fact-check from The 19th is an essential tool for public understanding that, when combined with the Current Affairs piece above, may help you start a productive conversation about reality with a friend, neighbor, or colleague.

Status, Legacy Media’s Risky Bet

…prediction markets are not measures of broad sentiment or proxies for voter intention. At best, they reflect the behavior of a narrow group of people motivated enough to wager money. At their worst, they are ripe for manipulation by political operatives or foreign actors with both the means and the incentive to move gambling lines in their favor.
Notably, most news organizations did not include prediction market odds in their coverage prior to striking what are likely lucrative deals with companies like Kalshi and Polymarket. That suggests they did not actually find the data to be very informative for viewers prior to inking fruitful agreements…
…And there’s other reason for concern. U.S. intelligence agencies have long warned about foreign efforts to influence American public opinion. Imagine a scenario in which a well-funded actor quietly funnels millions in crypto into a prediction market to spike the odds of Trump’s attempted Greenland takeover—only to have a major cable network report that movement as a meaningful signal. The effect could create a feedback loop: money moves the market, the market is credibly reported by news outlets, and the news moves public perception—and potentially reality itself.

Opinion polls are already undermined by a public swimming in a sea of toxic disinformation. The public hears propaganda and regurgitates it back in response to polling questions, the results of which are reported widely, further swaying public sentiment. And our politics already suffer from limitless infusions of cash by the wealthy and powerful. Now, disinformation may be manufactured via anonymous bets that literally alter outcomes. Cool!

Democracy Americana, The People Struggle Against Tyranny

On November 26, a 29-year-old Afghan national attacked two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington, DC, killing one and severely wounding the other. The Trump government wasted no time using the attack as justification to escalate its crusade against immigrants and anyone who doesn’t belong in MAGA’s conception of “real America.” The president immediately started raging against Somali immigrants in Minnesota, who had nothing to do with the DC shooting, of course, but had been the target of racist agitation led by rightwing activists and think tanks who had been focused on welfare fraud among some Somalis in Minnesota.
In several grotesquely racist rants, the president called them human “garbage” who “come from hell and do nothing but bitch. We don’t want them.” Trump always made sure to include Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar in his attacks: “We’re gonna go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” Spokespeople of the regime quickly added a bunch of lies and insinuated there may have been some connection to the attack on National Guard troops in DC, even going so far as to claim the Somali community formed a “nexus of terrorism.” The legal status of the targeted immigrant population did not matter at all to the regime. When asked on television why ICE was going after Somali immigrants when the vast majority of them are U.S. citizens or legal residents, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan casually asserted that “there’s a large illegal Somali community there.”
The raids on Minneapolis started in early December.

Historian Thomas Zimmer provides a solid breakdown on how the Minnesota occupation came to be in the first place and what can be expected moving forward.

Liberal Currents, Nonpolitical Media Has Been Flooded With Outrage at Alex Pretti’s Murder

…More people are paying attention, undermining Trump regime lies, and shifting public stances. On its own that won’t reverse America’s democratic backsliding, but it’s a significant step, and shows how the Trump regime is faltering.
Reddit was swamped with information about Minnesota, as anti-ICE posts dominated the main feed, and appeared in discussions of just about any topic. Knitting, biking, comic books, pop music, you name it. Football subreddits were talking about it on Saturday, even though the NFL had playoff games on Sunday. Climbing subreddits saw it, even though climber Alex Honnold—subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo—had just scaled a skyscraper in Taiwan without a harness. One subreddit about people patting their cat’s butt like bongos got attention after the moderator announced “if you still support Trump/ICE even slightly, you’re not welcome in this sub.”
Many of them, including the cat bongo person, opened by saying they know the forum topic is not politics, and sorry for bringing politics into it, but ICE’s actions are too appalling not to.

Chronicling the shifts in public opinion on ICE, especially in spaces folks go to escape from politics, is essential to understanding a path out of this fascist nightmare. As the article mentions, it’s a big deal when you lose the driving range content creator.

Minnesota Star-Tribune, Perry: Abolish ICE? How about DHS altogether.

A few days after Congress passed the Homeland Security Act in 2002, I met my buddy Kurt to play racquetball at the old rec center at the University of Minnesota. We were yelling about politics as we took out our frustration on the court, and one of us said, “Homeland Security! That’s what’s they’d call it in a dystopian movie!”
We imagined masked thugs parading the streets, kidnapping anyone they wanted to, going door-to-door looking for political enemies, establishing checkpoints where we’d have to show our papers, and otherwise undermining the core freedoms established in the Constitution. November 2002 wasn’t that long ago. “Lose Yourself” by Eminem was the No. 1 song. The latest James Bond flick had just passed the second Harry Potter movie in the rankings.
None of this is ancient history, inevitable or unchangeable…
The answer, for me, is not to focus on ICE at all, but to understand the whole. DHS was created in a very specific moment in history not that long ago, so we have models for how to structure federal immigration oversight that don’t rely on an unaccountable masked secret police force running rampant in our streets.

Perspectives from historians like this column by David M. Perry of the University of Minnesota are essential to a healthy media diet.

The Guardian, US dollar sinks to its lowest level in four years

That’s it. You should be aware of how Trump’s policies are tanking the dollar.

More Perfect Union, At its core, ICE is a money-making scheme

More Perfect is a non-traditional newsroom that features most of its work on its social media accounts, often via 'carousels (a series of images/video) like the one below. Let them show you how ICE is mostly, horrificaly so, about profit. Then share the video to your stories so more people can see.

Share other great journalism you saw this week so I can put it in the next one. Be sure to check out my Bluesky lists for an easy way to find pro-democracy journalism and commentary in just minutes each day.

5 More Fact-Based Creators To Fight Fascism

Brian Hansbury — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:39:48 GMT

I usually give a pre-amble, but by now you know the drill. We fight fascism by understanding that information becomes our outcomes and our information ecosystem is strategically polluted by those with power who spread lies and fund disinformation. With this knowledge we take the fight to the disinformers, flooding the zone with facts to tilt the discourse back towards support for democracy.

1 out of every 5 Americans get their news on social media apps so boosting the creators below helps interrupt the billionaire strategy to flood the apps with distracting horse puckey.

Was that a preamble?

No time to waste. Videos of horrific ICE aggression are shifting the tide. Time to spread more facts.

Follow these 5 fact-based creators and regularly share their work if you want to increase public understanding and fight fascism. I’m giving hyperlinks to Instagram and TikTok, but if you use a different platform you can often find these creators elsewhere, including longer form work on Substack.

FUBAR PAC is a real political action committee created by Air Force veteran, Jack Inacker. He explains the news with fact-based re-enactments and he always cites his sources.

Follow on TikTok or Instagram.

Charles McBryde is a strategist who describes himself as a humanitarian advocate highlighting important causes. His video defining fascism is one of the best I’ve seen.

Follow on TikTok or Instagram.

Dysregulation Nation translates neuroscience to help make sense of this political moment. Her video on the illusory truth effect explains MAGA’s propaganda strategy.

Follow on TikTok or Instagram.

Dr. Jessica Knurick has a PhD in nutrition science and mostly focuses her content on debunking the disinformation spread by our lying public health officials, but this video on MAGA propaganda is the bomb-dot-com.

Follow on TikTok or Instagram.

HappyMomAndGrandma1 is the account of a licensed family therapist who has signed up for Trump emails and helps you see just how predatory Trump’s communication strategy is towards his base.

Follow on TikTok or Instagram.

You don’t have to agree with everything these creators say, but exposing yourself to a diversity of fact-based viewpoints is the foundation of a healthy media diet.

So care about your media diet and don’t keep it to yourself. Disinformation pumped into the brains of our MAGA loved ones on apps just like this one got us into this mess and you pumping pro-democracy facts into these apps is what’s gonna get us out of it.

Be sure to comment below with other great creators you follow.

Leave a comment

And share this post so more people see healthy information.

News You Missed This Week: Musk's xAI Allows Users To Make Child Porn PLUS Trump's Public Approval Is Tanking

Brian Hansbury — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:30:27 GMT

Good afternoon, everyone.

Information, in the form of propaganda and lies, has turned our fellow Americans—the ‘don’t tread on me’ contingent no less—into fascism lovers, unthinkingly boarding the bandwagon of ‘comply or die’ rhetoric in the wake of Renee Good’s murder.

Meanwhile, the rest of us seem unable to connect the dots that if bad information can create fascists, good information—in the form of facts, journalism, and viral videos of ICE aggression—can reverse the indoctrination of our MAGA friends and loved ones.

Support for American fascism is the product of millions of metaphorical smokestacks pumping a haze of disinformation and xenophobia out of phones, radios, and televisions and into the minds of the American public every day. Donald Trump and his surrogates lie to us every day in a strategic effort to pollute information flow, and thereby generate toxic belief. A diseased public is a weak public without the strength to object.

But Trump can’t control all of the information all of the time. And information, like the countless videos of ICE gestapo tactics that the average American is exposed to via social media and, occasionally, mainstream outlets, is turning the tide against him.

If you feed the public toxic information, lies and propaganda, a portion of the population will come down with the type of cognitive cancer that results from constant exposure to such toxins, just as habitaully smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol is proven to increase disease risk.

So reverse the tide. Spread fact-based pro-democracy information every time you see it. Dare I say it, make American minds healthy again. The same process that has led to so much division and pain can be reversed. They flood the zone with shit. You flood the zone with facts. Don’t let up.

Here’s what you may have missed:

Bucks County Beacon, Why Donald Trump Is Telling Such Obvious Lies on the ICE Minneapolis Killing

It’s puzzling. Why lie in a situation like this? Who can you hope to deceive, when evidence falsifying your statements is freely available?
…We need to come to grips with the multiple functions of obvious falsehoods like these to understand why they are made so often and so prominently, and how they serve authoritarian leaders.
First, something that seems obvious to you can be credible to others. How? Because in an era of algorithmic news feeds, we are not all getting the same news. Those with a newsfeed of nothing but MAGA influencers are in a different epistemic bubble from other people.
And they may well be in an echo chamber, in which opposing voices are so discredited that when an alternative narrative reaches them, it’s immediately dismissed.
Millions of people may not have seen the videos of the incident at all, or may have seen versions with instructions on how to interpret the visuals: she’s not turning around, she’s backing up in preparation to ram into the shooter; she’s not calmly indicating that she isn’t a threat, she’s refusing to comply with orders.
…Authoritarians can display their power by asserting obvious falsehoods, showing that they cannot be held to account. They also play to their base by showing contempt for a shared enemy, while demanding displays of loyalty and compliance from underlings.
…Other people may simply become confused by obvious lies. The competing interpretations of the Minneapolis video are diametrically opposed. Once news sites and social media feeds are sufficiently populated by these opposing views, it can feel like an overwhelming task to discern what’s really true.
And exposing a lie still doesn’t end its influence. It is easier to create an opinion with a lie than to undo that opinion when the lie is debunked, something known to psychologists as the continued influence effect.
Filling social media feeds with falsehoods to create confusion is a crucial part of the strategy that Steve Bannon, a Republican strategist and former Trump adviser, called “flooding the zone with shit.” This can leave people unsure of who to trust, what to believe, or even what the issue really is.

Mother Jones, Protesters Decrying the Killing of Renée Good Know What They Saw with Their Own Eyes

Last Thursday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz invoked Orwell’s 1984 to describe this break between what millions of people saw, and what Trump and his allies insisted had taken place: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” he quoted. “It was their final, most essential command.”
So, on Sunday, I joined the throng in Manhattan for one of many dozens of protests held around the country this past weekend. In the middle of Fifth Avenue, surrounded by raucous, defiant New Yorkers, I asked protesters the simple question: What did you see?
“I mean, it seems like the bottomless, self-radicalizing thing that the government is going through,” said Anne Perryman, 85, a former journalist. “Is there any point when they’re actually at the bottom, and they’re not going to get any worse? I don’t think so.”
“I think there’s a small minority of Americans who are buying that,” said Kobe Amos, a 29-year-old lawyer, describing reactions to the government’s gaslighting. “It’s obviously enough to do a lot of damage. But if you look around, people are angry.”

Mother Jones, They Want You to “Quit Demonstrating”

Two days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, Rep. Roger Williams issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration’s critics in Minnesota and beyond.
“People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil,” the Texas Republican told NewsNation. “And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.”
That’s a pretty clear encapsulation of MAGA-world’s views on dissent these days. You aren’t supposed to protest. You aren’t supposed to “yell at” or “challenge” the militarized federal agents occupying your city. And anyone who wants to be “protected” should probably just stay “in their homes.” Williams isn’t some fringe backbencher; he’s a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Small Business Committee. He is announcing de facto government policy.

Current Affairs, The Only “Domestic Terrorists” On Our Streets Are ICE Agents

This was bound to happen sooner or later. ICE agents are swarming our cities, given heavy weaponry, anonymity, and impunity. They are the largest law enforcement agency in the country, thanks to the monster budget Congress has given them. Virtually anybody can become an ICE agent with minimal training or background checks, including teenagers as young as 18, and there have been multiple cases of ICE officials with ties to neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups that were only discovered after years on the job. Good isn’t the first person they’ve shot; there have already been nine others since last September. Earlier in Minneapolis, ICE agents stormed into a school, “began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders.” In Louisiana, a detention officer recently pleaded guilty to sexually abusing prisoners at an ICE facility. And those are the crimes we know about.

Slate, You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.

Slate reporter Laura Jedeed says she attended an ICE Career Expo and underwent less than a six-minute interview with minimal questions, only to receive a tentative job offer from ICE despite not completing required paperwork or background checks and seeing her status listed as “Entered on Duty.” DHS has disputed that she was ever officially offered a job, calling her claims a mischaracterization of a “Tentative Selection Letter,” but Jedeed posted video evidence of what she interpreted as a final offer. She argues that her experience reveals extremely lax screening and vetting practices in ICE’s recruitment process, raising concerns about who might be entering the agency’s ranks.

Robert Reich, How To Mobilize America Against Fascism

Here’s what you can also do: Mobilize your employers, your organizations, and your congregations — anywhere you work, any group of which you’re a member — and get them to use their influence to end this barbarity.
Organize your fellow employees, retirees, alumni, and congregants. Get them to help you pressure trustees, directors, and heads of every major university, professional association, charity, and foundation. Every corporate CEO or managing director. Every religious leader.
Push everyone with any formal authority in this nation to speak with clarity and conviction against what is happening, and to commit themselves and their organizations to ending this scourge.

Incisive commentary that takes a clear-eyed look at the facts on the ground and seeks to arm folks with ways to take action is precisely what we need more of in our public discourse.

The Intercept, Federal Agents Keep Invoking Killing of Renee Good to Threaten Protesters in Minnesota

…More than one agent has been caught on camera in recent days invoking the idea of “learning” a “lesson.” In a video posted to TikTok, one federal agent warns two separate people in separate vehicles that they have not learned the lessons of recent days — an apparent allusion to the killing of Good.
“You don’t fucking learn — what’s fuckin’ happened in the last couple of days,” the agent says to someone as two other agents pat down the occupants of a car. Seconds later, the agent approaches a woman filming from a second vehicle and issues a similar warning.
“Listen, have y’all not learned from the past couple of days?” says the agent, who was clad in tactical gear without any insignia identifying his agency. “Have you not learned?”
…In multiple instances, agents can be heard accusing protesters of impeding their efforts. Filming the police, though, is not a crime. A majority of courts repeatedly and across jurisdictions have held that there is a constitutional right to record police and other law enforcement carrying out their duties in public places, so long as an observer doesn’t interfere with officials and complies with reasonable orders, such as keeping a safe distance.

Mother Jones, ICE’s Violence Is “By Design” Under Trump

“They’re essentially operating now in a resource constraint-free environment and doing very dangerous things,” said Scott Shuchart, who previously worked at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS and more recently as ICE’s assistant director for regulatory affairs and policy under the Biden administration. Violent interactions with the public aren’t surprising, he added. “That’s sort of by design.”
Dan Gividen, an immigration lawyer who acted as deputy chief counsel for ICE’s Dallas field office between 2016 and 2019, compared what the agency is doing as akin to running into a crowded movie theater and yelling “fire.” “You’ve got these ICE officers that are pouring out of these vehicles, pointing guns at US citizens—people who’ve done absolutely nothing wrong—and causing chaos.”

The New Republic, Joe Rogan’s Harsh New Takedown of Trump ICE Raids Hands Dems a Weapon

“Are we really gonna be the gestapo?” Rogan asked. “Where’s your papers—is that what we’ve come to?”
Rogan has targeted ICE constantly. He has repeatedly denounced ICE arrests of day laborers outside Home Depot and at construction sites. He has sharply criticized the arrests of noncriminal immigrants. He has attacked ICE for “scaring the shit out of everybody” and for “arresting people in front of their kids.” Other star podcasters who reach large, mostly male audiences have said similar things.
All this suggests again that ICE’s brutality—and Trump’s—has achieved an extraordinary level of penetration into the culture, reaching into online spaces where people who aren’t fixated on politics hang out.
This is its own important development, and there is mounting evidence of it everywhere…
“In testing of 15 viral videos about the Minneapolis shooting, raw eyewitness footage and straightforward reporting consistently drove meaningful increases in Trump disapproval,” reads the memo, which I’ve obtained, though it also says some ideologically charged messages were less effective.

Sherrilyn’s Newsletter, Whether It Is ICE or Local Police, the U.S. Has Normalised Anti-Democratic Law Enforcement Practices

But the tactics used against Black communities can be transferred to other communities, often with slight modifications. Remember when the New York Times describing teenager Mike Brown who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 as “no angel”? Or when then-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 2000 released the sealed juvenile records of Patrick Dorismond, a 26 year-old Black man killed by police, saying of the victim “he was no altar boy.” (For good measure Dorismond, it turned out, had attended the same Catholic high school as Giuliani had in fact, once been an altar boy).
So it was no surprise that within an hour of Ms. Good’s killing, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem described the victim as a “domestic terrorist.” The disgraceful FOX News host Jesse Waters, smugly described Good as “a self-described poet, with pronouns in her bio...[who]… leaves behind a lesbian partner.” In MAGA world that is how they signal to their base to turn off the empathy - that this white woman is not worthy of your sympathy – not worthy of protection.

Ken Klippenstein, Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed

The media is telling a certain story about ICE, giving the blow by blow on the most public horrors but never quite seeing the bigger picture that it’s part of a larger war. As a military intelligence source told me, the ICE crackdown isn’t just about immigration; it’s about gathering intelligence in support of Trump’s war on cartels — as well as on Antifa, on the radical left, and those who are “anti-American,” and anyone else they consider terrorists. And since the administration has been so quick to label everyone, including Renee Good, terrorists, it’s no wonder they think they’re at war…
Opposition to ICE’s conduct following Renee Good’s death has spread throughout the Department of Homeland Security, as I previously reported. The discontent is also affecting the Justice Department, with several top federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigning over pressure to investigate Renee Good’s widow. Meanwhile, the FBI is itself increasingly split, the political part reportedly investigating Good’s ties to activist groups that the Trump administration labels extremist.

The Guardian, How a billionaire with interests in Greenland encouraged Trump to acquire the territory

More proof for the public record that Trump is enriching his buddies and betraying his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.

One day during his first term, Donald Trump summoned a top aide to discuss a new idea. “Trump called me down to the Oval Office,” John Bolton, national security adviser in 2018, told the Guardian. “He said a prominent businessman had just suggested the US buy Greenland.”
…The businessman, Bolton learned, was Ronald Lauder. Heir to a makeup fortune – the global cosmetics brand Estée Lauder – he had known Trump, a fellow wealthy New Yorker, for more than 60 years.
…After the billionaire’s intervention, a White House team began to explore ways to increase US sway in the vast Arctic territory controlled by Denmark.
The proposal seems to have stirred Trump’s imperialist ambitions: eight years on, he is mulling not just buying Greenland but perhaps taking it by force.
Like many of those around the president, Lauder’s policy suggestions appear to intersect with his business interests. As Trump has ratcheted up his threats to seize Greenland, Lauder has acquired commercial holdings there. Lauder is also part of the consortium whose desire to access Ukrainian minerals appears to have spurred Trump to demand a share of the war-torn country’s resources.

Journalism like this is essential to public understanding of the devastating consequences of electing Donald Trump.

Cal Matters, California investigates Elon Musk’s AI company after ‘avalanche’ of complaints about sexual content

xAI reportedly updated its Grok artificial intelligence tool last month to allow image editing. Users on the social media platform X, which is connected to the tool, began using Grok to remove clothing in pictures of women and children.
…Research obtained by Bloomberg found that X users utilizing Grok posted more non-consensual naked or sexual imagery than those of any other website. In a posting on X, Musk promised “consequences” for people who made illegal content with the tool. On Friday, Grok limited image editing to paying subscribers…
“Real women are having their images manipulated without consent, and the psychological and reputational harm is devastating,” the San Ramon Democrat wrote. “Underage children are having their images used to create child sexual abuse material, and these websites are knowingly facilitating it.”
Evidence of concrete harm from deepfakes is piling up. In 2024, the FBI warned that use of deepfake tools to extort young people is a growing problem that has led to instances of self harm and suicide. Multiple audits have found that child sexual abuse material is inside the training data of AI models, making them capable of generating vulgar photos. A 2024 Center for Democracy and Technology survey found that 15% of high school students have heard of or seen sexually explicit imagery of someone they know at school in the past year.

Los Angeles Times, Anti-ICE protester blinded by federal agent during demonstration in Santa Ana, family says

In the video, at least one agent appears to fire nonlethal rounds at the crowd, hitting one woman in the leg before aiming and striking Rummler’s face.
The video shows Rummler dropping to the ground after being shot, holding his face as the crowd retreats. The same agent then drags him by the hood of their jacket; they appear to be choking, grasping at the jacket binding their neck as blood pours from their left eye.
Another video shows Rummler inside the building, lying on the ground bleeding while agents fire what appear to be pepper balls at the back of the head and neck of a man trying to record the incident with his cellphone.
Rees said her nephew told her that the agents pressed his face against the pool of blood and did not immediately call paramedics.
“The other officers were mocking him, saying, ‘You’re going to lose your eye,’” she said, recalling what her nephew told her…
“This constitutes as deadly force as far as the law is concerned,” said Ed Obayashi of the video. The Modoc County sheriff’s deputy and legal advisor to police agencies, who has testified in similar cases, said that “all the training manuals and [legal] cases say you don’t aim at the face because these projectiles can cause serious injury [or] death.”
Obayashi said, based on law enforcement use-of-force standards, an officer can deploy deadly force if they feel their life is in imminent danger, or that they are in danger of great bodily harm.
“I just don’t see that here,” he said.

LA Times owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong interfered with his newsroom’s independence ahead of the 2024 election in order to aid Trump’s re-election bid. But well-funded newsrooms with dedicated reporters like the LA Times are able to get experts on the record who help us understand the lawlessness of the Trump regime. It’s a complicated time to be a news consumer. Donate to the other outlets in this list before subscribing to the LA Times.

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

MS NOW, How the money in ICE’s ballooning budget could have been used to help Americans

But OBBBA gave ICE (and other immigration-related departments) far more than that: $45 billion over four years to expand its detention facilities and about $30 billion for staffing and bonuses. With just those increases (and setting aside other, smaller additions), ICE stands to have a budget of about $30 billion during the fiscal year that began in October.
…The administration has already articulated how it intends to spend that money. It aims to hire 10,000 new agents and double its detention capacity to 100,000 people. But what if, instead, we diverted that money away from a punitive effort to uproot immigrants and toward assistance for Americans in need?
I pulled data on several social programs, estimating both how many people received benefits from those programs and how much they cost, allowing me to determine roughly how much each recipient of benefits got on average during a year….
…just under $30 billion could do a lot of good for a lot of people over the course of a year. It could fund about a third of SNAP payments (that is, food stamps), the entire school lunch program, nearly all Section 8 housing vouchers, the entire Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), including state spending, a quarter of federal spending on K through 12 education and a fifth of the costs of disability insurance.
…But that’s not how the government plans to spend the money. What we got for our investment in the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, and ICE last year was 605,000 deportations and tens of thousands of arrests. Of those arrested by ICE and held in ICE detention, the majority have no criminal convictions — and more have no criminal records at all than have convictions or pending charges. Analysis by Syracuse University’s Austin Kocher shows that 92% of the increase in ICE arrests and detentions came from targeting those with no criminal history.

Many Americans hold deep cynicism for mainstram media. And cable news broadcasts are definitely the equivalent of sugar in an information diet. But here we see the need to still consult fact-based reporting that is still regularly produced by these newsrooms. The perspective of what we could be doing to benefit the American people with ICE funds, rather than terrorizing them, is essential for Americans to understand.

Freedom of the Press Foundation, FBI ignores federal law to raid journalist’s home

“This is an alarming escalation in the Trump administration’s multipronged war on press freedom. The Department of Justice (and the judge who approved this outrageous warrant) is either ignoring or distorting the Privacy Protection Act, which bars law enforcement from raiding newsrooms and reporters to search for evidence of alleged crimes by others, with very few inapplicable exceptions.
“The government has said that Natanson is not under investigation, nor should she be for simply reporting information provided to her by sources. Even the Trump DOJ’s guidelines on searching reporters’ source materials (which were weakened from prior guidelines based on the administration’s proven lies about “fake news”) make clear that it’s a last resort for rare emergencies only. The administration may now be in possession of volumes of journalist communications having nothing to do with any pending investigation and, if investigators are able to access them, we have zero faith that they will respect journalist-source confidentiality.”

Just a terrifying turn of events that is out of the authoritarian playbook. Journalism can come from many places, including advocacy orgs like the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

The Guardian, Ex-FDA workers warn Trump cuts will increase risk of food safety lapses in US

Sweeping cuts and the “politicization of science” inside the Food and Drug Administration have increased the risk of safety lapses across the US, former agency workers warned.
Less than a year after Donald Trump returned to power, and his administration oversaw the firing and resignation of thousands of FDA employees, a listeria outbreak that killed six people and sickened 27 across 18 states due to contamination of prepared pasta meals underlined the danger posed by safety failings.
“Those kinds of things are going to keep coming,” said David Harbourt, a former veterinary safety manager at the FDA, who was fired last year. The agency’s work “has been compromised for at a minimum, the short term, hopefully not the long term”, he claimed. “But it’s those aspects of American people’s lives that we almost take for granted that are going to be affected in a very negative way in the coming years.”