Attention to the Unseen

Franklin Foer writes: The purge began late Friday night, four days after Donald Trump returned to the White House. Seventeen inspectors general—internal watchdogs embedded throughout the federal government—received emails notifying them of their termination. Three weeks later came the Valentine’s Day Massacre: the ousting of tens of thousands of federal employees with little discernible pattern, across agencies and across the country. By April, entire departments—the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—had been gutted. Workers the administration…

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  Widespread unrest, killings and arrests in Iran, during protests sparked by a collapse in the local currency. The leadership says it will listen to demonstrators — but rioters face the death penalty. As the US warns against a crackdown, how volatile is the situation? Mehran Kamrava — Head of Iranian Studies at the Arab Center for Policy Studies and Research Roxane Farmanfarmaian — Professor of Modern Middle East Politics at the University of Cambridge Trita Parsi — Executive Vice…

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Axios reports: MAGA is pressing the Trump administration to write a new chapter in America’s expansionist history — one that adds territory and influence as part of a new Western empire. Why it matters: On its face, MAGA’s imperial turn is a head-spinning reversal for a movement built around hostility to “endless wars” in the Middle East. But reframed as hemispheric dominance, the right’s expansionist impulse fits a civilizational worldview: America as the enforcer of the West, bending weaker nations to its will. What they’re saying: In…

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Axios reports: Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon is laying the groundwork for a 2028 run for president, two people familiar with his thinking tell Axios. Why it matters: The MAGA godfather isn’t serious about becoming president — that’s not the point. Instead, he’s told allies he wants to shape the debate and pressure Republican candidates to embrace an “America First” agenda — including a non-interventionist foreign policy, economic populism and opposition to Big Tech. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who has appeared…

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View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cotton Clifton (@cotton_clifton) Originally from Lousiana, Cotton Clifton landed in Jackson, Tennesee where he became a mainstay on the local scene with his band The Pickers as well as lead guitarist and chief accomplice of alt-country provocateur The Kernal.

Michelle Goldberg writes: In the imagination of some on the right, Good quickly came to stand in for all the grating Resistance moms they’d like to see crushed. Fox News sneered that Good was a “self-proclaimed poet” — she’s the winner of a prestigious poetry award — “with pronouns in her bio.” The conservative radio host Erick Erickson described her as an “AWFUL,” or “Affluent White Female Urban Liberal.” It’s entirely possible that had Good lived, the Trump administration might…

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MPR News reports: Renee Macklin Good’s wife, Becca Good, said that the 37-year-old poet and mother of three was made of sunshine. “She literally sparkled,” Becca Good said in a statement. “I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time.” But behind that light was a well of deep values that Macklin Good lived by, including a conviction that every person — regardless of “where you come from or…

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G. Elliott Morris writes: On Wednesday morning, Jan. 7, an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement shot and killed a 37-year-old mother, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Video footage of the incident went viral and prompted mass protests around the country on Wednesday and Thursday night, from San Diego to Houston to Philadelphia. The Minnesota Timberwolves, a basketball team, held a moment of silence for Good during Thursday3night’s game. Over the past year, protests against ICE have become…

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Borzou Daragahi writes: I and others have written Iranian protests lacking organization and leadership mostly fail to amount to significant political shifts. But Iran’s waves of street actions can nevertheless push change. The 2009 uprising likely convinced Khamenei to stop fiddling brazenly with election results. The “woman, life, freedom” marches ushered unmistakable cultural changes and the abandonment of the enforcement of dress codes on women. But except for those in 2009, Iran’s protests have not offered any possible roadmap to…

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