Clear It with Sidney | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

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)

 

June 12, 2026

Sidney's Picks: White House Cancels OSHA Penalty Hike

Photo credit: 

Markfield Park, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Cheap kills: White House cancels 2026 OSHA penalty increases. (Confined Space)
     

  • Trump pledged $10 billion of your tax dollars for his corrupt “Board of Peace,” but lawmakers object to the massive slush fund. (Jezebel, Hill)
     

  • Elon Musk and DOGE killed a program that controlled the screwworm parasite across the Americas. Now the blight has spread to the United States, threatening the beef industry. (HuffPo, Common Dreams)
     

  • Lawyers caught using AI, judge kicks both sides off the case. (404 media)
     

  • DOGE planned to mark 27 million living taxpayers as dead to pressure them to leave the country, whistleblower claims. (WaPo)

June 5, 2026

Sidney's Picks: A Self-Proclaimed Degenerate is Running the Intelligence Community

Photo credit: 

Donkey Hote, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Pentagon hires pardoned J6er for top-secret anti-terrorism job as new investigation reveals that at least one in fifteen insurrectionists has been convicted of a new crime. (WaPo, Lawfare)
     

  • Bill Pulte was a degenerate conspiracy theorist, now he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence. (Bulwark)
     

  • How a pro-worker bill might advance in the House. (Prospect)
     

  • Four migrant workers burned alive in Italy amid rampant exploitation. (NYT)
     

  • Disgraced former Rep. George Santos threatens NPR reporter for exposing his alleged insider trading on Kalshi. (NPR)

May 29, 2026

Sidney's Picks: 70k Rideshare Drivers Form First-Ever Union in MA

Photo credit: 

Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • In a historic first for the industry, 70,000 rideshare drivers unionize in Massachusetts. (Prospect)
     

  • The White House intervened to approve a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump, Jr. (ProPublica) 
     

  • 93% of ICE street arrests in NYC target Latinos. (The City)
     

  • Montreal sex workers strike during the Grand Prix. (NYT)
     

  • Jeff Bezos’ rocket blows up. (WaPo)

May 22, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Is This It?

Photo credit: 

John Gately, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • U.S. employers spend more than $1.5 billion dollars a year on union-busting. (Guardian)
     

  • Senate Republicans check Trump’s insurrectionist slush fund, his boondoggle ballroom, and ICE funding as the House GOP kills a vote on his war powers they knew they would lose. (CNBC, NPR)
     

  • The U.S. and Israel schemed to put Iran’s Holocaust-denying pro-nuke former president in charge of the country, but may have hit him with an airstrike during a botched jailbreak. (NYT)
     

  • Samsung workers in South Korea avert a strike after six months of “all-out struggle” for a fair share of AI profits. (AP)
     

  • Trump’s war on data. (NYT, video)
     

  • Elon Musk’s harvest of death. (Prospect)

Pages

Recent Posts

July 24, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Trump Uses Forced Labor as Pretext to Tariff Allies
July 17, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Killer ICE Agent was a Mentally Ill, Brain-Damaged Domestic Abuser
July 10, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Paxton May Have Voted Illegally
July 3, 2026
Sidney's Picks: AI is Breaking Bosses' Brains
June 26, 2026
Sidney’s Picks: ICE Kills Jobs

Archive

See full archive
 

Follow us

Twitter/X
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
Join our email list