August 15 Friday roundup

In this week’s podcast episode, I look at the twin threads of home-grown brutality and international authoritarianism to see which histories are most helpful when considering how the U.S. got so deep into danger and how we might make our way to something better. You can watch the episode on YouTube or listen to it via Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. If you want to read it instead of watching or listening, or if you’d like to explore links to people and events mentioned in the episode, you can find them in this week’s Tuesday post.

The figs in our yard are ripening, as they do this time of year, and it’s a bumper crop. I’ve picked six quarts since Monday, and even though I’m short on time, I’ll make fig jam this weekend, if only to bank good things happening now for the future, to save some sweetness for winter, when I’ll probably need it.

In the same spirit, after a tough week across the country, I want to once again include some good news links here. It’s easy to miss how many people are standing up against the administration and the havoc it’s wreaking on the country. Make no mistake, we are already deep in a treacherous snake-filled pit. But here are just a few of the countless ways, big and small, that bravery and democracy are holding.

Sandwich Guy, the man who allegedly beaned a federal agent with a sub, was charged with a felony but was released Thursday on his own recognizance. Sean Dunn offered to turn himself in, but instead the authorities sent 20 officers out to arrest him. Dunn turned out to be a decorated veteran and a paralegal at the very Department of Justice that’s now seeking his conviction. He’s also been called part of the “Deep State” by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

The government has 30 days to try to get a grand jury to indict Dunn. However, an indictment may be more difficult than usual to obtain these days. Federal prosecutors have recently twice tried and failed to indict Sydney Lori Reid, who was charged with assaulting an FBI agent in the District. Both times the grand jury refused to indict, and the judge is now deciding whether to dismiss the case altogether.

On Wednesday, an extensive 2023 law banning books K-12 in Florida was ruled “overbroad and unconstitutional” by a federal judge. It’s a huge victory for publishers, educators, and community organizers, who came out against the broad-brush removal of books by Alice Walker, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, and many other respected authors.

A federal judge ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services can’t provide the personal information of 79 million Medicaid enrollees to deportation officials at DHS. The data-sharing was ostensibly to locate immigrants, Amanda Seitz and Kimberly Kindy reported for the Associated Press yesterday. Undocumented immigrants can’t enroll in Medicaid, but in the absence of insurance coverage, they can receive “lifesaving” medical care, which Medicaid covers for all uninsured patients nationwide in emergency rooms. But for the time being, this data-sharing partnership has been blocked.

A federal district court declared the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation into watchdog group Media Matters was a “retaliatory act” for its adversarial coverage of Elon Musk. The media watchdog had looked into how advertisers’ copy ran next to antisemitic content on Twitter during a period in which advertisers fled the platform. In The New York Times, Kate Conger reported that Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan called the investigation “a First Amendment violation.”

A majority of U.S. troops surveyed declared themselves willing to disobey illegal or unconstitutional orders. International legal scholars Charli Carpenter and Geraldine Santoso wrote for Talking Points Memo that in a June 2025 poll of 818 active-duty troops surveyed, “just 9% stated that they would ‘obey any order.’” Some even listed situations in which they might need to disobey orders that were legal on paper but would still violate their oath.

TikTok user r.oh.bee posted a video today of his run in DC Friday night, narrating what he saw as he covered some key areas in the city targeted by federal agents or national guard troops. The video is super-informative about what things look like on the ground, and at less than three minutes, can show you a lot of what federal attempts to intimidate a city look like. It also provides a great example of what you can do as a regular person living your life to inform and educate other people. In this case, you should stay to the end of the clip, when Rob relates the conversation he overheard in a Wawa.

There are no guarantees that any single bit of this week’s good news will hold. But each setback, every delay of the President’s agenda matters. Go to work, get out in your neighborhood, and connect to those who are providing information, food, books, legal help, education, and support for people in your community—whether they’re U.S.-born, trans, Black, gay, immigrant, or your grandma in a nursing home. That’s where we’ll find the answer to what’s convulsing the country, the connections to undo all the harm confronting us today.

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