Grant W. Turner

"Outreach to the Burmese junta on rare earth minerals would damage both long-term U.S. strategic interests and undermine eventual access to those rare earth deposits," writes @seasia.csis.org expert Gregory B. Poling.

Learn more: www.csis.org/analysis/dan...

Project 2025 July 30th Update This week: A pregnant Tennessee woman was reportedly denied medical care for being unmarried—an alarming preview of Project 2025’s war on women. The Supreme Court is quietly fast-tracking Trump’s agen...

Christian nationalist Ryan Walters built his career railing against “porn in schools,” banning books, and enforcing Bible mandates—then got caught airing porn in his office during a public meeting. No explanation. A fundamental contradiction within Christian nationalist politics.

Read more:

YouTube video by MEMRI TV Videos Iranian Economist Ahmad Salehi: China Helps Iran with Missile Technology and Fuel

Iranian Economist Ahmad Salehi: We Should Consider Changing the Constitution So We Can Give Russia and China Land and Naval Bases on Our Soil; China Helps Iran with Missile Technology and Fuel

Young dancers performing on Yhyakh festival in Sangar, Kobyaysky district, Yakutia.

#Russia’s ethnic minorities – including Arctic Indigenous ethnicities Chukchi, Inuit, Itelmen, Koryak, Nenets, Nganasan, Udege & Saami – are vastly overrepresented in the death toll of the #war in #Ukraine.

Read more 👉 blogs.lse.ac.uk/crp/2025/08/...

Maria Vyushkova @demsecinstitute.bsky.social

This means that many people are going to be sent back to countries where they will be subject to persecution because their jobs in the U.S. include reporting factually and critically of the governments that they are being sent back into the clutches of.

#polisky #irsky

Trump Administration Halted Lawsuits Targeting Civil Rights Abuses of Prisoners and Mentally Ill People The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division had brought lawsuits accusing Louisiana of confining prisoners longer than they should and South Carolina of keeping mentally ill people in unreasonably restrictive…

A DOJ investigation had determined that South Carolina officials illegally denied community-based services — required by federal law — to over 1,000 people diagnosed as seriously mentally ill.

The lawsuit over these allegations is now on hold.

By @coreygjohnson.bsky.social

'Gilded Age' side-eye: How a silent maid unveils centuries of trans history One subtle eyebrow raise on screen becomes a portal to trans trailblazers who fought wars, tamed the Wild West, and helped shape the Constitution.

One subtle eyebrow raise on screen becomes a portal to trans trailblazers who fought wars, tamed the Wild West, and helped shape the Constitution.

📽️ WATCH: “The U.S. sent us to El Salvador so that El Salvador could do the dirty work that the U.S. couldn’t.”

Hear from Juan José Ramos Ramos, Andry Omar Blanco Bonilla and Wilmer José Vega Sandia — three of 230+ Venezuelan men the Trump administration sent to CECOT — in their own words:

China's independent oil firms elbow into Iraq's majors-dominated market Smaller Chinese producers are on track to double their output in Iraq to 500,000 barrels per day by around 2030.

China's independent oil companies are ramping up operations in Iraq, investing billions of dollars in OPEC's number two producer even as some global majors have scaled back from the market

Norway taxes their fossil fuel industry and gives their kids free university education.

In Australia, we give more than half of the gas we export away for free, and charge our kids a fortune to go to uni.

📺 Executive Director @richarddenniss.bsky.social
#auspol

In many ways, this is the story of the Trump era. The attempted politicization of everyone in government, from statisticians to judges to civil servants to air traffic controllers, is perhaps the single biggest way this administration has reshaped American democracy.

Trump's politicizing of *everything* across our government is aimed at breaching the largest barrier to authoritarian consolidation: the separation of political government functions from administrative ones. We offer a 3-step plan for how to respond. www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/the-big-un...

GOP privacy hawks wage quiet battle with TSA over face recognition bill Federal agency officials have been orchestrating a lobbying effort against legislation many Senate Republicans are keen to advance.

Senate GOP privacy hawks are stewing over the derailment of a bill earlier this week that would limit face-scanning technologies.

"State schools aimed to secularize Indonesia, but religious schools adapted, competing for students and strengthening Islamic identity instead."

Recently accepted to #REStud, from Bazzi, Hilmy and Marx:

www.restud.com/religion-edu...

#econsky

Making America Epstein Again Trump’s transactional ethics are making the U.S. a refuge for criminals. This mirrors something Israel has done for years.

Trump learned from Epstein: power is knowing who owes you. Maureen Tkacik reports on the global favor bank giving corruption safe haven.
https://trib.al/QNjdJpM

Nearly a fifth of Australia's emissions now come from sending fossil fuels overseas Australia's exports of fossil fuels are not only increasing emissions across the world, they are also becoming a larger share of our domestic emissions.

Also from Polly Hemming, nearly a fifth of Australia’s emissions now come from sending fossil fuels overseas.

Read the analysis in her latest Off the Charts📊
australiainstitute.org.au/post/nearly-...

The United States Is Losing India India is beginning to question the value of its strategic alignment with Washington – and the United States has only itself to blame.

India is beginning to question the value of its strategic alignment with Washington – and the United States has only itself to blame.

gijn.org Investigating War Crimes: Forced Displacement

🛑 Forced displacement is not just a tragedy — it can be a war crime.

GIJN’s new reporting guide offers tools to investigate when civilians are unlawfully uprooted in conflict, and how to hold perpetrators accountable.

🔍 Read the chapter: https://twp.ai/9PUi00

Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations ‘Department of government efficiency’ is proposing to use tool to cut 50% of federal regulations by January

DOGE "is using artificial intelligence to create a “delete list” of federal regulations, according to a report, proposing to use the tool to cut 50% of regulations by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration."

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Journalism, Propaganda and Climate Change - Inside Climate News Can we flood the zone with truth?

@insideclimatenews.org’s founder and publisher considers how journalists might “flood the zone with truth” to “build enduring public understanding” of climate change and its solutions. By David Sassoon for @insideclimatenews.org

Senate Confirms Election Denying Fox Host as DC US Attorney Senate Confirms Election Denying Fox Host as DC US Attorney

BREAKING: In a 50-45 vote, the Senate confirmed former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as U.S. Attorney for D.C., despite her past statements denying the 2020 election results and supporting criminal charges for January 6 prosecutors.

From: @jimsaksa.com

SCOTUS May Let the GOP Gerrymander Black Southerners Out of Congress Reader more here.

Texas is leading the charge on gerrymandering, a move that could do great damage to voters of color. With recent SCOTUS rulings, the high court seems set to further empower the GOP’s power grab with minority voters paying the price, writes @billycorriher.bsky.social.

gijn.org GIJN Guide to Investigating Foreign Lobbying

🌐 Who’s influencing your government from abroad?

GIJN's new guide to investigating foreign lobbying offers tools, databases, and tips to follow the money and uncover hidden influence.

📘 Explore the guide: https://twp.ai/9PUhzh

Now That They’re Free, Venezuelan Men Want the World to Know What They Endured in CECOT Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration say they endured months of physical and mental abuse inside a Salvadoran prison. Though happy to be home, they say the fact that they were released…

Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old Venezuelan, wants the world to know that he was tortured over four months in a Salvadoran prison.

He said guards stomped on his hands, poured filthy water into his ears and threatened to beat him.

4. To say that the prior administration opposed those technologies is simply to say that the prior administration did not oppose GAAP accounting. The fact that the US TREASURY SECRETARY is shilling for shoddy accounting should scare the dickens out of us all.

Excellent thread on the crypto snake oil the admin is selling.

It might be a good idea to war-game the likely future crypto collapse now to prepare for the damage it will do to the economy, which could be as bad as the 2008 financial crisis. But nah, we'll probably just bail out all these scammers.

1. Trump's rural supporters get crappy, expensive satellite internet rather than stable, cheaper fiber that promotes economic development, which the law promised them.

2. Elon Musk gets billions of taxpayer dollars.

All going according to plan.

What now?

Opinion | The DOJ’s attack on George Mason sends a clear message to those not fully aligned with MAGA The Education Department opened an investigation into George Mason in early July, saying it had received complaints about the university’s efforts to promote diversity.

And here's my latest at MSNBC, on the Justice Department going after the George Mason faculty for the crime of expressing support for the president of the university. Republicans truly are committed to free speech on campus.

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Behold, the leading political philosopher on the right.