Clear It with Sidney | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

August 21, 2026

Sidney's Picks: White House Fury Made Natalie Harp National News

Photo credit: 

Natalie Harp, Donkey Hote, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • A few well-placed attacks could destroy the entire US power grid. (NYT)
     

  • The Natalie Harp blunder. (The Atlantic)
     

  • MAGA Rep. Max Miller is bleeding union support as he faces serious allegations of child abuse. (Politico, WaPo)

     

  • Unions remain defiant in the face of federal surveillance in the wake of anti-ICE protests. (MN Reformer)

     

  • DOGE broke the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and fishermen, farmers, insurers, and consumers are paying the price. (Forbes)

August 14, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Trump's War on Wind Farms is Killing Jobs

Photo credit: 

Offshore wind farm, Fernando Butcher, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Trump’s bizarre war on wind farms is killing jobs and hurting workers. (MoJo)
     

  • A Cuban immigrant has been deported to an obscure African country because Cuba won’t take him back, he may never go free. (NYT)
     

  • A million immigrants came here legally but now their status is being stripped away. (New Yorker)
     

  • ICE officers may soon have gloves that deliver electric shocks. (AP)
     

  • Fiasco at General Dynamics: How a half-billion dollar artillery plant ended up producing nothing (ProPublica) 
     

  • The government is monitoring social media accounts critical of Flock cameras. (404media)

August 7, 2026

Sidney's Picks: IRS Union Sues to Stop Trump's $100 Million Tax Immunity Deal

Photo credit: 

Alyson Hurt, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Union representing IRS workers sues to stop Trump’s $100 million tax immunity deal, arguing that it would force them to break the law. (AP)
     

  • What’s the deal with Trump’s “Freedom Fuel” gas stations? (WaPo)
     

  • Climate change dropped the water level in the Danube, now Romania is sinking barges of rocks to bring it back up to keep a nuclear reactor running. (AP)
     

  • A St. Louis woman self-deported to Guatemala, weeks later she and her husband were found shot to death in a field. (MoJo)
     

  • Trump’s boat strikes in the Caribbean have killed innocent people (ABC)

July 31, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Tish James Sues Kalshi

Photo credit: 

Russ Seidel, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News 
 

  • New York AG Tish James sues the Kalshi prediction market for allegedly being an illegal gambling operation. (CNN)
     

  • Coast guard rescuers save lives, but many suffer brain damage from years of piloting small boats amid the crashing waves. (NYT)
     

  • Breaking Monticello: How a right wing smear campaign tried to censor the brutality and the brilliance that defined Thomas Jefferson. (Prospect)
     

  • More than 1400 unaccompanied migrant children in New York State will lose access to a lawyer on Monday because a federal contract has not been renewed. (Gothamist)
     

  • Public defender org accused of illegally offering cash bonuses to disrupt a strike. (Queens Eagle)

July 24, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Trump Uses Forced Labor as Pretext to Tariff Allies

Photo credit: 

Max Miller by Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News 

  • Trump imposes new tariffs on the bizarre pretext that worker-friendly countries like Norway and New Zealand use forced labor to produce their exports. (Guardian)
     

  • The Department of Defense briefly subtracted the four U.S. troops killed by Iranian strikes in the Middle East last week from its casualty count on the grounds that they occurred after the war ended. (MS Now)
     

  • Peter Thiel’s scheme to put journalists on trial has flopped. (MSN)
     

  • MAGA congressman Max Miller is accused of misogyny and family violence and suspected by his ex-wife of breaking his two-year-old daughter’s collarbone. (MoJo)
     

  • Canadian Hillman Prize-winner Robert Cribb says big tech has the tools to stop the spread of child abuse images online, but chooses not to. (Walrus)

July 17, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Killer ICE Agent was a Mentally Ill, Brain-Damaged Domestic Abuser

Photo credit: 

The Reflecting Pool in better days, grahamvphoto, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Killer ICE agent was a mentally ill, violent, brain damaged domestic abuser when he got the job. (AP)
     

  • Bags in the van of a Houston man killed by ICE contained salt for homemade Gatorade, not drugs, lawyer says. (NYT)
     

  • Shoddy application doomed the coating of the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool, not vandals with boxcutters. (WaPo)
     

  • A preliminary hearing for Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin undermines conspiracist narratives. (MSNow)
     

  • Climbing Workers United protest Northface over partnership with Movement Gyms. (Fashion United, Athletech News)

July 10, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Paxton May Have Voted Illegally

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • Some DOGE records were deleted, federal investigators say. (WIRED)
     

  • Trump’s deregulation could stuff your 401(k) with risky investments. (ProPublica)
     

  • Republican senate hopeful Ken Paxton may have cast six illegal votes despite vowing to crack down on election fraud. (ProPublica)
     

  • Hachette Book Group workers vote to unionize. (NYT)
     

  • Pioneering labor leader Lillian Roberts has died. (AFSCME)  
     

  • An ICE agent pointed a gun at a Montana motorist during a large raid near a summer camp. (Daily Montanan, NFTS)

July 3, 2026

Sidney's Picks: AI is Breaking Bosses' Brains

Photo credit: 

Conor Ogle, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

June 26, 2026

Sidney’s Picks: ICE Kills Jobs

Photo credit: 

Chad Davis, Creative Commons.

 

June 26, 2026

Hegseth Kills Vaccine Mandate, Flu Outbreak Kills Airman

Photo credit: 

Airman gets a flu shot. 

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Influenza swept Lackland Air Force Base after Pete Hegseth nixed the vaccine mandate, causing 160 cases and one suspected death. (NYT)

  • National Labor Relations Board upholds Whole Foods unionization. (Bloomberg)

  • Trump’s newly renovated Reflecting Pool is choked with algae slime and the “American Flag blue” paint is peeling off in sheets. (Reuters)

  • More people are now accessing news through social media and video networks than from the platforms of news organizations. (Reuters Institute)

  • Bill requiring media organizations to disclose the use of generative AI heads to governor Kathy Hochul’s desk. (E&P)

 

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Recent Posts

August 21, 2026
Sidney's Picks: White House Fury Made Natalie Harp National News
August 14, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Trump's War on Wind Farms is Killing Jobs
August 7, 2026
Sidney's Picks: IRS Union Sues to Stop Trump's $100 Million Tax Immunity Deal
July 31, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Tish James Sues Kalshi
July 24, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Trump Uses Forced Labor as Pretext to Tariff Allies

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