Clear It with Sidney | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

Clear It with Sidney

March 20, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Contractors Say Corey Lewandowski Demanded Bribes

Photo credit: 

Tomás Del Coro, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contractors said they were asked to pay Corey Lewandowski bribes, er, “success fees.” (NBC) 
     

  • The city of Social Circle, GA cut off water service to a proposed DHS mega-center because officials refused to disclose how the facility would be used. (CBS)
     

  • A judge ordered the Veterans Administration to reinstate the contract of its largest union, at least temporarily. (Military Times)
     

  • Floridians are being forced to deliver by caesarian section. One woman in labor had to beg a judge for the right to refuse the surgery.  (ProPublica)
     

  • Gamblers on Polymarket threatened the life of a journalist who refused to alter his reporting to secure their payouts. (WaPo)
     

  • Chinese AI workers endure working conditions close to slavery at the BYD in Brazil. (WaPo)

March 13, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Teen Mariachi Stars and a Nashville Journo Detained by ICE

Photo credit: 

José Luis Ramos Salinas, Creative Commons. 

The Best of the Week’s News

  • DHS pick Markwayne Mullin let a convicted felon hide a cache of illegal weapons at his plumbing supply business. (WaPo)
     

  • Trump’s mass deportation campaign ensnares teen mariachi stars and a Nashville journalist. (NYT, CNN)
     

  • Detainee says guards at an immigration detention center gambled on which inmates would die by suicide. (AP)
     

  • Independent journalist wins legal fight for body cam footage of DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace. (RCFP)
     

  • Young women ditch the new right as young men flock to the antisemitic groyper movement. (NYMag, NYT)

March 6, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Police Brutality Cost NYC Taxpayers $117 Million Last Year

Photo credit: 

Peter Miller, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • NYC taxpayers had to pay more than $117 million in police misconduct payments last year. (Gothamist)

     

  • Press freedom is under threat worldwide. (NYT)
     

  • Nike is moving jobs to low-wage regions of Indonesia. (ProPublica)
     

  • A 56-year-old Haitian asylum-seeker died in ICE detention from an untreated tooth infection. (Tuscon.com)
     

  • Prosecutors fail to make a criminal case against Joe Biden for using an autopen to sign legislation. (NYT)

February 27, 2026

Sidney's Picks: The Death of Elite Accountability

Photo credit: 

Boston Public Library, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

 

  • From the unitary executive to Jeffrey Epstein: The death of elite accountability (Atlantic)
     

  • The FBI raids the home of the superintendent of LA schools after with AI chatbot fiasco. (LAT)
     

  • Chicago ICE protesters keep winning in court. (CST)
     

  • The Trump tax cuts pushed Medicare closer to insolvency, slashing 12 years off the lifespan of Part A. (Fortune)
     

  • Volkswagen workers in Tennessee approve their first union contract. (NPR)
     

  • Pentagon and Anthropic face off over control of contracted AI technology as Anthropic demands assurances their tech won’t be used for mass surveillance or autonomous drone ops. (NYT)
     

  • Jeanine Pirro’s office refuses to press charges, but the Labor Secretary’s husband remains banned from the building after alleged sexual assaults on staffers. (WaPo)

February 20, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump's Tariffs

Photo credit: 

Ken Fager, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • The Supreme Court strikes down most of Trump’s tariffs by a vote of 6-3, no word on whether anyone is getting a refund. (AP)
     

  • Labor Secretary’s husband banned from the Department of Labor for allegedly sexually assaulting at least two women in the building. (NYT)
     

  • Despite Trump’s best efforts, union membership ticked up in 2025. (Prospect)
     

  • South Korea’s former president is sentenced to life in prison for attempting to overthrow the government and refusing to apologize. (Guardian)
     

  • Epstein Estate settles $35 million class action lawsuit to compensate victims. (NBC)
     

  • Bucks County Commissioners, Democrats and Republicans, unanimously oppose ICE warehouse prisons as unfit for human beings  

February 13, 2026

Sidney's Picks: "I have never felt so much fear"

Photo credit: 

Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • A federal judge blocks Pete Hegseth’s attempt to discipline Sen. Mark Kelly for reminding troops of their obligation to refuse illegal orders, and a grand jury refuses to induct Kelly and five other legislators for their speech. (WaPo)
     

  • The academic fallout from the Epstein Files keeps getting weirder: OSU professor physically attacks journalist for asking too many questions. (NYT)
     

  • “I have never felt so much fear”: Kids in the Dilley immigrant detention center speak out. (NYT, ProPublica)
     

  • An Irishman and 20-year resident of Boston says he fears for his life after five months in U.S. immigration detention. (RTE 100)
     

  • DNI Director Tulsi Gabbard was placed on a TSA watchlist in 2024 because she took a trip sponsored by a pro-Kremlin businessman with ties to sanctioned oligarchs. (SpyTalk)
     

  • Censorship of student journalism is a threat to free speech. (E&P)

February 6, 2026

Sidney's Picks: The Real Reason ICE Wears Masks

Photo credit: 

Tony Webster, Washington, DC, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Hillman prize-winner Adam Serwer on the real reason ICE agents wear masks. (Atlantic)
     

  • Why Pam Bondi is using the FACE Act to target Don Lemon and other journalists. (MS Now)
     

  • ICE is buying warehouses to build massive detention centers across the country. (WaPo)
     

  • Union leaders warn Gavin Newsom to regulate AI if he wants to be president. (CalMatters)
     

  • Jeffrey Epstein cultivated ties with Russians and sought to meet Vladimir Putin, files show. (WaPo)

January 30, 2026

Don Lemon Arrested for Covering MN Church Protest

Photo credit: 

Chad Davis, Minneapolis, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News
 

  • Federal agents arrest Don Lemon for covering a church protest in Minneapolis. (NYT)
     

  • Feds seize ballots from Fulton County to boost Trump’s outrageous 2020 election conspiracy theories. (Guardian, ABC) 
     

  • How a violent, warrantless ICE raid devastated a family. (MoJo)
     

  • Grok probed: Europe investigates Elon Musk’s revenge porn engine. (CNN)
     

  • Remembering the Challenger disaster, which claimed the lives of seven astronauts including beloved teacher and union leader Christa McAuliffe. (WaPo)
     

  • A MAGA billionaire bought TikTok, what does that mean for the culture?

January 23, 2026

Sidney's Picks: Anti-ICE General Strike Underway in Minneapolis

Photo credit: 

Chad Davis, Minneapolis, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • ICE authorized agents to break into homes without a judicial warrant, secret memo shows. (AP)

     

  • General strike to oppose ICE is underway in Minneapolis. (TNR, MN Reformer)
     

  • Martin Luther King Jr’s son urges the Supreme Court to save the Voting Rights Act and our democracy. (NYT)
     

  • The Sistine Chapel of the New Deal may be destroyed. (WaPo)
     

  • Planned CDC-funded, Tuskegee-style vaccine study in Africa is called off.  (NYT)
     

  • Abortion bans are killing women with high-risk pregnancies. (ProPublica)

January 16, 2026

Sidney's Picks: ICE Will Hire Anyone

Photo credit: 

Chad Davis, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • ICE will hire anyone. Laura Jedeed proved it. (Slate)
     

  • If an ICE agent orders you to exit your car, do you have to obey? Maybe not. (NYT)
     

  • Eric Adams returned to private life as a crypto huckster. A million investor dollars went missing on Day One. (Hellgate, NYT)
     

  • UAW defends the free speech of a member who was suspended for calling Donald Trump a pedophile protector. (Politico)
     

  • In a dramatic escalation, the FBI executed a search warrant on the home of a Washington Post reporter who covered Trump’s assault on the federal government. (WaPo)
     

  • The Pentagon moves to strip Stars and Stripes of its Congressionally-mandated journalistic independence. (AP)

Pages

Recent Posts

March 20, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Contractors Say Corey Lewandowski Demanded Bribes
March 13, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Teen Mariachi Stars and a Nashville Journo Detained by ICE
March 6, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Police Brutality Cost NYC Taxpayers $117 Million Last Year
February 27, 2026
Sidney's Picks: The Death of Elite Accountability
February 20, 2026
Sidney's Picks: Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump's Tariffs

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