“The evidence suggesting the Justice Department is an institution in crisis is increasingly difficult to avoid.”
The timeline of events isn’t exactly subtle. Two weeks ago, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced that he was ending his bid for a third term, Donald Trump and his White House team said the end of the Democratic governor’s campaign wasn’t enough, and they wanted Walz to face a Justice Department investigation.
Less than a week later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the president had begun complaining privately about Attorney General Pam Bondi, “describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda,” at least in part because she hasn’t pursued his perceived political enemies as quickly as he’d prefer. The following day, the Journal published a follow-up report, adding that Trump also criticized some of his own U.S. attorneys at a White House event, “complaining they weren’t moving fast enough to prosecute his favored targets.”
Connecting the dots was rather straightforward: Team Trump wanted the Justice Department to go after Walz, and the president has been whining about the pace at which prosecutors were pursuing his domestic foes.
Take a wild guess what happened a few days after the Journal’s report reached the public. MS NOW reported:
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, according to two people familiar with the matter, a significant escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against his critics and a move that is almost certain to further inflame tensions with the state.
The investigation focuses on allegations of obstructing federal immigration enforcement amid protests throughout Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week.
The governor and mayor join a growing list of Democrats facing Trump administration investigations, which now includes former President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, Sen. Ellisa Slotkin of Michigan, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. [!]
By all accounts, the criminal inquiry in Minnesota is quite thin. As a Washington Post report summarized, Walz and Frey “have loudly disparaged ICE’s presence in the state and the way Trump and his administration have defended the officer and sidelined state officials in an investigation into the shooting. The subpoenas the Justice Department is preparing to send suggest the agency is looking at whether Walz’s and Frey’s public statements about the administration’s actions amount to illegal interference with law enforcement.”
In other words, the Justice Department has opened a criminal case against a governor and a mayor for criticizing alleged Trump administration abuses in ways the Trump administration doesn’t like.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of prosecutors’ scrutiny of Walz and Frey, but in the meantime, the one person in Minnesota who need not worry about a Justice Department investigation is the ICE agent who shot and killed Good.
“There are over 1,000 shootings every year where law enforcement are put in danger by individuals, and they have to protect themselves, and they have a lawful right to do so,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The Department of Justice doesn’t just stand up and investigate because some congressmen thinks we should, because some governor thinks that we should.”
Blanche, a former Trump defense attorney, added, “We investigate when it’s appropriate to investigate. And that is not the case here. It was not the case when it happened and is not the case today.”
In other words, Trump’s Justice Department won’t investigate an ICE agent who shot and killed an unarmed woman, but it will investigate a governor and mayor who condemned an ICE agent who shot and killed an unarmed woman — as well as the victim’s family. […]
President Trump’s decision to suspend naturalization ceremonies is leaving residents across the country in an unusual position, now stuck in limbo after they were on the verge of gaining U.S. citizenship. […]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suspended naturalization ceremonies for citizens of the 19 countries covered by the travel ban. It’s a list that’s since grown, as the president in December expanded the list to 39 countries.
In some cases, immigrants have already passed the citizenship test, only to be blocked from taking the oath that makes their naturalization official.
“People are just somewhat confused and concerned that, although they sort of went through the process, with the exception of the actual ceremony, that now at the eleventh hour, on the ninth inning they’re going to be disqualified and not allowed to be officially sworn in,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said.
[…] The U.S. typically naturalizes about 800,000 new citizens per year, the bulk of which are from Mexico, India and the Philippines.
[…] “They are rightfully upset that the administration has stopped them — individuals who are already approved for citizenship — from taking their oath of allegiance to this country.” [Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on the floor this week.]
[…] many prospective citizens have been in the U.S. for years if not decades and have been vetted at every turn.
[…] many of those who are about to take the oath have already progressed though various immigration statuses, taking years to gain their green card and then eventually seek citizenship.
[…] There have been reports of residents from countries that are not on the travel ban list having their appointments canceled, and because other migrants have been arrested after immigration court hearings, some are fearful to make appearances.
“Now I’ve got people who are saying to me, ‘Should I go to my naturalization ceremony? What if they grab me in my naturalization ceremony?’ It’s really unprecedented, and it’s attacking legal immigration. They’ve always said they want to attack undocumented immigrants, the so-called worst of the worst,” Jayapal [Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)] said.
“It’s Martin Luther King Day, Which Suddenly Seems Incredibly Relevant”
On this Martin Luther King Day holiday, thousands of federal agents are continuing to lay siege to Minneapolis in an operation that’s no longer only about pursuing Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing program (though that’s definitely still aggressively underway). As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pointed out, it has become a “campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota,” because they continue to stand up against the deportation campaign and the fascist invasion of the Twin Cities.
If you want to be terrified for America’s future, look at what Trump’s Homeland security thugs are doing in Minnesota.
But if you want to be inspired for America’s future, look at how ordinary Minnesotans refuse to be terrorized.
Minnesota, right now, is where Americans are bravely, resolutely, and boisterously living out King’s words in “Letter From Birmingham Jail”:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Yes, you’ve heard those words so often they verge on cliché. But let’s spend a few minutes seeing them applied in the Twin Cities. (With a wind chill of -8 degrees F for today’s high, and another “Arctic blast” on the way at that! As this post goes online, the “feels like” wind chill is -28° F)
The most popular personal accessories in the Twin Cities are whistles and cell phones (personal body cams are another option). The owner of Minneapolis bookstore Comma says on Instagram that more people have been dropping by to pick up free whistles than to buy books […]
Following a trend that may have begun in Chicago, people are stocking Little Free Libraries with whistles and “Know Your Rights” pamphlets. If that isn’t a beautiful adaptation of an already nice thing into a tool for getting through crisis, I don’t know what is.
In another strategy borrowed from Portland and Chicago, nerds are sharing files to make hundreds of loud 3D-printed whistles for pennies apiece. Mischief, a Minneapolis toy store, is just one of many local small businesses making and distributing whistles […]
[…] In one of those double-edged Nice Things that are only necessary because of terrible things, the City of Minneapolis wants folks to know that if their car gets towed to an impound lot after ICE grabs them, the city will release the vehicles “to their owners or a representative” at no charge. [smiles] The implication that the owner may have been disappeared and deported is implicit in “or a representative,” which is fucking terrifying. But for families in a crisis who may depend on that car, the city has at least made clear it won’t add the insult of impound/towing fees to the injury of people being grabbed off the street.
Sometimes the comfort is as cold as the below-zero temperatures in our ongoing national horror.
You want Mutual Aid? How about the folks in the Twin Cities who are picking up and doing laundry for folks who have to stay home and can’t risk going to a laundromat, since ICE is lurking there, too. The People’s Laundry is primarily a mutual aid service to provide laundry help for people in poverty or who are without housing, but it’s expanded its services for people who are in hiding. [!]
[…] As in Portland, some of the protesters outside the federal building that ICE has turned into a detention center have chosen tomfoolery, to mock the violent thugs, because if there’s anything fascists hate, it’s being made ridiculous. And few things can better underline the ridiculousness of these thugs than this Fox News chyron (yes, it’s a screenshot from very real video.) [“Frozen Pickle Yells at ICE”, more social media posts, including one from Boise, Idaho]
But here’s a disturbing (and entirely predictable) escalation from DHS: They tolerated people in funny costumes making fun of them in Portland. In Minnesota, even dancing furries are being treated as enemies of the state.
Friday morning, DHS sent out a gang of thugs to tackle and rough up a protester dancing in a fox costume in front of the federal building. (Ignore the Bluesky poster’s erroneous caption saying it was the city police department; the goons’ body armor, necessary to protect them from mockery, is clearly marked “DHS”.) [Video]
[…] After the murder of Renee Good, we know the stakes of standing up to this regime. There will almost certainly be more killings. But it won’t work. Instead, people will keep showing up to chase ICE away, as they have again and again. Just look at how people seemingly materialized out of nowhere to confront the goons in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Lyn Lake last week, just days after Good was shot: [Video]
[…] Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock discussed the now deadly terror the government is unleashing in Minnesota, pointing out that the prospect of deadly violence didn’t deter the Civil Rights movement either. […]
And yes, he quoted the same line from “Birmingham Jail,” because our destinies are inextricably linked to our neighbors’.
Warnock also recounted a story that MLK aide Andrew Young told about a meeting in which King urged Lyndon Johnson to push for the Voting Rights Act. Johnson pointed out that he’d already expended a great deal of political capital on passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and thought it was a bit ungrateful of King to want another landmark bill less than a year later. He told MLK, “I don’t really have the power. You think I have more power than I have.”
King’s aides left the meeting downcast, but King, in Warnock’s telling, just shrugged his shoulders and told them, “Well, I guess if the president doesn’t have the power, we’re going to have to go get him some.” (Young’s version was phrased slightly differently but made the same point.)
That led to more demonstrations, including the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery which was cut short by Alabama state troopers beating marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. Nationwide outrage helped build consensus that it was time for the VRA as well.
Warnock told Scott, “I think that’s the moment we’re in now. We’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s not about the people in power, it’s about the power that’s in the people.”
Goddamn right. We’re at a very dangerous place right now, and instead of LBJ in the White House, we have a far stupider version of Bull Connor. […]
One more King quote for you, from his 1958 “The Power of Nonviolence.” Just sub in “ethnic cleansing” for “segregation” here:
But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to the tragic militarism. […]
God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization.
We are at a truly terrifying moment in our history. But we have to bring this madness to an end. Find a protest, participate in a boycott, find opportunities to volunteer, and keep up the pressure on your electeds at every level.
“As federal agents swarm the Twin Cities, their presence has also grown in medical centers. Health care workers are pushing back.”
The arrival of thousands of federal immigration agents has altered life in Minneapolis and St. Paul in ways large and small, including in the corridors of hospitals serving the Twin Cities.
The sheer presence of the agents, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in plainclothes, has been enough to unnerve health care workers, who were already straining under conditions some have compared with those of the coronavirus pandemic.
[…] “Any medical center or hospital is supposed to be a place of healing,” said Dr. Brian Muthyala, a physician at the hospital systems Hennepin Healthcare and M Health Fairview. “It is a place where people go when they are at their most vulnerable, when they are hurt or scared or in need of care, and any presence that disrupts that environment is harmful.”
Officials with the Homeland Security Department said that they do not conduct operations in hospitals. “We go in if there is an active danger to public safety,” said Tricia McLaughlin, an agency spokeswoman. [Not true]
Health care workers, however, describe a different reality, saying agents have broken hospital protocol, refused to provide documentation and, in some cases, gotten into shouting matches with doctors and nurses.
[…] “Federal agents barging into patient care areas trying to question or detain patients — I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Dr. LeFevere, who works at Regions Hospital, a few blocks from the State Capitol in St. Paul.
[…] Federal immigration officers, like all law enforcement agents, are allowed to enter hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions if they are accompanying a patient in their custody and cannot be restricted from accessing public areas. But hospital officials said they do not allow immigration officers into private spaces, such as patient rooms and care units, without judicial warrants and that security officers escort them and limit their searches to the terms of those warrants.
[…] One health official said that over the past week, agents had brought in about two dozen patients to M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital, which is the closest medical center to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building […]
Two nurses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care, described witnessing a confrontation between health care workers and federal agents last weekend that devolved into a screaming match in a hallway at Hennepin Healthcare System in Minneapolis.
A crowd of nurses and physicians, many in scrubs and medical gear, tried to stop the agents from shackling a severely injured man to his bedside, they said. […]
Hennepin County lawyers have filed a legal petition on behalf of the patient contesting his confinement by ICE […]
The patient remains in the hospital, and agents have been rotating in and out of the facility as they keep watch at his side, according to three health care workers who asked not to be named because they did not have permission from their employer to speak on the issue.
About 10 miles to the east, in St. Paul, Dr. LeFevere said there had been at least two instances at Regions Hospital when federal agents entered the emergency department, once through the ambulance bay and another through a back entrance reserved for law enforcement.
In both cases, it appeared that the agents had been trailing people with whom they had interacted with on the streets, but the individuals were not in their custody, Dr. LeFevere said. The agents became argumentative when health care workers requested to see their warrants, but they eventually left the hospital, he said.
[…] Jeffrey Lunde, who serves as a Hennepin County commissioner and chairman of the hospital board of the Hennepin Healthcare System, said there were recent instances at Hennepin Healthcare in which hospital staff had asked federal agents to produce documentation as to why they were present in a private area or in a patient’s private room. Agents were not able to provide it.
[…] Nurses, doctors and other health care professionals across the Twin Cities had prepared for precisely such situations as they watched immigration crackdowns unfold in other cities over the past six months.
Jamey Sharp, a health care worker who is also a community organizer with the nonprofit Unidos MN, said his organization had trained more than 300 health care workers since March on patient privacy and knowing their rights. The group, which advocates social justice, said it had also helped to connect health care workers through Signal chat groups in hopes of tracking the activity of federal agents inside their facilities and ensure that rules were being followed.
[…] Aisha Gomez, a Democratic state lawmaker who represents parts of South Minneapolis, said she is worried about deleterious effect.
“I am deeply concerned about the chilling effect it is having on people seeking the care,” Ms. Gomez said.
“Denmark says its troops could stay in Greenland for one to two years.”
With Donald Trump continuing to ramp up pressure in his bid to annex Greenland, Denmark on Monday is boosting its military presence on the Arctic island, according to local press reports.
A “substantial contribution” of Danish combat soldiers is expected to arrive in Kangerlussuaq, the location of Greenland’s main international airport, on Monday evening […]
Denmark’s top military commander in the Arctic, Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, said that about 100 Danish soldiers have already arrived in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and a similar number in Kangerlussuaq, in western Greenland. The soldiers are due to take part in the Arctic Endurance training exercise. Andersen said last week that the deployment is a response to Russian threats and not to Trump. [That last bit sounds like a diplomatic or political spin.]
Copenhagen on Monday asked for a NATO mission to Greenland, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said, […]
Lund Poulsen slammed Trump’s threats against Greenland as “really, really hurtful,” but warned the alliance still can’t afford to sever ties with Washington.
“If the Americans withdraw from NATO tomorrow, we will have a huge challenge in fending for ourselves,” he said, adding: “it also gives us reason to do more on the European side.”
[…] “We will continue the mission for a year, maybe two, with the cooperation of foreign soldiers. We are trying to establish a schedule for deploying troops to Greenland in 2026 and the following year, so yes, it is a long-term mission,” Andersen told Le Monde.
In the past days, the European military officers participated to a reconnaissance mission and “assessed training opportunities throughout the year and are planning to return in March with different capabilities,” Andersen said.
The deployments came amid intensifying pressure from Trump, who wants to annex the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. He has not ruled out using military force to do so.
Trump denounced the move by allied countries, warning: “These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable.”
Trump argues that Denmark hasn’t done enough to protect Greenland from a possible attack from Russia or China, joking that Copenhagen only has two dog sleds to defend the island. In reality, Denmark said last year it would boost defense spending for Greenland by 27.4 billion krone (€3.7 billion) for naval vessels, patrol aircraft, drones and surveillance radars.
Despite Trump’s contention that Chinese and Russian vessels are “all over the place” near Greenland, there is no evidence that is the case. [Trump lied, as usual.]
Denmark announced last week it was boosting its presence on Greenland and that the exercise could include guarding critical infrastructure, providing assistance to local authorities, receiving allied troops, deploying fighter aircraft in and around Greenland and conducting naval operations.
Good news concerning Trump losing, again, in the courts:
A federal judge on Jan. 9 became the third one to block key provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at revising election rules nationwide, ruling that the Constitution gives states and Congress —not the president— the authority to exercise power over elections.
The administration signaled it is likely to appeal the decision, the latest blow to Trump’s agenda on elections.
His March executive order sought to require proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form, mostly ban the use of machine-readable codes when tallying ballots, and prohibit the counting of ballots postmarked Election Day but received afterwards.
The administration has appealed two earlier rulings in other cases against the executive order. The cases could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court, but election law experts told Votebeat the president faces long odds. […]
More at the link. This fight, and similar court fights, are ongoing.
[…] The White House has said the president is planning a second executive order on elections, though it’s unclear what will be in it, and federal court rulings so far show the approach has limitations. […]
Ukraine will continue to carry out offensive military operations, as victory cannot be achieved through defense alone, the country’s top military commander said, warning that Russia’s strategic plans for 2026 remain unchanged and aimed at all of Ukraine.
Ukraine plans to go on the offense more in 2026. Except for the Kursk surprise distraction, Ukraine has made little attacks to blunt Russian attacks or to surprise under defended points of value. Syrsky avoids saying anything specific, only that Ukraine plans to take the initiative in some way. This could entirely be deception but I expect Syrsky is being honest. To force Russia into a reasonable settlement Ukraine has to go on the offense at some point or Russia has to collapse internally. Russia looks like it may be unstable but Ukraine can’t depend on Russia failing to win the war for them.
Speaking in an interview with LB.ua, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) Oleksandr Syrsky said Russia is sticking to its long-term objectives, adjusting only timelines, troop numbers and weapons supplies.
Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russia’s goals have not changed. They have not changed since the first year of the war, when Russia had to back off it’s quick attack and resort to a slow conquest so this isn’t really big news.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a daring daytime mission on Monday, aircraft from the European members of NATO flew over the White House and sprayed its airspace with antipsychotic medication.
All NATO leaders signed off on the plan with the exception of the UK’s Keir Starmer, who proposed inviting Donald Trump to yet another state dinner.
Explaining the rationale behind the mission, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said, “We saw his letter to me as a cry for help.”
On the decision to deploy antipsychotic meds, Stoere added, “We were uniquely qualified to do this because our drug prices are far lower than in the U.S.”
Stressing that the NATO members did not take their decision lightly, the Norwegian PM said, “We had been hoping that Congress would intervene, but we were left with no other choice.”
This line is particularly funny, since Trump just confused Norway and Denmark in his petty complaint (again) about the Nobel Prize:
Explaining the rationale behind the mission, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said, “We saw his letter to me as a cry for help.”
Trump’s message:
Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘right of ownership’ anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT
House votes to fund the arts, despite Trump threats
Months after President Trump proposed excluding the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from his Fiscal Year 2026 budget, the Republican-led United States House of Representatives approved a bill that would continue funding both agencies.
Last Thursday, January 8, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of several funding measures, including the Interior and Environment Appropriations Act of 2026, the bill that determines the annual allocations for the NEA, NEH, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), and other cultural programs.
The House voted in favor of full or near-full funding for the nation’s federal cultural agencies despite various threats from the Trump administration to dismantle or otherwise reduce allocations for many of them. The Senate is expected to pass the bill, but on Monday, it delayed a final vote.
[…] After Mr. Trump’s response, Mr. Store said in a statement, “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have on several occasions clearly explained to Trump what is well known, namely that it is an independent Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government, that awards the prize,” Mr. Store said.
[…] Mr. Trump has repeatedly challenged Denmark’s claims to Greenland, but in decades-old agreements that the United States has signed with Denmark, the United States has recognized Denmark’s close connection to the island.
A 2004 amendment to an older defense pact between Denmark and the United States, which grants the United States broad military access, explicitly recognizes Greenland as “an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark.”
And in 1916, Denmark sold what are now the U.S. Virgin Islands to the United States for $25 million in gold. In the treaty for that deal, a clause reads, “The United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.” […]
You cannot even own land in Greenland. You can get an allotment for your house, and you own the house on top of the land. But Greenlanders don’t believe that the land is for one person; it’s for everyone. […] It’s a big miscalculation that he thinks that Greenlanders would be excited by cash. We are not. Even it it were $100,000 per person, we wouldn’t give up free healthcare; we wouldn’t give up free education; we wouldn’t give up being part of Europe […] we are autonomous right now […] Everyone here knows about the Inuit in Alaska and all of the American Indians […] Their land was taken from them, and they haven’t been treated that well in America. We know that Trump is surrounding himself with white power people, and we are not White […] so we know our rights would be taken away.
[…]
We know about the treaties that we have with America. This is akin to when you have a dog sled team (he’s using that analogy) and one of the dogs all of a sudden turns around and bites you. You have to take it out […] and shoot it. Of course we’re not gonna shoot Americans […] but you cannot trust that dog any more forever. […] We still want to be friends, but […] if Donald Trump wants a new world order, okay that’s what he’s gonna get.
* That YT channel mirrored—and edited out b-roll—from Viory, a UAE news site.
* The YT channel also weirdly anonymized her as “Greenlandic Politician”. She is Tillie Martinussen, a former MP of the Cooperation Party she co-founded breaking from Democrats in 2018, of which she has been the only member to ever win a seat. The party aims to privatize public companies and deregulate.
Her electoral defeat was largely due to the climate of civil war that erupted within the [Cooperation Party] in late 2020, when a group of leaders, including the party’s [other] founder, accused the leader of appropriating party funds for her own benefit. In the end, she was unanimously re-elected and her accusers were expelled.
No other parties have negative equity in their accounts for 2020. […] an ongoing police investigation after several former members reported chairman Tilie Martinussen to the police. The police report alleges that money from the party treasury was used for private consumption.
“Remember the president’s many rants about Tylenol? The latest evidence shows how wrong he was.”
Ahead of a White House press conference on autism in September, Donald Trump made a deliberate effort to hype the information he said he was eager to share. The president boasted the week before the event that he was poised to deliver an announcement that was “very, very big.” A day later, he added that the information he was ready to share was “so big.”
Those who tuned in to the White House announcement, however, quickly learned otherwise. Trump, standing alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instead stood at a podium and said, “Don’t take Tylenol” — 11 times.
Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Washington Post after the event, “That was the most dangerously irresponsible press conference in the realm of public health in American history.”
Undeterred, the president kept going in the weeks and months that followed, publishing an online screed to his social media platform two weeks ago that began, “PREGNANT WOMEN, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON.”
It remains a mystery why Mr. “Inject Disinfectants” believes that he has the credibility and expertise needed to give Americans guidance on matters of public health, but for those interested in evidence, The New York Times reported over the weekend:
A scientific review of 43 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy concluded that there was no evidence that the painkiller increased the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
‘We found no clinically important increase in the risk of autism, A.D.H.D. or intellectual disability,’ Dr. Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at St. George’s Hospital, University of London, and the lead author of the report, said at a news briefing. The study was published on Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Khalil added that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, remains “the first-line treatment that we would recommend if the pregnant women have pain or fever in pregnancy.”
Confronted with this scientific research, the White House had little choice but to acknowledge reality.
No, I’m just kidding. Trump and his team, at least so far, have ignored the latest findings, which dovetail with other recent research on the same subject.
The next time the president starts offering advice on over-the-counter pain treatments, however, keep this in mind.
In a letter to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store of Norway — that was forwarded to European ambassadors in Washington – President Trump connected his threats against Greenland (which is Danish) on Norway’s failure to award him the Nobel Peace Prize (which is not awarded by the Norwiegan government).
People buy the equipment on Amazon and it shows up at Benson’s house. From there, he reaches out to local community organizers […] “I think more than 350 of those cameras have gone out and are already deployed in the community now,” […] Benson got the idea […] when ICE told local police that one of his friends was ramming their cars. “That was completely fabricated,” Benson told me. But there was no way to prove it. It was the word of the federal government against Benson’s friend.
birgerjohanssonsays
Let’s Talk Elections
“Democrats’ Midterm Advantage Is BIGGER Than It Looks”
As I mentioned on the other thread, this Trump letter to “Jonas” should be grounds for convening an emergency meeting to invoke the 25th amendment. Each and every day brings more examples that the man is not fit to be in charge of his own affairs let alone the USA government and that his mental capacity is going down fast. That should be shouted on every news media 24/7 until something is done but of course nothing will be done.
With Americans reeling from high consumer prices, the federal government will suspend tax refund seizures and wage garnishments for people in default on their student loans, the Education Department said Friday. The action dials back the Trump administration’s recent decision to resume involuntary collections after a nearly six-year suspension because of the pandemic.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will attend the Supreme Court’s oral argument Wednesday in a case involving the attempted firing of Fed governor Lisa Cook, an unusual show of support by the central bank chair.
As Steve Benen noted, a symbolic move, but important.
birgerjohanssonsays
Something for your flying cars?
Li-S batteries have far more energy by weight than lithium-ion batteries.
When Ciji Graham visited a cardiologist on Nov. 14, 2023, her heart was pounding at 192 beats per minute, a rate healthy people her age usually reach during the peak of a sprint. She was having another episode of atrial fibrillation, a rapid, irregular heartbeat. The 34-year-old Greensboro, North Carolina, police officer was at risk of a stroke or heart failure.
In the past, doctors had always been able to shock Graham’s heart back into rhythm with a procedure called a cardioversion. But this time, the treatment was just out of reach. After a pregnancy test came back positive, the cardiologist didn’t offer to shock her. Graham texted her friend from the appointment: “Said she can’t cardiovert being pregnant.”
The doctor told Graham to consult three other specialists and her primary care provider before returning in a week, according to medical records. Then she sent Graham home as her heart kept hammering.
[…] As ProPublica has reported, doctors in states that ban abortion have repeatedly denied standard care to high-risk pregnant patients. The expert consensus is that cardioversion is safe during pregnancy, and ProPublica spoke with more than a dozen specialists who said they would have immediately admitted Graham to a hospital to get her heart rhythm under control. They found fault, too, with a second cardiologist she saw the following day, who did not perform an electrocardiogram and also sent her home.
Graham came to believe that the best way to protect her health was to end her unexpected pregnancy. But because of new abortion restrictions in North Carolina and nearby states, finding a doctor who could quickly perform a procedure would prove difficult. […] she would spend her final days struggling to find anyone to save hers.
Graham hated feeling out of breath; her life demanded all her energy. Widely admired for her skills behind the wheel, she was often called upon to train fellow officers at the Greensboro Police Department. […]
She thought her surprise pregnancy had caused the atrial fibrillation, also called A-fib. In addition to heart disease, she had a thyroid disorder; pregnancy could send the gland into overdrive, prompting dangerous heart rhythms.
When Graham saw the first cardiologist, Dr. Sabina Custovic, the 192 heart rate recorded on an EKG should have been a clear cause for alarm. “I can’t think of any situation where I would feel comfortable sending anyone home with a heart rate of 192,” said Dr. Jenna Skowronski, a cardiologist at the University of North Carolina. A dozen cardiologists and maternal-fetal medicine specialists who reviewed Graham’s case for ProPublica agreed. The risk of death was low, but the fact that she was also reporting symptoms — severe palpitations, trouble breathing — meant the health dangers were significant.
All the experts said they would have tried to treat Graham with IV medication in the hospital and, if that failed, an electrical shock. Cardioversion wouldn’t necessarily be simple — likely requiring an invasive ultrasound to check for blood clots beforehand — but it was crucial to slow down her heart. A leading global organization for arrhythmia professionals, the Heart Rhythm Society, has issued clear guidance that “cardioversion is safe and effective in pregnancy.” [!]
Even if the procedure posed a small risk to the pregnancy, the risk of not treating Graham was far greater, said Rhode Island cardiologist Dr. Daniel Levine: “No mother, no baby.”
[…] The next day — as her heart continued to thump — Graham saw a second cardiologist, Dr. Will Camnitz, at Cone Health, one of the region’s largest health care systems.
According to medical records, Graham’s pulse registered as normal when taken at Camnitz’s office […] Camnitz noted that the EKG from the day before showed she was in A-fib and prescribed a blood thinner to prepare for a cardioversion in three weeks — if by then she hadn’t returned to a regular heart rhythm on her own.
Some of the experts who reviewed Graham’s care said that this was a reasonable plan if her pulse was, indeed, normal. But Camnitz, who specializes in the electrical activity of the heart, did not order another EKG to confirm that her heart rate had come down from 192, according to medical records. “He’s an electrophysiologist and he didn’t do that, which is insane,” said Dr. Kayle Shapero, a cardio-obstetrics specialist at Brown University. According to experts, a pulse measurement can underestimate the true heart rate of a patient in A-fib. Every cardiologist who reviewed Graham’s care for ProPublica said that a repeat EKG would be best practice. If Graham’s rate was still as high as it was the previous day, her heart could eventually stop delivering enough blood to major organs. […]
Three weeks was a long time to wait with a heart that Graham kept saying was practically leaping out of her chest.
Camnitz knew about Graham’s pregnancy but did not discuss whether she wanted to continue it or advise her on her options, according to medical records. That same day, though, Graham reached out to A Woman’s Choice, the sole abortion clinic in Greensboro.
North Carolina bans abortion after 12 weeks; Graham was only about six weeks pregnant. Still, there was a long line ahead of her. Women were flooding the state from Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina, where new abortion bans were even stricter. On top of that, a recent change in North Carolina law required an in-person consent visit three days before a termination. […]
Graham would need to wait nearly two weeks for an abortion.
[…] a procedure at the clinic would not have been right for Graham; because of her high heart rate, she would have needed a hospital with more resources.
Dr. Jessica Tarleton, an abortion provider who spent the past few years working in the Carolinas, said she frequently encountered pregnant women with chronic conditions who faced this kind of catch-22: Their risks were too high to be treated in a clinic, and it would be safest to get care at a hospital, but it could be very hard to find one willing to terminate a pregnancy.
[…] Graham never learned that she would need an abortion at a hospital rather than a clinic. Physicians at Duke University and the University of North Carolina, the premier academic medical centers in the state, said that she would have been able to get one at their hospitals — but that would have required a doctor to connect her or for Graham to have somehow known to show up.
[…] In the United Kingdom a doctor trained in caring for pregnant women with risky medical conditions would have been assigned to oversee all of Graham’s care, ensuring it was appropriate, said Dr. Marian Knight, who leads the U.K.’s maternal mortality review program. […] The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is more than double that of the U.K. and last on the list of wealthy countries. [!]
[…] Graham texted [a friend]. “Ain’t slept, chest hurts.” “All I can do is wait until the 28th,” Graham said, the date of her scheduled abortion.
On the morning of Nov. 19, Scott awoke to a rap on the front door […] A police officer introduced himself and explained that Graham hadn’t shown up and wasn’t answering her phone. He knew she hadn’t been feeling well and wanted to check in.
[…] When Scott walked into their bedroom, Graham was face down in bed, her body cold when he touched her. The two men pulled her down to the floor to start CPR, but it was too late. SJ stood in his crib, silently watching […]
The medical examiner would list Graham’s cause of death as “cardiac arrhythmia due to atrial fibrillation in the setting of recent pregnancy.” […]
High-risk pregnancy specialists and cardiologists who reviewed Graham’s case were taken aback by Custovic’s failure to act urgently. Many said her decisions reminded them of behaviors they’ve seen from other cardiologists when treating pregnant patients; they attribute this kind of hesitation to gaps in education. Although cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in pregnant women, a recent survey developed with the American College of Cardiology found that less than 30% of cardiologists reported formal training in managing heart conditions in pregnancy. “A large proportion of the cardiology workforce feels uncomfortable providing care to these patients,” the authors concluded in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The legal threats attached to abortion bans, many doctors have told ProPublica, have made some cardiologists even more conservative. [….]
Three doctors who have served on state maternal mortality review committees, which study the deaths of pregnant women, told ProPublica that Graham’s death was preventable. […]
Graham’s is the seventh case ProPublica has investigated in which a pregnant woman in a state that significantly restricted abortion died after she was unable to access standard care.
The week after she died, Graham’s family held a candlelight ceremony outside of her high school, which drew friends and cops in uniform, and also Greensboro residents whose lives she had touched. One woman approached Graham’s sisters and explained Graham had interrupted her suicide attempt five years earlier and reassured her that her life had value; she had recently texted Graham, “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here today, expecting my first child.”
As for Graham’s own son, no one explained to SJ that his mother had died. They didn’t know how to describe death to a toddler. Instead, his dad and grandmother and aunts and uncles told him that his mom had left Earth and gone to the moon. SJ now calls it the “Mommy moon.”
For the past two years, every night before bed, he asks to go outside, even on the coldest winter evenings. He points to the moon in the dark sky and tells his mother that he loves her.
Nestled in a strip mall in suburban Philadelphia, The Trump Store is hard to miss, with its all-caps sign in bold next to a photo of President Trump hugging the American flag. But after six years of drawing MAGA supporters from all over, the 800-square-foot store, which sports everything from hats and watches emblazoned with the president’s name, is closing. The store’s owner, 56-year-old Mike Domanico, said that, with sales down, it was time.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are in crunch time.
So far, Congress has passed six of the 12 appropriations bills needed to fund the government. The House last week passed an additional two-bill package known as a minibus that would fund the State Department and the Treasury Department. Senators will take that minibus up after they come back from their recess.
That leaves just four bills for the lower chamber to clear — including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill, which has emerged as a major point of contention between both parties.
As of Monday afternoon, appropriators had not released text for the four bills.
Democrats in both chambers are intensifying their push to overhaul U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after one of its officers fatally shot an unarmed woman in Minneapolis. They are threatening to oppose the DHS bill unless it includes tougher oversight and conduct guidelines for ICE officers.
It’s unclear whether both parties can reach an agreement on the DHS bill before the Jan. 30 deadline to prevent a partial government shutdown.
If they don’t, one option they have is to pass a stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution, that would temporarily fund the department at existing levels until they strike a deal.
The clock is tight for both chambers, with the Senate in recess this week and the House set to be out next week.
A solar radiation storm stronger than one we’ve seen in over two decades is in progress, the Space Weather Prediction Center announced Monday.
The storm is classified as an “S4” – the second-highest possible level of a solar radiation storm. The last time we observed an S4 storm was in October 2003.
“Storms of this strength are very rare,” said the Space Weather Prediction Center. Forecasters expect the storm to continue for days, cutting off high-frequency communications completely in the polar regions and posing some added health risk to passengers and crew in high-flying aircraft.
The strong solar flare that triggered the radiation storm has also caused a severe geomagnetic storm, which strengthened to a G4 on Monday afternoon and “came with a punch” at around 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time, said Shawn Dahl, a service coordinator with the SWPC.
“We reached nearly 20 times what’s normal background level for magnetic energy out in space with that arrival here at Earth,” said Dahl.
If the geomagnetic storm continues into the evening, northern lights could be visible across much of the United States.
[…] As of the Monday afternoon forecast, the lights were expected to be visible in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, northern Utah, northern Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, northern Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, northern Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Alaska.
[…] If the G4 levels we saw earlier in the day are reached again in the evening, that could make the northern lights visible as far south as Alabama and California, the SWPC said.
[…] For your best shot of seeing the aurora, look to the northern horizon.
“The death toll in a crackdown by authorities that smothered the demonstrations reached at least 3,941 people, activists said.”
Hackers disrupted Iranian state television satellite transmissions to air footage supporting the country’s exiled crown prince and calling on security forces to not “point your weapons at the people,” […]
The hacking comes as the death toll in a crackdown by authorities that smothered the demonstrations reached at least 3,941 people […] Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had his invitation to speak at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, withdrawn over the killings.
Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the United States and Iran over the crackdown after President Donald Trump drew two red lines for the Islamic Republic — the killing of peaceful protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions in the wake of the demonstrations. A U.S. aircraft carrier, which days earlier had been in the South China Sea, passed Singapore overnight to enter the Strait of Malacca — putting it on a route that could bring it to the Middle East.
[…] The footage aired Sunday night across multiple channels broadcast by satellite from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the country’s state broadcaster. The video aired two clips of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, then included footage of security forces and others in what appeared to be Iranian police uniforms. It claimed without offering evidence others had “laid down their weapons and swore an oath of allegiance to the people.”
“This is a message to the army and security forces,” one graphic read. “Don’t point your weapons at the people. Join the nation for the freedom of Iran.”
The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, quoted a statement from the state broadcaster acknowledging that the signal in “some areas of the country was momentarily disrupted by an unknown source.” […]
A statement from Pahlavi’s office acknowledged the disruption that showed the crown prince. […]
ship-tracking data analyzed by the AP on Monday showed the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, as well as other American military vessels, in the Strait of Malacca after passing Singapore on a route that could take them to the Middle East.
[…] The Mideast has been without an aircraft carrier group or an amphibious ready group, likely complicating any discussion of a military operation targeting Iran given Gulf Arab states’ broad opposition to such an attack.
[…] The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency put the death toll Monday to at least 3,941, warning it likely would go higher.
[…] The agency has been accurate throughout the years of demonstrations and unrest in Iran, relying on a network of activists inside the country that confirms all reported fatalities.
[…] The agency also reported over 25,700 people had been arrested. Comments from officials have led to fears of some of those detained being put to death in Iran, one of the world’s top executioners.
“While the killers and seditious terrorists will be punished, Islamic mercy and leniency will be applied to those who were deceived and did not have (effective) roles in the terrorist event,” a statement Monday from Iran’s president, its judiciary chief and its parliament speaker said.
ICE came to my brother-in-law Saly’s apartment, broke down the door, trashed the place, handcuffed him, and put a gun to his daughter-in-law’s head. They did not allow him to put on proper clothing and forced him outside in freezing weather.
As snow falls, an elderly man wearing nothing but blue boxers and white Crocs with his hands restrained behind his back is forced out of his home by ICE agents. A red and white plaid blanket is draped around his shoulders, but his chest is completely bare […] ChongLy Scott Thao, also known as Saly, is a Hmong American born in Laos who has lived here most of his life. Born in a Laos refugee camp, he’s a US citizen, and St. Paul, Minnesota is his home.
[…]
“There were, gosh, 10-15 agents […] They all had weapons. People were screaming to see a judicial warrant. They were ignoring everybody. Neighbors were outside.[“] […] Photos from that moment show his grandson looking out the window, a pacifier in his mouth. […] Thao was then thrown into an ICE vehicle and taken away. […] video of the whole scene, which I’ve posted to Youtube. [Reuters filmed the battering ram.]
[…] “Saly is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He has NO criminal record […] ICE drove him around for nearly an hour, questioned him, and fingerprinted him. Only after all of that did they realize he had no criminal history and no reason to be detained. They then dropped him back off at his apartment like nothing happened.”
[…]
DHS [alleged] that the operation was targeting “two convicted sex offenders” with final orders of removal from an immigration judge. She claimed, without evidence, that Thao lives with these two men and that he was detained because “he matched the description of the targets.” […] both appear to be significantly younger than him. […] Thao was taken half-naked in 10 degree weather simply because he’s Asian.
[…]
The only people residing at the home are Mr. Thao, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his young grandson. […] The family said no warrant was presented, agents did not ask for Thao’s ID, but they “nevertheless forcibly entered the home with weapons drawn.” […] Thao and his family have lived in the home for two years.
[…]
“We received reports of federal law enforcement officers going door to door, asking people where the Asian people live,[“] Mayor Her said.
* The family GoFundMe said Thao was traumatized but not physically harmed. The large red patches on his face, torso, and legs were severe psoriasis. His health has declined since the attack.
Commentary
ICE forcing their way into homes without a warrant goes SO FAR BEYOND what Kavanaugh descibes and yet it’s commonplace now.
a home invasion.
Kavanaugh himself said what they are doing is not what he said they could do.
Any one of these daily atrocities should result in a full congressional investigation and a disbanding of the agency. The fact that it’s all just shrugged off by those with the power to stop it is a national disgrace.
The bar is so low at this point I’m actually pleasantly shocked they dropped him back off at his apartment instead of just kicking him to the curb on the spot and letting him freeze to death.
If Kavanaugh isn’t careful, his blatant racism will overshadow his penchant for drunken sexual assaults.
birgerjohanssonsays
Seth Meyers: We are living in a cocaine snow globe.
Trump’s Bonkers Message to Norway Over Greenland; Nobel Committee’s Responds to Trump.
EU explores €93B Trump tariff retaliation over Greenland threats – Lynna, OM@3, linking to earlier comments
The retaliation should be aimed squarely at Trump’s techbro sycophants: Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Altman… block their social networks, sales outlets and AI tools. Sure, no block will be fully effective, because of VPNs and Tor, but it’ll hit them in the advertising revenue, and these are the guys with real influence, not American small businesses dependent on European sales to stay solvent.
KGsays
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a daring daytime mission on Monday, aircraft from the European members of NATO flew over the White House and sprayed its airspace with antipsychotic medication.
All NATO leaders signed off on the plan with the exception of the UK’s Keir Starmer, who proposed inviting Donald Trump to yet another state dinner. – Lynna, OM@11 quoting the Borowitz Report
Borowitz is right to call out Starmer’s sycophancy (he fancies himself a “Trump whisperer” although the trade and investment deal he thought he’d negotiated turned out to be made entirely of froth). But unfortunately he’s by no means alone in NATO: leaders of Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Czechia are all Trumpist in political orientation – while Starmer is not, but is simply putty in Trump’s hands.
birgerjohanssonsays
Yesterday was the birthday of both Dolly Parton and Edgar Allan Poe.
I found this verse on Zuckerbergbook.
.
Working 9 to 9
For a man whose eye is ceeepy
That’s why I decide
To assault him when he’s sleepy
But his heart still beats
In the floorboards where I set it
It’s enough to drive me
Crazy if I let it!
Trump’s DOJ to investigate Walz and Frey, but not ICE agent who shot Renee Good
“The evidence suggesting the Justice Department is an institution in crisis is increasingly difficult to avoid.”
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-2/#comment-2290501
After unveiling a pitiful health care ‘plan,’ Trump struggles to explain its merits
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290499
Reagan-appointed judge slams ‘unconstitutional conspiracy,’ calls Trump an ‘authoritarian’
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290477
The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290477
“Donald Trump links threats to seize Greenland to Nobel prize snub in letter.”
Additional links back to the previous set of comments on The Infinite Thread:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290446
ICE agents ate meal at a Minnesota Mexican restaurant—then arrested the staff who worked there
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290441
“This is such a cool illustration of how the Mercator map distorts the size of Greenland, which looks as big as the whole continent of Africa on that map but is actually the size of Mexico. [Video]”
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290427
Jayden Scott, the 23-year-old MAGA hero who went viral for taunting protesters at the site where ICE shot and killed a woman, is now facing a warrant threat after failing to report for jail.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290414
EU explores €93B Trump tariff retaliation over Greenland threats
Link
Wales becomes the first country to sanction politicians who lie.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1aaYkMcPts/
https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-martin-luther-king-day-which
“It’s Martin Luther King Day, Which Suddenly Seems Incredibly Relevant”
New York Times link
“Inside Minnesota Hospitals, ICE Agents Unnerve Staff”
“As federal agents swarm the Twin Cities, their presence has also grown in medical centers. Health care workers are pushing back.”
Denmark sends more troops to Greenland
“Denmark says its troops could stay in Greenland for one to two years.”
Good news concerning Trump losing, again, in the courts:
Link
More at the link. This fight, and similar court fights, are ongoing.
Kyiv Post: Ukraine to Launch New Offensives as Russia Eyes Massive 2026 Buildup – AFU Chief
Ukraine plans to go on the offense more in 2026. Except for the Kursk surprise distraction, Ukraine has made little attacks to blunt Russian attacks or to surprise under defended points of value. Syrsky avoids saying anything specific, only that Ukraine plans to take the initiative in some way. This could entirely be deception but I expect Syrsky is being honest. To force Russia into a reasonable settlement Ukraine has to go on the offense at some point or Russia has to collapse internally. Russia looks like it may be unstable but Ukraine can’t depend on Russia failing to win the war for them.
Ukrainian intelligence believes that Russia’s goals have not changed. They have not changed since the first year of the war, when Russia had to back off it’s quick attack and resort to a slow conquest so this isn’t really big news.
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/nato-sprays-antipsychotic-medication
Obviously, The Borowitz Report is satire.
This line is particularly funny, since Trump just confused Norway and Denmark in his petty complaint (again) about the Nobel Prize:
Trump’s message:
Cartoon: If we were in the Epstein files …
Good news:
Link
Follow-up to comment 11.
New York Times link
[Video] Greenlandic politician shows mirror to Trump (8:36)
* That YT channel mirrored—and edited out b-roll—from Viory, a UAE news site.
* The YT channel also weirdly anonymized her as “Greenlandic Politician”. She is Tillie Martinussen, a former MP of the Cooperation Party she co-founded breaking from Democrats in 2018, of which she has been the only member to ever win a seat. The party aims to privatize public companies and deregulate.
Esquerda – Greenland 2021 election results (Left-wing news in Portugal via Wiki)
Sermitsiaq (Greenlandic national newspaper):
Study debunks Trump claims, shows no link between acetaminophen and autism
“Remember the president’s many rants about Tylenol? The latest evidence shows how wrong he was.”
Follow-up to comments 11 and 14.
404Media – How one guy crowdsourced more than 500 dashcams for Minneapolis to film ICE
Let’s Talk Elections
“Democrats’ Midterm Advantage Is BIGGER Than It Looks”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=WF74Vhj7rKc
As I mentioned on the other thread, this Trump letter to “Jonas” should be grounds for convening an emergency meeting to invoke the 25th amendment. Each and every day brings more examples that the man is not fit to be in charge of his own affairs let alone the USA government and that his mental capacity is going down fast. That should be shouted on every news media 24/7 until something is done but of course nothing will be done.
About the boat thing being the only claim for Denmark over Greenland, there is actually a document about the US recognizing that right. This article explains it: In 1917 The US traded any rights to Greenland for Epstein Island. Literally.
Good news, as reported by the Washington Post:
Associated Press:
As Steve Benen noted, a symbolic move, but important.
Something for your flying cars?
Li-S batteries have far more energy by weight than lithium-ion batteries.
“Off-the-shelf kitchen chemistry could make Li–S batteries thinner”
.https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-shelf-kitchen-chemistry-lis-batteries.html
ProPublica link
New York Times:
This week on The Hill: Lawmakers scramble to avert partial shutdown
Strongest solar radiation storm since 2003 hits Earth, bringing northern lights and possible tech issues
Unfortunately, we have cloudy skies where I live.
Hackers target Iran state TV’s satellite transmission to broadcast exiled crown prince
“The death toll in a crackdown by authorities that smothered the demonstrations reached at least 3,941 people, activists said.”
Twisting the legacy of Martin Luther King
.https://theonion.com/mlk-s-family-urges-nation-to-spend-anniversary-of-his-d-1824991630/
Trump wanted to rename today The Donald Trump – Martin Luther King Day.
Thao’s sister-in-law, via Marisa Kabas’ thread of screenshots:
The Handbasket – ICE snatching a half-naked, elderly Hmong American
* The family GoFundMe said Thao was traumatized but not physically harmed. The large red patches on his face, torso, and legs were severe psoriasis. His health has declined since the attack.
Commentary
Seth Meyers: We are living in a cocaine snow globe.
Trump’s Bonkers Message to Norway Over Greenland; Nobel Committee’s Responds to Trump.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=r5EL_cmM7YY
Carville Says Democrats Could Flip 45 House Seats
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UY9URtIDQdQ
The retaliation should be aimed squarely at Trump’s techbro sycophants: Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Pichai, Altman… block their social networks, sales outlets and AI tools. Sure, no block will be fully effective, because of VPNs and Tor, but it’ll hit them in the advertising revenue, and these are the guys with real influence, not American small businesses dependent on European sales to stay solvent.
Borowitz is right to call out Starmer’s sycophancy (he fancies himself a “Trump whisperer” although the trade and investment deal he thought he’d negotiated turned out to be made entirely of froth). But unfortunately he’s by no means alone in NATO: leaders of Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Czechia are all Trumpist in political orientation – while Starmer is not, but is simply putty in Trump’s hands.
Yesterday was the birthday of both Dolly Parton and Edgar Allan Poe.
I found this verse on Zuckerbergbook.
.
Working 9 to 9
For a man whose eye is ceeepy
That’s why I decide
To assault him when he’s sleepy
But his heart still beats
In the floorboards where I set it
It’s enough to drive me
Crazy if I let it!
Trump takes issue with the British Chagos island deal as performative sabre rattling.
.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ByvVEEVqDKI
Putin’s Endgame Has Begun… Grab the Popcorn (economic stagnation meets war of attrition)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=OHZfnf_Gxak