Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Good afternoon. We're leading with a memo that stayed classified for two years — then buried when it finally surfaced.

KELI May tenth, 2017. Trump in the Oval Office with the Russian state photographer present — American press locked out — telling Russia's delegation he wasn't worried about election interference because, quote, the US does the same in other countries. This was the day after he fired FBI Director James Comey, the man investigating Russian interference. The classified memo leaked fast and dominated coverage for weeks. Then it vanished. When it resurfaced two years later, one outlet reported it — briefly — and it died. The memo contradicted the entire structural premise of the Mueller investigation: that Trump treated Russian interference as a threat distinct from American foreign policy. Instead, he told Russia the two were equivalent. Other newsrooms took the leak as scandal theater and moved on. What actually mattered was Trump's signal: your interference and ours are the same game. That framing — moral equivalence between state actors — removed any threshold for alarm. Watch for how that memo gets cited or ignored in the coming weeks if Trump addresses Russian operations again. If it stays sidelined, you'll know the structural read held.

HAST Texas agriculture commissioner Sid Miller is now publicly warning Governor Greg Abbott that Republican statewide candidates are going to lose because of rapid data center development across the state. Miller's been blunt: the governor won't listen, won't take a stronger stance, and the political cost is coming. This isn't a behind-the-scenes complaint — it's an elected Republican official saying on the record that his own party's leadership is handing Democrats an opening.

KELI That's happening because data centers are driving land use conflicts, property tax surges, and power grid strain in communities that have voted red for decades. The backlash is real enough that Abbott's silence on the issue is now a vulnerability Miller thinks is fatal to the ticket. Abbott has ignored him.

HAST Staying overseas — Israel announced a tender this week for six hundred twenty-seven new settler units in the occupied West Bank. This is the second major settlement expansion announcement in two weeks. Israeli officials are framing it as a long-term strategy to sever Palestinian territorial continuity and reduce Palestinian leverage over Jerusalem. The mechanism is straightforward: expand settlements faster than diplomatic resolution can move, and the map hardens.

KELI On public health — CBS's Margaret Brennan pressed acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on vaccine confidence and the state of trust in the agency during a live interview. Bhattacharya defended the Trump administration's record. Brennan brought up the August 2025 shooting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta where officer David Rose was killed, and asked how the agency rebuilds credibility after that trauma. The exchange was sharp — both held position, no real ground shifted.

HAST Canada's Bald Range wildfire in British Columbia doubled in size and crossed thirty-six square miles over the past forty-eight hours. State of emergency declared. The fire remains out of control. Evacuation corridors are running, and air quality alerts cover three provinces.

KELI Before we close, a history note.

HAST In 1892, Thomas Edison received a patent for a two-way telegraph — the foundation for what would become the telephone exchange.

KELI That's the Independent News Drop. We'll be back this evening. From Inkwell.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. The same workshop behind this drop just published the Magnificat — the song Mary sings in Luke, where the powerful are pulled down from their thrones and the hungry are filled.

HAST It reads less like a carol than a manifesto. Find it at inkwell dot wiki, slash giv.