“The Senate passed a deal between Democrats and the White House to fund the government, but the House won’t vote until Monday. The shutdown will have little impact if it is brief.”
Forbes: Elon Musk planned trip to Epstein’s private island [Dec 2014].
Elon Musk tweet: This is false.
–
Musk email (Dec 2013): Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is this a good time to visit?
Epstein: I will send a heli for you.
Musk: Thanks.
He says the “St. Bart’s area,” which is large and really could be anywhere and not include the island, so let’s not make a rush to… oh.
Musk: When should we head to your island on the 2nd [of January 2014]?
OK, so Musk was planning to go to Epstein’s island, but it’s not like he went there with the intent to go to a wild party or something, it was probably just some business. Excuse me, an email just came in. *Reads*
What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?
I *think* this thread is over? OK, so Musk was requesting to attend the wildest party on Epstein’s Island, I will grant you that. But who doesn’t love a party? I mean, it’s not like he was looking for love in all the wrong places or anything.
The world needs more romance. […] Talulah and I are headed to St Barth’s at the end of [2012]. I assume you will most likely be on your island?
Any reaction from EM yet on the other place? Hopefully just this screenshot [of Austin Powers speechless after failing to disavow his penis enlarger].
Elon Musk publicly slandering that cave diver as a “pedo guy” after he begged Jeffrey Epstein for island party invites is just incredible. And he really did follow it up by claiming there was no reason to anyone to move to Thailand aside from child sex slaves. Masterful.
Rando:
Elon Musk asked to go to Epstein’s “wildest party”:
– Six years after Epstein was first indicted.
– Four years after Epstein’s sweetheart deal where he pled guilty to solicitation of a minor.
– Three years after Epstein completes his sentence.
– Two years after he settles lawsuits from victims.
Carol Leonnig: [Federal Minnesota and Los Angeles] prosecutors […] declined to participate in this because they don’t believe the Don Lemon charges will actually stand up. […] The career prosecutors that I’ve spoken to […] are beside themselves.
Ryan Goodman: “Bondi tweet: ‘At my direction’ feds arrested journalists.”
birgerjohanssonsays
(Short) “BREAKING: Judge strikes down Trump’s $15B lawsuit against The New York Times”
Israeli strikes have killed at least 26 Palestinians, marking one of the highest death tolls since the October ceasefire.It comes a day after Israel accused Hamas of new ceasefire violations. Strikes hit locations throughout Gaza, including lethal ones on an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent camp in Khan Younis, officials at hospitals that received the bodies said. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. An air strike also hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 11 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.
The series of strikes also came a day before the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is set to open in Gaza’s southernmost city.
SLS Artemis so yeah, another delay. Still better safe than sorry – & still tantalisingly close seems launch could happen as early as Feb 8th :
NASA has been forced to delay a critical fueling test for its Artemis 2 moon rocket due to unusually cold weather forecasted to hit the Space Coast this weekend.
The wet dress rehearsal for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket was expected to begin last night (Jan. 29). An initial call to stations for Artemis 2 mission teams and the beginning of a 49-hour simulated launch countdown was set to start around 8:00 p.m. EST (0100 GMT, Jan. 30). The wet dress rehearsal is the last major test SLS has to pass before being cleared to launch a crew of astronauts to the moon — that launch will mark the first time in over 50 years humans have headed toward Earth’s natural satellite.
But the magats still chant ‘drill, baby, drill’ and the failed mainslime media is silent on this: https://www.juancole.com/2026/01/thursday-australia-uninhabitable.html
All the 15 Hottest Spots on Earth on Thursday were in Australia; Will it become Uninhabitable?
it is admittedly summer in Australia, but this is ridiculous.
Parts of Australia are already experiencing temperatures that on average are 1.5º C. (2.7º F.) hotter than the nineteenth century average.
That is a temperature rise that scientists hope the earth as a whole can avoid, and they are worried that if we go to 3º C. (5.4º F.), it will create large no-go zones where humans cannot live because it is too hot or too hot and humid.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES
Elon Musk emailed Epstein about ‘wildest party’ on private island: new docs. Emails released by the DOJ show Elon Musk sought an invite to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, asking to attend the “wildest party” despite Epstein’s sex-offender conviction.
That’s a thorough review. Here are a few excerpts:
In the 104 minutes of the movie “Melania,” there are only two real hints of how dangerous our world and politics have become.
The supposed documentary on First Lady Melania Trump is largely set in the 20 days before her husband, President Donald Trump, returned to office for the second time last January. At one point, the couple are seen with staffers discussing grand plans for “a million” people to line the streets of Washington for the swearing-in ceremony. Staffers inform the family that they will ride in a motorcade along Pennsylvania Avenue and that, as per tradition, they will have a few opportunities to get out of the car and wave at the crowd.
Despite assurances that the Secret Service believes this will be “safe,” Melania — and her son, Barron Trump — are clearly not convinced.
“How could that be safe? Especially with the last year, what’s going on and stuff,” Melania says during the meeting. “I have concerns, honestly, and I know Barron will not go out of the car. I respect that. That’s his decision. We need to talk about it. Are we doing it or not?”
[…] At the concession stand, I noticed they were selling large commemorative popcorn buckets emblazoned with Melania’s face. It’s part of a massive marketing campaign that brought a distinctly fascistic flavor to city streets, with billboards featuring the first lady’s portrait looming over street corners. Yet, at my screening, this effort to cultivate a cult of personality wasn’t quite taking. When I asked the two women selling snacks if anyone had bought the buckets, I received an emphatic response.
“No — and I hope not,” one of them said. […]
I opted for a small popcorn in a standard bag.
In its attempts to gloss over all of these simmering tensions, “Melania” the movie is almost aggressively uninsightful.
[…] The sole revelations to be found in “Melania” are about how brazen the Trumps are and about their all encompassing, incredible lack of self awareness. […] Melania is shown tromping around the gilded confines of the family’s private residences; the deranged rococo Florida beach club, Mar-a-Lago, and their obscene mirrored apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower.
[…] The entire financing and distribution of the documentary has often been likened to a naked bribe, delivered to the Trumps by one of the world’s richest men. “Melania” was financed and distributed by Amazon MGM Studios, which is a subsidiary of the online retail giant owned by centibillionaire Jeff Bezos. Amazon is widely reported to have spent a record $40 million to license the movie. According to the Wall Street Journal, as one of the movie’s producers, the first lady personally made $28 million from the deal. On top of that, the studio spent a reported $35 million on distribution and the marketing campaign […]
Hollywood insiders say that math simply doesn’t make sense. […] last year’s top grossing documentary was the official film for pop star Taylor Swift’s latest album.
“It’s about Taylor Swift, the most popular artist on the planet — and that made 34 million, so that made less than what they paid for this,” Rushfield explained. [Richard Rushfield, a columnist and founder of The Ankler newsletter]
With “Melania” likely needing to nearly triple Swift’s numbers just for Amazon to break even, Rushfield said it’s hard not to view the project as a corrupt payoff.
[…] Melania delivers narration acknowledging the financial backers who have made her and her husband’s rise a reality.
“It’s so powerful to see this room come to life tonight: candlelight, black tie, and my complete creative vision filled with the elegance and sophistication of our donors,” Melania says. “They are truly the driving force behind the campaign and its philosophy, the reason our victory is possible.” […]
You all remember when the Marmalade Mussolini recently mocked the Nordic states’ defenses in Greenland by blubbering about “two dog sleds”?
Now it is the Nordics who are laughing.
A friend from Finland, who refers to her country as the “Ukrainians of the North” (Finland joined NATO in 2023), recently told me that her country is more than ready for war. For comparison, while the British Army has about 71,000 regulars, Finland can mobilize 280,000 troops at short notice and has 900,000 reservists, out of a population of 5.5 m.
The US has about 3000 men in Alaska.
Everyone in Finland now knows they can no longer rely on the US. In fact, even leaving Trump’s rambling speeches aside, the news from the Pittufik “Space Base”, the single remaining US military base in Greenland, provoked hilarity more than fear or respect.
The US has set up various deployment guides and welcome packs to help their 150 military personnel, contractors and visiting researchers. All go big on weather safety and “on-base coziness”. US personnel are warned they should hoard snacks in their quarters, where they may have to hunker down when not allowed to walk to the canteen during storms.
Even in summer, all driving has to come to a stop because of fog.
However, the base offers golf simulators, computer gaming, a bowling alley and, ironically, an excellent selection of free Danish pastries!
Yes, pit these brave men against highly-mobile “dog sleds” manned by an all-weather trained elite Danish special forces.
Why, merely sabotaging the heating system at the base should be enough to bring the mighty US of A to its knees.
“Trump Sues IRS For $10 Billion For All Those Taxes He Never Paid”
Donald Trump is once again suing the federal government in hopes certainty of a great big taxpayer-funded payout. This time he’s demanding $10 billion from the IRS to cover the great harm done to him when a former IRS contractor leaked years of Trump’s tax returns to media outlets.
The complaint filed in federal court in Florida Friday says Trump is suing in his capacity as a private citizen, so no need to worry that this is some kind of corruption in his capacity as president. The suit also names Trump’s sons […] as plaintiffs, as well as the Trump Organization, which the complaint clarifies “includes The Trump Organization, LLC, as well as 418 other entities that received notices” from the IRS. We are not a business reporter, so we don’t know whether 418 is a lot of entities doing business under one name. Maybe it’s just average? Maybe someone who knows a lot about the money laundering real estate business could tell us.
Trump claims that the IRS should have prevented the contractor, Charles Littlejohn, from accessing tax records for the Trumps, their company (all 419 pieces of it) and other wealthy people. Littlejohn pleaded guilty in 2024 and is now serving five years in prison for leaking the tax information to the New York Times, ProPublica, and other outlets. The complaint says that the IRS, which he was the boss of at the time, should have had better computer security that would have prevented Littlejohn from downloading the records.
Hilariously, NBC News says that Trump will “now face off in court with his own administration,” as if the leaders of the IRS, all Trump appointees, will somehow put up a fight.
Also too, when lady reporter Karen Travers asked Trump a question about the lawsuit yesterday, Trump had one of his automatic Asshole Outbreaks, sidestepping the question and complaining, “You’re a loud person. Very loud. Let somebody else have a chance.” [video]
This is Trump’s second attempt to sue the US government he leads for its past sins against him; last fall, he demanded the Justice Department pay him $230 million for investigating him in all the crimes he managed to escape punishment for by getting reelected and also by having friends at the Supreme Court. That clusterfuck is still ongoing while Pam Bondi tries to find a plausible way to say sure, just hand him the money.
As for the leaks of Trump’s tax records, yes, we remember rolling our eyes and saying “now there’s a big fucking surprise” in 2020 when the Times reported, based on the records that we now know Littlejohn leaked, that Trump had paid just $750 in income tax in both 2016 and 2017, and nothing at all for 10 of the 15 years before he took office the first time. Now he wants billions in taxpayer-funded compensation for the scandal of him not paying taxes.
[…] The lawsuit claims that the leak of the tax records caused “reputational and financial harm […] It also says the information “adversely impacted President Trump’s support among voters in the 2020 presidential election,” and even gripes about how some of the reporting in ProPublica’s stories about the tax records was totally unfair and false, as if the IRS were responsible for that, too […]
As the New Republic points out, there are one or two little problems with the lawsuit, like the fact that when the leaks took place, the president was Donald Trump, who was in charge of the IRS. The suit may also be past the statute of limitations, as former GW Bush deputy assistant AG Ed Whelan noted in a thread on Twitter. Trump should have brought the lawsuit “within two years after the date of discovery” by the offended party,” Whelan explains.
To get around that problem, the lawsuit pretends that even though Trump knew of the leaks in 2020, he and the other plaintiffs somehow couldn’t sue until they knew it was Littlejohn who stole the information.
“But Littlejohn isn’t the defendant. Treasury and IRS are,” says Whelan. “And Trump knew back in 2020 that they had allowed the allegedly unlawful leaks. So that claim is time-barred.” [!]
Well sure, that seems like it could be a problem, but if the IRS argues the suit should be thrown out, Trump the president might just fire everyone there […]
This is all perfectly normal and perfectly legal, and not the least bit corrupt, the end.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump wants to build a 250-foot-tall arch, dwarfing the Lincoln Memorial
The president is eyeing a plot of land near Memorial Bridge. The art critic who proposed the idea called for a smaller arch or for Trump to pick a new site.
The White House stands about 70 feet tall. The Lincoln Memorial, roughly 100 feet. The triumphal arch President Donald Trump wants to build would eclipse both if he gets his wish.
Trump has grown attached to the idea of a 250-foot-tall structure overlooking the Potomac River, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments, a scale that has alarmed some architectural experts who initially supported the idea of an arch but expected a far smaller one.
The planned Independence Arch is intended to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary. Built to Trump’s specifications, it would transform a small plot of land between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery into a dominant new monument, reshaping the relationship between the two memorials and obstructing pedestrians’ views. [Aerial view of the proposed location]
Trump has considered smaller versions of the arch, including 165-foot-high and 123-foot-high designs he shared at a dinner last year. But he has favored the largest option, arguing that its sheer size would impress visitors to Washington, and that ‘250 for 250’ makes the most sense, the people said.
Architectural experts counter that the size of the monument — installed in the center of a traffic circle — would distort the intent of the surrounding memorials.
[…] “The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. And we’re gonna top it by, I think, a lot,” Trump said at a White House Christmas reception in December.
The Arc de Triomphe — already one of the world’s largest triumphal arches — measures 164 feet.
[…] Leigh initially proposed a 60-foot arch that could pop up as a temporary structure to mark America’s 250th. Trump instead wants a permanent arch, more than four times larger, funded with leftover private donations to his White House ballroom project, which he has said could cost about $400 million. Publicly identified donors to the ballroom project, such as Amazon, Google and Lockheed Martin, collectively have billions of dollars in contracts before the administration. [Alarming illustration comparing the proposed arch to the U.S. Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House]
[…] In the newly released files, Epstein bantered with Lajčák about women while discussing Lajčák’s meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Lajčák initially denied any wrongdoing, describing the communications as informal and light-hearted, and later offered his resignation to prevent political costs from falling on the prime minister, according to reports in Slovak media. “Not because I did anything criminal or unethical, but so that he does not bear political costs for something unrelated to his decisions,” Lajčák was quoted as saying.
The opposition had united in calling for him to resign. The coalition Slovak National Party also joined this stance, saying that Lajčák represented a security risk, according to local media. […]
“There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.” […] Mondragón entered the U.S. in 2022 with valid immigration documents. […] no criminal record. […] officers determined only after his arrest that he had overstayed his visa. […] an arrest warrant signed upon his arrival by an ICE officer, not an immigration judge. About four hours after his arrest, he was taken to a hospital emergency room […] telling staff he was “dragged and mistreated by federal agents,” though his condition quickly deteriorated
[…]
a U.S. District Court judge ordered him released from ICE custody. To the surprise of some who treated him, Castañeda Mondragón was discharged from the hospital Tuesday. […] Mondragón has no family in Minnesota […] coworkers have taken him in. He has significant memory loss and a long recovery ahead. He won’t be able to work for the foreseeable future, and his friends and family worry about paying for his care.
[…]
The crackdown has been unsettling to hospital employees, who said ICE agents have been seen loitering on hospital grounds and asking patients and employees for proof of citizenship. […] staff members are using an encrypted messaging app to compare notes and share information out of fear that the government might be monitoring their communications.
It’s believed to be the first time a local police department in Minnesota intervened
[…]
a U.S. citizen […] in her car, tracking the movements of federal agents, and recording them on a dash cam. […] Agents in three vehicles began chasing her and trying to force her to pull over. Eventually they box her in, three agents get out of the car in front of her, with their guns drawn […] the woman can be heard talking with other observers on speaker phone and she tells them to call 911. The agents open the door, which unlocked automatically when she put the gearshift in park, they drag her out and force her to the ground. […] handcuffed her, leaving her with multiple cuts, scrapes and bruises.
The woman’s husband eventually arrives and […] tells the agents not to search her car because they don’t have a warrant and it would be an illegal search. The agents appear dismissive of his constitutional concerns. “I’m not getting into the legality of everything,” One agent responds tersely.
[…]
The woman said the agents put her into one of their vehicles and started driving […] the agents got a call […] and drove back
[…]
The husband […] called his attorney, and soon after, he got a call from St. Peter Chief of Police Matt Grochow, whom he said he has known for years.
[…]
“ICE returned the female to our police department, I saw her, and I gave her a ride home,” Grochow wrote [to MPR].
Community
Her husband had time to drive to the scene and intervene after she called him, but no police appeared when she called 911. So… no hero cops to the rescue. Just the “good old boy” buddy network in action.
It does show that cops have the *power* to stop ICE. If they want to. Also… “the female” FFS he’s referring to the wife of someone he *knows*.
Nice to know if you’re friends with the chief of police, your female is safe.
True true, but if we celebrate it, maybe it’ll inspire other cops to finally do the right thing.
nothing is inevitable. We know from lots of research that people can interrupt violent processes by making choices that reflect their values. This is an example.
It must have taken a dozen people or more to abduct Liam Ramos and send him to Texas. At any one point, someone could have disrupted the process. That they didn’t is horrifying. That they *could* is important. They have agency and they’re making choices.
Something the research on genocide, ethnic cleansing, & communal violence shows us is that the processes tend to stop where local officials & local people refuse to participate in them. there may be obstacles to refusal—being threatened, being overpowered—but violence isn’t inevitable once it starts.
In that context, the noncompliance of ordinary Americans is especially notable and important: what we are seeing right now would be orders of magnitude worse if the average person was facilitating it. What we also need now is for elites and local officials in more places to act like this chief.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Legal AF (MeidasTouch): “Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota.”
Eric Turkewitz (Trial lawyer): “This legal decision is just 2 1/2 pages. It is readily understandable to the lay person. I have never, ever, ever, read an opinion like it.”
The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children […] Apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. Thirty-three-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king [*snip*] “We the people” are hearing echos of that history. And then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment
[…]
the Court finds that the Constitution of these United States trumps this administration’s detention […] [Habeas corpus] and release from detention are GRANTED […]
Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.
[…]
Philadelphia, September 17, 1787:
“Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”
With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, It is so ORDERED.
Judge Biery signed the order with a photo of Liam and two bible verses: The first is “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” The second is simply “Jesus wept.”
Nadiba Dennie (Balls&Strikes): “Here is a judge who knows he has a platform and is acting like it.”
A footnote see also’d Magna Carta article 39: forbidding unlawful detainment.
known for sometimes writing entertaining opinions with lengthy dicta citing literature, religious texts, plays, movies, and songs to explain his take on things. […] sworn enemy of bigotry and a protector of voting rights, never forgetting the history of discrimination
They said they didn’t really know Jeffrey Epstein that well. They were disgusted by him right off the bat. They were just drawn to his intellect or love of science or business acumen. They didn’t know about his abuse of women and girls. They deeply regretted associating with him.
In the years since Mr. Epstein’s 2019 arrest and death by suicide in a Manhattan jail, some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people have hastened to distance themselves from the disgraced man with whom they once did business, dined in lavish settings or flew on private jets.
But a slow drip of document releases and other revelations over the last several months — culminating in Friday’s release of nearly three million pages of Epstein-related records — has underscored the depth, intensity and persistence of his connections to the global elite, contradicting or undermining years of careful denials.
So far, at least, the new documents have not fundamentally altered the public understanding of Mr. Epstein or his crimes. Instead, they are replete with chummy exchanges, warm invitations and financial entanglements. Together, the documents show how Mr. Epstein’s connections with people in Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington and fashion thrived even after he became a convicted sex offender in 2008.
Elon Musk, among the world’s richest men, once not only denied visiting Mr. Epstein’s island, but framed his decision as an act of principle. In a social media post last September, Mr. Musk wrote that Mr. Epstein “tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED.” But the documents released on Friday suggested that Mr. Musk was at one point eager to visit. “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Mr. Musk emailed Mr. Epstein in November 2012.
Mr. Musk wrote Saturday in a social media post: “I had very little correspondence with Epstein and declined repeated invitations to go to his island or fly on his ‘Lolita Express,’ but was well aware that some email correspondence with him could be misinterpreted and used by detractors to smear my name.”
On a podcast last year, Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, described being so revolted by a mid-2000s visit to Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion that he decided to “never be in a room with that disgusting person ever again.”
Mr. Lutnick’s disgust appeared to prove temporary. In 2012, he emailed with Mr. Epstein to arrange a visit with his wife and children to Mr. Epstein’s private island just before Christmas. An assistant to Mr. Epstein later forwarded Mr. Lutnick a message from Mr. Epstein: “Nice seeing you,” it said. (On Friday, Mr. Lutnick said that “I spent zero time with him.”)
[…] A 2013 email exchange with the British billionaire Richard Branson hinted that he, too, had a familiar relationship with Mr. Epstein. “It was really nice seeing you yesterday,” Mr. Branson wrote, adding: “Any time you’re in the area would love to see you. As long as you bring your harem!” (A Branson representative said the two had a business meeting and stressed that the women were adults and had not attended the meeting.)
The New York real estate mogul Andrew Farkas, a powerful political donor with ties to former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and President Trump, co-owned a marina with Mr. Epstein in St. Thomas for years. In a letter to investors last year, he said that his relationship with the sex offender was purely a business one. But documents released recently suggested a more personal connection.
The two men traded crude emails about women in one 2010 exchange, after Mr. Epstein’s first arrest and conviction. Mr. Farkas told Mr. Epstein in a 2018 note that he loved him and considered him one of his best friends before signing off, “xoxo.” Mr. Farkas stayed on Mr. Epstein’s island. And photographs released by Congress late last year showed Mr. Epstein with his hand on Mr. Farkas’ shoulder as they walked together in a tropical setting. In December, a spokeswoman for Mr. Farkas told The Times that his “dealings with Mr. Epstein were entirely related to their business relationship” and that “he regrets their association.”
[…] an investment firm co-founded by Mr. Thiel accepted $40 million from Mr. Epstein and that Mr. Epstein and Mr. Peter Thiel corresponded for at least five years before Mr. Epstein’s death.
“Visit me Caribbean,” Mr. Epstein urged the tech billionaire in 2018.
[…] Testimony and documents released over the years have shown that Mr. Epstein’s cultivation of powerful people was integral to his abuse of women. He displayed photos with famous friends in his Manhattan townhouse, where girls and young women might see them. He often had them listen to his phone conversations. He bragged to them about who he knew — and about what might happen to his victims if they turned against him. […]
Aussie youtuber Michael west has this Herzog, Iran, Pauline, Susssan, Pete and the Rio deal | Scam of the Week covering among other things the destruction by takeover of TikTok and the Palestinian-Australian’s repalcemrnt for it called UpScroll ina funny and informative 23 mins long news discussion clip.
haven’t been to the beach allSummer – indeed not since the algal bloom ecological catstrophe began here -usually go atleats a few times :.
While the algal bloom has “virtually disappeared” from South Australia’s metropolitan coast, it is a different story on south-western Yorke Peninsula where locals say it has been causing “massive heartache” for parts of the community.
Citizen scientist Lochie Cameron has been collecting and testing water samples from around the Corny Point area.
“It’s quite humbling to look down a microscope and see a tiny little piece of algae that’s causing so much destruction along our beaches,” he told ABC News.
He said he first noticed an increase in the bloom in the area in early January.
All the 15 Hottest Spots on Earth on Thursday were in Australia; Will it become Uninhabitable?
it is admittedly summer in Australia, but this is ridiculous.
Heard / read somewhere that temperatures over approx 60 degrees Celsius (140 Fahrenheit) satrat to denature proteins and are literally close to unsurvivable for most multi-cellular life.
Also know temperatures used in weather observations are measured in the shade and in sunlight temps are considerably hottter. (Maybe even ten plus degrees hotter..)
We’re now getting heatwaves approaching 50 degrees – in the shade – right now withrecords regularly being broken year after year, angry Summer after angrier Summer. So if trends continue and ground and air temps are regularly approaching say 60 degrees then more plus, well.. Fuck!
We have air conditioning (whilst power works) and homes. Outside, the flora and fauna and ecosystems generally.. obvs not.
So, yeah, its looking very fucking grim indeed.
Oh and to teh next comment immediately after that also by shermanj :
NASA used to be a competent responsible agency, this raises many questions. They seem almost as irresponsible as muskrat’s SpaceX. (Link snipped -ed.) A critical flaw in the heat shield of NASA’s upcoming moon rocket has sparked serious safety concerns among space flight specialists. ..
(Minor edits by me. Hope that’s okay.)
That’s been addressed. They delayed the next SLS-Artemis launch following the discovery of that heat shield issue after the Artemis 1 flight and fixed that both with alterig the re-entry trajectory and, I think, improving the heat shield too. fairly sure that’sbeen mentione dinsome videos I linked onthis thread earlier..
So no, NASA are being safe and responsiible here.
StevoRsays
From over a dozen hours ago now and seems not much more mention of it which is curious but France 24 English News is a reliable source that I trust so whilst maybe not such a big deal somehow – still Iran explosions: What we know so far. 5 mins long.
Dóh! Didn’t realise that last source was a Christianist one till now. Looked like a legitimate news channel but then … ending a report with a prayer for Trump & Netanyahu, yuck! Was watching as I typed and hadn’t seen the end of that till now. Sorry folks.
@ #31 & 32. From Aljazeera which is certainly more reliable than CBN &seems to be more reassuring news :
Iran’s top national security official has said that arrangements for negotiations with the United States are progressing as tensions rise in the Gulf amid a military buildup by Washington in the region.
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said in a social media post on Saturday that, “unlike the artificial media war atmosphere, the formation of a structure for negotiations is progressing”.
They also have an article on the explosion (singular not plural now?) being caused by a gas leak. Do i buy that? Dunno..
StevoRsays
An explosion that killed two people and damaged a residential building in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas was likely caused by a gas leak, according to local officials and state media.
The blast took place on Saturday amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United Sates and wounded at least 13 others, the officials said.
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, which a local fire chief said was caused by a gas leak.
“The initial cause of the building accident in Bandar Abbas was a gas leak and buildup, leading to an explosion. This is the initial theory,” Mohammad Amin Lyaghat said, in comments broadcast on state television.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false”.
Iranian media had said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
… (snip)..
..Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Smoke in Parand on the outskirts of the capital Tehran was “caused by a minor fire in the reeds,” state television said.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear programme.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump: “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself … We could make it a substantial amount, nobody would care, because it’s gonna go to numerous, very good charities.” [Audio clip]
Guy who’s banned from operating a charity said what?
Hear me out: what if we had a pseudo-government organization that could take money like this and provide it to various charities. We could call it something like USAID.
It is not just that Trump is cutting himself billion dollar checks from the taxpayers in plain sight. Trump is also talking about is corrupt plans to the press and saying it is no big deal. And Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm to avoid conflict of interest.
I assume this outrageous graft will be considered to be part of his “official duties?” Totally immune?
The unitary executive as license to loot the U.S. Treasury.
I almost respect how Trump has found basically every possible method for stealing money from the American people.
I have been trying to write an essay for four weeks now about Article II under the Trump administration and I keep having to restart because the draft never appropriately conveys the insanity of whatever happened during the last week.
Like the President argued that he had the power to demolish the East Wing because he receives ambassadors [a constitutional duty, using tents for lack of a facility], and I’m trying to decide if that’s so tame that it needs to be cut.
Chris Edelson: “I have had a similar problem as I finish my book on emergency presidential power.”
Rando: “why isn’t the some kind of rule that when the President sues the government, the defendant be represented by independent counsel?”
Nick Bednar: “There is a special counsel when the government seeks to investigate the president, but I don’t think anyone had ever thought the president would sue the government in a personal capacity while in office.”
birgerjohanssonsays
As we wait for the Moon rocket launch…The early 1970s rocket designs were more daring than the Space Shuttle.
Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024. […] With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points.
[…]
Rehmet’s victory allows him to serve only until early January, and he must win the November general election to keep the seat for a full-four year term. The Texas Legislature is not set to reconvene until 2027, and the GOP still will have a comfortable majority. […] The seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office.
Texas Monthly: “Legislatively, the outcome of the race is essentially meaningless”
Rando: “[Maps of Tarrant County precincts 2022 vs 2026, awash in blue]”
Rehmet was far outspent in the leadup to the November election, spending $68,000 compared to millions spent by the two GOP candidates. He remained financially outgunned heading into Saturday, with Wambsganss reporting a whopping $736,000 in expenditures compared to Rehmet’s roughly $70,000
Robert Downen (Texas Monthly): “Rehmet, a union chapter president, has largely avoided engaging with Culture War/MAGA issues, instead focusing heavily on labor, economic issues, working-class solidarity and other issues [to] bring over enough disaffected Republicans.”
GOP wasted all that money on a seat they couldn’t use and didn’t need, just trying to prevent a Dem win in Texas.
“Staying silent while the Trump administration takes matters, and ballots, into its own hands would irreparably harm our democracy.”
Related video at the link.
The moment the media declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election, I was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta — deployed in my role as counsel to the Biden campaign to defend the will of Georgia voters as the state ballot counting process unfolded. For most Americans, the election was over. But my work was just getting started.
Under Georgia law, the close margin required election officials to carry out not only the regular counting process, but also a “risk limiting audit” — a hand recount of all five million ballots cast. Our legal team, and that of the Trump campaign, observed as each of Georgia’s 159 counties counted the ballots, certified the count and then counted them again by hand. After all of this, the Trump campaign demanded a third count in the form of a statewide machine recount. Georgia’s dedicated election workers counted every ballot a third time, often working overnight in shifts while contending with threats of violence and an unprecedented global pandemic. […]
After three counts, the results remained unchanged. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election in Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp certified the results despite intense pressure from then-President Donald Trump. Courts rejected every attempt by the Trump campaign and the president’s allies to overturn the results.
And yet, more than five years later, President Trump has taken his most extreme step to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. On Wednesday, a phalanx of FBI agents descended on the Fulton County election operations center and seized hundreds of boxes of ballots, tabulator tapes, ballot images and other documents related to the 2020 vote.
Americans who believe in free and fair elections should be terrified. […] Americans should be terrified because of what this portends for the 2026 midterms.
The Trump administration dispatched federal officers to remove ballots and voting equipment from the hands of state election officials — where they belong — and placed them under federal control. […]
This fall, we are increasingly likely to see a president commanding the federal law enforcement apparatus to seize ballots and voting equipment, prosecute election workers, intimidate voters and election officials and interfere with the counting of ballots and the certification of election results. [!]
Public officials cannot afford to wait until it’s too late to act or speak out. Governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general and other state and local election officials know that elections are a state function protected by the Constitution. […] Members of Congress swore an oath when they took office to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. What threat to our Constitution is greater than the demolition of impartial elections?
[…] As a voter protection lawyer who worked on the two largest recounts in American history, I know that state processes to count ballots are thorough, secure and accurate. I also know that staying silent while the Trump administration takes matters, and ballots, into its own hands would irreparably harm our democracy.
“It’s meant to sow fear,” Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory said in the wake of the FBI search. “People who normally would stand up to exercise their free and fair right to vote get afraid to do that. And that’s exactly what [Trump] hopes will happen.”
Possible risk of autism in children. Dormant cancer cells awakening. Accelerating aging of the brain.
Federal officials in May 2023 declared an end to the national COVID pandemic. But more than two years later, a growing body of research continues to reveal information about the virus and its ability to cause harm long after initial infections resolve, even in some cases when symptoms were mild.
[…] While some studies show COVID vaccines offer protective benefits against longer-term health effects, the Department of Health and Human Services has drastically limited recommendations about who should get the shot. The administration also halted Biden-era contracts aimed at developing more protective COVID vaccines. [!]
The federal government is curtailing such efforts just as researchers call for more funding and, in some cases, long-term monitoring of people previously infected.
“[…] we are going to be learning about the chronic effects of the virus for some time to come,” said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who directs the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
[…] Although COVID has become less deadly, because of population immunization and mutations making the virus less severe, researchers say the politicization around the infection is obscuring what science is increasingly confirming: COVID’s potential to cause unexpected, possibly chronic health issues. That in turn, these scientists say, drives the need for more, rather than less, research, because over the long term, COVID could have significant economic and societal implications, such as higher health care costs and more demands on social programs and caregivers.
The annual average burden of the disease’s long-term health effects is estimated at $1 trillion globally and $9,000 per patient in the U.S., according to a report published in November in the journal NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine. In this country, the annual lost earnings are estimated to be about $170 billion.
One study estimates that the flu resulted in $16 billion in direct health costs and $13 billion in productivity losses in the 2023-2024 season, according to a Dec. 30 report in medRxiv, an online platform that publishes work not yet certified by peer review.
[I snipped details of some long-term effects, some of which need to be researched more thoroughly, including effects on pregnant women and babies.]
[…] A U.K. study in the New England Journal of Medicine found people who fully recovered from mild COVID infections experienced a cognitive deficit equal to a three-point drop in IQ. Among the more than 100,000 participants, deficits were greater in people who had persistent symptoms and reached the equivalent of a nine-point IQ drop for individuals admitted to intensive care. [I snipped more details about loss of cognitive function.]
[I snipped details revealing how Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s actions have reduced access to vaccines, and have kept vaccine rates low.]
Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest
No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about Melania Knauss, the ambitious model from out of Slovenia who married a New York real-estate mogul and then found herself cast in the role of a latter-day Eva Braun, but the horrific Melania emphatically isn’t it. It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.
Empire:
In 1935, Adolf Hitler commissioned director Leni Riefenstahl to make Triumph Of The Will, a highly nationalistic and likely heavily staged account of the Nazi Party’s 1934 Nuremberg rallies. It was a key moment in the history of propaganda films, a coldly fascistic conceptualisation of Germany as the Nazis hoped to recast it, produced with full participation and collaboration of an authoritarian regime. Melania, on the other hand — a new documentary about Melania Trump, wife of President Donald Trump — is more like Triumph of the Shill. It is political propaganda at its most transparent — cynical, pointless, and very, very boring.
The Globe and Mail:
Amazon’s painful Melania documentary is an unintentionally perfect portrait of American cruelty
The very worst part of Ratner’s flimsy piece of propaganda is that it is thoroughly, terminally boring. Even the most agitated progressive will walk into Melania and, looking for a fight, exit merely groggy and exhausted, if not induced into a full-on slumber. […]
In attempting to make a grand and heroic portrait of the first lady and the political moment surrounding her, Ratner has accidentally delivered the ultimate chronicle of 21st-century excess and greed, a world of casual yet immense cruelty covered in flop sweat and gold glitter.
Ilhan Omar: Liam is home now and we are grateful to @JoaquinCastrotx
for traveling to Minneapolis with him and his dad. Welcome home Liam ❤️❤️
————————-
Joaquin Castro: Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning.
Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam. We won’t stop until all children and families are home.
Germany’s Plan to Challenge Trump’s Agenda
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ztCYqyfaKD8
Behold: Germany states the intention of building the most powerful conventional military in Europe…and Poland is cheering them on!
From Facebook and TikTok to Instagram and X, AI-manipulated images and videos depicting Alex Pretti’s final moments have proliferated across the internet since his fatal shooting by federal officers in Minneapolis last weekend.
The rapid spread of media altered by artificial intelligence, much of which shows Pretti collapsing in the seconds after he was shot, has clouded key details of the shooting on social networks. Unlike other AI-generated deepfakes that portray entirely unrealistic scenes and are easily identified as fake, many of the AI-altered depictions of Pretti’s shooting appear to have been based on verified images, mirroring reality enough to confuse and mislead many online.
And even as awareness of the capabilities of advanced artificial intelligence spreads, some online are extending their skepticism of authentic media, falsely claiming that legitimate photos and videos of Pretti have been altered by AI.
One image that appears to have been manipulated with AI, showing the ICU nurse falling forward as a federal officer points a gun at his back, has been viewed over 9 million times on X (even as it received a community note that the image had been enhanced by AI). Among other AI-fabricated details, the still image features an ICE officer without a head. […]
This week’s installment of Congressional Cowards focuses on one lawmaker whose actions were so comically cowardly that they deserve their own feature.
So congratulations to GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, who literally chose to run away from her constituents rather than answer a very fair and basic question about why she won’t speak out against the federal government killing U.S. citizens in the streets.
Hageman held a town hall in Casper, Wyoming […] in which she was repeatedly asked by constituents to speak out against the […] actions of […] Trump’s immigration goons.
“Why have you not spoken out against the Fourth Amendment violations that ICE officers and Border Patrol officers are currently engaging in by breaking into people’s homes without a warrant?” one attendee asked.
But instead of answering, Hageman assailed the constituent’s character.
“I don’t know that I trust your facts,” Hageman responded.
Later on, another constituent asked Hageman why she had not spoken out against the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, both at the hands of Trump’s immigration goons.
“They are killing American citizens in the streets, and you are doing nothing. You are not saying a single solitary thing to support constituents or to support the American people,” they said. “As a constitutional lawyer, you should be infuriated. You should be incensed. Why are you not?”
But rather than responding, the cowardly Hageman left, as one constituent yelled “coward” and “chickenshit” as she walked off stage.
It’s truly so easy to speak out against obvious wrongs being committed by the federal government. In fact, GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky had no qualms with criticizing the killing of Pretti.
“After seeing this, if you call this a good shooting, you aren’t watching the video. This was a real tragedy and a mistake. The man had been disarmed and then was shot 10 times,” Paul said. “If we say things that are obviously not true, the situation is going to get worse.”
But Hageman chose to walk away rather than do the right thing.
To be sure, a number of Hageman’s GOP colleagues have said disgusting things to not only defend the killings of Good and Pretti but to also disparage them.
While Hageman didn’t do that, her silence shows that she knows the killings of Good and Pretti were wrong, but she’s still too cowardly to speak out against it. […]
:“Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents initially claimed Alberto Castañeda Mondragón had tried to flee while handcuffed and “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” according to court documents filed by a lawyer seeking his release.
But staff members at Hennepin County Medical Center determined that could not possibly account for the fractures and bleeding throughout the 31-year-old’s brain, said three nurses familiar with the case.
“It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” said one of the nurses, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.” —Associated Press
[On Saturday Night Live] Tom Homan’s Advice to ICE: ‘Don’t Get Filmed’
The “Saturday Night Live” alum Pete Davidson plays the border czar who was tasked with reorienting ICE agents in Minneapolis, replacing their ousted commander.
[…] the show (hosted by Alexander Skarsgard and featuring the musical guest Cardi B) began with Pete Davidson as the White House border czar Tom Homan, taking command of I.C.E. officers to reacquaint them with the purpose of their deployment.
“Now I’m sure a lot of you are wondering why Greg Bovino, the last guy, was dismissed,” Davidson said. “I want to stress that it wasn’t because he did a bad job. Or publicly lied about the shooting of an American citizen. Or even — uh-oh — dressed like a Nazi. It was that he was filmed doing these things. And the president no likey that.”
Davidson asked an officer, played by Kenan Thompson, to identify his mission objective.
“Pass,” Thompson replied.
Another officer, played by Johnson, was asked what I.C.E. was doing in Minneapolis. Johnson answered, “This could be wrong, but — Army?”
“That’s close,” Davidson told him. “We’re here to detain and deport illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.”
Andrew Dismukes, also playing an I.C.E. agent, interjected with some surprise: “That is literally the first I’m hearing of that,” he said. [video. Video is also available on YouTube ]
The back-and-forth between Davidson and his men continued in this manner.
“Remember, the job ultimately is about keeping America safe from — what?” he asked.
“This could be wrong,” Johnson answered, “but — Don Lemon?”
Finally, Davidson asked his men, “What have we learned today?”
This time, Johnson replied, “This could be wrong, but: that you hired a bunch of angry, aggressive guys, gave us guns and didn’t train us, so this is maybe what you wanted to happen?”
Davidson told the officers to show some restraint and to do their jobs without violating Americans’ rights. “Can you do that?” he asked.
“No,” Thompson replied curtly.
“Well, I had to ask,” Davidson said. “Maybe just try not to get filmed.” […]
Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Saturday that expands the state Supreme Court from five justices to seven as frustration has mounted among Republican lawmakers over a string of defeats […]
The state’s judiciary did not ask for more justices on the high court. Democrats, who were united in opposition to the bill, called the timing suspicious. Last week the Legislature asked the court to overturn a redistricting ruling that gave Democrats a strong shot at picking up one of Utah’s four Republican-held congressional seats in the fall. New justices could be in place when the court decides the fate of the congressional map.
[…]
In Utah, justices are appointed by the governor and approved by the state Senate. Justices in many other states are elected. […] Once he fills the new seats, Cox will have appointed five of the seven sitting justices. Last month Republican lawmakers took authority from state Supreme Court justices to select their own chief justice and gave that power to the governor.
[…]
Republicans have also been collecting signatures to try to place on the November ballot an initiative that would restore their ability to draw voting districts that deliberately favor a political party, a practice known as gerrymandering.
The two federal immigration agents who fired […] are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. […] [Ochoa] joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBP’s Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas. […] Ochoa had for years dreamed of working for the Border Patrol [By 2021], he had become a gun enthusiast with about 25 rifles, pistols and shotguns
Rando: “The racial politics of shipping up a bunch of Latinos to arrest and kill midwestern White people is genuinely insane.”
StevoRsays
The staggering hypocrisy and irony of Trump here given that Iran DID sign a deal to stop developing nukes and it was Trump who broke and ended it, is just GOBSMACKING!
Yet its been so normalised & doesn’t seem to be getting called out :
As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’, a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse!”
Also I don’t think Trump know how the story of the Spanish Armada (the famous 1588 one – although there were subsequent ones that also failed includiing a disastrous English armada!) ended.
Minor general gripe & suggestion – wish we’d use escalating feedback and stabilising feedback rather than positive and negative feedbacks tomake clearer what they actually do.
President Donald Trump announced Sunday that he has determined that the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington should close for about two years.
Trump added that the decision was made based on a review that involved “Contractors, Musical Experts, Art Institutions, and other Advisors and Consultants,” who were weighing construction with closure and re-opening or partial construction while entertainment operations continued.
This is for remodeling, along designs selected by Trump. The closure is likely a cover for having lost so many artists that they couldn’t fill the schedule.
Anytime he says something like this, we should just assume he wants to tear whatever it is straight down, and unless he encounters meaningful opposition he’s going to do it, because “he can’t do that” is a meaningless observation absent any enforcement.
Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars […] The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.
The deal with World Liberty Financial […] was signed by Eric Trump […] At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East […]
The investment was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal who has been pushing the U.S. for access to tightly guarded artificial intelligence chips […] the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters.
[…]
The agreement would make Aryam [a Tahnoon-backed company] World Liberty’s largest shareholder, and the firm’s only known investor outside of its founders. […] Tahnoon was already in business with the Trump family through Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose investment firm had raised $1.5 billion in 2024 from a Tahnoon-backed company and Qatar. […] At the time of the investment, World Liberty had no products.
[…]
said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and former ethics lawyer for the city of Washington, D.C. “This sure looks like a violation of the foreign emoluments clause, and more to the point, it looks like a bribe.”
[…]
In May, […] the sheikh’s investment firm, MGX, would use World Liberty’s stablecoin, USD1, to complete its $2 billion investment in Binance—the largest-ever investment into a cryptocurrency company. […]
The move rocketed USD1 up the rankings of largest stablecoins, enhancing its financial credibility. It gave World Liberty a $2 billion cash pile, which the company holds in reserve to maintain the coins’ 1-to-1 tie to the dollar. The company invests the money in Treasurys and pockets the interest, generating about $80 million if held for a year. […] The Aryam deal had in fact laid the groundwork for the creation of USD1.
[…]
In September, under a deal negotiated by the Trump administration, MGX became one of a handful of investors selected to operate TikTok in the U.S. The next month, Trump pardoned [Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who lives in Abu Dhabi and is is close to Tahnoon].
On Oct. 22, the day before the White House confirmed Trump had signed the pardon, Witkoff and Kushner were back in Abu Dhabi to discuss Gaza, Israel and Trump’s plan for a Board of Peace, a White House official said. They were meeting with Tahnoon.
The chatbot, which was released by the Eric Adams administration in fall of 2023, was meant to provide business owners with an accessible way to check city rules and regulations. But […] the bot provided answers that, if followed, would lead to illegal behavior
[…]
the new administration plans to take down the chatbot. […] It wasn’t clear how much it cost to maintain the chatbot. Just building the bot’s foundations reportedly cost nearly $600,000
An underwhelming answer for a press conference addressing the $12 billion budget shortfall he inherited but good that the bot’s going away.
That feeling when you, a terrorism and extremism scholar, see documentary evidence that shows [4chan’s founder] moot met with Jeffery Epstein on the same day /pol was launched.
To be clear: I don’t think there was any collusion. Moot had no love for the pol crowd and the nazis had already infested the site before pol. But the sheer coincidence is enough to give me a migraine.
Michael Senters (PoliSci): “It very likely put the site and the board on Epstein’s radar […] from what I’ve seen, there is no 4chan stuff before the meeting, only after.”
Andy Vitek: “The latest document drop has emails of [Epstein] sending people shit directly from /gifs. He didn’t just know about it, he was a big user.”
Andy Vitek: “I want to stress again: I don’t actually think there was some Dan Brown shit between moot and Epstein. The nazis were already on the site pre-pol and moot hated them, even going so far as to ban all discussion of gamergate from 4chan (8chan was born as a result).”
Michael Senters:
Rando: How are you supposed to explain to people how this entire social, political, and economic reality is entirely downstream from anime getting banned on some dipshit’s forum [SomethingAwful] 25ish years ago?
I am attempting to do that with my dissertation to some degree, and it’s driving me insane.
* Moot created 4chan after SomethingAwful banned sexualized anime minors.
Michael Senters: “Just realized that one of the potential factors (and I should emphasize it was just one, there were other things at play) about the shift in 4chan’s culture that began to be visible and apparent by 2013-2014 is that Epstein started actively sending his pals to the site after the m00t meeting.”
Michael Senters: “The fact that Epstein could have been involved with Gamergate, Pizzagate and QAnon because he was clearly not only an active user on the site but actually knew the creator and seems to have established a friendship with him”
4chan’s founder meeting with Epstein around the time where the /pol/ board opened up doesn’t prove much of anything. Moot openly loathed the /pol/ crew and the site’s dominant culture was very different then.
[Christopher “moot” Poole] first tried to contain the nazi psychos on 4chan and failed. It’s a big reason he cited for selling the site and leaving.
This was also around the time of his personal peak in notoriety. Magazine features, TED talks, all that. We know Epstein was into that genre of media stuff.
Point is, they could have discussed anything under the sun. Without additional evidence, all we have is some wild speculation. Moot created one of the internet’s nastiest sewers and deserves to be embarrassed in history for his failures to control it. But those emails don’t really tell us much.
That said, there are […] much clearer alarm bells, re: Epstein’s interest in the far-right. Like [promoting the little known The Right Stuff podcast in 2016 prior to hosts’ role in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally.]
I’m one of the people who got him to delete the old politics board, I’m not sure how I feel about finding out I got overridden by fucking Epstein. [Screenshots]
Also one of the things I did was moderate 4chan, which was a lot of deleting of CSAM. […] moot was pushing us all to just do it manually more, rather than work on any projects to try and prevent it. I was arguing about how to best keep pedophilic content off the site with someone who hung out with Epstein? Jesus fucking christ.
Rando:
The wild part is that m00t likely only knew Boris Nikolic, the guy who connected him to Epstein, because m00t was trying to “go legit” by running Canvas by that point, which was VC-funded […] & Nikolic was a managing director on Bill Gates’ bgC3 VC fund.
Likely, if m00t either dropped 4chan entirely while trying to move to the startup company ecosystem, or focused on just running 4chan without being in that VC creep mix, the entirely of the past decade would probably look very different. Instead, he tried to juggle both & both failed disastrously.
[…] depending on how much worse things get, our Franz Ferdinand moment will be when a petulant 20-something tried to get VC money to get out of the sleazy imageboard business, but got advice from one of history’s greatest monsters.
Jared Holt:
Boris Nikolic (email days after the meeting): “This article describes why I find moot interesting. The potential for manipulation is huge.”
That was the tone of so much public conversation about social media at that time. Read the WaPo story he linked. It had the same tone. You can read that sentence as an observation—gee whiz this is wild—or as plotting/suggestion. Without more context or proof, I wouldn’t commit to the latter.
birgerjohanssonsays
Toothless Gears Make Much More Torque Than Conventional Ones, Here’s How…
‘There is an attempt to get rid of me’: leader of UK’s black police association alleges campaign to silence him | British Police | The Guardian .https://share.google/6PBnGnSOlJqDZcPtw
“GOP officials fiercely oppose adding judicial seats to shift a court in an ideological direction — except when they don’t.”
During Barack Obama’s second term, a variety of prominent Republicans became confused about what the term “court packing” means. Some GOP senators, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley and Texas’ John Cornyn, said that if Senate Democrats confirmed judicial nominees to fill existing judicial vacancies, that necessarily meant the president and his allies were engaged in “court packing.”
The partisan whining was rather silly. Court packing has a simple definition: It involves expanding a bench by adding judicial seats for the purpose of moving a court in an ideological direction.
Indeed, despite the GOP’s apparent confusion about the meaning of the term, the party eagerly embraced court packing in Georgia in 2016, where it created a new conservative majority, and in Arizona the same year, adding two seats to the state Supreme Court.
The results were dramatic: After Republicans added a pair of far-right jurists to Arizona’s highest court, for example, it started issuing far-right rulings, not the least of which was its upholding of a Civil War-era abortion ban, which sparked a national controversy in 2024.
A decade after the efforts in Arizona and Georgia, GOP officials in another state are taking a page from the same playbook. The Associated Press reported:
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Saturday that expands the state Supreme Court from five justices to seven as frustration has mounted among Republican lawmakers over a string of defeats before the tribunal.
Republican advocates for the change argued that it would help improve the court’s efficiency. But legal experts said it could have the opposite effect and set a dangerous precedent at a time of tension between the branches of government. The state’s judiciary did not ask for more justices on the high court.
There’s no great mystery here: Utah Republicans have grown increasingly frustrated as the state Supreme Court has thwarted their ambitions on issues such as reproductive right and school vouchers. But partisan ire reached a new level last year when the state’s high court also crushed the GOP’s redistricting efforts, leading to a new map that will make it possible for Democrats to win a seat.
Partisan efforts to expand the Utah Supreme Court soon followed, and the incumbent GOP governor is now positioned to have appointed five of the state’s seven justices, thereby increasing the odds that rulings in the near future will be more in line with Republicans’ wishes.
In progressive politics, it’s not uncommon to hear advocates for expanding the U.S. Supreme Court in response to GOP abuses. The next time the right decries such reform proposals as indefensible “court packing,” keep these state-based developments in mind.
birgerjohanssonsays
Lis aka Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who would have turned 80 today.
Among the newly released materials is a 2019 text exchange between Epstein and Stephen Bannon, a former top adviser to Trump, that includes an image of Trump speaking at an event—his face conspicuously hidden beneath a black redaction box.
It is a small and dark picture but it’s either Trump or a Trump impersonator. Either way it shouldn’t have been redacted, it isn’t even embarrassing on it’s own. It was part of a conversation between Epstein and Steve Bannon about the inauguration. It just raises more questions about what is being redacted.
[…] As Trump apparently sees it, Americans won’t be outraged if he agrees to pay himself billions of taxpayer dollars, so long as he doesn’t keep billions of taxpayer dollars.
If only it were that simple. For one thing, there are no guarantees that he’d direct all of the money to charitable causes. For another, Trump’s track record of following through on vows to give to charity isn’t exactly sterling, which makes it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Just as notable is the simple fact that the president filed an absurd $10 billion lawsuit, seeking a payoff he neither needs nor deserves. Vague assurances about where some or all of that money might go at some future date don’t turn a baseless case into a good one.
Writing for MS NOW, political columnist Paul Waldman explained that the president’s litigation is “so brazen, so shameless, so stunning … that it will stand out in history even in a presidential term drowning in self-dealing.” Waldman added, “This latest act deploys Trump’s favorite financial weapon — the bogus lawsuit — but in a way no one even contemplated before.”
On ABC News’ “This Week,” host George Stephanopoulos asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche about the obvious conflict of interest, as Trump seeks money from his own administration. Blanche, a former Trump defense attorney, replied, “We’re looking at how to handle that.”
“DHS said state health officials reported the infections to federal immigration authorities Saturday.”
Two detainees were infected with measles at a Texas immigration facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father had been held, a Department of Homeland Security official said Sunday.
The two patients at Dilley Immigration Processing Center were quarantined, alongside anyone else who may have made contact, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “All movement” within the facility was halted, she said.
The detainees in question, who were not identified, were in good hands, she said. “This is the best healthcare than many aliens have received in their entire lives,” McLaughlin said. [Sounds like propaganda bullshit, especially considering how many news reports have covered a lack of adequate medical care at detention facilities.]
Dilley Immigration Processing Center is where 5-year-old Liam and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, had been held until they were released Saturday. It wasn’t clear whether they may have been in contact with the infected detainees. […].
Measles can be spread through the air through breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing, and it can remain an active infectious agent on surfaces. […]
[…] Ben Thomas, chief of staff for Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, submitted a declaration to federal court that said Castro’s office was also informed of the measles infections by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday.
The infections add to a national surge in measles, of which 588 cases had been confirmed in the U.S. as of Thursday, according to data from the CDC. On Saturday, Los Angeles County health officials announced the discovery of the second measles case in the region since the start of the year.
Experts are concerned that the infection has become endemic, or an annual occurrence, despite virtual elimination in 2000 thanks to effective vaccination.
Experts blame the latest infections on declining vaccination rates.
Before measles vaccinations became available in the early 1960s, the infection was responsible for about 400 to 500 deaths and 48,000 hospitalizations every year in the U.S. Three people died of measles in the country last year, according to the CDC.
The bogus ethics complaint lodged against U.S. District Judge James Boasberg at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi has been cursorily dismissed in a seven-page order by Jeffrey Sutton, the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
[…] The center was last renovated in 2019. Trump argued that a temporary closure is needed because construction would impede artists performing there, and that ongoing performances would affect the quality of construction.
Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree was skeptical of Trump’s argument and wrote, “Trump has run the Kennedy Center into the ground, failed artists + workers, and disgraced the memory of JFK. Can’t sell tickets. Can’t book performers. So to hide his utter failure he is shutting it down for ‘renovations.’ I call BULLSHIT.” [video]
Trump decided in December to put his name on the Kennedy Center, a violation of the law that has been challenged in court. The unprecedented decision to make his name a part of the venue has led to chaos within the artistic community. Performers began canceling their shows that were scheduled to take place, including musician Chuck Redd, the jazz ensemble The Cookers, and dance ensemble Doug Varone and Dancers.
Internationally famous composer Philip Glass announced in January that he was canceling the performance of his symphony “Lincoln,” scheduled for the Kennedy Center in June.
“Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony. Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under its current leadership,” Glass said in a statement.
Trump installed former ambassador and longtime MAGA cheerleader Richard Grenell as chair of the center, and he has frequently complained about the cancellations—even threatening to sue performers.
Instead of retaining its role as a leading American cultural institution, under Trump the center has become a dumping ground for MAGA-friendly pro-Trump performances. Those events do not sell tickets like a Philip Glass event.
The Center has also become part of the Trump propaganda machine. Last week, the premiere for Melania Trump’s documentary “Melania,” financed by a convenient multimillion-dollar payoff by billionaire Jeff Bezos, was held at the center. […]
The conveniently announced closure is an effective way to bury stories of performers canceling in between propaganda screenings. The Kennedy Center joins the ever-growing lineup of failed Trump ventures, from Trump Steaks to Trump Airlines to Trump University. But this time a beloved part of America’s cultural heritage is also taking a hit.
A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
Gabbard’s lawyers are using the security classification of the issue to stall investigation. I have not read the WSJ article because it’s behind a paywall but there isn’t anything more to say, it’s all classified.
Behind closed doors, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, met with some of the same F.B.I. agents, members of the bureau’s field office in Atlanta, which is conducting the election inquiry, three people with knowledge of the meeting said. They could not say why Ms. Gabbard, who also appeared on site at the search, was there, but her continued presence has raised eyebrows given that her role overseeing the nation’s intelligence agencies does not include on-site involvement in criminal investigative work.
What occurred during the meeting was even further outside the bounds of normal law enforcement procedure. Ms. Gabbard used her cellphone to call Mr. Trump, who did not initially pick up but called back shortly after, the people said.
The president addressed the agents on speakerphone, asking them questions as well as praising and thanking them for their work on the inquiry, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.
Multiple violations of protocol and legal principle here but probably not illegal. Gabbard should not be involved in an internal operation unless there was suspicion of internal intrigue and there is no reason for her to be in the field overseeing the agents. Bringing Trump into the situation personally just escalates it to another level. Trump’s involvement may have blown up any case the government could bring.
Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband’s feeble voice through the phone.
A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio César Peña from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted his wife there.
“What hospital are you at?” Romero asked.
“I can’t tell you,” he replied.
Viridiana Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, couldn’t get an answer to that question, either. Peña’s deportation officer and the medical contractor at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center refused to tell her. Exasperated, she tried calling a nearby hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center.
“They said even if they had a person in ICE custody under their care, they wouldn’t be able to confirm whether he’s there or not, that only ICE can give me the information,” Chabolla said. The hospital confirmed this policy to KFF Health News.
Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. They say many hospitals refuse to provide information or allow contact with these patients. Instead, hospitals allow immigration officers to call the shots on how much — if any — contact is allowed, which can deprive patients of their constitutional right to seek legal advice and leave them vulnerable to abuse, attorneys said.
Hospitals say they are trying to protect the safety and privacy of patients, staff, and law enforcement officials, even while hospital employees in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore., cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted immigration raids, say it’s made their jobs difficult. Hospitals have used what are sometimes called blackout procedures, which can include registering a patient under a pseudonym, removing their name from the hospital directory, or prohibiting staff from even confirming that a patient is in the hospital. [!]
[…] Peña is among more than 350,000 people arrested by federal immigration authorities since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. […] Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters at a Jan. 20 news conference outside a detention center he visited in California City that he spoke to a diabetic woman held there who had not received treatment in two months.
While there are no publicly available statistics on the number of people sick or injured in ICE detention, the agency’s news releases point to 32 people who died in immigration custody in 2025. Six more have died this year. […]
According to ICE’s guidelines, people in custody should be given access to a telephone, visits from family and friends, and private consultation with legal counsel. The agency can make administrative decisions, including about visitation, when a patient is in the hospital, but should defer to hospital policies on contacting next of kin when a patient is seriously ill, the guidelines state.
[…] Although policies vary, members of the public can typically call a hospital and ask for a patient by name to find out whether they’re there, and often be transferred to the patient’s room, said William Weber, an emergency physician in Minneapolis and medical director for the Medical Justice Alliance, which advocates for the medical needs of people in law enforcement custody. Family members and others authorized by the patient can visit. And medical staff routinely call relatives to let them know a loved one is in the hospital, or to ask for information that could help with their care.
But when a patient is in law enforcement custody, hospitals frequently agree to restrict this kind of information sharing and access, Weber said. The rationale is that these measures prevent unauthorized outsiders from threatening the patient or law enforcement personnel, given that hospitals lack the security infrastructure of a prison or detention center. High-profile patients such as celebrities sometimes also request this type of protection.
Several attorneys and health care providers questioned the need for such restrictions. Immigration detention is civil, not criminal, detention. The Trump administration says it’s focused on arresting and deporting criminals, yet most of those arrested have no criminal conviction, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and several news outlets.
According to Peña’s wife, Romero, he has no criminal record. Peña came to the United States from Mexico in sixth grade and has an adult son in the U.S. military. The 43-year-old has terminal kidney disease and survived a heart attack in November. He has trouble walking and is partially blind, his wife said. He was detained Dec. 8 while resting outside after coming home from dialysis treatment.
[…] In November, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to curb the use of blackout policies for patients under civil immigration custody at county-run hospitals.
[…] Thompson-Lleras said he’s concerned that hospitals are cooperating with federal immigration authorities at the expense of patients and their families and leaving patients vulnerable to abuse.
“It allows people to be treated suboptimally,” Thompson-Lleras said. “It allows people to be treated on abbreviated timelines, without supervision, without family intervention or advocacy. These people are alone, disoriented, being interrogated, at least in Bayron’s case, under pain and influence of medication.”[!!]
[I snipped details of professional staff at hospitals expressing dismay over serious injuries caused by ICE, and over the blackouts that prevent them from giving information to families or attorneys.]
[…]
The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a sharp warning that rocket launches could “significantly reduce safety” for airplanes, urging pilots to prepare for the possibility that “catastrophic failures” could create dangerous debris fields.
The official notice, known as a safety alert for operators, was dated Jan. 8, the same day that ProPublica published an investigation showing how pilots scrambled to avoid debris after two SpaceX Starship megarockets exploded over busy airspace last year. The alert was an acknowledgment that travelers were at risk on those days, when the FAA hastily activated no-fly zones to help air traffic controllers steer planes away from falling rocket parts.
In the last two decades, the agency has issued about 245 such safety alerts to the aviation community about issues ranging from runway threats to mechanical problems, but last month’s warning is the first to address the danger to airplanes when rockets launch or reenter Earth’s atmosphere, according to the FAA’s website.
SpaceX and other companies have ramped up launches in recent years. Starship, a version of which is supposed to one day land on the moon, has followed a flight path that soars over well-trafficked commercial airways in the Caribbean.
[…] Last year, the FAA granted SpaceX permission to launch Starship as many as 25 times a year from its base in Texas. But, after repeated setbacks, only five of the giant space vehicles lifted off in 2025.
[…] ProPublica found several airplanes began running low on fuel after the January 2025 Starship incident, with at least one declaring an emergency and crossing the no-fly zone to reach an airport.
The world’s largest pilots union told the FAA in October that such events call into question whether “a suitable process” is in place to respond to unexpected rocket mishaps. “There is high potential for debris striking an aircraft resulting in devastating loss of the aircraft, flight crew, and passengers,” wrote Steve Jangelis, a pilot and the group’s aviation safety chair. […]
Following the passage of the Epstein Transparency Act, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice attempted to placate the masses by releasing a small smattering of the files it had previously been claiming did not exist, and/or were planted by Joe Biden. Then the regime’s stance shifted from the files don’t exist to we can’t release any files because there are too many files, 5.2 million, abbondanza! Deputy AG Todd Blanche now says there are six million.
But Congress, Epstein victims and the inquiring masses were not content to let Bondi and Blanche keep on ignoring the law, and various remedies were being pushed to force the DOJ to comply. […]
Smells Like a Russia, Russia, Russia Honeytrap
Among the files are 1,056 documents that name Vladimir Putin and more than 9,000 that refer to Moscow, including some suggesting that Epstein was granted audiences with the Russian president and working with the Russians. Epstein sure did recruit a whole lot of Russian and Eastern European girls, promoting many to his top ranks. From the UK Telegraph:
The concept of blackmail was uppermost in [Epstein’s] mind in an email he wrote in 2015 to Sergei Belyakov, Russia’s then deputy minister of economic development and graduate of the FSB (Russian intelligence) academy.
Epstein warned him that “a Russian girl from Moscow … is attempting to blackmail a group of powerful biznessmen [sic] in New York. It is bad for business for everyone involved.”
[Epstein] warned the woman that trying to blackmail an American businessman who was planning to invest in Russia would make her, in the eyes of the FSB, “vrag naroda” – Russian for an “enemy of the people.” She would be dealt with “extremely harshly” he said.
But in addition to threatening her, he planned to pay her off, giving her $50,000 a month “for the next two years” in exchange for her dropping her blackmail attempt.
That certainly explains some of the large “sugardaddy” payments he was making to girls from his JPMorgan Chase accounts. Wonder who that enigmatic secret businessman was?
Much Trump
There are interview summaries and investigator notes from conversations with Epstein’s victims that reference Donald Trump, such as:
[A] victim described being driven in a dark green vehicle to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Trump. According to the notes, Epstein introduced her by saying, “This is a good one, huh?” The account does not allege any improper behavior by Trump.
There are the tips that came into the FBI. Such as these that were posted, then deleted, in an email from an agent from the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in reference to “the Alexander brother allegations”:
[Redacted] reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.
[Redacted] reported she has a friend, [redacted], who was a personal assistant to Epstein in Florida from 1986 until 1991 or 1992. This friend shared names of some of the guests at Epstein’s parties, to include Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.
Complainant reported meeting a Lisa Villeneuve at a hospital where they were roommates in 2000. who now goes by Ghislaine Lisa Villeneuve. Complainant was invited by Villeneuve to a party on Palm Beach Island, FL, to a residence she believes to have belonged to Epstein. There, she met a model scout named Bobby Cox, whom Villeneuve allegedly referred to as a pimp. Complainant stated Villeneuve spoke with a hostess at the residence, whom complainant believed to be Ghislaine Maxwell. While at this party, complainant stated they had all been Invited by Donald Trump to a party at Mar a Lago. Complainant told Villeneuve she wanted to go to that party and was allegedly told by Villeneuve that it was for prostitutes.
There’s a tip in that email the FBI deemed “not credible,” that involves Trump murdering girls at sex parties with Robin Leach and burying them on his golf course.
For all the tips in that email, only the first one resulted in an interview. For others, agents claim they were unable to make contact for followup. […]
Trump loyalist Ed Martin is out of his role as DOJ’s “weaponization” czar that is investigating prosecutors who launched past probes into President Donald Trump and his allies, two people familiar with the discussions tell NBC News.
When asked whether Martin still served in the role, a Justice Department spokesman told NBC News that Martin continued to serve in a separate role, as pardon attorney.
[…] An advocate for those arrested following the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Martin previously said he planned to “name” and “shame” individuals the department could not formally charge with crimes, a major departure from long-standing Justice Department policy.
“The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown took center stage, with numerous artists sporting “ICE OUT” pins at the show.”
Related videos at the link.
[…] But perhaps the biggest statement came from Bad Bunny, who is headlining the Super Bowl next weekend. The Puerto Rican star did not tour in the U.S. for “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS” because of immigration policies.
“Before I say thanks to God, I gotta say: ICE Out,” he began his acceptance speech for best musica urbana album. “We’re not savage. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.
[…] Billie Eilish, known to get political at awards shows, took after Bad Bunny and used nearly her entire acceptance speech for song of the year to call out immigration legislation.
“No one is illegal […],” Eilish said, later encouraging the room to “keep fighting and speaking up and protesting.”
“Our voices really do matter,” she said, “and the people matter.”
[…] Lamar became the rapper with the most Grammy wins ever. He now has 27 Grammys, breaking Jay-Z’s record of 25. […]
“The Alternative for Germany party has done everything from suing to attempting to leverage ties to the Trump administration to end their banishment from the high-profile event.”
Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is heading back to the Munich Security Conference (MSC) — reclaiming a seat at one of the world’s most prestigious security forums after being banished for three straight years.
The decision to invite AfD lawmakers to the mid-February gathering marks a significant reversal for the conference and a symbolic win for a party eager to shed its pariah status by rubbing shoulders with global leaders.
The AfD mounted an aggressive campaign beginning late last year to regain access to the MSC, including legal action against conference organizers and attempts to capitalize on relationships with Trump administration officials.
[…] MSC organizers have invited three AfD parliamentarians to attend this year’s conference, though the party has pushed for more prominent figures — including national co-chair Alice Weidel — to be included.
[…] Wolfgang Ischinger, the prominent German diplomat acting as MSC chair this year, denied that conference organizers invited the AfD due to a pressure campaign, framing the decision rather as one that acknowledges a simple political reality: that the AfD is the largest opposition force in Germany. […]
“After Renee Good was fatally shot, conditions in the local federal prosecutors’ office started to unravel. After Alex Pretti’s death, things got even worse.”
Related video at the link.
Soon after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, Donald Trump’s Justice Department made it clear it had no intention of investigating the deadly incident. It did, however, take an interest in investigating the victim’s family.
For those who worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, this proved untenable: At least six federal prosecutors in the office resigned, including the prosecutor who oversaw the fraud investigation that the White House claims to care so much about.
After federal immigration agents later shot and killed Alex Pretti, conditions apparently worsened. The Washington Post reported that some of the remaining prosecutors in Minneapolis have told U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, the Trump administration appointee leading the office, “that they feel deeply frustrated by the Justice Department’s response to the fatal shootings,” and left open the possibility of additional resignations that would leave the office “unable to handle its current caseload.”
Two officials familiar with the office told the Post that “at least one prosecutor in the office’s criminal division has resigned” following a meeting last week with Rosen.
The New York Times published a related report, referencing “crisis” conditions in the office.
[The Trump administration’s recent strategy] has left the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis, one of the most respected in the nation, in crisis. On Tuesday, prosecutors in the office’s criminal division confronted the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Daniel Rosen, and an aide to Mr. Blanche, over concerns that they were being asked to execute orders that went against the department’s mission and best practices, according to four people briefed on the exchange.
Some of the prosecutors suggested they were considering resigning in protest, those people said, days after six others had quit over similar concerns.
On Friday afternoon, the day after the Post’s and Times’ reports were published, a reporter asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference about the conditions in the Minneapolis office. [video]
Blanche, a former Trump defense attorney, heard the questions, gathered his belongings and promptly walked away from the lectern without saying a word.
[…] the broader pattern of an unraveling Justice Department is difficult to miss.
Trump’s DOJ is making awful mistakes, some devastating and some amateurish. The White House has usurped control and has set the department’s credibility on fire. The DOJ is acting like Trump’s personal law firm, as key personnel have been redirected from their core responsibilities to pursue the president’s pet endeavors. It’s been weaponized to an almost cartoonish degree and is losing key cases. And once-rare mass resignations are becoming far more common.
The crisis, in other words, is not limited to Minneapolis.
A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration’s latest bid to limit lawmakers from conducting unannounced visits to immigration detention facilities, ruling that it likely runs afoul of oversight measures that Congress implemented.
It’s the second time U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb has sided with the group of Democratic lawmakers suing.
Cobb ruled in December that the Trump administration was violating a rider attached to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) annual appropriations package, which guarantees lawmaker access to detention facilities.
Last month, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem re-implemented a notice requirement. It required 7-days’ warning for visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities being funded exclusively by the “Big Beautiful Bill” that Republicans passed last summer. That bill did not include the rider.
Cobb rejected the policy, crediting the lawmakers’ contention that it would be logistically difficult to segregate which expenses are being funded by which law.
[…] The suit was filed by 13 Democratic members of Congress: Joe Neguse (Colo.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Robert Garcia (Calif.), Lou Correa (Calif.), Jason Crow (Colo.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Dan Goldman (N.Y.), Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Raul Ruiz (Calif.), Norma Torrez (Calif.) and Kelly Morrison (Minn.).
[…] The suit was filed by 13 Democratic members of Congress: Joe Neguse (Colo.), Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Jamie Raskin (Md.), Robert Garcia (Calif.), Lou Correa (Calif.), Jason Crow (Colo.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), Dan Goldman (N.Y.), Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Raul Ruiz (Calif.), Norma Torrez (Calif.) and Kelly Morrison (Minn.).
Elon Musk’s efforts to stop Russia from using Starlink satellites for drone attacks have “delivered real results”, a Ukrainian official said.
Praising the SpaceX founder as “a true champion of freedom and a true friend of the Ukrainian people”, defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Musk had swiftly responded when he was told Russian drones with Starlink connectivity were operating in the country.
The drones have been linked to a number of recent deadly attacks by Russia on Ukraine, including one on a moving passenger train which left six people dead.
“Looks like the steps we took to stop the unauthorised use of Starlink by Russia have worked,” Musk wrote on X. “Let us know if more needs to be done.”
Starlink satellites operated by SpaceX provide high-speed internet around the world. It has worked in Ukraine since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
The Russian drones are difficult to shoot down, Fedorov said, as they fly at low altitudes, cannot be countered with electronic warfare, and are controlled by operators in real time from a distance.
The Institute for the Study of War warned in mid-January that since Russia had begun equipping the cheap kamikaze Molniya-2 drones with Starlink, their battlefield efficiency had increased “dramatically”.
While neither Fedorov nor Musk elaborated on what the response had been, the defence ministry’s official website ArmiyaInform reported that SpaceX had introduced a speed limit of 75kph [45mph] on Starlink terminals moving over Ukraine.
“Russian drones move much more quickly, so the enemy operators will not be able to control them in real time,” the website said.
Senior U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday for talks aimed at de-escalating the crisis between their countries, according to three current regional officials and a former one who were familiar with the planning.
Just got gassed pretty good at the labor union anti-ICE protest in [Portland, Oregon on Jan 31]. Massive march, 5-10k strong. Vibes were very much liberal rather than radical. Lots of kids and older folks. They gassed the whole crowd as soon as it marched on ICE, in broad daylight.
What impressed me most today was that a huge crowd of people who mostly had never been tear gassed managed to retreat without running or trampling each other. Under a cloud of gas that was not moving (zero wind), people held onto each other and walked blind down a street packed tight as sardines.
That’s not easy to do when your chest is burning like a heart attack, and you are totally blind, and your face is on fire, and you can’t breathe. Lots of credit goes to everybody who kept that crowd together.
Rando 1: “There were a lot of babies and toddlers there. Dogs too. Least threatening crowd ever.”
Rando 2: “There were more than 30 unions present, and the reality of Labor is that means most of the people there were teachers, nurses and other health care workers, and public employees”
Southpaw: “Federal paramilitaries running up on the rooftops to fire irritants and flash bangs down into a peaceable assembly full of little kids. [Video clip]”
Alissa Azar liveskeeted the protest.
* She’d heard there were smiley-face marked munitions but hadn’t seen ’em.
Alissa Azar liveskeeted another smaller protest Feb 1st.
Alissa Azar: “There were people with leaf blowers tonight and yesterday too but there was just so much gas it wasn’t doing much.”
Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, on Monday rejected an offer from Bill and Hillary Clinton to testify in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, just days ahead of an expected House vote on holding them in criminal contempt of Congress.
[…] after some Democrats on the panel joined Republicans in a vote to recommend charging them with criminal contempt, an extraordinary first step in referring them to the Justice Department for prosecution, the Clintons ultimately waved the white flag and agreed to fully comply with Mr. Comer’s demands.
In an email to Mr. Comer sent on Monday night, attorneys for the Clintons said their clients would “appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates” and asked that the House not move forward with contempt proceedings.
“They told under oath what they know, but you did not care. But the former President and former Secretary of State will be there.”
For Mr. Clinton to testify in the Epstein case would be nearly unprecedented. No former president has appeared before Congress since 1983, when President Gerald R. Ford did so to discuss the celebration of the 1987 bicentennial of the enactment of the Constitution. When Mr. Trump was subpoenaed in 2022 by the select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, after he had left office, he sued the panel to try to block it. The panel ultimately withdrew the subpoena.
The Clintons’ move capped a monthslong battle between them and Mr. Comer. It was a victory for the Republican chairman’s efforts to shift the focus of his panel’s Epstein investigation away from Mr. Trump’s ties to Mr. Epstein and his administration’s handling of the matter and onto prominent Democrats who once associated with the disgraced financier and his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell.
In a letter on Saturday to Mr. Comer, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Clinton’s lawyers tried one more time to put some guardrails on potential interviews with the Clintons. They said that Mr. Clinton would agree to sit for a four-hour transcribed interview with the entire committee, something he had previously described as an inappropriate and unprecedented request to make of a former president.
The lawyers asked that Mrs. Clinton, who has said she never met or spoke to Mr. Epstein, be allowed to make a sworn declaration instead of testifying. But they said that she, too, would submit to an in-person interview if the committee insisted on it, “with appropriate adjustments for the paucity of information she has to offer in this matter,” according to the letter.
But Mr. Comer flatly rejected the offer, calling it “unreasonable” and arguing that four hours of testimony from Mr. Clinton was inadequate given that he was a “loquacious individual” who might seek to run out the clock.
[…] In that letter, Mr. Comer also rejected the demand from Mr. Clinton that the scope of the interview be limited to matters related to Mr. Epstein. Mr. Comer said the former president “likely has an artificially narrow definition in mind” of what matters would be related to the Epstein investigation.
Mr. Comer said he had concerns that Mr. Clinton would refuse to answer questions about “his personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, ways in which they sought to curry favor with powerful individuals and alleged efforts to utilize his power and influence after his presidency to kill negative news stories about Jeffrey Epstein.”
In response to Mr. Comer’s letter, the Clintons on Monday evening agreed to all of Mr. Comer’s demands, removing any time limit on the deposition of Mr. Clinton or on the range of topics that Republicans could ask him about.
The only point of negotiation that Mr. Comer had previously been amenable to was conducting the interviews in New York, where the Clintons live and work.
Mr. Clinton was acquainted with Mr. Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, but has said he never visited Mr. Epstein’s private island and cut off contact with him two decades ago. Mr. Clinton took four international trips on Mr. Epstein’s private jet in 2002 and 2003, according to flight logs.
While some House Democrats last month voted with Republicans to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress, others expressed disgust at the entire situation, and in particular about the inclusion of Mrs. Clinton.
“I’m not seeing anything to suggest she ought to be a part of this in any way,” Representative Kweisi Mfume, Democrat of Maryland, said at a hearing last month, noting that it looked like the former secretary of state had been included because “we want to dust her up a bit if we get her before this committee.”
The offer from the Clintons represented a total surrender after they made a defiant stand just weeks ago, vowing to fight back against an investigation they said was unfairly targeting them and holding them to a different standard from others.
Up until the final moment, the Clintons had been trying to negotiate with the House Oversight Committee behind the scenes to find a way for Mr. Comer to spare them the contempt vote and lift the subpoenas. They said that Mr. Comer and the top Democrat on the panel could interview Mr. Clinton under oath, an offer that the chairman also rejected, insisting that the former president appear before the entire committee for an open-ended, transcribed interview. […]
And even after the Clintons said they would agree to a transcript, Mr. Comer said there was no deal. The situation frustrated the Clintons and their allies.
[…] Nine Democrats on the Oversight Committee joined Republicans last month in support of holding Mr. Clinton in contempt, while three Democrats backed holding Mrs. Clinton in contempt, teeing up votes on the House floor. [FFS]
Many Democrats have been reluctant to be seen as defending anyone associated with the convicted sex offender […]
For the Clintons, the entire saga was a continuation of the Republican assault on them that has been the background noise of their entire life on the national political stage.
In a letter they wrote to Mr. Comer in January, the Clintons accused him of potentially bringing Congress to a halt to pursue a politically driven process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”
A federal judge on Friday ruled the Energy Department violated the law when Secretary Chris Wright handpicked five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change to work in secret on a sweeping government report on global warming.
Journalist Michael Wolff, who says that he possesses more than 100 hours of recorded conversations with Jeffrey Epstein, fired back after President Donald Trump threatened to sue him for reporting on Trump’s relationship with Epstein.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday, Trump said that he would “probably sue Wolff.”
“Wolff was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me,” he said.
Trump’s threat appears to be an attempt to deflect from the Department of Justice’s clumsy attempts to obfuscate the release of the Epstein files.
“Bring it on,” Wolff said in a video response. “I believe that if the American public knew the real nature of Donald Trump’s long relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, they would turn away in horror and revulsion.” [video]
Wolff launched his own lawsuit against first lady Melania Trump in October, after she threatened to sue him for $1 billion. Wolff’s suit uses New York’s Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation laws, which are designed to protect journalists from intimidation by powerful people.
On Monday, Trump continued his attacks on Wolff on Truth Social.
“Not only wasn’t I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein but, based upon information that has just been released by the Department of Justice, Epstein and a SLEAZEBAG lying ‘author’ named Michael Wolff, conspired in order to damage me and/or my Presidency,” he wrote. “So much for the Radical Left’s hope against hope, some of whom I’ll be suing. Additionally, unlike so many people that like to ‘talk’ trash, I never went to the infested Epstein island but, almost all of these Crooked Democrats, and their Donors, did.”
It’s like Wolff said: “I have nothing to hide. But Mister President, you surely do.”
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote.
[…]
Thousands of protesters, including children, marched through Portland and enveloped the blocks around the South Waterfront facility Saturday afternoon. Federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd shortly after it arrived after some crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate. […] The Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene
Both Morillo and Green […] introduced a new fee for private property owners whose building is leased to be used as a detention facility. That policy also included civil penalties for “the release or deposition of chemical residues or other substances beyond the detention facility premises” into the street or neighboring properties. […] the city’s administrative branch is still working on writing the rules for enforcement. Wilson oversees this
[…]
The city has banned Portland police officers from using tear gas on protesters since 2020, but federal officers have no such restrictions.
[…]
ICE has leased […] from a private landlord since 2011, under a land use agreement with the city. That agreement prohibits the federal tenants from holding detainees longer than 12 hours or overnight. In September, the city claimed that ICE broke this rule at least 25 times in the past year […] If the city finds [the property owner] has violated the land use agreement, he’ll face a monthly fine of nearly $950. If ICE doesn’t change its detention practices, the permitting department can hold a public hearing to discuss revoking that agreement.
[…]
Protesters have specifically called on city leaders to “revoke” the land use agreement. […] Wilson has asked activists to be patient. […] Wilson said that any move to unilaterally revoke the land use agreement would surely land the city in court. “We cannot allow hasty action to prevent us from taking meaningful action,”
Diane Moreno was walking home in late January when she said she was struck five times by rubber bullets fired by federal agents, leaving welts and bruises across her body. […] she was caught in the crossfire as the agents tried to disperse a protest [near] an affordable housing complex that sits about 100 feet away from an ICE field office […] Others in Gray’s Landing have slept wearing gas masks or in their bathtubs to escape tear gas that wafts into their homes
[…]
residents initially filed the lawsuit in December. Their complaint alleges that the federal agents’ conduct has been excessive. […] a charter school permanently relocated from its location neighboring the ICE facility last summer after condemning federal agents’ use of tear gas
[…]
King alleged that a federal agent appeared to target her in October by firing a tear-gas canister toward her apartment as she live-streamed footage of a protest from her balcony […] [A resident’s children] have missed school and gone to urgent care for treatment after inhaling tear gas.
Alissa Azar’s first liveskeet thread @94 had footage of a neighbor’s 2nd/3rd-story window getting shattered.
“Trump Drops Demand for Cash From Harvard After Stiff Resistance”
“The Trump administration has lowered the bar for a deal with the university, backtracking on its insistence on a $200 million payment to the government, The New York Times has learned.”
President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government in hopes of finally resolving the administration’s conflicts with the university […]
Harvard has been the top target in Mr. Trump’s sweeping campaign to exert more control over higher education. Hard-liners in his administration had wanted Harvard to write a check to the U.S. Treasury as part of a deal to address claims that university officials mishandled antisemitism […] But Harvard […] has rejected the idea.
[…] The White House’s concession comes amid sagging approval ratings for Mr. Trump, and as he faces outrage over immigration enforcement tactics and the shooting deaths of two Americans by federal agents in Minnesota. A deal with Harvard would hand the president a victory at a difficult time in his presidency.
But those same factors could also torpedo a deal, as some Harvard leaders now consider the risk of backlash even higher if they are seen as having any hand in easing the pressure on Mr. Trump […]
Some connected to the university, however, think Harvard has no option but to eventually cut a deal. The administration has repeatedly attempted to cut off research grants, which would be an untenable crisis. [!] Like many major research universities, Harvard relies on federal funding for its financial model.
Harvard’s top governing board was scheduled to meet Monday and was expected to discuss Mr. Trump’s concession on money […]
An Encounter at Davos
[…] Mr. Trump had visited Davos to speak at the World Economic Forum, where he crossed paths with Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire investment executive who has taken a role in the negotiations between Harvard and the White House. Mr. Trump asked Mr. Schwarzman to call him about the deal […]
The two men spoke last week, the people said, and Mr. Trump made clear he would no longer demand a $200 million payment from the university if that concession would secure the deal. The two sides have discussed additional terms, including provisions that affirm Harvard’s commitment to following federal law.
Linda McMahon, Mr. Trump’s education secretary, conveyed a similar message to Mr. Schwarzman last week in a separate conversation, saying that the administration was willing to forget about the fine […]
The Times reported in July that Harvard was willing to spend $500 million on work force programs as part of the deal. But the university rejected a more recent push by hard-liners in the administration to require the university to make $200 million of that a direct payment to the government, believing it would jeopardize its independence.
[…] University negotiators also observed as other deals with the administration have gone awry.
For instance, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania agreed to deals that appeared to resolve issues between the school and the administration. […]
But the administration later returned to both universities, asking leaders to sign on to a “compact” that would have offered greater access to research funding in exchange for an embrace of Mr. Trump’s policies. Both universities rejected the offer. […]
Harvard’s Calculus
Harvard has also seen that it can survive bombardment from the White House.
Last year, a federal judge in Boston both restored Harvard’s federal funding and rebuffed the administration’s effort to block international students from enrolling. Though the administration launched a variety of civil investigations into the school, none of the inquiries have turned into criminal investigations. And the administration, despite threats, has not followed through on having the university disqualified as a federal contractor. [Failure all around for the Trump administration.]
Dr. Garber’s leadership, meanwhile, is being praised, including by rival universities.
On Tuesday, Dr. Garber, who became president of Harvard in 2024, was honored by Yale University as a “legend in leadership,” in large part because of his pushback on the White House. […]
In a lengthy email to the Harvard community on Thursday, Dr. Garber made no direct reference to the university’s negotiations with the Trump administration. But writing that “no institution can solve the hardest problems alone,” he argued that Harvard needed to “strengthen collaborations with other colleges, universities, research organizations and industry partners.”
“Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to ‘Nationalize’ Elections”
“The comments, made on a conservative podcast, follow a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.”
[…] Trump called in a new interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters as he and his allies continue to make false claims about his 2020 defeat.
During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Under the Constitution, American elections are governed primarily by state law, leading to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country. Mr. Trump, however, has long been fixated on the false claims that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and that Democrats are perpetrating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party’s turnout. […]
More at the link, including: a discussion of the Trump administrations seizure of ballots etc. in Fulton County, Georgia; the Justice Department’s demands that state turn over their full voter rolls to Trump; various executive orders Trump has signed requiring proof of citizenship; and efforts to end the use of mail-in ballots.
In addition, Trump tied his “nationalize elections” rhetoric to his mass deportations efforts:
During his interview with Mr. Bongino, Mr. Trump tied his desire for partisan control of voting mechanisms to his administration’s agenda to find and deport undocumented immigrants from American cities.
“If Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican,” he said, referring to undocumented immigrants. “It’s crazy how you can get these people to vote. If we don’t get them out, look, Republicans will never win another election.”
There is no evidence that a significant number of noncitizens have voted in any American election. A 2024 audit by Georgia’s secretary of state found that just 20 of the 8.2 million people registered to vote in Georgia were not citizens, and only nine had ever voted.
After a yearlong investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed multiple systemwide failures for the midair collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people.
[…]
an instrument failure in the Army helicopter, which likely made the pilots think they were flying 100 feet lower than they were.
[…]
The FAA had collected reports of more than 80 serious close calls in recent years between helicopters and passenger aircraft […] air traffic controllers at the local tower at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport had repeatedly raised concerns to the FAA about a lack of adequate separation between helicopter traffic [and] where American Airlines Flight 5342 was attempting to land. But the FAA did not act on those concerns […]
“What that means is 75 feet, at best, separating a helicopter and civilian aircraft. Nowhere in the airspace is that OK,”
[…]
NTSB members voted to approve nearly 50 new recommendations
* Collision was 278 feet above the river. Helicopter was supposed to be no higher than 200 feet. So ~75 feet WAS all the space they were allotted. And the helicopter altimeter’s inaccuracy was greater than the difference.
Humanity’s return to the moon will have to wait at least another four weeks.
NASA had been targeting Feb. 8 for the launch of its Artemis 2 mission, which will send four astronauts on a 10-day trip around the moon and back to Earth. But the agency just moved the timeline back, after experiencing several issues during a key prelaunch exercise called a wet dress rehearsal.
“Engineers pushed through several challenges during the two-day test and met many of the planned objectives,” NASA officials said in a statement early Tuesday morning (Feb. 3). “To allow teams to review data and conduct a second wet dress rehearsal, NASA now will target March as the earliest possible launch opportunity for the flight test.”
A record-breaking study into a giant sunspot that triggered Earth’s biggest geomagnetic storm in more than two decades has revealed surprising new details about the explosive dark patch. The monster sunspot unleashed almost 1,000 solar flares in just over three months, and may have discreetly birthed the most powerful outburst of the current solar cycle.
… (snip)…
In a new study published Dec. 5 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, researchers analyzed observations of AR 13664 spanning 94 consecutive days between April 16 and July 18, 2024, which equates to roughly 3.3 trips around the sun. Thanks to images captured by NASA’s Solar Orbiter, which circles the sun, researchers were able to keep tabs on the sunspot as it rotated out of view.
“It’s a milestone in solar physics,” study lead author Ioannis Kontogiannis, a solar physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), said in a statement. “This is the longest continuous series of images ever created for a single active region.”
In the paper, the team revealed that AR 13664 unleashed a total of 969 solar flares. This included 38 X-class flares and 146 M-class flares, which are also capable of impacting Earth’s magnetic field. The rest were lower-level, including C-class and B-class flares, which pose no threat to our planet.
What I’m watching unfold right now feels less like politics and more like a slow-motion moral collapse, the kind you read about later and wonder how anyone pretended not to see it while it was happening. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruling the killing of Alex Pretti a homicide,” multiple gunshot wounds,” flat, clinical, almost antiseptic language should have been a line in the sand. The murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good should have stopped everything. Full stop. Instead, they barely registered as a national reckoning, just more names folded into the ever-expanding ledger of state violence. That, more than anything, is what terrifies me: not just the brutality, but how quickly it’s normalized.
We are living under an administration that treats the Constitution like an inconvenience and power like a birthright. A Republican Party and a Congress that once pretended to care about law, restraint, and accountability now function as a silent accomplice, unwilling to act against Donald Trump for anything, ever. And while the headlines churn through distractions, Venezuela, Greenland, Iran, EPSTEIN, the next shiny outrage, the real story is happening in plain sight: deportations without due process, mass detention, the rounding up of the disenfranchised, the unwanted, the politically inconvenient. If you’re disabled, poor, undocumented, outspoken, elderly, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, congratulations, you’ve made the list.
We are told, often with a shrug, that tens of thousands of people are now being held in detention. We are told new facilities are being built, quietly, efficiently, in small towns across the country. We are told this is about “law and order.” But anyone with a functioning conscience understands what this really is: infrastructure. Capacity. Preparation. Prisons don’t appear overnight unless someone plans to fill them. And when citizens start protesting, real American patriots, not flag-waving authoritarians, they’re dismissed, mocked, surveilled, or threatened. That alone should tell you where this is headed.
Authoritarians are painfully predictable. Narcissistic psychopaths obsessed with power don’t see people; they see obstacles. Humanity is collateral damage. Snatching a five-year-old into custody by masked agents isn’t an aberration, it’s a signal. It tells you how far they’re willing to go, and how little resistance they expect. We’ve already seen the language: veiled racism wrapped in superlatives, open dehumanization, flirtations with fascist symbolism that are no longer even subtle. This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening. It keeps happening.
And like every authoritarian movement before it, this one has its propaganda machine. A network that reaches millions, floods the zone with lies, and reframes cruelty as patriotism. Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, and the rest of the loyalists perform their roles dutifully, while Congress acts as a rubber-stamp Reichstag, applauding or looking away as the Department of Justice is hollowed out and repurposed into a political weapon. Career public servants, journalists, minorities, the LGBTQ community, anyone committed to actual truth, all labeled enemies of the state. That is not hyperbole. That is the playbook.
It is not a giant leap from where we are now to ghettos, to trains, to destinations “unknown for security reasons.” The only thing that ever slows that descent is public resistance and a refusal to pretend this is normal. What’s most chilling is that the missing piece, the logistical framework, is actively being assembled while we argue online about decorum and tone. At the same time, religion has been hijacked and twisted into a cudgel. The message of a poor carpenter who preached compassion and humility has been reshaped to serve greed, cruelty, and blind obedience. Prosperity preachers rake in money while blessing policies that would have horrified the figure they claim to worship. Their congregations, misinformed and inflamed, become an unofficial army, loyal not to conscience, not to truth, but to a false prophet who demands everything and gives nothing back.
History tells us that systems like this don’t collapse because someone makes a well-reasoned argument on cable news. They end because people finally refuse to comply. Because fear stops working. Because the cost of silence becomes higher than the cost of resistance. That is where we are drifting, whether we like it or not.
I’m not a religious man, but even I find myself reaching for words that sound like prayer. Dear God, or whatever still listens, save us from this gathering storm of demagoguery, cruelty, and moral rot. Save us from confusing power with virtue, obedience with patriotism, and silence with safety. And if salvation isn’t coming, then at least grant us the clarity and courage to see this moment for what it is, and the spine to act before it’s too late.
—Michael Jochum
Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition See less
I know it’s still fashionable to blame everything on Russia, but Epstein was not a Russian agent. He was trained as a spy under Ehud Barak and was deeply embeeded in U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Epstein’s actions deeply implicate the American ruling class and their allies, not so much the U.S. military’s chosen adversary-of-the-week.
KGsays
Lynna, OM@100,
Harvard should not make any deal whatever with Trump, if only out of self-interest. Either the ongoing fascist coup will succeed, in which case Harvard is doomed as an independent institution; or it will not, in which case anyone who collaborated will be discredited.
KGsays
I know it’s still fashionable to blame everything on Russia, but Epstein was not a Russian agent. – beholder@109
That’s something you could only know if you were a very close friend of Epstein – and perhaps not even then. Why would the Russians not have approached him – an obviously hugely wealthy and influential networker, and (as they could easily have known) active sex criminal? And if they did, offering money or other favours, andor threatening exposure, and asking for information on prominent Americans involved in child sexual abuse, why would Epstein have refused? Out of principle? Because his Israeli handlers would have disapproved? Grow up.
Justice Department officials are expected to meet Monday to discuss how to reenergize probes that are considered a top priority for President Donald Trump — reviewing the actions of officials who investigated him, according to a source familiar with the plan.
In recent weeks, Trump has been pressuring Justice Department officials for results in these and other investigations, recently admonishing a group of US attorneys for failing to deliver on cases he wants brought.
The Weaponization Working Group is now expected to start meeting daily with the goal of producing results in the next two months, according to the person familiar with the plan.
The group was at one point led by Ed Martin, who was tapped for the position after the Senate failed to confirm him to be the US attorney for Washington, DC.
The group’s efforts are unrelated to the Department of Justice’s individual prosecutions of Trump’s political adversaries.
It sounds like Trump will be yelling at them weekly to get moving on persecuting his opponents. This won’t make their cases any better but will probably result in some accusation being brought to court.
The only remotely funny thing about this is that the next president will end up with the same working group. If it’s a MAGA president they will need to go through the motions of having a legal system while arresting people and presiding over the collapse of the US. If it isn’t MAGA then there are too many political cases started by Trump to just sweep them under the rug and move on.
RACHEL MADDOW
Noem’s coarse tweet comes back to bite her in blistering ruling on protections for Haitians. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, mimicking Donald Trump’s boorishness expressed her thoughts on immigrants from certain countries in coarse terms on Twitter. Those words would come back to bite her when they were cited in a blistering ruling by a judge who did not see her effort to revoke the temporary protected status of over 300,000 Haitian immigrants as being done in good faith for good reasons.
RACHEL MADDOW
‘It’s attacking the public’s right to know’: Georgia Fort on the White House going after journalists. Independent journalist Georgia Fort discusses her arrest and President Trump’s continued attack on journalism with MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow.
RACHEL MADDOW
Trump meets fierce opposition escalating information war with arrests of journalists. Donald Trump appears to have overreached in his effort to control the information presented to Americans by arresting journalists. Georgia Fort, an award-winning independent journalist arrested after reporting on a protest at a church in Minnesota, talks with Rachel Maddow about the ordeal of being arrested at home by federal agents, and Donald Trump’s efforts to bully, intimidate, and criminalize journalists in an effort to control what Americans are allowed to know.
RACHEL MADDOW
Maddow: Trump ‘wobbling’ as his agenda falls apart in the face of pressure. Rachel Maddow looks at the latest headlines showing Donald Trump backpedaling in the face of protests and plummeting poll numbers, taking a shocking loss in a special election, losing court cases, and watching resignations in protest deplete his Justice Department. The pushback against Donald Trump is happening everywhere he turns and grows ever more effective the more Trump wobbles and weakens.
The fact that the FBI executed a search warrant last week on an elections office in Georgia is itself a burgeoning controversy. The raid was an obvious extension of Donald Trump’s ongoing crusade related to his 2020 election defeat. Effectively a vehicle for the president’s discredited conspiracy theories, there was no credible reason for federal law enforcement to seize these election materials.
Similarly, there was also no reason for Trump to personally thank the frontline FBI agents for their work.
But the whole mess was made worse by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s decision to personally participate in the raid in Atlanta-area raid, adding a scandalous element to a burgeoning controversy.
An NBC News report explained, “In her role overseeing the country’s spy agencies, Gabbard is prohibited by law from taking part in domestic law enforcement.”
On Monday afternoon, the DNI began mounting a defense of sorts, sending a four-page letter to Capitol Hill (the correspondence was addressed to top Democrats on the intelligence committees, but sent as well as to several other members from both parties and both chambers). In it, Gabbard didn’t merely try to justify her participation in the raid; she also confirmed that Trump directed her to go to Fulton County and that she facilitated a call between the president and the FBI personnel.
[…] After Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, received the DNI’s letter, his communications director said in a statement, “While Director Gabbard’s letter attempts to justify her presence at the Fulton County search, it raises more questions than it answers. Senator Warner plans to continue pressing for accountability.”
Similarly, a former senior national security official told MS NOW that Gabbard’s role in the Georgia was “jaw dropping. There’s no justification for it.” The former official said that no previous DNI had ever taken similar steps and noted how outraged Republicans would be if, for example, Avril Haines, the Biden administration’s director of national intelligence, had been present during the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
“It would be denounced,” the former official added. “The DNI is supposed to not be involved in politics or even involved in Justice Department activities.”
This burgeoning scandal, in other words, is far from over.
Toward the end of an unrelated White House event, Donald Trump fielded a handful of questions from reporters on Monday, one of whom mentioned the president’s threat to sue comedian Trevor Noah over a joke he told at the Grammys.
Before the reporter could even finish the question, Trump interjected, trashed Noah for a while, and whined about how “terrible” he found the Grammys, before turning his attention to Jeffrey Epstein, whom the president said he had “nothing to do with.”
But he didn’t stop there. Trump proceeded to claim that unnamed Democrats secretly “conspired with Epstein” and, as part of their plot, partnered with the convicted sex offender “to try and help me lose the election.”
Even by the president’s standards, this was quite bonkers. There have been plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein in recent years, but the line Trump peddled on Monday was new, baseless, bizarre and wholly unsupported by anything resembling evidence.
This was not, however, the president’s only provocative claim related to his former associate. Shortly before the White House event got underway, Trump published an item to his social media platform in which he said he wasn’t “friendly with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Given the circumstances, that’s an odd thing to lie about. NBC News noted that while there’s no evidence that Trump ever visited Epstein’s island, there’s “substantial evidence that they were friendly.” The report noted:
‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,’ Trump told New York magazine in 2002, before there were any public allegations of wrongdoing against Epstein. ‘He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.’
A November 1992 clip from the NBC archives showed the two socializing at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, pointing out women on the dance floor. In a part of the tape, Trump is heard saying something to Epstein that causes him to double over in laughter. Epstein also attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, according to a photo obtained by CNN.
At least in theory, there shouldn’t be any reason for the president to make stuff up. As NBC News’ report concluded, “Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and there is no evidence connecting him to Epstein’s crimes.” The two men were obviously friendly in years past, but that need not be inherently incriminating.
It’s why Trump’s willingness to push a line that is obviously untrue is such an odd and unnecessary misstep.
“Last week, Trump thanked Putin for pausing attacks in Ukraine, even as Putin launched new attacks. This week, it happened again.”
As last week’s White House Cabinet meeting got underway, Donald Trump took a moment to pat himself on the back for his latest breakthrough with Russia’s Vladmir Putin.
Noting brutally cold conditions in Ukraine, the American president declared, “I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that. And I have to tell you, it was very nice. People said, ‘Don’t waste the call, you’re not going to get that.’ And he did it, and we’re very happy that they did it.”
Steve Witkoff, the White House’s controversial special envoy, took the opportunity to gush about how awesome Trump’s awesomeness is, saying the president’s special request to Putin was a reflection of Trump’s “indomitable spirit.”
There was, however, one obvious problem:Putin didn’t pause his attacks on Ukraine. Indeed, the day before Trump’s boasts, a Russian strike on a civilian passenger train in northeastern Ukraine killed five people. A HuffPost report added, “According to both Ukrainian and outside observers, Russia has attacked Ukraine every single night” in January.
As this week got underway, Trump circled back to peddle the same discredited claim. [video]
“I did call up President Putin and he’s agreed,” the Republican told reporters at a bill-signing event in the Oval Office. “I asked [Putin] if he wouldn’t shoot for a period of one week, no missiles going into Kyiv or any other towns, and he’s agreed to do it.”
Less than 24 hours later, The Associated Press reported:
Russia carried out a major attack on Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, a day before representatives of the two countries were due to attend U.S.-brokered talks on ending the 4-year-old all-out war.
At least 10 people were wounded in a bombardment of at least five regions of Ukraine that comprised 450 long-range drones and 70 missiles, including a record number of 32 ballistic missiles. It specifically took aim at the power grid, Zelenskyy said, as part of what Ukraine says is Moscow’s ongoing campaign to deny civilians light, heating and running water during the coldest winter in years.
So, to recap: Trump praised Putin last week, thanking the Russian leader for pausing attacks in Ukraine, while Putin launched additional attacks in Ukraine. And this week, Trump did the same thing, again celebrating his successful appeal to Putin, touting the Russian leader’s willingness to pause the deadly violence while the latter was committing additional acts of deadly violence.
Hours after the NYT reported that the Trump administration had dropped its demand that Harvard pay the government $200 million as part of a settlement of weaponized claims of antisemitism, President Trump went nuts on social media and upped the settlement demand to $1 billion — while newly threatening the university with criminal charges: “This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings.”
I first became aware of Dr. Peter Attia a few months ago when some of his videos started showing up in my YouTube feed. I’ve always been interested in living a healthy life and staying fit, and now that I’m getting older it made sense […] after watching a few of his videos I got the sense that he was something of a BSer. It seemed like his biggest piece of advice for staying healthy as you age is to exercise regularly – what a revelation!
Anyway, Attia has been in the news recently because his name appears a lot in the latest batch of files released by the DOJ last week – more than 1,700 times to be more specific. And just a few days before the files were released, CBS News announced that Attia was named as one of its batch of new MAGA-friendly contributors. [!] Oops.
The dozens of email exchanges between Attia and Epstein, or Epstein’s assistant, reveal a chummy relationship between the two men – with all of the communications occurring many years after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to trafficking a minor for prostitution. Some of the emails are downright disgusting.
In 2016, Attia wrote to Epstein, “P—y is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”
In a June 2015 email to Epstein, Attia gushed that the “worst” part about being his friend is that “the life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.” [!] […] It reminds me of the “wonderful secret” that Trump wrote about to Epstein in that gross birthday card. Why all this secrecy??
[…] The email exchanges between the two also reveal them discussing various matters of health and longevity. In one email, Epstein muses to Attia that he’s not sure why “women live past reproductive age at all.”
The Attia-Epstein emails also show that Attia is a heartless and selfish person. In his book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, Attia wrote that on July 11, 2017, while he was in New York City, he received a call from his wife informing him that their young son had suddenly stopped breathing and was in the hospital. Yet he admits that he didn’t return home for 10 days. We now know from the Epstein files what Attia was doing in NYC during part of that time. On July 12 – the day after Attia learned about his son’s health scare – he was making arrangements to meet with Epstein on July 13.
And THIS is who CBS News wants to hire as one if its new “star” contributors. While Attia has issued a groveling apology, the new MAGA-friendly CBS News chief Bari Weiss is reportedly in battle with executives at Paramount Skydance, CBS’ parent company, over Attia’s future with the network. Paramount execs want to sever ties with Attia – rightfully viewing him as a PR and HR disaster – but Weiss is refusing to fire pedophile Epstein’s pal because it would be “giving in to the mob.” Another reason to stop watching CBS News or reading CBS News stories.
The more we learn from the Epstein files, the more intertwined MAGAworld and Epstein become. Here we have the MAGA-aligned CEO of Paramount Skydance David Ellison and the MAGA-aligned CBS News head Bari Weiss (whose wife is also in the Epstein files, by the way) in a pickle with a MAGA-aligned contributor because of connections to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The truth is coming out.
Nine progressive prosecutors—including my favorite, Larry Krasner—are launching a coalition to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws. It’s called the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach or FAFO. Fantastic!
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resign and told their bosses to leave Portland in a scathing statement issued Saturday after federal agents launched tear gasat a large crowd protesting near the Portland ICE facility.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
Thousands of protesters, including children, marched through Portland and enveloped the blocks around the South Waterfront facility Saturday afternoon. Federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd shortly after it arrived after some crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate.
Wilson characterized the demonstration as a “peaceful daytime protest, where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat and posed no danger to federal forces.” The federal government, Wilson said, “must, and will, be held accountable.” He said the city would soon impose a fee on detention facilities that use chemical agents.
“To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children,” Wilson wrote Saturday night.
New Grants Offer Lifeline to Public Stations Hit By Funding Losses
These grants, plus increased support from listeners, will ensure that public media will survive the maladministration.
From RadioInk:
As public media stations face mounting financial strain tied to federal and state funding cuts and withdrawals, the Public Media Bridge Fund has launched two emergency grant programs aimed at stabilizing local outlets at risk of service disruptions or shutdowns. ✂️
The Disaster Recovery Program provides one-time grants of up to $100,000 to stations experiencing service interruptions or equipment damage from severe weather or other major incidents. Funds can be used to restore service, repair or replace equipment, cover temporary operating expenses, and support urgent communication needs. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
The Emergency Restructuring Program targets stations facing imminent service loss tied to financial shocks, including license sales or subsidy withdrawal. The program offers limited assistance when short-term funding can preserve a station’s ability to remain on the air during transition. It is not intended to address long-term structural deficits or completed projects.
The Public Media Bridge Fund was created by Public Media Company in 2025 in response to the federal government’s elimination of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. The fund set a goal of raising $100 million over two years, with major contributions from the Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and the Dolby Family, among others.
The House on Tuesday passed a massive funding package to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday, clearing the bill for President Donald Trump to sign it into law.
The vote was 217-214.
Trump has said he will sign it “immediately.”
The legislation will ensure full-year funding for the federal government through the end of September, with the lone exception of the Department of Homeland Security, which is put on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.
The measure tees up a frantic 10-day window for Congress to negotiate a DHS funding agreement as Democrats demand reforms to rein in ICE and CBP.
The new deadline when DHS funding will expire is Feb. 13.
[…] “I believe this is an opportunity to isolate DHS and go at it, hammer and tongs, tooth and nail — whatever phrase you want to use, rather than having to figure out what the heck is going to happen to five other bills and all those departments,” DeLauro [Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.] said. “There’s unbelievable bipartisan, bicameral support on those bills. So why squander that? And then take the next 10 days, next Friday, and just bring DHS up.”
[…] Securing a bipartisan deal on DHS money will be a tall order.
Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, said it will be “very difficult” to secure a DHS funding deal by the next deadline.
“There are vast differences,” he said. “I would expect — and I’m hearing that there could be just another, we kick the can down the road a little bit longer until those differences can be worked out … at least, probably, March 1.”
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
Follow-up to 94, 99.
Dan Kaszeta (CBRN expert): “Don’t wear contact lenses if there’s any chance at all you might be exposed to tear gas or pepper spray.”
a six-year-old wondered if the unicorn she saw marching earlier was ok.
[…]
It was an event organized by a coalition of labor unions that began with speeches at Elizabeth Caruthers Park and culminated in a march just down the street past the local ICE building. The plan was to keep the procession moving, but when some marchers crossed a no trespassing line in front of the building, federal officers reacted with immediate violence. […] I spoke to eight people who were present
[…]
“We saw a few agents come onto the roof but I figured they were just observing,” she said. “Then I saw the gas get fired. There were at least five shots. […] When I was walking away and struggling to breathe, a street medic […] checked on me and helped me rinse my eyes out,” Zoe recalled. “She saw I wasn’t okay […] my contacts were holding the gas behind [them].” […] “I didn’t know it would be that kind of march so I didn’t bring my gas mask or PPE,”
[…]
“It’s just weird to see a toddler in a pink onesie getting their eyes washed out from tear gas, you know?” […] by all accounts from people on the ground, it was a family atmosphere where locals turned out with children, elders, pets and signs in hand […] it was a “No Kings”-type crowd. People were handing out whistles. On one corner, a young adult played the keytar, and the sun was still out. It made the abrupt change in mood and safety that much more jarring. Although the organizers made great efforts to keep the most vulnerable from going too close to the ICE building, the mass deployment of munitions made it impossible to shield them all.
[…]
Local Portland police were “utterly useless,” John, another attendee, told me. “They at least weren’t helping ICE, but they also didn’t care […] One cop we talked to—he appeared to be a lieutenant or commander—about babies being gassed said in response ‘that’s too bad.'” John said he, too, was astonished by the escalation of tactics, especially against an overwhelmingly white and middle class crowd.
[…]
“People were choking on gas over 6 blocks away.”
[…]
Mayor Keith Wilson was already demanding ICE to leave his city before they struck again on Sunday. […] “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children. Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets. No one is forcing you to lie to yourself, even as your bosses continue to lie to the American people.”
birgerjohanssonsays
Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast — February 2026
“Immigration officials said agent shot two ‘vicious gang members’ in Portland, but records obtained by the Guardian reveal US prosecutor contradicted claims”
Immediately after a US border patrol agent shot two people in Oregon last month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the targets were “vicious” gang members connected to a prior shooting and alleged they had “attempted to run over” officers with their vehicle.
In the weeks since, key parts of the federal government’s narrative have fallen apart.
The events took place on the afternoon of 8 January, one day after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
According to a DHS press release and social media posts issued the following day, border patrol agents were conducting a “targeted” stop of a vehicle in Portland occupied by two members of Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang. Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, a woman in the passenger seat, had been “involved” in a Portland shooting last year, the agency wrote.
During the border patrol stop, the driver, Luis Niño-Moncada, “weaponized their vehicle against” officers, DHS said, prompting an agent “to defend himself and others” by shooting the occupants. Zambrano-Contreras was hit in the chest, Niño-Moncada was hit in the arm and both were hospitalized, then taken into federal custody, DHS noted. The agents were uninjured.
But court records obtained by the Guardian reveal a Department of Justice prosecutor later directly contradicted DHS’ Tren de Aragua statements in court, telling a judge, “We’re not suggesting … [Niño-Moncada] is a gang member.” An FBI affidavit issued following the incident also suggests that in the previous shooting cited by DHS, Zambrano-Contreras was not a suspect, but rather a reported victim of a sexual assault and robbery. Neither Niño-Moncada or Zambrano-Contreras have prior criminal convictions, their lawyers have said.
[…] criminal justice experts who reviewed the case records characterized the federal government’s communications as a “smear campaign” against the two Venezuelan immigrants, with mischaracterizations of their pasts and unsubstantiated allegations of criminality.
Niño-Moncada, the 33-year-old driver, who is undocumented, remains detained, facing charges of aggravated assault of an officer based on claims he tried to “intentionally” hit agents with his car. Zambrano-Contreras, 32, was not criminally charged, but has pleaded guilty to improper entry to the US, a misdemeanor. […]
“The federal government cannot be trusted. Our default position should be skepticism and understanding they lie very regularly,” said Sameer Kanal, a Portland city councilor. “There’s a playbook of demonizing people … and claiming vehicles were used as ‘weapons.’ We see a pattern of victim-blaming, and it’s important we push back, because it’s propaganda.”
[…] None of the six border patrol agents involved in the Portland shooting recorded body-camera footage. The shooting occurred in a hospital parking lot, but the FBI said in a 10 January affidavit supporting charges that surveillance cameras didn’t capture the incident […]
Without videos, the charging documents largely relied on agents’ testimony. […]
Last week, prosecutors disclosed in court that investigators have since obtained surveillance footage partially showing the incident. The video was not made public in court filings, but KGW, a local station, obtained and published it on Monday.
The grainy footage, taken from a distance and with no sound, does not clearly capture the encounter. It shows agents following what appears to be Niño-Moncada’s truck in the parking lot and then approaching him. He appears to maneuver the car and drive off, though the moment of the shooting is not clearly visible.
Sergio Perez, a civil rights lawyer and former US prosecutor, said it was alarming the government filed charges two days after the incident while acknowledging it was still seeking video: “This government needs to go back to the practice of slow and thorough investigations rather than what we consistently see in immigration enforcement activities – which is a rush to smear individuals.” [I agree.]
Niño-Moncada’s public defenders have rejected claims he intended to hit officers, noting the complaint failed to identify any specific agent who believed they were going to be hit. Niño-Moncada was likely in a “frightened” state, the attorneys argued in court filings, given the “climate of abject terror” for immigrants […]
The US attorney’s office and FBI declined to respond to detailed inquiries about the case. DHS did not respond to requests for comment. Attorneys for Niño-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras also declined to comment.
The government’s narrative has also heavily relied on gang claims, but those allegations have not stood up to scrutiny.
‘She is a victim’
DHS has repeatedly argued Zambrano-Contreras had gang ties, claiming in its first statement the day of the shooting that she was “affiliated with [a] transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring and involved in a recent shooting in Portland”.
Those claims stem from an incident on 7 July 2025, the FBI wrote in its recent affidavit in Niño-Moncada’s case.
Zambrano-Contreras had been working as a sex worker that day and later told police a man had “forced her to provide oral sex, initially did not let her leave, and she was forced to leave without her belongings and all of her money”, the FBI wrote.
Once Zambrano-Contreras was able to flee, she texted Niño-Moncada to pick her up, and Niño-Moncada later told police he found her “crying and [with] marks on her neck”, according to the affidavit. Later that day, Zambrano-Contreras returned with several men to the apartment where she had been assaulted to get her money and belongings, the FBI said. Police responded to calls of shots fired at the scene and encountered two men who said they had “engaged the services of a prostitute”, and due to a “dispute”, the woman came back with other men who started to break into the apartment – one of whom fired a shot that didn’t hit anyone. […]
Niño-Moncada was not present at either shooting. Zambrano-Contreras has not been described as a suspect in the first shooting, and she was not present at the second shooting. Neither have faced charges related to either shooting.
Legal experts said it seemed the government’s claim that the couple was affiliated with Tren de Aragua was largely based on vague and unproven assertions there were gang members in their social circle.
“It’s having them seem guilty without any evidence,” said Elliott Young, a history professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland and Latin America expert who regularly testifies in asylum cases. “If they did have evidence that either of them were active in this group they’ve described as a dangerous ‘narco-terrorist’ organization, why are they not being charged with that?”
Young, who reviewed the court records, said it was particularly galling for the government to use an incident in which Zambrano-Contreras was victimized to paint her as a criminal: “It appears this woman is the victim of a rape, theft and being kidnapped, yet she is being turned into the target of a smear campaign claiming she’s an associate of the gang. It seems twisted and unjust.” […]
‘Dirtying up of the defendant’
In a 21 January hearing about whether Niño-Moncada should remain detained, prosecutors acknowledged the lack of evidence linking him to Tren de Aragua.
A federal judge, Jeff Armistead, pressed the US attorney, Thomas Edmonds, on Niño-Moncada’s link to the 7 July shooting, noting it appeared the defendant had merely rescued his girlfriend from a dangerous situation and was not involved in what happened after. […]
Prosecutors had not only failed to prove Niño-Moncada’s association with the gang, but also failed to present any argument suggesting his purported Tren de Aragua affiliation is connected to the actual alleged crime of assaulting an officer: “It just feels like a dirtying up of the defendant.” […]
[…] Italians have already taken to the streets to protest ICE’s presence there [at the Winter Olympics], seemingly not persuaded that the HSI agents will behave differently than their typical ICE brethren. […]
but what if, rather than reforming anything or, say, not sending ICE agents to Milan, we just avoided saying “ice” instead? That’ll fix everything! [Just a few days out from the Olympics, “Ice House” (hospitality space for U.S. Figure Skating, USA Hockey, and US Speedskating) is now “Winter House”.]
This isn’t the first time the administration has tried to get around mentioning “ice”—the frozen water version. Last month, Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster response staff were told to avoid using the word “ice” when referring to the winter storm that was on its way to crush huge chunks of the country. That was kind of a problem, since there was actually going to be an ice storm. […]
No, really. FEMA staff were instructed to twist themselves in knots by referring to, say, “freezing rain” in place of “ice” so that no one would be mean to ICE on the internet.
Trump’s secret police are murderous and violent and lawless, and the mere mention of “ice” makes people think of that. Somehow, just changing the names of things doesn’t seem like the right way to fix this […]
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya testified before a Senate committee Tuesday, where Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont quickly cut through the stupor of anti-science rhetoric and misinformation pushed by Health and Human Services quack Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Do vaccines cause autism?” Sanders asked. “Tell that to the American people. Yes. No.”
“I do not believe that the measles vaccine causes autism,” Bhattacharya replied.
“I didn’t ask ‘measles.’ Do vaccines cause autism?” Sanders repeated.
“I have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism,” Bhattacharya said. [video]
Bhattacharya’s perverse attempt to split hairs ignoring the settled science of vaccines is clearly in service of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda.
Kennedy and other anti-vaxxers have repeatedly failed to produce evidence linking vaccines to autism, but their misinformation campaign has succeeded in eroding public trust. As a result, the United States has falling vaccine rates and the largest measles outbreak in decades.
Now the country is on the brink of losing its measles-free status, due in no small part to the anti-vaccine movement championed by Kennedy.
LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—King Charles III of the United Kingdom announced on Tuesday that he was cancelling his upcoming trip to the United States and would send his disgraced brother, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, in his place.
Charles gave no reason for the abrupt cancellation, saying only that Andrew was a “better fit” for a visit to Donald J. Trump.
“I’m sure they’ll have plenty to reminisce about,” Charles said. “And if they run out of activities, Trump can always give Andrew a Sharpie and put him to work redacting those bloody files.”
“For the past year, the far-right members have talked a good game, right until they cave under pressure.”
The partial government shutdown that began late last week was expected to be brief, and those expectations proved true: The Republican-led Senate approved a compromise package Friday night, and the Republican-led House followed suit Monday afternoon.
The spending package fully funds several federal departments and agencies through the end of the fiscal year — except for the Department of Homeland Security. At Democrats’ insistence, federal resources for DHS were only approved for a two-week period, during which time the parties are supposed to negotiate some much-needed reforms to immigration enforcement policies.
[…] I’m reminded of a report published in the conservative Washington Times just one week ago:
House Freedom Caucus leaders said they will take any necessary steps to make sure that funding for ICE stays within the Department of Homeland Security portion of the government funding package.
The conservative caucus sent a letter to President Trump Tuesday urging him to ‘ensure the Department of Homeland Security is fully funded along with all remaining appropriations bills — and not allow Democrats to strip its funding out to pass other appropriations separately.’
At the time, the position from Senate Democratic leaders was straightforward: The party wouldn’t accept a solution that fully funded all of the agencies, including DHS, for the rest of the fiscal year. The only realistic solution, Senate Democratic leaders said, was to separate Homeland Security from the package and allow for a fresh round of debate over possible reforms.
House Freedom Caucus members said this was simply unacceptable. “We cannot support giving Democrats the ability to control the funding of our Department of Homeland Security,” their letter to the White House said.
A week later, the final bill, which enjoyed Donald Trump’s support, reached the House floor. Just seven days after members of the House Freedom Caucus said they couldn’t accept such an outcome, literally none of them opposed the bill. [smile]
As striking as it was to see the Freedom Caucus fall in line, just as important was the familiarity of the circumstances.
– In January 2025, House Freedom Caucus members said they were prepared to derail Mike Johnson’s bid for a second term with the gavel, and then they caved.
– In March 2025, House Freedom Caucus members said they were opposed to a stopgap spending measure needed to prevent a shutdown, and then they caved.
– In April 2025, House Freedom Caucus members slammed their party’s budget resolution, and then caved.
– In May 2025, House Freedom Caucus members railed against their party’s reconciliation package, and then they caved.
– In July 2025, House Freedom Caucus members said they were prepared to derail their party’s inaptly named “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and then they caved.
– In February 2026, it has happened again.
The Washington Post published an analysis last year that remains relevant:
Each threat from leaders of the House Freedom Caucus ended with the same result: capitulation. After caving on each round of threats, these far-right conservatives vowed that the next time would be different — if their demands were not met precisely as they sought. This collection of several dozen Republicans, after a decade of rabble-rousing that helped push aside three other speakers, has yet to fully buck Johnson … on any major initiative this year.
That was published 10 months ago. It’s still accurate.
In recent years, the Freedom Caucus managed to earn a reputation as unrelenting hardliners who rejected compromise, who were indifferent to party leaders and who had no qualms about derailing GOP proposals they deemed insufficiently conservative. They quickly became a painful thorn in the side of several Republican House speakers.
As an NBC News report explained last spring, “They didn’t fear government shutdowns; they welcomed them. Their signature move was to collectively withhold votes unless House GOP leaders met their demands. Before this year, most members of the conservative crew had never supported a stopgap spending bill or debt ceiling increase in their entire House careers.”
But in 2025 and 2026, the uncontrollable pit bulls have become obedient lapdogs.
It’s at least possible that Freedom Caucus members will someday find a bill that causes them to take a principled stand, but for now, we’re dealing with an unmistakable legislative dynamic in which the far-right faction talks a good game, right up until the president tells them what to do — at which point, the lapdogs roll over.
Conclusion: The rightwing doofuses that make up the “House Freedom Caucus” are weak, and getting weaker by the week. That’s good news.
Telling details for sure. How Trump assesses people:
During a White House event on Monday afternoon, Donald Trump took a moment to celebrate low crime rates in Washington, D.C. (while conveniently overlooking the fact that rates had sharply improved before he deployed National Guard troops onto civilian streets). The president said that as far as he’s concerned, the reason the city is safer is because “we have very big, strong, good-looking soldiers standing around, and I think they make the place look better.”
It was an odd comment. Crime is down in a major American city because the troops, whom Trump finds attractive, make the community “look better”?
A few days earlier, the president said he had chosen Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to serve in his Cabinet because he found Burgum’s wife pretty. At the same Oval Office gathering, Trump elaborated on why he chose Kevin Warsh as his nominee to lead the Federal Reserve.
“He’s very smart, very good, strong, young,” the president said, describing Warsh’s attributes. He added, “He was the central casting guy. … Looks don’t mean anything, but he’s got the look.” Hours earlier, when announcing his selection, Trump also said Warsh is “central casting.”
The comments reminded me of a Washington Post report published in October:
As President Donald Trump was addressing the Israeli Knesset on Monday, he pointed at Israel Defense Forces Chief Eyal Zamir and said, ‘You know, the guy’s central casting. Let’s put him in a movie. Look at him.’
A few minutes later, he was reminiscing with the Israeli lawmakers about meeting Gen. Dan Caine, now the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders. ‘Everybody was like central casting,’ Trump said.
Everyone has certain words and phrases they use as part of their everyday vocabulary, but Trump’s fixation on “central casting” seems more than a rhetorical tic — it’s a reflection of how he assesses those around him.
In 2018, for example, when Trump had to choose his second Supreme Court nominee, Politico quoted a White House insider who said, “Beyond the qualifications, what really matters is, does this nominee fit a central casting image for a Supreme Court nominee, as well as his or her spouse. That’s a big deal. Do they fit the role?”
A few months earlier, Trump nominated Ronny Jackson, the then-White House physician, to oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs, in part because of the future congressman’s guise.
“He’s like central casting,” Trump told donors at a fundraiser, “like a Hollywood star.”
He can’t seem to help himself. Then-Vice President Mike Pence? “Central casting.” Then-Defense Secretary James Mattis? “This is central casting.” Then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? “Central casting.”
The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty told MS NOW after the 2016 election that “central casting” is “actually a phrase [Trump] uses quite a bit behind the scenes.”
A decade later, his preoccupation with how people present themselves has, if anything, intensified. It’s as if the president sees himself as the executive producer of an elaborate show — because, to a very real extent, that’s exactly how he perceives his role.
Trump, always a shallow man with no integrity, is now more shallow than ever. As he ages, he has become a caricature of himself. He relies on a person’s outward, physical appearance. He ends up with Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Mike Pence, etc. Ironically, even Trump’s championing of “central casting” physical features also reveals that he is a poor judge in even that department. I wish Trump would look closely at actual qualifications, but there’s no hope for that.
“Donald Trump Says He Wants To Seize State Elections, Probably Just Kidding Again Because He’s Such A Kidder”
Let’s just get this out of the way first: Donald Trump definitely does not have a secret plan to cancel the 2026 midterm elections to prevent losing Republican control of Congress. He has a very public desire to, and keeps floating concepts of a plan at every opportunity Monday, in just the latest, most explicit version of that beautiful autocratic dream, Trump told his former FBI assistant director, Dan Bongino, how he’d like Republicans to “take over” the elections in states that might vote the wrong way.
Here’s video; for context, this part of the conversation kicked off when Bongbong brought up “crime rates,” which sparked a rambling conspiracy rant from Trump about how how immigrants and their Democrat puppetmasters are the source of all that’s wrong with America.
No, we suppose offering context doesn’t actually help, and it’s obvious he means “immigrants” the moment he lies, “These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally.” [video at the link]
Because of course he believes, as do his followers, that Democrats are actively bringing in undocumented migrants to do voter fraud, even though there’s zero evidence of widespread non-citizen voting (outside a handful of rare cases), and never has been, going back decades. It’s an article of faith for rightwingers, and thus not subject to empirical evidence.
Trump just can’t believe that his party isn’t doing more to stop the nonexistent theft of elections in states he lost but “knows” he won, at least in his rotted mind.
“It’s amazing that Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places.
“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that I won that show I didn’t win. You’re gonna see something in Georgia. I won that election by so much. Everybody knows it.”
[…] [As an aside, I really dislike that rhetorical flourish “Everybody knows it.” I feel like Trump is trying to add me to the group of people that believe his lies. No, I don’t know it. I know the opposite is true.]
[…] It was also very nice of Trump to remind us that he isn’t simply talking about overruling voters; he’s actually working on doing it, not just in his weird obsession with his 2020 loss, but with his flailing attempt to gerrymander 2026 House elections, and with efforts by Republicans in multiple states to disqualify as many legitimate voters as possible.
We like that the New York Times patiently explains (archive link) why Republicans nationalizing the voting would be unconstitutional. (We initially wrote “why Republicans can’t nationalize voting,” but realized they definitely can if they simply ignore the Constitution again.)
Under the Constitution, American elections are governed primarily by state law, leading to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country. […]
The president’s claims of election fraud have been debunked over and over, by both independent reviews and Republican officials. A review of the 2024 election by the Trump administration that began last year had found little evidence of widespread voting fraud by noncitizens as of last month […]
But as we say, Trump and his supporters are completely immune to evidence when it comes to the twin myths of voter fraud in general, and of widespread voting by non-citizens. The myths are every bit as real to them as their certainty that everyone who protests against Trump is paid to do so […] and that LGBTQ people only exist because TV, movies, and the public schools are turning straight kids gay.
This makes the third time in the space of a month that Trump has wondered why nobody will rid him of these troublesome elections. Numero Uno: At the annual GOP retreat at the Kennedy Center (ahem) on January 6 (ahem, AHEM!), Trump mused about how unfair it is that Democrats are even allowed to run for office at all, because “They have the worst policy.” He went on to gripe about “How we have to even run against these people — I won’t say cancel the election, they should cancel the election, because the fake news would say, ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”
And we all know how he hates being called a dictator, except when he says dictators are good because they get shit done, as he did just last month at Davos when he said “sometimes you need a dictator,” although he didn’t specify when. […]
Numero Two-O: On January 15, Trump said in an interview with Reuters (archive link) that the usual trend of control of Congress switching in the midterms after a change of administration is super unfair to the most successful president in all of American history. Trump figured it only makes sense that, because he’s accomplished so much in his second term so far, “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”
White House Propaganda Minister Karoline Leavitt promptly explained that in both those cases, Trump was simply joshing, as one does. Besides, you weren’t there to hear him say it in the obviously jocular tone he uses when joking. We were sure she’d say the same thing about Trump’s latest, most specific call for Republicans to take control of elections to stay in power, even though this time he said it very publicly and didn’t chuckle or joke about being called a dictator.
Instead, for Numero Tres-O, Leavitt took another tack: He isn’t joking, he simply didn’t say what you heard him saying, dummy. He believes in the Constitution, yes he does! But there’s all that fraud! So even though the words that came out of his mouth were about Republicans taking over elections and nationalizing them in 15 states, he was only talking about “voter ID,” silly! Maybe you didn’t hear him mention voter ID in the recording, but that’s probably because your ears hate America. [video]
Also, just because he didn’t say he was joking doesn’t mean he wasn’t kidding, and really, it’s more of a you problem if you can’t tell when he’s clearly just joking or saying things you didn’t hear him say. You know, like when he repeatedly fantasizes about things like sending the military into American cities, invading Venzueula and taking its oil, or invading Greenland or Canada. Oh, also, he said he wasn’t joking about those last two. But then, maybe that was a joke too. He’s a funny guy […]
@137 Lynna:
Lindsay Beyerstein: “Sad old man calls for other people to solve his intractable problems.”
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna, O.M. @ # 135: … Trump’s championing of “central casting” physical features …
Then how to account for Stephen Miller? Anyone & everyone in Hollywood would put him in the “villain’s henchman” box – all too appropriate in reality, but even Trump must somehow see his role differently.
whheydtsays
Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #140…
Well..”central casting” also provides villains…
Pierce @140, I thought of that. Stephen Miller is the exception. I do think he has a different role. Trump depends on Miller to push the mass deportation agenda. Some cartoonists portray Miller as something like a rabid bat; as a ghostly presence hanging around in the background; as the ghost of a Nazi; as a vampire, etc. Trump does have to rely on some people who do actual work. Officially, Stephen Miller is White House Deputy Chief of Staff, a Homeland Security Advisor, and a speech writer. Some reports say that Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and others do whatever Miller tells them to do.
From a Wall Street Journal report:
Moments after federal officers fatally shot Alex Pretti, his body still lying facedown on an icy Minneapolis street, Customs and Border Protection officials texted Stephen Miller, the White House aide and presidential confidant who framed the government’s response.
From The New York Times, as summarized by Steve Benen:
This was a hearing Republicans didn’t want to call, so Democrats organized the discussion on their own: “A brother of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis last month, told congressional Democrats on Tuesday that his family had been disheartened that immigration officials had not seemed to change their behavior since his sister’s death.”
MS NOW:
House Oversight Committee Democrats released a report on Tuesday blaming the Trump administration’s ‘extreme’ law enforcement for the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and accusing the federal government of a ‘cover-up’ by obstructing impartial investigations into their deaths.
House Republicans on Tuesday canceled a planned vote to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, after the Clintons agreed to be deposed on camera this month and requested that they be allowed to do so at public hearings.
French investigators raided X’s Paris headquarters on Tuesday as part of an expanded criminal probe involving seven alleged offenses including spreading antisemitic content and involvement in distributing child pornography.
“To Build a Fire: How Russian military intelligence is recruiting young people online to carry out espionage, arson, and other attacks across Europe”
By Joshua Yaffa
In April, 2024, a Ukrainian woman in her late thirties, whom I’ll refer to as Anna, received an unexpected call from an old acquaintance, a man named Daniil Gromov. They had known each other in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, near the border with Russia. Two years earlier, after Russia invaded Ukraine, Anna had fled with her family to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Now Gromov said that he needed a favor: a friend was looking for someone in Vilnius to pick up a package for him. Could Anna help? She agreed and, soon afterward, got a call on the messaging service Telegram. A user named Warrior2Alpha told her that the package was stored in a luggage locker at the train station. He sent her a screenshot of a receipt with a code for opening the door.
Inside the locker, Anna found an assortment of items bundled in a blue ikea shopping bag, which she took home and stored in a closet. Three days later, Warrior2Alpha sent her a voice message with a new request. He wanted photographs of the bag’s contents. Anna opened the bag and pulled out a remote-controlled car still in its box. A bubble-wrap bag containing a bundle of wires was taped to one side of it. She also found several cellphones, charging cables, and a pair of black vibrators. Anna snapped a photograph and sent it to Warrior, as she came to call him, who instructed her to return the ikea bag to another locker at the train station.
By then, Anna was feeling increasingly uneasy about what she’d got herself into. Warrior’s profile on Telegram included images of a pistol and ammo cartridges, something that looked like a missile, and a Russian flag. Anna worried that, by helping him, she was somehow aiding the Russian war effort. She contacted her sister, who had a friend who worked in law enforcement back in Ukraine. He advised Anna to delete the picture that she’d sent to Warrior and promised to alert the appropriate authorities in Lithuania.
Within days, officers from Lithuania’s counterterrorism police showed up at Anna’s apartment. The investigators soon determined that the devices in the ikea bag were detonators, capable of triggering an explosion or a fire. They gave Anna a new set of instructions: she was to continue her correspondence with Warrior, only under surveillance, with the contents of the bag replaced with dummy goods and a hidden G.P.S. tracker. What had begun as a strange, out-of-the-blue favor was now a sting operation.
Anna returned the bag to the train station and sent Warrior a picture of the receipt for the locker. “Thank you,” he replied. Two days later, a young man appeared at the station’s luggage-storage area and opened the locker door. He took the bag and boarded a bus for Riga, the capital of Latvia, about two hundred miles away. Police tracked the man’s movements using the G.P.S. device hidden inside the bag. A commando unit moved into place.
Just before 2 p.m., at a gas station near the city of Panevėžys, in northern Lithuania, officers raided the bus. The young man appeared to be dozing in his seat; they shook him awake and told him that he was under arrest. Later, during an interrogation, he admitted everything. His name was Daniil Bardadim, a seventeen-year-old from southern Ukraine. He had committed one act of arson, he said, and he had been on his way to Riga to carry out another.
Two months earlier, Bardadim had crossed the border from Ukraine into Poland. He had previously lived with his parents and a brother in Kherson, a port city known for its fields of sunflowers and watermelons, which, in the early days of the war, was occupied by Russian forces. A former K.G.B. officer was installed as mayor; the schools and other public services remained closed for months. Bardadim, who was then fifteen, briefly worked at a gas station. In September, 2022, occupation authorities held a supposed referendum that led to Russia’s annexation of the city and its surrounding region, but the Kremlin’s rule over Kherson proved short-lived: in mid-November, after a sustained counter-offensive, the Ukrainian Army retook the city.
[Lots of details snipped.]
In late 2022, European law-enforcement and intelligence officials began to pick up on a new phenomenon. Anodyne offers for odd jobs were appearing in online chat groups, often on Telegram. Most were aimed at local Russian-speaking populations, meaning not only Russians but also Belarusians and Ukrainians. Payment was generally promised in cryptocurrency. The Polish intelligence services came up with a name for those who were recruited to carry out such supposedly simple tasks—jednorazowi agenci, or “single-use agents.”
In the spring of 2023, police in the Polish city of Lublin identified a network of more than a dozen single-use agents—Ukrainians and Belarusians, along with one Russian, a professional hockey player—some of whom were initially recruited to put up flyers and stickers that read “Poland ≠ Ukraine” and “nato go home.” The point, Polish authorities believed, was to get people to question the state’s support for Ukraine and to stir up doubts and animosity about the Ukrainian refugees already in the country. In France, single-use agents from Moldova, Bulgaria, and Serbia, among others, stencilled Stars of David on walls around Paris, defaced a Holocaust memorial, and left severed pigs’ heads outside mosques. In June, 2024, five wooden coffins draped with French flags appeared near the Eiffel Tower, bearing the inscription “Soldats Français de l’Ukraine.” Police apprehended three men—from Bulgaria, Germany, and Ukraine—who said they had been paid several hundred euros for the stunt. “The goal is clear,” a European intelligence chief said. “Heighten tensions or cause cracks within society or, at least, create the image of such a thing.”
Often, simple acts of vandalism lead to more complicated jobs. Members of what became known as the Lublin cell, for example, were later paid to place surveillance cameras along railway lines in Poland that transport military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. [Lots of details snipped.]
[…] There have also been several incidents of outright sabotage. A fire at a warehouse in East London that stored humanitarian aid for Ukraine led to the conviction of six British men who, the judge said, had joined a “campaign of terrorism.” [Lots of details snipped]
[…] In nearly every case, prosecutors have concluded that Russia’s military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., has been the principal organizer of single-use-agent operations in Europe.
[…] “They run an operation that costs a few thousand euros, carried out by people they don’t care about losing,” Bart Schuurman, the head of a research group on terrorism and political violence at Leiden University, in the Netherlands, told me. “And we in Europe follow up with an investigation that takes months, tying up finite resources across multiple countries. Meanwhile, they’re long on to the next one.” [snipped lots of details]
Western intelligence officials believe that a specific G.R.U. division, the Department of Special Tasks, is behind Russia’s single-use-agent operations. The department appears to be an offshoot of an infamous G.R.U. unit known by its numerical designation, 29155, which has a long history of subversion and sabotage across Europe. In 2014, operatives from the unit set off two explosions that destroyed ammunition depots in the Czech Republic, killing two people. A couple of years later, on the day of parliamentary elections in Montenegro, G.R.U. officers tried to mount an armed coup, which ultimately failed. In 2018, in the U.K., two colonels from the unit poisoned the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with Novichok, a state-manufactured nerve agent. That action appears to have been a failure: both Skripals survived, an unrelated woman was killed, and the G.R.U. was identified as the perpetrator of the attack. (In response, Western countries expelled more than a hundred and fifty Russian diplomats.) A European intelligence official described the G.R.U.’s reputation as “wreaking havoc, creating disruption, behaving recklessly.” [snipped lots of details]
Schuurman went on, “what is noteworthy is the scale—and the audacity.” […] in nearly all cases, single-use agents are apolitical, in need of money, and ignorant of the cause they’re ultimately supporting. […]
[Snipped lots of details]
There is a long history of the G.R.U. using criminal figures as middlemen and proxies. “Criminals are close by, accessible, easy to manipulate,” the Latvian security-services officer said. “They want to survive and stay out of prison, and, in a place like Russia, having certain ties to the services can help.” As Tkachuk understood it, Varivoda “collected orders for committing various crimes in the E.U.,” and Chaliy “carried them out.” That included car theft, illegal border crossings, document fraud, and, as European law-enforcement and intelligence officials believe, arson and sabotage on behalf of the Russian intelligence services. According to Polish investigators, Varivoda played a central role in Bardadim’s arson campaign: he is assumed to be the person behind Q, Bardadim’s anonymous interlocutor. […]
It’s early, but Julie Le now takes a commanding lead in the race for quote of the year. “The system sucks, this job sucks,” she told Judge Blackwell. Given the multiple recorded incidents of DOJ attorneys lying to the courts, this is refreshing candor.
She then asked to be held in contempt so she can get some sleep. The situation in the DOJ must be insane.
birgerjohanssonsays
LEAKED: Epstein Client Pritzker Got Army Escort Through Afghanistan
The last treaty limiting the nuclear arms of the United States and Russia expires this week, even as the US pressures Iran over its nuclear capabilities, creating a new level of uncertainty at a time of increasing strategic competition around the globe.
… (snip)..
..President Donald Trump has expressed little interest in the potential implications of the end of the treaty, saying last month “if it expires, it expires”. But there is deep foreboding among long-term nuclear arms watchers.
Former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, who co-chaired the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament says the end of the treaty is a “terrifying prospect” and has castigated Trump for “another catastrophic abdication of responsibility”.
Australian academic Tilman Ruff, who helped form the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) — which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize — says the demise of the treaty “will bring a definitive and alarming end to nuclear restraint between the two powers”.
“It may very well accelerate the global nuclear arms race, too.”
SpaceX has temporarily grounded its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, which is slated to launch four astronauts just eight days from now.
A Falcon 9 delivered 25 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) as planned on Monday (Feb. 2). But, after deploying the payloads, the rocket’s upper stage failed to perform its deorbit burn, which was designed to bring it down for controlled destruction in Earth’s atmosphere.
“Teams are reviewing data to determine root cause and corrective actions before returning to flight,” SpaceX said
@85 Lynna – “Smells Like a Russia, Russia, Russia Honeytrap”
I know it’s still fashionable to blame everything on Russia, but Epstein was not a Russian agent. He was trained as a spy under Ehud Barak and was deeply embeeded in U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Epstein’s actions deeply implicate the American ruling class and their allies, not so much the U.S. military’s chosen adversary-of-the-week.
Downplaying the genocidal evil of Putin and ignoring what he wants to do Ukraine and ist people is very fashionable in Trumpist circles – very unethical and factually wrong too of course. Oh and Tankie circles as well.
Obvs here not everything is blamed on Putin and Russia more generally – just the things they deserve to be blamed for & are suspected of doing based on reasonable evidence.
Also seconding what #111 KG wrote.
StevoRsays
In 2023, a subatomic particle called a neutrino crashed into Earth with such a high amount of energy that it should have been impossible. In fact, there are no known sources anywhere in the universe capable of producing such energy—100,000 times more than the highest-energy particle ever produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. However, a team of physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently hypothesized that something like this could happen when a special kind of black hole, called a “quasi-extremal primordial black hole,” explodes.
In new research published in Physical Review Letters, the team not only accounts for the otherwise impossible neutrino but shows that the elementary particle could reveal the fundamental nature of the universe.
A recent satellite-based study has uncovered alarming declines in groundwater storage across High Mountain Asia (HMA), widely known as the “Asian Water Tower.” This critical water source, which sustains agricultural irrigation, urban water supplies and ecological security for hundreds of millions of people in more than a dozen downstream countries, is depleting at a staggering rate of approximately 24.2 billion tons per year.
A new study finds that Canada could remove at least five times its annual carbon emissions with strategic planting of more than six million trees along the northern edge of the boreal forest. The paper, “Substantial carbon removal capacity of Taiga reforestation and afforestation at Canada’s boreal edge,” appears in Communications Earth & Environment.
Researchers at the University of Waterloo factored in satellite data, fire probabilities, loss of vegetation, and climate variables to estimate how much carbon the forests would remove. They found that planting about 6.4 million hectares of trees in that region could remove roughly 3.9 gigatonnes of CO₂ by 2100. Scaling up to the most suitable areas increased the potential to around 19 gigatonnes.
Reducing greenhouse gases is key to minimizing the worst effects of climate change. These results represent a significant step toward Canada’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050 and meeting its commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement.
The argument is straightforward: states cannot rely on the United States against incorrigible great power adversaries, and so the best—if not the safest—best is for them to acquire the ultimate deterrent. […] Having written a book on the alliance politics of nuclear proliferation […] We remain a long way from a world where U.S. treaty allies are going to acquire nuclear weapons. […]
First, practitioners and experts alike have historically tended to over-predict nuclear proliferation. […]
Second, most nuclear weapons states today have acquired their capabilities no later than 1970s. […] proliferation has been mostly flat.
Third, the fact that all of those later proliferants were not liberal democracies is indicative. One reason for why nuclear proliferation was a more salient feature of international politics in the first few decades after the Second World War was because the legal and normative environment was much more permissive than it is now. We did not have nuclear weapons free zones, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and a developed moral sense that acquiring nuclear weapons is a profound norm-breaking behaviour.
This point may draw hackles from some readers. […] However, all U.S. treaty allies are members of the NPT and so must abide by a number of safeguards agreements. […] Since most U.S. treaty allies are liberal democracies, these institutional constraints remain in place […]
Fourth, aspiring proliferants will face many technical barriers […] Having a nuclear facility already can elicit more international scrutiny. And then there is the matter of [acquiring] weapon systems that can deliver nuclear devices to their targets. […] They will need to have a sufficiently large stockpile so that they would not be quickly disarmed in a ‘bolt-out-of-the-blue’ strike. […] would require major expenditure of funds and scientific resources that few states really have at present. [And divert from arguably more fruitful ways to boost deterrence.] […]
Fifth, the notion that U.S. treaty allies will acquire nuclear weapons because of Trump assumes, oddly, a rather static threat environment. […] if adversaries learn of a nuclear weapons program, then they too might take steps to thwart it, including the use of military force. […] governments thinking about going down this path will have to anticipate the reaction of multiple stakeholders within their own societies as well as other states.
birgerjohanssonsays
Film: Cold Storage
Character 1: “That is a nuke. Are you crazy?”
Liam Neeson: “No. I’m abitious.”
Hmm… it appears the latest release of Epstein files could bring down Keir Starmer. His disastrous failureof judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson ambassador to the USA – despite knowing that Mandelson continued to associate with Epstein after his 2008 conviction – looks to be possibly fatal, now the released letters between Mandelson and Epstein indicate that Mandelson passed on commercially sensitive government information to Epstein. Mandelson seems likely to end up in prison.
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES
‘Hellbent’: Trump is reassembling his 2020 coup crew amid 2026 midterm panic. “Why are the usual suspects from the 2020 attempted coup back in Trump’s orbit now? Maybe to give it another run?” says Chris Hayes on Trump’s call to “nationalize” elections as the usual suspects from 2020 reemerge.
“Lawmakers have had to wait for months to learn the details about allegations against the DNI. That wait is now over.”
Given her dreadful record, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard never should’ve been nominated in the first place. Given how poorly her confirmation process went, Gabbard never should’ve been approved by Senate Republicans.
But as the first anniversary of Gabbard’s confirmation approaches, it’s worth pausing to appreciate what an embarrassment her tenure as DNI has been. Indeed, following months of controversies and missteps, the Hawaiian found herself left out of important strategy sessions and briefings, apparently having fallen out of favor with Donald Trump.
As 2026 got underway, amid multiple international crises, Gabbard was on the outside looking in. Some White House aides reportedly joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite.”
Last week, Gabbard’s troubles intensified after she needlessly participated in an FBI raid on an Atlanta-area elections office, despite the fact that the DNI is prohibited by law from taking part in domestic law enforcement. This week, her standing went from bad to worse when this report in The Wall Street Journal reached the public:
A U.S. intelligence official has alleged wrongdoing by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in a whistleblower complaint that is so highly classified it has sparked months of wrangling over how to share it with Congress, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.
The filing of the complaint has prompted a continuing, behind-the-scenes struggle about how to assess and handle it, with the whistleblower’s lawyer accusing Gabbard of stonewalling the complaint. Gabbard’s office rejects that characterization, contending it is navigating a unique set of circumstances and working to resolve the issue.
As my MS NOW colleague Ja’han Jones noted, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s office confirmed the existence of the complaint but called it “baseless and politically motivated.” The Journal also quoted the unnamed whistleblower’s lawyer, who said it was “confounding for [Gabbard’s office] to take weeks — let alone eight months — to transmit a disclosure to Congress.”
The lawyer, Andrew Bakaj, emphasized this week that the complaint was filed with the intelligence community’s inspector general in May, and that in June, the whistleblower asked that it be shared with lawmakers. That didn’t happen, thus generating accusations that Gabbard had taken steps to hide the complaint against her.
To be sure, the whistleblower complaint apparently deals with highly sensitive allegations, to the point that the complaint has reportedly been locked in a safe since its filing. But Congress’ Gang of Eight — made up of the top two leaders from both parties and both chambers, as well as the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees — are often briefed on matters of the utmost secrecy. These briefings are necessary, not optional, as part of Congress’ oversight authority.
And yet, Congress has been blocked in its efforts to gain access to the complaint against Gabbard — a situation that a source with knowledge of the matter confirmed to MS NOW’s national security reporter David Rohde on Monday.
At least, it was blocked. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Capitol Hill reporters on Tuesday that the Gang of Eight will, at long last, have an opportunity to review the whistleblower complaint against the DNI. […] at least opens the door to possible committee hearings.
The president, for his part, has said very little about the burgeoning story, though he did publish a brief item to his social media platform on Tuesday night that quoted a conservative outlet that said the complaint against Gabbard “did not appear credible,” according to the inspector general’s office. […]
‘The president’s team said he hadn’t actually endorsed nationalizing elections. Hours later, Trump made them look foolish.”
Related video at the link.
It’s not uncommon for the president to say something outlandish, at which point his team scrambles to reassure the public that he didn’t exactly mean what he said, only to have Trump soon add that his defenders are wrong and that his ridiculous comments were correct.
On Monday, for example, the president appeared on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast, peddled some weird conspiracy theories and concluded by endorsing a federal takeover of American elections. “The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over.’ We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places,” Trump said. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
Pressed the next day for some kind explanation, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters the president was really just referring to a misguided bill called the SAVE Act, which would make it more difficult for Americans to register to vote.
Leavitt’s explanation was laughable, since Trump clearly wasn’t referring to the legislative proposal, but the talking point had clearly gone out to the relevant partisans: House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune separately told Capitol Hill reporters that the president was actually talking about the SAVE Act, not a federal power-grab.
A few hours later, Trump made those allies look rather foolish. The New York Times reported:
President Trump doubled down on his extraordinary call for the Republican Party to ‘nationalize’ voting in the United States, even as the White House tried to walk it back and members of his own party criticized the idea.
Mr. Trump said on Tuesday that he believed the federal government should ‘get involved’ in elections that are riddled with ‘corruption,’ reiterating his position that the federal government should usurp state laws by exerting control over local elections.
So much for the walk-back.
If states “can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over,” Trump said, floating a variety of evidence-free conspiracy theories about cities with Democratic majorities. “Look at some of the places — that horrible corruption on elections — and the federal government should not allow that. … The federal government should get involved.”
Abandoning GOP orthodoxy altogether, the Republican president added, “If you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”
There’s no reason for him to be confused about this: The federal government doesn’t “do” election administration because it would be illegal: The Constitution, which Trump swore to uphold, delegates power to the states to conduct elections.
Reminded of the basics of constitutional law, the president said states “can” administer elections, though he quickly added, “but they have to do it honestly.”
And who gets to decide whether the elections have been handled in an honest way? According to Trump, he does — and as he’s repeatedly made clear, when he doesn’t like the outcome of an election, that necessarily means it wasn’t honest.
Looking ahead, the best-case scenario is that the president will continue to peddle conspiratorial nonsense, as he’s done countless times over the last decade, and his election-related lies will remain the background noise of our civic lives. His mindless rhetoric will be annoying but ultimately inconsequential.
The worst-case scenario, however, is far more dangerous. Trump has already deployed FBI agents to raid an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing ballots and voting records as an extension of the president’s conspiracy theory, while Trump’s Justice Department continues to wage an aggressive campaign to acquire voter rolls from states where Democrats won in 2024.
It’s painfully easy to imagine the administration taking additional steps down the same radical path — in this year’s midterm elections and beyond — especially as officials scramble to satisfy the whims of a president who’s convinced of systemic election crimes that are, in reality, occurring only in his imagination.
The danger is that Trump’s incessant whining is the first step and not the last.
U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson of Minneapolis ordered the pretrial release of two immigrants accused of assaulting an ICE agent who shot one of the men in an incident last month. But the men did not make it out of the courthouse before they were re-detained, by ICE, the Star Tribune reports.
Attorneys for Alfredo Aljorna and Julio Sosa-Celis were quickly back in court, filing a habeas petition seeking their release from ICE custody. Last night, chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz ordered the Trump administration not to remove the men from Minnesota and, if they already had, then to return them to Minnesota immediately.
Not to get overlooked: At the pretrial hearing, the mens’ attorneys introduced into evidence photos of the shooting scene that suggest the ICE agent shot through a closed door and undermine the government’s account what happened.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon issued a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using tear gas and other crowd-control weapons against peaceful protesters and journalists outside an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon.
In his order, Simon was harshly critical of the Trump administration:
– “the repeated shooting and teargassing of nonviolent protesters at the Portland ICE Building will likely keep recurring … Defendants’ violence is in no way isolated.”
-“statements made by DHS officials and senior federal executives show that the culture of the agency and its employees is to celebrate violent responses over fair and diplomatic ones.” [!]
-“Rather than reprimanding DHS violence against protesters, senior officials have publicly condoned it.”
-“There are clear instances of excessive force, including a use of force incident recorded by ICE’s own cameras and deemed “inappropriate” and “not reasonable” by a Federal Protective Service (“FPS”) Deputy Regional Director. Yet, the agents involved were not put on leave and do not appear to have been held accountable in any way.”
Whenever President Trump puts on a performative display of hyper-aggressive dominance, Stephen Miller can be found lurking in the background egging him on, the WSJ documents.
A GOP lawmaker seeking President Donald Trump’s endorsement in his Senate campaign bought out one entire showing of “Melania” at a theater, revealing that juicing ticket sales for the wretched documentary about Trump’s wife-in-name-only is a fresh new way to bribe the commander in chief.
Republican Rep. Andy Barr of Kentucky, who is running to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, gave away free tickets for a Jan. 30 showing of the film. The giveaway was promoted as part of his campaign, so he may have used campaign funds to purchase the tickets. […]
So buying out a theater to help juice sales for Trump’s wife’s documentary would be a great way to curry favor with the president, who is obsessed with ratings and has shown that he can be easily bought. [I snipped examples]
In fact, the “Melania” documentary itself is a bribe from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who reportedly spent $40 million to make the film and another $35 million to promote it, as a way to boost his business empire.
“Jeff Bezos gave Trump $40 million by buying the ‘Melania’ documentary through Amazon. Last week, it premiered. Now, Trump’s ‘Secretary of War’ visits Bezos’ Blue Origin, which gets billions in government contracts. Trump gets paid. Taxpayers get screwed,” Democratic Rep. Greg Casar of Texas wrote in a post on X.
Back to Barr, however. His “Melania” giveaway to potential voters looks to be a serious ethical lapse, verging on a crime, as it is against federal law to buy votes. […]
Reports said the movie sold more than $7 million worth of tickets in its opening weekend, which many in the mainstream media cheered as a massive feat. But the large sales were suspect from the start since some online ticket-booking sites showed barely any tickets had been purchased on its opening night. [!]
It looks like there were other mass buys of tickets, too. U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle, the jilted lover of Donald Trump Jr., hosted the Greek premiere of the film. And box-office insider Tom Brueggemann wrote on his Substack that “industry sources say there were signs that blocs of tickets were purchased for the weekend, then distributed to senior citizen homes, Republican activitists [sic], [and] other interested parties for free to help boost audiences.” [!]
First-quarter fundraising reports—which are due to be filed with the Federal Election Commission on April 15—should shed more light on whether other GOP lawmakers, candidates, and campaigns bulk-purchased tickets to juice sales.
We will be waiting to pour through them to see just how much of a lie ticket sales likely were.
The Wall Street Journal is out with a report trying to track the staggering $35 billion spent by the Department of Homeland Security in the past year. So where did the money go? Did you guess “sweet no-bid contracts to big donors and Trump pals”? If so, pat yourself on the back.
It’s impossible to overstate how much extra cash Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are currently swimming in. CBP nearly tripled its budget for contracts alone, hitting $15 billion in the last year, nearly triple what it had to throw around before Donald Trump took office a second time. ICE has racked up $5.1 billion in new contracts during the same stretch, a jump of 63%. [Wow. That is a lot of money.]
It’s not surprising to see that a bunch of that money has gone to Anduril Industries and Palantir, two big tech companies with weirdo conservative leaders who have wooed Trump with big donations and got sweet no-bid contracts in return.
Anduril just got $511 million for border surveillance, while Palantir has notched over $81 million from DHS in the past year for its help in turning immigration enforcement into a dystopian panopticon.
But don’t sleep on the less well-known companies willing to line their pockets by helping the administration commit state-sponsored violence. Fisher Sand and Gravel is here, thanks to owner Tommy Fisher being a big Trump donor. In December 2025, the company was given nearly $2 billion in contracts to build a border wall, which the administration is now calling a “Smart Wall” for some reason.
Fisher got literal billions in contracts to help build the wall during Trump’s first term as well, while also deciding to build a private wall. Sure, Fisher took money for that wall from the scammy illegal “We Build the Wall” group, a grift that netted former Trump adviser Steve Bannon a felony conviction for fraud, but nobody’s perfect. [sheesh]
And sure, the wall Fisher built was so shoddy that engineers hired to study the fence’s construction warned that in the event of a major flood, the wall would “effectively slide, overturn, and become buoyant.” And sure, there was a massive and immediate erosion problem, but why quibble about that?
Fisher has another in with the administration thanks to bribe enthusiast Tom Homan. The current border czar owns a firm that was a lobbyist for Fisher in 2021 and netted $186K for those efforts. Homan was also tapped by Fisher when he decided he wanted to sell his private wall, which is apparently a thing one can do?
It’s also an excellent time to be an amoral goblin who operates private prisons, given that DHS is showering money on those companies as it seeks to build more concentration camps. The Wall Street Journal reported that CoreCivic and GEO, both private prison companies, and CSI Aviation, which runs a deportation airline, have received $2 billion in contracts so far.
[…] CoreCivic runs the South Texas Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was sent after being abducted by ICE agents in Minnesota. Dilley is also the site of a measles outbreak. Detainees report unsafe conditions, such as poor drinking water and a lack of medical care.
In a truly innovative private-public partnership twist, the facility will sell children safe bottled water for $1.21. In pain after being brutalized by federal agents? How about $1.30 for a single Tylenol? [!!]
Also innovative? GEO Group doesn’t just want to run private jails for babies. They also provide the Trump administration with bounty hunters to track down immigrants. Gotta keep the grift diversified.
Everything about what DHS is doing here is illegal and unconstitutional and immoral—but hey, at least it is extremely profitable for the very worst people.
Luke and Brent Ganger, the brothers of Renee Good, gave emotional statements during a public forum hosted by Democrats Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California on Tuesday.
Good was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement thug Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.
Luke spoke first, telling the crowd that he and his brother hope to instigate the positive change that continues to elude the current political climate in the wake of their sister’s death.
“I was talking to my 4-year-old last week, when she noticed I was not doing well. I had to come here today and talk to some important people,” Luke said. “She knows that her aunt died and that somebody caused it to happen. She told me that there are no bad people and that everyone makes mistakes. She has [Good’s] spirit.” [video]
Brent followed, reading from the beautiful eulogy he gave at Good’s funeral, calling his late sister “unapologetically hopeful” and a loving mother.
“As a mother, Renee poured herself into love. The kind of love that shows up every day, that sacrifices quietly, that cheers loudly, that believes deeply,” Brent said. “Her children were and are her heart—walking around outside her body. And she made sure they felt safe, valued, and endlessly loved.” [video]
Oh hey, that guy ICE shot for “hitting them with a shovel”? Yeah nah, they fired through his door and almost hit some kids, SURPRISE. (Gift link Star Tribune)
ICE (acting) Director Todd Lyons told Greg Bovino he needed to actually target his arrests to criminals instead of daycare workers and abuelas. Bovino told him fuck off, he only answers to Cory Lewandowski. (Daily Beast via MSN)
Here’s Popehat explaining what the fuck with the Don Lemon arrest to Josh Barro. (Note, this was right when the arrest happened; if there has been other further explication since, I have not seen it.) I enjoy reading their transcripts so I don’t have to listen to “podcast.” (Transcript)
Comics 4 Liam? Comics 4 Liam. (ComixAction)
Barack Obama shared this NYT gift link, so I’m sharing it with you. Liam’s judge’s furious order, annotated!
California’s ICE crimes evidence bank, plus some other cool proactive shit from state AG Rob Bonta! (Brian Beutler)
TECH FUN!
Imagine if our country pressured companies not to do BAD shit instead of pressuring companies not to do GOOD shit! (Gift link Washington Post)
That’s weird, they said our phones were definitely not listening to us and then targeting ads at us. Weird! (CBS News)
SpaceX would like some broadband grants whether or not it provides broadband, so that tracks. (Ars Technica)
Oooh la la, the French … gendarmes? … raided Musk’s Euro X offices looking for crimes against humanity! And so much more! (BBC)
And?
In the space of a few hours, French authorities raided X’s office in Paris, the British privacy regulator opened a formal investigation of X and xAI, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced legal proposals that would criminalize algorithmic manipulation and the amplification of illegal content, making executives like Musk personally liable. [!]
Somebody get him some ketamine! (Gov Info Security)
OTHER STUFF THAT’S NOT THOSE!
Is Nancy Mace okay? In fact, she is not! (New York mag)
[…] OH BOY OH BOY, the Supreme Court is taking up “birthright citizenship.” Jesus, take the wheel. (Balls and Strikes)
RFK Jr.’s best raw milk pal does not like all this crazy ICE bullshit, or the Venezuela, or the Greenland, or the other. He also does not like that RFK Jr. has yet to do anything about opening up the raw milk laws. This is a fun little read! (I love best the food safety lawyer, obviously.) (Mother Jones)
The tradwife Ballerina Farm isn’t selling raw milk anymore, because it was nasssstyyyyyyy and they didn’t bother to first know how. (KPCW)
HEY WHAT’S UP WITH ZOHRAN?
This made me so happy! Zohran Mamdani, just racking up wins, this time against “bullshit AI chatbot.” Bullshit AI chatbot, YOU’RE FIRED! (The City)
Uh oh, another one?! Bullshit delivery apps, pay your drivers the $4.6 million you cheated them out of the fuck up! (Futurism) [video]
FIRST LADY CORNER!
Melania likes her gilded cage just fine. Katha Pollitt reviews the $45 million bribe movie, “starring her clothes, her hair, her shoes, and her complexion,” which just sounds swell. (The Nation) Perhaps you would prefer your Melania movie review from Elizabeth Spiers? The Nation has you covered there too! (The Nation)
Yiiiiikes, Jill Biden’s ex-husband has been charged with murdering his wife! Oh no! (People)
You want to see a body? No, not Jill’s ex’s murdered wife. It’s the Melania cinematographer who hadn’t gotten the memo on you do not under any circumstances sit down with Isaac Chotiner. (New Yorker)
Donald Trump continues to inspire his followers to do what they’re pretty sure is their part in making America white again, even if that involves breaking a few laws against assault, attempted carjacking, and firing guns at complete strangers. […] At least this time, nobody was murdered.
In Oregon, Charles Simmons, a 53-year-old MAGA dude, went on a bizarre crime spree last Thursday on Interstate 5, the west’s major north-south freeway. He was super upset about immigration, […] called state police to complain he’d seen “foreign” people driving on the freeway, presumably a crime that needed punishing. After causing several accidents (no serious injuries as far as we can tell) and shooting at people (nobody hit, thank Crom), he’s been charged with 17 crimes and is being investigated for possible bias crime charges as well.
[…] Simmons started his Thursday morning early by calling the Roseburg office of the Oregon State Police to complain he’d seen “foreign” people driving on the freeway. By 8:18, multiple agencies were responding to several 911 calls about shots being fired and other incidents as Simmons drove north on I-5 in his Ram pickup, apparently on a self-assigned mission to rid that bit of Douglas County of foreigns.
Among other allegations reported by local media from court documents, Simmons walked up to one man’s vehicle and demanded to know, “Are you loyal to the country?” after which he started banging on the window with his gun, and fired two shots at a passenger who ran for safety. He missed […]
At another point, Simmons drove up to a man who was walking along the interstate, asked if the man was a US citizen, then told him to get in so Simmons could take the man to the state police. When the man was reluctant to obey the armed lunatic, Simmons fired a shot at him and missed; the man ran behind the center barrier of the freeway to hide, and fortunately there was no traffic.
Simmons also tried to carjack a guy whose vehicle he rear-ended, according to a statement to police by the driver after he was taken to a hospital for x-rays.
He said Simmons told him he was an armed militia on a mission, and needed to take his vehicle, but the vehicle wouldn’t start. He said Simmons also tried to stop another truck and take it, but the driver took off.
After that, Simmons even tried to carjack the ambulance that arrived to transport the guy he’d rear-ended, but without success. It’s apparently harder than the Grand Theft Auto video games would lead one to believe.
[…] police arrived on the scene — within 10 minutes of the first 911 calls — and found his pickup with front-end damage. Simmons refused to comply with the cops, but they arrested him after using a taser on him instead of shooting him […]
Simmons’s Facebook account is full of weird rants, most of the weirdest shit posted in the two days before he went on his one-man militia mission. A sampling, before his page inevitably goes away: [social media post]
In another post, Simmons said that Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek was causing illegal immigration by “not employing all forces” and that he had “ informed the State Police that she is in violation and must reverse course. Warriors not politicians make freedom.”
Simmons’s own warrior bid to bring freedom has put at least a temporary end to his own freedom […] a judge has set his bail at a million dollars […] let’s keep in mind that not all violent MAGA crazies are as incompetent as this fucker.
We’d just like to point out that since they’re all state charges, Donald Trump will not legally be able to pardon Mr. Simmons. […]
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @175:
Simmons refused to comply with the cops, but they arrested him after using a taser on him instead of shooting him […]
What a surprise. Non-compliant white guy with a gun only gets tased.
Pull up a log by the campfire, and let us toast marshmallows together with New York Magazine’s Jake Lahut over the dying embers of the political career of Rep. Nancy Mace, […] who rose to prominence with wild-eyed culture-warrioring hate, only to be undone by evidently being not just pretend crazy for TV, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, but real crazy, as in “Something’s broken. The motherboard’s fried. We’re short-circuiting somewhere,” ratted a staffer who’d recently jumped ship.
Once upon a time, back in August, Mace announced she was running for governor of South Carolina, and did not file to be on the ballot again for her House seat. Her campaign is not going well! She’s slipped to somewhere around third or fourth in GOP primary polls[…] and though she has the strongest name recognition in polls, her unfavorability rating is more than twice as high as anyone else’s! YOWCH. […]
And a Trump endorsement is not likely after she joined with Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Epstein survivors to endorse releasing the Epstein Files.
[…] since June of last year she’s been the subject of an inquiry about her “lodging expenses and reimbursement practices” for charging taxpayers for costs associated with a $1.6 million DC townhouse while at the same time earning income renting out the same place on Airbnb.
[…] And now with Mace’s career as good as dead and buried, even more of her formerly loyal staffers are spilling about her outrageous demands, like bottles of tequila at two a.m. — Mace posted on X she does not drink, “I have a lifelong genetic affliction which prevents me from consuming much alcohol. It’s called HEMOCHROMATOSIS” — rule-breaking all-night parties, making her staff clean up her property like janitors, and demanding staff create burner accounts to go on Reddit forums discussing the subject of the “hottest women in Congress” to boost her standing in the rankings and comment about her hotness, holy fucking awkward workplace.
From the NYMag story:
She was obsessed with monitoring her reputation online. In addition to reportedly having her staff create burner accounts to defend her, Mace allegedly instructed a staffer to go on Reddit forums about the “hottest women in Congress” to boost her standing in the rankings and comment where needed. Mace was “very adamant” about getting the staffer to upvote any posts about the congresswoman and her attractiveness, according to a second former staffer.
[…] Staff also says she was cruel and capricious:
“We were scared of her,” said one of the former aides. “She would make staffers cry. She would threaten to fire them, take their money away, not give them raises, not to give them days off, religious days.” Intimacy only exacerbated the situation. “The closer you get to her, the harder she messes up your brain,” a different former staffer said. “It’s a classic story of ‘never meet your heroes.’”
Or pick better ones.
Indeed, her staff turnover is among the highest in the House, and she is currently without both a chief of staff in her House office and a campaign manager in South Carolina, uh oh! Though she does have at least one employee left, one Cameron Morabito, director of operations, who responded to Lahut’s questions with “I hope she sues you for every dime you got paid to write this defamatory bullshit.”
Nancy Mace was always rabid culture-war-MAGA-type crazy, but what seemed to send her extra-spiraling was the breakup with her fiancé, Patrick Bryant, the guy her former aide and political adviser Wesley Donehue testified in a deposition that she had tasked them with blackmailing. [WTF]
Among her other hypocrisies, the woman who preaches family values and fiscal responsibility made one of the worst decisions a person can make: she and Bryant bought two properties together worth about $5.5 million to live in sin together in, evidently with no kind of legal agreement in place about how said joint properties were to be disposed of should the personal partnership not work out.
And it did not. Mace got suspicious Bryant was cheating on her, and snooped on his phone. […]
And Mace claims she found evidence of not just dating profiles, but of sexual assault and other crimes by Bryant and four other men on his devices.
If true (Bryant and the men say it’s not), what Mace coulda shoulda done was call law enforcement right away, then had no more contact with Bryant, called a lawyer and gotten the lawyer to make some kind of fair deal with Bryant to divide the properties, and moved on. But she did none of that! Though at some later point Mace did go to South Carolina law enforcement, which opened an investigation of the accusations in December of 2023 but was unable to find any evidence to charge anyone with anything.
[…] she downloaded the contents of Bryant’s devices (which is secondhand data that’s of no use to law enforcement) and then, according to former aide Donehue, tasked him with blackmailing Bryant with the contents of his devices in exchange for Mace’s one hundred percent of both properties!
Nancy Mace was surely never in a position to have been buying million-dollar real estate all by herself on her $174k a year civil servant’s salary and book royalties, not even with government reimbursements in DC, Airbnb landlording and forcing her staff to be her maid service.
And however Bryant responded to the alleged threat didn’t appease Mace, and so in February of ‘24 she went on to accuse Bryant and his friends of horrific sex crimes from the House floor. [WTF]
[…] Bryant is suing Mace, as are some of the men she accused, and she’s suing some back, forcing her to pay legal fees every time her lawyers go to huff “Speech and Debate Clause” in a courtroom […]
Mace has been getting more unhinged ever since. She’s also suing the TSA and American Airlines for allegedly forcing her to have a screaming, cursing meltdown at agents last October after they neglected to meet her at the curb at the local airport (she was in a different-colored car than her staff had told them), which was bad enough to even make Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott publicly rebuke her. Luckily, she is being represented in her lawsuit by Larry Klayman, the greatest lawyer in the world.
So, yes, sounds like Mace does seem to need to step away from public life, as her private life has become all-consuming. It is not the trans people forcing you to (allegedly) drink all that tequila and make drama with your ex, lady! They aren’t the ones posting embarrassing AI animations of their ex on social media. [social media post]
[…]
That woman was, once upon a time, a star in the MAGA universe, and the apple of Trump’s eye.
johnson catman @176, yes, that was a memorable difference.
In other news: “Minnesota teachers sue to keep ICE off school property” [Good for them!]
“Two school districts and a teachers union allege that the immigration crackdown has spilled onto campuses and interrupted the functioning of schools across the state.”
A group of Minnesota school districts and educators has asked a judge to order federal officers to stay away from schools, alleging that the nation’s largest immigration operation has spilled onto campuses, affecting attendance statewide, according to a lawsuit filed against the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday morning.
The lawsuit rebukes the agency’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and St. Paul — its largest operation so far in a campaign to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.
The public school districts in Fridley and Duluth, along with Education Minnesota, an 89,000-member teachers union, accuse federal officers of breaking a promise to stay away from schools. While DHS claimed in September it was not raiding or targeting schools, officers have “conducted enforcement operations in or near schools and school buses, and detained minor students,” according to the lawsuit.
Federal officers last month tackled people outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and released chemical irritants as classes dismissed. Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were deployed to Minnesota for “Operation Metro Surge” in December, they have detained at least four children in Minnesota, including a 5-year-old boy who was returning from school.
“This conduct has caused direct harm to the regular functioning of school districts and teachers, as well as the students they serve,” the lawsuit claims, adding that schools across Minnesota have reported drops in attendance. Some districts, including Minneapolis, St. Paul and Fridley, have offered students virtual learning. […]
“The Pentagon chief is now adding scouting ‘reforms’ to threats like library books and grooming standards.”
In the first year of his first term, Donald Trump addressed the Boy Scouts of America National Scout Jamboree, and in the absence of any impulse control, the president treated the children’s gathering like a campaign rally. Soon after, the head of the Boy Scouts issued a public apology for Trump’s inappropriate behavior.
The president, undeterred, told The Wall Street Journal, “I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful.” Perhaps the president was hearing voices, because the organization made clear that the president simply made it up out of whole cloth.
In Trump’s second term, his team is still focused on the Scouts, though in ways that are less fictional. The Washington Post reported:
The Pentagon issued a warning late Monday to Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts, saying the organization risks losing its long-standing partnership with the U.S. military unless it rapidly implements ‘core value reforms.’
The public warning, delivered on social media by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, comes just months before thousands of Scouts are expected in West Virginia for National Jamboree, a once-every-four-years camping summit that relies on hundreds of National Guard and active-duty service members for medical, security and logistical support. A sudden loss of that support could jeopardize the youth gathering.
During Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tenure, the beleaguered Pentagon chief has invested a considerable amount of time and energy in library books. And paintings. And scrubbing Defense Department websites of articles and images of figures like Jackie Robinson and the Navajo Code Talkers. And renaming Navy ships. And leading a Christian prayer service in the Pentagon’s auditorium. And amplifying videos about denying women the right to vote. And creating new grooming standards.
But his culture-war crusade has expanded to include Scouting America. In November, the former Fox News host suggested he was prepared to cut all ties between the Defense Department and the organization — a move that generated bipartisan pushback — and nearly three months later, the Pentagon is now demanding that Scouting America meet undisclosed demands to make Hegseth happy.
“If Scouting America does not comply with Hegseth’s demands, which have not been made public, the group could also lose its access to military facilities — which would have a disproportionate impact on military children who participate in Scouting troops at U.S. bases overseas, people familiar with the matter said,” according to the Post’s report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, isn’t pleased.
“For more than a century, Scouting America has helped shape young Americans who are grounded in duty, leadership, and love of country,” Reed said in a statement. “The Scouts have provided one of the strongest pipelines into military and public service our nation has ever known.”
“Secretary Hegseth’s notion that scouting is weakened because young women are given the chance to participate is shameful and false,” the Democratic senator added. “Every Scout still wears the same flag on their sleeve and lives out the same timeless values, ethics, and morals that have always defined the organization. Scouting America produces exactly the kind of young men and women we need. Any attempt to threaten or politicize that legacy over personal cultural grievances is misguided and undermines a partnership that has long benefitted military families, readiness, and national security. We should be strengthening institutions that prepare young Americans to serve, not using the weight of the Pentagon to wage ideological fights against them.”
Time will tell what becomes of the unnecessary fight, but this year’s Jamboree is scheduled for July.
“They are on the clock,” the Pentagon’s Parnell wrote on social media, “and we are watching.”
As for all of those “core values,” let’s remember this news from 2022:
The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) reached a historic $2.4 billion sexual abuse settlement in bankruptcy, approved in 2022, creating a trust to compensate tens of thousands of survivors for abuse by leaders, with payments determined by a scoring system for severity and impact, though the process involves phased payouts and is still ongoing. This massive settlement, funded by BSA assets, insurance, and other contributions, aims to provide justice and closure, allowing the organization to continue while ensuring equitable compensation, with some expedited payments of $3,500 already made and larger amounts for more severe cases.
And this report about Boy Scout troops sponsored by and led by Mormons:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), a long-time primary sponsor of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), has faced numerous lawsuits and allegations of covering up decades of sexual abuse within church-sponsored Boy Scout troops. AZPM News
Militant Agnosticsays
The Marsh family repurposing an old American Civil War song for the current Civil War
Will Kid Rock be singing his song “Cool, Daddy Cool”? The song is featured on the 2001 soundtrack for the movie Osmosis Jones and… well, folks… the lyrics are something else […]
“Young ladies, young ladies, I like ’em underage,” Rock sings on the track. “See some say that’s statutory.”
His sidekick […] chimes in, “But I say it’s mandatory.”
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed California to use a new congressional map that voters approved, delivering a major victory for Democrats ahead of this year’s midterm
The decision came down in a one-sentence order that provided no explanation or dissents. Republicans had asked the high court to block California’s redrawn district lines, alleging they were racially gerrymandered.
Dan Kaszeta (CBRN expert) – Captain Dan’s Tear Gas Laundry guidelines
for your street clothing that has been exposed to tear gas in smoke/aerosol/dust/particulate form. A small thread.
First of all, carefully remove everything you were wearing BEFORE you go into your house, or if not possible, don’t track it too far into your residence. At least remove the most affected bits. And put them in a plastic bag like a garbage bag.
Then, wash your hands very carefully and thoroughly with warm soapy water. Wash them a lot. For the love of God, do not go to the toilet before washing your hands.
YOU WILL NEVER MAKE THIS MISTAKE TWICE IN YOUR LIFE. Please re-read the above […] I will not be held responsible for the outcome if you fail to heed this bit.
To decontaminate your clothing—honestly this works for stuff with pepper spray on it too [Put clothes in washing machine: rinse cold, regular wash cold with detergent, another rinse. Sniff test. Rinse the machine w/o clothes.] For shoes, typically just scrub them with cool water and dish soap and leave them in clean air like a porch or a garage for a day or two. If still whiffy, repeat.
Dan Kaszeta: “[Regarding wastewater] Once the stuff is in water it breaks down quite quickly and there’s really not much re-suspension hazard at all.”
If you’re out here in frigid Minneapolis with me and it’s too cold to strip in the garage, lay a plastic sheet in your entryway and strip on that. Roll the clothes up in the plastic to carry them to the washer. Put the plastic sheet in a bag and seal it. Shower w/ tepid water.
Dan Kaszeta:
Most gloves are nowhere near good enough for the temperatures of [colored smoke or] tear gas grenades. And a huge number of you wannabes can’t actually give me a good reason why you would or should pick one up. All I get is bad reasons. Someone somewhere seeming to get away with something on a video is not necessarily the basis for praxis. Welding gloves are mostly not good enough, and oven mitts are never good enough.
Dan Kaszeta:
> what’s the legality of throwing to back in their direction?
People have gone to prison for it.
Dan Kaszeta: “A tear gas grenade sitting on the street is a thing. But if you whack it with a hockey stick or a golf club, you become morally, ethically, and legally responsible for what happens to it. If it sets some poor person’s car on fire, or burns their house down, or you poison 5 people, this is a bad thing.”
Dan Kaszeta:
I seem to recall footage of protesters in [Hong Kong] placing traffic cones over them, to stop the spread of smoke. Would that actually work?
Some of the time. Mind you, they were not keen to upload the videos where it didn’t work out.
Edgecrusher:
The leaf blower can be helpful in the specific instance that the entire crowd is moving away upwind, and the blower is moving the chemical cloud downwind. But more often, people scatter in all directions and some fool uses the blower as a personal shield to get close enough to grab the hot grenade.
If one doesn’t have *really* good awareness of what the crowd is doing, what the weather is doing, and what they’re doing with the leaf blower, the only thing they accomplish is adding more chaos to an already extremely chaotic situation.
I’m trying to tell people I’m going to take their arm and lead them somewhere safe, they’re struggling to hear me because I’m wearing a respirator, a leaf blower is running.
various orgs have drives to receive donations of PPE and distribute them. […]
MN50501 https://mn50501.org/
North Star Health Collective https://northstarhealthcollective.org/
Those two have the most focus on PPE specifically. The ones that focus on food will also accept and distribute some PPE.
Lake Street Food Distribution https://linktr.ee/LSFDistro
Community Aid Network MN https://linktr.ee/CANMN
Edgecrusher: “CS and smoke are particulates, and OC is an oil. None of the things they’re using are true gases, in the chemical sense. Any P100 filter will keep them out. But the filters need to be changed after every exposure, so when people are getting gassed daily, we need a lot of filters.”
The Trump administration will immediately remove 700 federal law enforcement officers from Minnesota, border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday, leaving about 2,000 officers in the state.
The City Council will hold a public hearing […] The committee […] voted 8-5 to delay a decision on the licenses […] until the next meeting […] with some council members saying denying the licenses would set the city up to be sued and lose.
[…]
Quinn O’Reilly, an attorney for the city, said city staff found the hotels complied with all liquor licensing laws and are eligible to have the licenses renewed. O’Reilly said the council would need facts to support a license revocation. Amy Lingo, the city’s manager for business licenses, said the hotels can continue to serve liquor until a decision is made by the council. […] [One member] said the council shouldn’t give people “false hope” that it can deny the licenses.
Marisa Kabas: “We need every grain of sand in the gears. every single one.”
The Washington Post told employees on Wednesday that it was beginning a widespread round of layoffs that are expected to decimate the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage. The company is laying off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision.
I agree with Steve Benen when he says, “The Washington Post was one of the world’s best and most important news organizations.”
A coalition of immigrants working with an academic labor union on Tuesday sued President Trump over his ‘gold card’ initiative, arguing that a program offering visas for cash takes coveted spots away from scientists, doctors and others whose presence would benefit the United States.
The White House may have pulled the plug on U.S. participation in the World Health Organization, but that doesn’t mean that Americans have to. The Illinois Department of Public Health sidestepped the federal government this week by independently joining the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. It is the second state to do so, after California joined the network last month.
It’s good news that some state leaders are finding ways to work around Trump’s stupidity.
AMID ALL THE SQUABBLING, the name-calling, the steady drip of horrifying news and the seemingly complete rupture of our national politics, it can be tough to recognize, let alone acknowledge, positive developments when they occur.
But on Tuesday, something unambiguously positive did happen—and it happened in the most unexpected of ways: the normal order of congressional business.
The House of Representatives passed a handful of appropriations bills. In doing so, it sent those bills, which had previously passed the Senate, to the president’s desk, whereupon they were signed into law. Tucked inside one of those bills was the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation for kids suffering from cancer.
The bill will make pediatric drug research a bigger part of the pharmaceutical R&D process in addition to pushing pharmaceutical companies to study combination therapies. It’s also not the only pediatric cancer bill signed into law on Tuesday. The funding legislation included the Accelerating Kids’ Access to Care Act, which reduces paperwork requirements for children receiving out-of-state treatments; and fully funds several other initiatives designed to promote pediatric cancer research and data infrastructure.
All told, it was a monumental achievement for those who work in the field—not to mention a triumph for science. But it also offered a depressing portrait of the damage our coarse politics can wreak. It took five years for the Give Kids a Chance Act to make it into law. Some of the main advocates for these bills were cancer-stricken children working with the group Kids v Cancer. Nine of those children died while fighting for the very legislation that could eventually save the lives of children like them—or maybe even their own.
Bringing the bill to final passage proved a Sisyphean process. It was originally included as a rider on the Prescription Drug User Fee Act back in September 2022 before being removed at the last minute for reasons that remain somewhat unclear even to those who advocated for its passage. Then, in late December 2024, it was part of a major government funding deal that was suddenly scuttled after Elon Musk threw a tantrum over the inclusion of any new spending provisions. Hours later, Senate Democrats moved to consider it as a standalone measure, but Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected.
During the summer of 2025, the bill secured more than enough votes in both the Senate and the House for it to comfortably become law. But Congress works in mysterious, byzantine ways and it never got consideration; it was left dangling in the legislative ether, waiting for another moment.
That moment arrived in December, when the bill passed the House and found its way to the Senate. But an effort to move it through unanimous consent—which requires that no senator voice an objection to the measure—failed once more. This time it was Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who objected. He wanted all the provisions that Musk insisted on removing in 2024 to be brought back. When he pushed for a bigger package, Senate Republicans pushed right back.
There was something particularly cruel about that last failure. In the leadup to it, a number of kids with cancer had gone to the Hill and lobbied congressional offices to pass the bill. Among them was Mikaela Naylon, who had been diagnosed in 2020 with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Mikaela had spent her final weeks talking with lawmakers over Zoom. Eventually she grew too weak to speak, and listened in as her parents did the talking. On October 29, her home state senator, John Hickenlooper, reached out to check in with Mikaela and update her once more about legislative progress. Three hours later, she was dead at just 16.
The bill was subsequently renamed after Mikaela. Her fellow advocates, themselves stricken with cancer, were in the Senate chamber to watch the vote in December. They had ventured there under the belief the measure would make it into law. And then, Sanders offered his objection.
The scene was wrenching. But they kept at it. They were back in the House gallery in late January when members passed an earlier version of the appropriations package they passed again on Tuesday. They would have been there again today, if not for school. All told, there were five House votes, four Senate votes—several of which involved painful, inexplicable, defeats—before there was success.
“These kids didn’t want their life and their death to mean nothing. They wanted to contribute,” Nancy Goodman, the founder and executive director of Kids v Cancer, told me. […]
During an interview with Daily Mail, Vice President JD Vance refused to say whether he would apologize to the family of Alex Pretti if an investigation found that Pretti’s civil rights were violated when he was shot and killed by federal immigration thugs in Minneapolis.
“For what?” Vance said when asked, before attempting to justify his retweet of the grotesque claim by White House senior adviser Stephen Miller that Pretti was “an assassin,” who “tried to murder federal agents.” […]
“But if it’s determined that his civil rights were violated—by this FBI investigation—will you apologize for that?” the interview asked.
“So if this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to another hypothetical will I do a thing?” Vance responded like the true intellectually and emotionally bankrupt worm he is. [video]
“I think that everybody is deserved the presumption of innocence in the American system of justice,” Vance continued.
Tragically, the federal immigration goons weren’t willing to extend that “presumption of innocence” to Pretti.
The girl and her mother were at a Texas shelter as of Wednesday morning, a family attorney said, and would be heading back to Minnesota to reunite with her father.
There have been growing concerns about Elizabeth’s health as federal officials confirmed that Dilley [where they had been] is now the site of a measles outbreak. […] the girl was experiencing flu-like symptoms and her mother had broken out in hives, but they had not yet received a medical assessment.
The announcement posted to the CIA’s website offered no reason for the decision to end the Factbook, but it follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.
First launched in 1962 as a printed, classified reference manual for intelligence officers, the Factbook offered a detailed, by-the-numbers picture of foreign nations, their economies, militaries, resources and societies. The Factbook proved so useful that other federal agencies began using it, and within a decade, an unclassified version was released to the public.
After going online in 1997, the Factbook quickly became a popular reference site for journalists, trivia aficionados and the writers of college essays
Ken Jennings (Jeopardy): “This feels personal. You have wonder if the problem was ‘world,’ ‘facts,’ or ‘books’.”
In a bizarre act of cultural vandalism they’ve not just removed the entire site (including the archives of previous versions) but they’ve also set every single page to be a 302 redirect to their closure announcement.
The Factbook has been released into the public domain since the start. There’s no reason not to continue to serve archived versions—a banner at the top of the page saying it’s no longer maintained would be much better than removing all of that valuable content entirely.
Up until 2020 the CIA published annual zip file archives of the entire site. Those are available (along with the rest of the Factbook) on the Internet Archive.
I downloaded the 384MB .zip file for the year 2020 and extracted it into a new GitHub repository […] so you can browse
There seems to be a concerted effort to eliminate any government function that could plausibly be done by the private sector. Curtail the USGS map making. Curtail NOAAs weather products. Eliminate the CIA from producing an encyclopedia. […] the CIA World Factbook is a compilation of things that you could get elsewhere like SIPRI, World Bank, Encyclopedia Britannica, an Atlas, etc. It was just really convenient to have it all in once place. It is the kind of thing that ABC-CLIO could produce, but it would be expensive.
Holly Fletcher (Ex-CIA): “Honestly updating these every year was one of my least favorite things, but I can see why people are sad.”
Rando: “Should we tell them it was farmed out to contractors years ago?”
Holly Fletcher: “True, but we had to go over them every year. Honestly WFB is about on par with Encyclopedia Brittanica.”
French hospital […] medics discovered the eight-inch-long ordnance while performing surgery. […] It’s unclear how the man sourced the munition or the circumstances surrounding its insertion, but local reports claim he didn’t tell medical staff what the item was at the time when he was admitted […] “It had not exploded, and so bomb disposal experts had to be called to diffuse the shell, with the fire brigade standing by,” […] It was later confirmed that teams could safely remove the shell, and no further risk was found at the hospital. However, the young man may now face legal action
[…]
Often discovered during the ‘iron harvest’, it’s common for farmers tilling their fields to dig up the remnants of old shells and bullets strewn across their land in places like France. […] It’s not the first time that a munition of this nature has found its way into the rear end of a person’s body. In 2022, another hospital in Southeast France was partially evacuated after an 88-year-old patient came in with a similar issue.
* Grey’s Anatomy did this. S02E16-17 with a thoracic WW2 bazooka shell. S15E01 with rectal aerosol hairspray can.
* The second article linked another incident the year before that, a WW2 bum shell in England.
The DOJ DELETED documents from the just released Epstein Files. MEIDAS TOUCH saved them
Some screen grabs and links to other documents are available at the main link.
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-3/#comment-2291728
“We haven’t released it yet, but as of yesterday, we have moved 1.75 million people off of SNAP. 1,750,000 people that were on the food stamp program when the president was sworn in one year ago have now moved off
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-3/#comment-2291729
Trump’s incompetent DOJ makes a mess of latest Epstein files drop
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-3/#comment-2291726
ICE expands power of agents to arrest people without warrants
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-3/#comment-2291716
Trump Reassures Fox News That He Does Not Consider Them Journalists [satire]
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-3/#comment-2291701
“Democracy Five-Alarm Fire Of The Day: North Carolina Considering Removing ‘Presumptive Noncitizen’ Voters”
Most of the U.S. government is shut down but is expected to reopen early next week
“The Senate passed a deal between Democrats and the White House to fund the government, but the House won’t vote until Monday. The shutdown will have little impact if it is brief.”
Related video at the link.
Joe Sonka (KY Public Radio):
The Guardian – Elon Musk had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously known
Miles Klee (Wired):
Rando:
Ana Cabrera Reports – Attorney reacts to Don Lemon arrest (12:09, Jan 30)
Ryan Goodman: “Bondi tweet: ‘At my direction’ feds arrested journalists.”
(Short) “BREAKING: Judge strikes down Trump’s $15B lawsuit against The New York Times”
[It turns out you are not supposed to write 85 pages of invective and call it a lawsuit]
.https://youtube.com/shorts/R6J9GjacyaE
The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Trump’s Plan To Rig The Midterms Becomes Clearer – 8 mins long.
Climatologist Simon Clark The (British – ed) government tried to hide this report – YT Short WARNING to those who don’t watch yt shorts.
Aussie ABC news on the release of more Epstein files here with live updates :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-31/three-million-jeffrey-epstein-files-released-by-us-doj-live-blog/106290612
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-31/israel-strikes-gaza-highest-death-tolls-since-ceasefire/106291744
SLS Artemis so yeah, another delay. Still better safe than sorry – & still tantalisingly close seems launch could happen as early as Feb 8th :
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/nasa-delays-critical-artemis-2-rocket-fueling-test-due-to-below-freezing-temperatures-launch-no-earlier-than-feb-8
This important, thoughtful article is why I respect and appreciate Tim Walz. It even more pertinent for PZ.
https://www.rsn.org/001/tim-walz-fears-a-fort-sumter-moment-in-minneapolis.html
20260130 Isaac Stanley-Becker / The Atlantic
The Minnesota governor warns of a national unraveling.
But the magats still chant ‘drill, baby, drill’ and the failed mainslime media is silent on this:
https://www.juancole.com/2026/01/thursday-australia-uninhabitable.html
All the 15 Hottest Spots on Earth on Thursday were in Australia; Will it become Uninhabitable?
it is admittedly summer in Australia, but this is ridiculous.
Parts of Australia are already experiencing temperatures that on average are 1.5º C. (2.7º F.) hotter than the nineteenth century average.
That is a temperature rise that scientists hope the earth as a whole can avoid, and they are worried that if we go to 3º C. (5.4º F.), it will create large no-go zones where humans cannot live because it is too hot or too hot and humid.
NASA used to be a competent responsible agency, this raises many questions. They seem almost as irresponsible as muskrat’s spacex.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/nasa-artemis-2-rocket-heat-shield-flaw-could-endanger-astronauts-experts-warn/ar-AA1V4lvm
A critical flaw in the heat shield of NASA’s upcoming moon rocket has sparked serious safety concerns among space flight specialists. While the Artemis 2 mission aims to return humans to lunar …
Follow-up to Sky Captain in comment 4.
https://www.ms.now/all-in/watch/elon-musk-emailed-epstein-about-wildest-party-on-private-island-new-docs-2484553795735
Video is 3:48 minutes.
Triumph Of The Bill: Amazon’s $75 Million ‘Melania’ Movie Is A Corrupt, Fascistic Cinema Fest
“We watched it so you don’t have to.”
That’s a thorough review. Here are a few excerpts:
Cartoon: Where is everybody?
News from Finland
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-sues-irs-for-10-billion-for
“Trump Sues IRS For $10 Billion For All Those Taxes He Never Paid”
Washington Post link
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s national security adviser stepped down after his name appeared in newly released documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein.
ICE claims that immigrant shattered his skull running into wall
MPR – Police chief intervenes, prevents federal agents from arresting resident
Community
Anjali Dayal (Intl relations prof):
Legal AF (MeidasTouch): “Judge Biery has ordered the release of 5-year-old Liam Ramos. A thunderous rebuke against ICE’s violent campaign in Minnesota.”
Eric Turkewitz (Trial lawyer): “This legal decision is just 2 1/2 pages. It is readily understandable to the lay person. I have never, ever, ever, read an opinion like it.”
Judge Biery’s Order:
Andy Craig (Cato Institute):
Nadiba Dennie (Balls&Strikes): “Here is a judge who knows he has a platform and is acting like it.”
A footnote see also’d Magna Carta article 39: forbidding unlawful detainment.
A profile of the judge
Sky Captain @24, that is such good news … and delivered with style. :-)
In other news: Cartoon: Amend the 2nd Amendment
New York Times link
Aussie youtuber Michael west has this Herzog, Iran, Pauline, Susssan, Pete and the Rio deal | Scam of the Week covering among other things the destruction by takeover of TikTok and the Palestinian-Australian’s repalcemrnt for it called UpScroll ina funny and informative 23 mins long news discussion clip.
From BBC news 7 scenarios for What could happen if the US strikes Iran? (7 mins length.)
haven’t been to the beach allSummer – indeed not since the algal bloom ecological catstrophe began here -usually go atleats a few times :.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/yorke-peninsula-algal-bloom/106277644
@ shermanj – 31st January 2026 at 11:10 am :
Heard / read somewhere that temperatures over approx 60 degrees Celsius (140 Fahrenheit) satrat to denature proteins and are literally close to unsurvivable for most multi-cellular life.
Also know temperatures used in weather observations are measured in the shade and in sunlight temps are considerably hottter. (Maybe even ten plus degrees hotter..)
We’re now getting heatwaves approaching 50 degrees – in the shade – right now withrecords regularly being broken year after year, angry Summer after angrier Summer. So if trends continue and ground and air temps are regularly approaching say 60 degrees then more plus, well.. Fuck!
We have air conditioning (whilst power works) and homes. Outside, the flora and fauna and ecosystems generally.. obvs not.
So, yeah, its looking very fucking grim indeed.
Oh and to teh next comment immediately after that also by shermanj :
(Minor edits by me. Hope that’s okay.)
That’s been addressed. They delayed the next SLS-Artemis launch following the discovery of that heat shield issue after the Artemis 1 flight and fixed that both with alterig the re-entry trajectory and, I think, improving the heat shield too. fairly sure that’sbeen mentione dinsome videos I linked onthis thread earlier..
So no, NASA are being safe and responsiible here.
From over a dozen hours ago now and seems not much more mention of it which is curious but France 24 English News is a reliable source that I trust so whilst maybe not such a big deal somehow – still Iran explosions: What we know so far. 5 mins long.
Plus from only 3 hours ago and CBN news LIVE: A Number of Explosions Reported in Iran, Trump Says Iran is Talking – 8 mins long.
Dóh! Didn’t realise that last source was a Christianist one till now. Looked like a legitimate news channel but then … ending a report with a prayer for Trump & Netanyahu, yuck! Was watching as I typed and hadn’t seen the end of that till now. Sorry folks.
.***
Palate cleanser (as Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer used to call them) World’s Strangest Mating Technique | Frozen Planet II – BBC – Hooded Seals, three and a half mins long.
@ #31 & 32. From Aljazeera which is certainly more reliable than CBN &seems to be more reassuring news :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/31/iranian-official-says-progress-made-on-talks-as-us-iran-tensions-persist
They also have an article on the explosion (singular not plural now?) being caused by a gas leak. Do i buy that? Dunno..
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/31/explosion-in-irans-bandar-abbas-caused-by-gas-leak-official-says
Plus from The NewArab :
Source : https://www.newarab.com/news/explosions-kill-five-people-injure-14-two-iranian-cities
Hmm.. Dunno.
Follow-up on Trump’s $10B IRS lawsuit.
Aaron Rupar:
* Forbes – How Trump shifted Kids-Cancer charity money into iis business (2017)
* NY AG – Trump pays court-ordered $2 Million for illegally using Trump Foundation funds (2019)
Commentary
Nick Bednar (Law prof):
Chris Edelson: “I have had a similar problem as I finish my book on emergency presidential power.”
Rando: “why isn’t the some kind of rule that when the President sues the government, the defendant be represented by independent counsel?”
Nick Bednar: “There is a special counsel when the government seeks to investigate the president, but I don’t think anyone had ever thought the president would sue the government in a personal capacity while in office.”
As we wait for the Moon rocket launch…The early 1970s rocket designs were more daring than the Space Shuttle.
“ReNova SSTO Rocket Concept Developed by Martin”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0lzICxprMfI
HuffPo – Democrat Flips Reliably Republican Texas State Senate Seat
Texas Monthly: “Legislatively, the outcome of the race is essentially meaningless”
Rando: “[Maps of Tarrant County precincts 2022 vs 2026, awash in blue]”
Texas Tribune
Robert Downen (Texas Monthly): “Rehmet, a union chapter president, has largely avoided engaging with Culture War/MAGA issues, instead focusing heavily on labor, economic issues, working-class solidarity and other issues [to] bring over enough disaffected Republicans.”
GOP wasted all that money on a seat they couldn’t use and didn’t need, just trying to prevent a Dem win in Texas.
Follow up to #30 & broadcast on tonights ABC news Australians to experience more 50C days as heatwaves intensify, experts say – just under five minutes.
I watched the Georgia 2020 recount. Here’s what the FBI raid in Fulton County is really about.
“Staying silent while the Trump administration takes matters, and ballots, into its own hands would irreparably harm our democracy.”
Related video at the link.
Trump policies at odds with emerging understanding of COVID’s long-term harm
More details at the link.
The Guardian:
Empire:
The Globe and Mail:
https://x.com/IlhanMN/status/2017994107168112940
Lovely photos at the link.
Photos are also available at The Washington Post, and at NBC News.
Germany’s Plan to Challenge Trump’s Agenda
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ztCYqyfaKD8
Behold: Germany states the intention of building the most powerful conventional military in Europe…and Poland is cheering them on!
AI-altered photos and videos of Minneapolis shootings blur reality
More at the link.
Link
I don’t trust Hageman’s knowledge concerning the actual facts. She seems ignorant.
Follow-up to Sky Captain @22.
Important Info for everyone
http://theartsinarizona.org/EssentialUrbanFashionAccessories.pdf
would like confirmation it is viewable
New York Times link
[On Saturday Night Live] Tom Homan’s Advice to ICE: ‘Don’t Get Filmed’
The “Saturday Night Live” alum Pete Davidson plays the border czar who was tasked with reorienting ICE agents in Minneapolis, replacing their ousted commander.
Terry Talks Movies:
“Melania Is Kryptonite For Movie Buffs”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2scJjSCrTJE
AP News – Utah governor signs bill adding justices to state Supreme Court as redistricting appeal looms
For those with fussy browsers that require SSL certs for everything, the link below should work
https://theartsinarizona.qwknetllc.com/EssentialUrbanFashionAccessories.pdf
ProPublica – Two CBP agents identified in Alex Pretti shooting
Rando: “The racial politics of shipping up a bunch of Latinos to arrest and kill midwestern White people is genuinely insane.”
The staggering hypocrisy and irony of Trump here given that Iran DID sign a deal to stop developing nukes and it was Trump who broke and ended it, is just GOBSMACKING!
Yet its been so normalised & doesn’t seem to be getting called out :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-30/donald-trump-poised-to-strike-iran/106275390
Also I don’t think Trump know how the story of the Spanish Armada (the famous 1588 one – although there were subsequent ones that also failed includiing a disastrous English armada!) ended.
See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada
Plus :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Armada (Thanks QI!)
Climatologist Simon Clark We don’t know how much warming we’ll see by 2050. Here’s why – 33 mins long.
Minor general gripe & suggestion – wish we’d use escalating feedback and stabilising feedback rather than positive and negative feedbacks tomake clearer what they actually do.
TLDR News Global The Two New Blocs Dividing the Middle East – 10mins long.
Slow TV ,er yt but happening now
LIVE! Artemis 2 Wet Dress Rehearsal via The Launch Pad channel.
Brian Tyler Cohen takes a deeper look at the Texas election:
“Trump gives OFF THE RAILS response to surprise Texas election loss”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=I44M8Qi4Jc0
NBC News: Trump says Kennedy Center will close for two years for renovations
This is for remodeling, along designs selected by Trump. The closure is likely a cover for having lost so many artists that they couldn’t fill the schedule.
@60 JM.
Anjali Dayal (Intl relations prof):
WSJ – ‘Spy Sheikh’ bought secret stake in Trump company
Mamdani targets ‘unusable’ AI chatbot for termination
An underwhelming answer for a press conference addressing the $12 billion budget shortfall he inherited but good that the bot’s going away.
A charming video to lift your spirits from the general misery.
.
Donkey Goes Crazy for Peg-Legged Pirate Chicken
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBdhNL8WFe4
I just realised… they could have saved a lot of money if they had hired Neil Breen to make “Melania”. Nobody would have noticed the difference.
Mustelids. Africa has honey badgers.
The Arctic has wolverines.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/v8NQ-pHVX_Y
Andy Vitek (PoliSci prof):
Michael Senters (PoliSci): “It very likely put the site and the board on Epstein’s radar […] from what I’ve seen, there is no 4chan stuff before the meeting, only after.”
Andy Vitek: “The latest document drop has emails of [Epstein] sending people shit directly from /gifs. He didn’t just know about it, he was a big user.”
Andy Vitek: “I want to stress again: I don’t actually think there was some Dan Brown shit between moot and Epstein. The nazis were already on the site pre-pol and moot hated them, even going so far as to ban all discussion of gamergate from 4chan (8chan was born as a result).”
Michael Senters:
* Moot created 4chan after SomethingAwful banned sexualized anime minors.
Michael Senters: “Just realized that one of the potential factors (and I should emphasize it was just one, there were other things at play) about the shift in 4chan’s culture that began to be visible and apparent by 2013-2014 is that Epstein started actively sending his pals to the site after the m00t meeting.”
Michael Senters: “The fact that Epstein could have been involved with Gamergate, Pizzagate and QAnon because he was clearly not only an active user on the site but actually knew the creator and seems to have established a friendship with him”
Jared Holt (Open Measures):
Foone:
Rando:
Jared Holt:
Toothless Gears Make Much More Torque Than Conventional Ones, Here’s How…
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ElGCkopB3oc
North Sea sandstone could be used to store carbon dioxide, report suggests
.https://phys.org/news/2026-02-north-sea-sandstone-carbon-dioxide.html
.
Geologists may have solved mystery of Green River’s ‘uphill’ route
.https://phys.org/news/2026-01-geologists-mystery-green-river-uphill.html
The issue would be familiar to Scandinavian geologists, as the litosphere has listed to and fro during the multiple glaciations.
Snakes on trains: King cobras are ‘hopping railways’ to unsuitable habitats in India
.https://phys.org/news/2026-01-snakes-king-cobras-railways-unsuitable.html
‘There is an attempt to get rid of me’: leader of UK’s black police association alleges campaign to silence him | British Police | The Guardian .https://share.google/6PBnGnSOlJqDZcPtw
Follow-up of sorts to Sky Captain @52.
Why some Republicans rediscovered their love of court packing
“GOP officials fiercely oppose adding judicial seats to shift a court in an ideological direction — except when they don’t.”
Lis aka Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who would have turned 80 today.
Daily Beast: DOJ Makes Bizarre Attempt to Redact Trump’s Face in Epstein Files Photo
It is a small and dark picture but it’s either Trump or a Trump impersonator. Either way it shouldn’t have been redacted, it isn’t even embarrassing on it’s own. It was part of a conversation between Epstein and Steve Bannon about the inauguration. It just raises more questions about what is being redacted.
Follow-up to comments 19 and 37.
Link
Not good. Not good at all.
2 measles infections confirmed at Texas facility where 5-year-old detained in Minnesota was held
“DHS said state health officials reported the infections to federal immigration authorities Saturday.”
Summary from David Kurtz of Daily Kos.
Original source is Courthouse News.
Follow-up to JM @60.
Link
I fonally found someone heavier than me.
“Here’s the official weight of Rufus the bull.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YfNRHvFxMog
The Wall Street Journal: Classified Whistleblower Complaint About Tulsi Gabbard Stalls Within Her Agency
Gabbard’s lawyers are using the security classification of the issue to stall investigation. I have not read the WSJ article because it’s behind a paywall but there isn’t anything more to say, it’s all classified.
NY Times: Trump Had Unusual Call With F.B.I. Agents After Election Center Search
Multiple violations of protocol and legal principle here but probably not illegal. Gabbard should not be involved in an internal operation unless there was suspicion of internal intrigue and there is no reason for her to be in the field overseeing the agents. Bringing Trump into the situation personally just escalates it to another level. Trump’s involvement may have blown up any case the government could bring.
Follow-up of sorts to comment 76.
‘I can’t tell you’: Attorneys, relatives struggle to find hospitalized ICE detainees
Cartoon: A must watch … or else
FAA warns airlines about safety risks from rocket launches, urges ‘extreme caution’
More at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/epstein-files-mega-dump-trump-just
Much more at the link.
BREAKING NEWS: Ed Martin out as DOJ’s ‘weaponization czar,’ sources say
The biggest moments from the 68th Grammy Awards
“The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown took center stage, with numerous artists sporting “ICE OUT” pins at the show.”
Related videos at the link.
Germany’s far right bangs at the gates to get into the Munich Security Conference
“The Alternative for Germany party has done everything from suing to attempting to leverage ties to the Trump administration to end their banishment from the high-profile event.”
U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis faces ‘crisis’ after Good, Pretti shootings
“After Renee Good was fatally shot, conditions in the local federal prosecutors’ office started to unravel. After Alex Pretti’s death, things got even worse.”
Related video at the link.
Judge sides with Democrats against Trump, nixing latest limits on lawmakers’ access to ICE facilities
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly94qe3yr0o
New York Times:
MS NOW:
Robert Evans (CoolZoneMedia):
Rando 1: “There were a lot of babies and toddlers there. Dogs too. Least threatening crowd ever.”
Rando 2: “There were more than 30 unions present, and the reality of Labor is that means most of the people there were teachers, nurses and other health care workers, and public employees”
Southpaw: “Federal paramilitaries running up on the rooftops to fire irritants and flash bangs down into a peaceable assembly full of little kids. [Video clip]”
Alissa Azar liveskeeted the protest.
* She’d heard there were smiley-face marked munitions but hadn’t seen ’em.
Alissa Azar liveskeeted another smaller protest Feb 1st.
Alissa Azar: “There were people with leaf blowers tonight and yesterday too but there was just so much gas it wasn’t doing much.”
New York Times:
Yep. That last sentence is probably correct.
Text quoted by Sky Captain @94:
Sheesh.
Really bad. I hope the media coverage is thorough.
I keep remembering the shouts from protesters after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed: “What have you done!?”
New York Times:
Link
Follow-up to 94.
Portland mayor issues scathing statement after protesters gassed at Portland ICE building
Two Portland councilors urge Mayor Wilson to carry out new penalties on ICE facility
WaPo – Apartment near Portland ICE center sues agency for making tenants’ lives unbearable
Alissa Azar’s first liveskeet thread @94 had footage of a neighbor’s 2nd/3rd-story window getting shattered.
New York Times link
“Trump Drops Demand for Cash From Harvard After Stiff Resistance”
“The Trump administration has lowered the bar for a deal with the university, backtracking on its insistence on a $200 million payment to the government, The New York Times has learned.”
FFS.
New York Times link
“Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to ‘Nationalize’ Elections”
“The comments, made on a conservative podcast, follow a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.”
More at the link, including: a discussion of the Trump administrations seizure of ballots etc. in Fulton County, Georgia; the Justice Department’s demands that state turn over their full voter rolls to Trump; various executive orders Trump has signed requiring proof of citizenship; and efforts to end the use of mail-in ballots.
In addition, Trump tied his “nationalize elections” rhetoric to his mass deportations efforts:
NPR – NTSB blames ‘deep’ systemic failures for deadly midair collision near Washington, D.C.
* Collision was 278 feet above the river. Helicopter was supposed to be no higher than 200 feet. So ~75 feet WAS all the space they were allotted. And the helicopter altimeter’s inaccuracy was greater than the difference.
Many other problems at the link.
More nature links.
This farmer has a 2800 pound bodyguard.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/jlKMN_7GFSM
5 Animals That Stop Attacking If You Do This
.https://youtube.com/shorts/e89_-CG6VO0
Artemis II launch delayed till March now :
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/nasa-delays-artemis-2-moon-launch-to-march-after-encountering-issues-during-fueling-test
Source : https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/giant-sunspot-that-triggered-recent-solar-superstorm-shot-out-nearly-1-000-flares-and-a-secret-x-rated-explosion-record-breaking-study-reveals
NB. Site / article comes up with an annoying subscribe / join box but that can simply to be closed to read the full article at least on desktop.
This Gray Rock Offers A View Into Life 2.1 Billion Years Ago.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QFDM34QCClI
Just seen on fb now :
Source : https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10240836338463894&set=a.2777662918864
@85 Lynna
I know it’s still fashionable to blame everything on Russia, but Epstein was not a Russian agent. He was trained as a spy under Ehud Barak and was deeply embeeded in U.S. and Israeli intelligence. Epstein’s actions deeply implicate the American ruling class and their allies, not so much the U.S. military’s chosen adversary-of-the-week.
Lynna, OM@100,
Harvard should not make any deal whatever with Trump, if only out of self-interest. Either the ongoing fascist coup will succeed, in which case Harvard is doomed as an independent institution; or it will not, in which case anyone who collaborated will be discredited.
That’s something you could only know if you were a very close friend of Epstein – and perhaps not even then. Why would the Russians not have approached him – an obviously hugely wealthy and influential networker, and (as they could easily have known) active sex criminal? And if they did, offering money or other favours, andor threatening exposure, and asking for information on prominent Americans involved in child sexual abuse, why would Epstein have refused? Out of principle? Because his Israeli handlers would have disapproved? Grow up.
The face-eating leopards strike again!
“Trump’s Biggest ICE Cheerleader Just Got Arrested by ICE”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=FoZWA9MmM_U
It’s not about criminals.
CNN: Justice Department expected to ramp up efforts to deliver on Trump’s ‘weaponization’ priorities
It sounds like Trump will be yelling at them weekly to get moving on persecuting his opponents. This won’t make their cases any better but will probably result in some accusation being brought to court.
The only remotely funny thing about this is that the next president will end up with the same working group. If it’s a MAGA president they will need to go through the motions of having a legal system while arresting people and presiding over the collapse of the US. If it isn’t MAGA then there are too many political cases started by Trump to just sweep them under the rug and move on.
The dangers of working with big bulls.
“The day Rufus just about caught me.”
.https://youtube.com/shorts/xpTDbgo8Bjw
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow/watch/noem-s-coarse-tweet-comes-back-to-bite-her-in-blistering-ruling-on-protections-for-haitians-2484987459821
Video is 5:31 minutes
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow/watch/it-s-attacking-the-public-s-right-to-know-georgia-fort-on-the-white-house-going-after-journalists-2484972611823
Video is 3:37 minutes
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-meets-fierce-opposition-escalating-information-war-with-arrests-of-journalists-2484982339857
Video is 7:03 minutes
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow/watch/maddow-trump-wobbling-as-his-agenda-falls-apart-in-the-face-of-pressure-2484973635982
Video is 4:35 minutes
Tulsi Gabbard’s line on FBI raid ‘raises more questions than it answers’
Related video at the link is hosted by Lawrence O’Donnell.
Trump claims he wasn’t ‘friendly’ with Epstein, despite all of the available evidence
[“[Pushing] a line that was obviously untrue […]”
As Russia attacks Ukraine, Trump pats himself on the back for a ‘pause’ that doesn’t exist
“Last week, Trump thanked Putin for pausing attacks in Ukraine, even as Putin launched new attacks. This week, it happened again.”
Follow-up to comments 100 and 110.
Link
Cartoon: Pick a door
Cartoon: ICE, ICE, bunny
Really? CBS, what were/are you thinking?
Link
Good news:
Link
Follow-up to Sky Captain @94 and 99.
Update regarding Portland, Oregon:
Good news:
Sort of good news: House passes bill to end the shutdown and punt on DHS funding
Follow-up to 94, 99.
Dan Kaszeta (CBRN expert): “Don’t wear contact lenses if there’s any chance at all you might be exposed to tear gas or pepper spray.”
The Handbasket – What it’s like to see ICE tear gas kids
Sky & Telescope’s Sky Tour Podcast — February 2026
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5f71iHe033Y
DHS’s account of two Venezuelans shot by border patrol falls apart in court: ‘A smear campaign’
“Immigration officials said agent shot two ‘vicious gang members’ in Portland, but records obtained by the Guardian reveal US prosecutor contradicted claims”
How toxic is the ICE name? Let the Olympics show you.
Bernie Sanders holds health official’s feet to the fire on vaccines
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/king-charles-cancels-us-visit-and
Re: Lynna, OM @ #130…
See also “Liberty Cabbage” and “Freedom Fires”.
After making hollow threats, House Freedom Caucus members cave (again)
“For the past year, the far-right members have talked a good game, right until they cave under pressure.”
Conclusion: The rightwing doofuses that make up the “House Freedom Caucus” are weak, and getting weaker by the week. That’s good news.
Telling details for sure. How Trump assesses people:
Link
Trump, always a shallow man with no integrity, is now more shallow than ever. As he ages, he has become a caricature of himself. He relies on a person’s outward, physical appearance. He ends up with Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Mike Pence, etc. Ironically, even Trump’s championing of “central casting” physical features also reveals that he is a poor judge in even that department. I wish Trump would look closely at actual qualifications, but there’s no hope for that.
Trump signs bill to end partial government shutdown
That’s it then … for now. We’ll see what happens when the negotiation period for DHS funding runs out in ten days.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/donald-trump-says-he-wants-to-seize
“Donald Trump Says He Wants To Seize State Elections, Probably Just Kidding Again Because He’s Such A Kidder”
Trump just did what sadly happens to many elderly.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=-fi_PcYSs9A
@137 Lynna:
Lindsay Beyerstein: “Sad old man calls for other people to solve his intractable problems.”
Lynna, O.M. @ # 135: … Trump’s championing of “central casting” physical features …
Then how to account for Stephen Miller? Anyone & everyone in Hollywood would put him in the “villain’s henchman” box – all too appropriate in reality, but even Trump must somehow see his role differently.
Re: Pierce R. Butler @ #140…
Well..”central casting” also provides villains…
Sky Captain @139, LOL. Too true.
Pierce @140, I thought of that. Stephen Miller is the exception. I do think he has a different role. Trump depends on Miller to push the mass deportation agenda. Some cartoonists portray Miller as something like a rabid bat; as a ghostly presence hanging around in the background; as the ghost of a Nazi; as a vampire, etc. Trump does have to rely on some people who do actual work. Officially, Stephen Miller is White House Deputy Chief of Staff, a Homeland Security Advisor, and a speech writer. Some reports say that Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, and others do whatever Miller tells them to do.
From a Wall Street Journal report:
So Miller came up with those lies?
From The New York Times, as summarized by Steve Benen:
MS NOW:
New York Times:
Washington Post:
New Yorker link
“To Build a Fire: How Russian military intelligence is recruiting young people online to carry out espionage, arson, and other attacks across Europe”
By Joshua Yaffa
Much, much more at the link.
Just stumbled across Ben Grosscup’s powerful voice and song
“Come Out Ye Cowards ICE” Dedicated to Renee Good & Alex Pretti – 3 mins 45 secs.
Plus Anti-ICE Protest: “Knock on the Door” by Phil Ochs, updated by Ben Grosscup 5 mins 45 secs.
As well as
We Stand | The Minneapple Anthem Official Tribute – 2 mins 45 secs.
Above the Law: DOJ Lawyer Asks To Be Held In Contempt So She Can Sleep
When pressed by Blackwell she said:
She then asked to be held in contempt so she can get some sleep. The situation in the DOJ must be insane.
LEAKED: Epstein Client Pritzker Got Army Escort Through Afghanistan
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SOA_itN16nI
Op ed analysis
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-04/start-treaty-russia-america-donald-trump-nuclear-arms-race/106303426
Issues for SpaceX now as well :
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-grounds-its-falcon-9-rocket-after-a-problem-with-its-upper-stage-will-the-crew-12-astronaut-mission-be-affected
@109.
Downplaying the genocidal evil of Putin and ignoring what he wants to do Ukraine and ist people is very fashionable in Trumpist circles – very unethical and factually wrong too of course. Oh and Tankie circles as well.
Obvs here not everything is blamed on Putin and Russia more generally – just the things they deserve to be blamed for & are suspected of doing based on reasonable evidence.
Also seconding what #111 KG wrote.
In 2023, a subatomic particle called a neutrino crashed into Earth with such a high amount of energy that it should have been impossible. In fact, there are no known sources anywhere in the universe capable of producing such energy—100,000 times more than the highest-energy particle ever produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. However, a team of physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently hypothesized that something like this could happen when a special kind of black hole, called a “quasi-extremal primordial black hole,” explodes.
In new research published in Physical Review Letters, the team not only accounts for the otherwise impossible neutrino but shows that the elementary particle could reveal the fundamental nature of the universe.
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-02-black-hole-physicists.html
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-01-satellite-reveals-billion-ton-annual.html
If done right and here’s hoping :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2026-01-strategic-tree-canada-carbon-neutral.html
Re: StevoR @150, quoting Tilman Ruff (physician, anti proliferation activist):
Alexander Lanoszka (PoliSci prof) in March 2025:
Film: Cold Storage
Character 1: “That is a nuke. Are you crazy?”
Liam Neeson: “No. I’m abitious.”
Jimmy Kimmel: Scamnesia
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=VF4vpMQB5ic
Hossenfelder Alert
“We are Much Closer to Kessler Syndrome Than We Thought”
If we get a massive solar storm like in 1859 the satellites will lose their ability to manouver and it is bye-bye space missions above 500 km.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8ag6gSzsGbc
The story of Saint Balaam
“links between buddism and christianity in the mediaeval period”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=FBCij0PdVbU
Britain: A Different Bias
“We’re Getting Closer to Talking About Customs Union”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fX-AmC8mkBU
Comrade Faragenov will not be happy.
Hmm… it appears the latest release of Epstein files could bring down Keir Starmer. His disastrous failureof judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson ambassador to the USA – despite knowing that Mandelson continued to associate with Epstein after his 2008 conviction – looks to be possibly fatal, now the released letters between Mandelson and Epstein indicate that Mandelson passed on commercially sensitive government information to Epstein. Mandelson seems likely to end up in prison.
https://www.ms.now/all-in/watch/hellbent-trump-is-reassembling-his-2020-coup-crew-amid-2026-midterm-panic-2485161027851
Video is 10:32 minutes
Congress to gain access to the whistleblower complaint against Tulsi Gabbard at last
“Lawmakers have had to wait for months to learn the details about allegations against the DNI. That wait is now over.”
Trump steps on his own allies, doubles down on radical federal takeover of elections
‘The president’s team said he hadn’t actually endorsed nationalizing elections. Hours later, Trump made them look foolish.”
Related video at the link.
Link
Follow-up to comments 94, 99, 124, 127 and 129.
Link
Link
Here is the Wall Street Journal link
I do not have access to the WSJ report.
Oh FFS.
‘Melania’ tickets are the latest way to bribe Trump
Link
Cartoon: ‘Polarization’
Renee Good’s brothers share emotional tributes on Capitol Hill
The Onion.
“RFK Jr questions efficacy of skin.”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/number-one-with-a-bullet-tabs-wed
Embedded links are available at the main link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trumper-so-inspired-by-ice-goons
re Lynna @175:
What a surprise. Non-compliant white guy with a gun only gets tased.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/nancy-mace-big-disgrace-ex-staffers
That woman was, once upon a time, a star in the MAGA universe, and the apple of Trump’s eye.
johnson catman @176, yes, that was a memorable difference.
In other news: “Minnesota teachers sue to keep ICE off school property” [Good for them!]
“Two school districts and a teachers union allege that the immigration crackdown has spilled onto campuses and interrupted the functioning of schools across the state.”
Washington Post link
Some of you oldtimers will recall these songs.
“100 Songs That Turn 50 Years Old in 2026”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z3UGjbLhv2w
Oh FFS.
Pete Hegseth finds yet another culture-war distraction to focus on: Scouting America
“The Pentagon chief is now adding scouting ‘reforms’ to threats like library books and grooming standards.”
As for all of those “core values,” let’s remember this news from 2022:
And this report about Boy Scout troops sponsored by and led by Mormons:
The Marsh family repurposing an old American Civil War song for the current Civil War
Battle Hymn of the Empire
JD Vance Panics As New Epstein Emails CONNECT HIM and Thiel To Global Scheme
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=h5PWLl1WKAs
Kid Rock’s song about loving underage girls resurfaces ahead of TPUSA Super Bowl show
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/supreme-court-allows-california-use-new-congressional-map-democrats-rcna257036
Rep. Ted Lieu spells out the allegations against Donald Trump that exist in the released Epstein files.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=8WtA7XILcfc
More grenade PSAs.
Dan Kaszeta (CBRN expert) – Captain Dan’s Tear Gas Laundry guidelines
Dan Kaszeta: “[Regarding wastewater] Once the stuff is in water it breaks down quite quickly and there’s really not much re-suspension hazard at all.”
Edgecrusher (EMT, Hazmat response):
Dan Kaszeta:
Dan Kaszeta:
Dan Kaszeta: “A tear gas grenade sitting on the street is a thing. But if you whack it with a hockey stick or a golf club, you become morally, ethically, and legally responsible for what happens to it. If it sets some poor person’s car on fire, or burns their house down, or you poison 5 people, this is a bad thing.”
Dan Kaszeta:
Edgecrusher:
Edgecrusher
Edgecrusher: “CS and smoke are particulates, and OC is an oil. None of the things they’re using are true gases, in the chemical sense. Any P100 filter will keep them out. But the filters need to be changed after every exposure, so when people are getting gassed daily, we need a lot of filters.”
whheydt @184, Good news!
Sky Captain @186, good information. Thanks.
MS NOW:
MN Star Tribune – Committee delays liquor licenses for 2 hotels over hosting feds
Marisa Kabas: “We need every grain of sand in the gears. every single one.”
Border Patrol employee found ‘covered in vomit’, charged with drunk driving
Yikes.
New York Times:
I agree with Steve Benen when he says, “The Washington Post was one of the world’s best and most important news organizations.”
New York Times:
I hope the lawsuit succeeds.
New Republic:
It’s good news that some state leaders are finding ways to work around Trump’s stupidity.
Bulwark link
More at the link.
Cartoon: That’s odd …
Link
The Guardian – Minnesota girl, 10, released from ICE custody after a month in detention
ABC – CIA ends publication of its popular World Factbook
Ken Jennings (Jeopardy): “This feels personal. You have wonder if the problem was ‘world,’ ‘facts,’ or ‘books’.”
Simon Willison (Data Journalist):
Wayback – CIA World Factbook (circa 2026-02-03)
Greg Olsen (Former cartographer):
Holly Fletcher (Ex-CIA): “Honestly updating these every year was one of my least favorite things, but I can see why people are sad.”
Rando: “Should we tell them it was farmed out to contractors years ago?”
Holly Fletcher: “True, but we had to go over them every year. Honestly WFB is about on par with Encyclopedia Brittanica.”
“Together, We are MIGHTY – February 4th Good News Roundup (GNR)”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/2/4/2365149/-Together-We-are-MIGHTY-February-4th-Good-News-Roundup-GNR
Hospital evacuated as ‘man found to have WW1 artillery shell in rectum’
* Grey’s Anatomy did this. S02E16-17 with a thoracic WW2 bazooka shell. S15E01 with rectal aerosol hairspray can.
* The second article linked another incident the year before that, a WW2 bum shell in England.