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Via Data is Beautiful: “Get The Facts data team published a chart that visualizes the increase in ICE’s funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And if you want to see some other interesting charts related to ICE’s funding, you can find them here” Sources: Congress.gov. Visualizations made with Datawrapper.
The New York Times: “When Republicans muscled President Trump’s signature domestic policy bill through Congress last year, they gave a windfall to the Department of Homeland Security — including for Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with effectively no strings attached. Republicans allocated a total of $190 billion over four years, including $75 billion for ICE …
Bellingcat: “Federal agents have frequently used so-called “less-lethal” weapons against protesters, including impact projectiles, tear gas and pepper spray, since the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration raids began last year. The use of less-lethal weapons (LLWs) has been controversial. While designed to incapacitate or control a person without causing death or permanent injury, they can cause …
Fast Company: “TikTok’s U.S. operations are now managed by a new American joint venture, ending a long-standing debate over whether the app would be permanently banned in the United States. The good news for TikTok users is that this deal guarantees that the app will continue to operate within America’s borders. But there’s some bad …
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would integrate Elon Musk’s Grok models into military systems: “Last month I took the first step toward changing how the department does business with frontier AI technologies when we announced the rollout of GenAI with our partners from Google, and I want to thank the Google team for …
Follow on to ICE boosts weapons spending 600% Via EFF: “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a new budget under the current administration, and they are going on a surveillance tech shopping spree. Standing at $28.7 billion dollars for the year 2025 (nearly triple their 2024 budget) and at least another $56.25 billion over …
A Popular Information investigation reveals tens of millions in new ICE spending on guns, chemical weapons, and explosives. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has sharply increased its spending on weapons in 2025, according to an analysis of federal government contracting data by Popular Information. Records from the Federal Procurement Data System reveal that ICE …
The Washington Post [no paywall]: “How DOGE and the White House carried out a once-unthinkable transformation of the nation’s sprawling bureaucracy…“It isn’t easy to fire federal employees,” her co-worker told her. “We have all these protections. We’ll be okay.” He was wrong. The United States’ 2.4 million federal employees were about to get caught up …
Anne Applebaum – “I needed several days to absorb the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, to re-read it, to listen to reactions, to compare it to the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, published in 2017. My conclusion, published in the Atlantic (gift link here), is that it isn’t really a strategy document at all: …
“The New York Times has created a map showing where the planet’s proven oil reserves are located [no paywall] using data from the Oil & Gas Journal. The visualization sizes each country’s circle according to the number of barrels it holds. The smallest circles represent about 10 billion barrels, while the largest exceed 300 billion. …
Venezuela and U.S. Military Strikes: Considerations for Congress CRS Insight, IN12618, 12/01/2025. Referenced Legislation – H.Con.Res. 61; S.J.Res. 83; S.J.Res. 90 – “On November 29, 2025, President Trump announced the closure of Venezuelan airspace days after the State Department designated the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). Some experts …
The New York Times Gift Article – Trump’s Security Strategy Focuses on Profit, Not Spreading Democracy. President Trump’s new National Security Strategy describes a country that is focused on doing business and reducing migration while avoiding passing judgment on authoritarians Lawfare: “On Dec. 4, the Trump administration released its National Security Strategy (NSS). The strategy …
