On the lamb: 50 sheep break away from flock and storm German supermarket The Guardian
Incognito in Delaware Hickman’s Hinterlands
“We’re Too Close to the Debris” ProPublica. “How SpaceX Rockets Put Passenger Planes at Risk”
Detroit suburb agrees to a $3.25 million settlement in the case of woman found alive in a body bag AP
How Did TVs Get So Cheap? Construction Physics
Climate/Environment
First tornado warnings of 2026..
…in January.
Welcome to Oklahoma. pic.twitter.com/XtEVtkYMxY— Grumpy Dool (@PCSoonersFan) January 8, 2026
Will “AI Slop” derail a potential revolution in weather forecasting? Balanced Weather
Nearly half of American homeowners want to relocate in 2026 because of extreme weather and other climate concerns The Independent
Locals wanted to rebuild Pacific Palisades, Altadena. Then the big investors moved in Los Angeles Times
Wet-to-Dry Cascades May Increasingly Drive Wildfire Activity in Non-Forested Ecosystems, and Further Amplify the Risk of Urban Interface Fire Disasters, in a Warming Climate Global Change Biology
Plastic pellets known as ‘nurdles’ are polluting beaches and waterways Washington State Standard
The US Power Grid Had A Dirty Year in 2025 Distilled
Keep it in the ground? The Climate Brink
China?
A Tale of Two Ecosystems: Why China Has Not Yet Surpassed the US in Original Innovation Sinification
The price of the Marshall Islands’ universal basic income East Asia Forum
India
Exclusive: India plans to scrap curbs on Chinese firms bidding for government contracts Reuters
Why India-US bilateral trade arrangement is taking so long to conclude Business Standard
Syraqistan
Israel Kills Five Children in Surge of Attacks on Gaza “Safe Zone” Drop Site
An elder is someone who is older than olive trees Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub
***
Chinese Maritime Surveillance Firm Warns of Intensified US Troop Transports Near Iran Inside China
The ongoing military preparations in Iran do not suggest a defensive posture at all.
Over the past 24 hours, Iran has taken steps that indicate offensive preparations.
These include: clearing flight paths and diverting them away from major cities; moving offensive assets toward… pic.twitter.com/nNzCaAknp3
— Ahmed Hassan 🇾🇪 أحمد حسن زيد (@Ahmed_hassan_za) January 8, 2026
Iranian security forces hunt Mossad agents as policemen fall to terror attacks Press TV
US says watching Iran response to protests after millions pour into streets (Live) Iran International. (A UK-based site).
Iran shuts down internet amid protest groundswell – monitoring group RT
First Venezuela, now Iran? Musk sure is in a helpful mood:
After Iran moved to cut internet access amid ongoing unrest, Tamir Morag on Israel’s Channel 14 claimed that Elon Musk enabled free access to Starlink for protesters inside the country.
According to the report, the move was carried out quietly several days ago, with protest…
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) January 8, 2026
Deep Data: Will Pezeshkian’s ‘economic surgery’ save struggling Iranians? Amwaj
***
‘The real war is Washington’s’: Senior Ansarallah official exposes US control over Saudi–UAE feud The Cradle
Africa
US suspends assistance to Somalia’s federal government, alleging it seized food aid AP
Zambia ditches the IMF…for now Grieve Chelwa
O Canada
European Disunion
Exclusive: Trump administration mulls payments to sway Greenlanders to join US Reuters
Greenland should hold talks with the US without Denmark, opposition leader says Reuters
Bardella says he will attempt to bring down EU Commission over Mercosur deal Euractiv
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia Goes Oreshnik Again Larry Johnson
Russia Accuses U.S. of ‘Gross Violation’ of Maritime Law in High-Seas Tanker Seizure gCaptain
Shadow Fleet Tanker Diverts to Turkey After Reporting Drone Attack Maritime Executive. China-owned and managed.
South of the Border
WHAT IS TRUMP’S GAMBIT IN VENEZUELA? Seymour Hersh
US oil groups warn they will need guarantees to invest in Venezuela FT. The money quote: ‘“No one wants to go in there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country,” said one private equity investor who specialises in energy.’
Trump says he plans to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado NBC News. The deck: The president also said it would be a “great honor” if Machado decided to give him the Nobel Peace Prize she won last year.
Venezuela frees ‘large number’ of prisoners after Maduro abduction TRT World
‘Bullying act’: China slams US demand for exclusive Venezuela oil partnership Press TV
DNI Tulsi Gabbard, Who Ran for President as Anti-‘Regime Change,’ Praises Trump’s Venezuela Operation Decensored News
Trump Threatens Cuba Again and Claims: “I Don’t Need International Law” Telesur
Trump says US ‘going to start now hitting land’ against drug cartels Channel News Asia
Trump 2.0
Trump Lays Out a Vision of Power Restrained Only by ‘My Own Morality New York Times
Senate advances resolution to block Trump from using military in Venezuela The Hill
Trump Tells Fannie, Freddie to Buy $200 Billion of Mortgage Debt Bloomberg
Why Protecting Homebuyers Might Mean Protecting Prices
Stripped of the politics, Trump’s message is that housing is for people, not portfolios.
He’s arguing that affordability has broken down so badly that the government needs to step in and stop large institutional investors… pic.twitter.com/OIwLWhZfFk
— EndGame Macro (@onechancefreedm) January 7, 2026
Also worth noting that private equity also owns over 10% of all U.S. apartments and has been aggressively pursuing buyouts of manufactured housing communities
Police State Watch
Federal agents shoot two people in Portland, police say Oregon Capital Chronicle
Woman killed by ICE agent in Minneapolis was a mother of 3, poet and new to the city MPR
Feds oust Minnesota investigators from ICE shooting probe Minnesota Reformer
Threatening Prosecutions, JD Vance Blames ‘Left-Wing’ Network—Including Media—for ICE Killing Common Dreams
ICE AGENT WHO SHOT RENEE NICOLE GOOD IDENTIFIED AS JONATHAN ROSS The Intercept. Reportedly an Iraq War vet.
Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods 404 Media
SCOOP: Senate Negotiators Eye Another ICE Funding Increase Migrant Insider
Imperial Collapse Watch
The reality of Trump’s cartoonish $1.5 trillion DOD budget proposal Responsible Statecraft
The CRINK supremacy: WWII-era military power flipped as Global South powers take over Intellinews
Is America on Step 1? 11 To Go? America’s Undoing
Just Because They’re Crazy Does Not Mean They Are Not Winning Oliver Boyd-Barrett
Pete Hegseth’s Lawyer Dives into the Bro-Vet Podcast Wars The After-Action Report
Healthcare?
House passes 3-year extension of ObamaCare subsidies The Hill
“Liberation Day”
October Surprise: U.S. Trade Deficit Shrinks to 15-Year Low on Import Collapse Bloomberg
Economy
Important point: 2025 is likely to be the worst year for job growth outside of a recession since 2003 (when hiring was anemic after the Dot Com bust).
We’ll get December data on Friday. It’s likely to show only ~700,000 jobs added in 2025.
[And ~70% of the jobs in 2025 were… pic.twitter.com/3JJRSqtFCU— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) January 8, 2026
This got lost in the shuffle yesterday because of the securities crimes committed by the Trump administration and the whole, you know, brownshirts murder a citizen thing, but the ADP number came in yesterday 20% light.
Nobody in this admin seems to want to talk about how there… pic.twitter.com/IvPxxK2Sri
— BonkDaCarnivore (@BonkDaCarnivore) January 8, 2026
AI
Elon Musk’s xAI under fire for failing to rein in ‘digital undressing’ CNN Business
Does ChatGPT refer with Names? Design Intention and Derivative Reference in Large Language Models Nonsite
How Silicon Valley will eat its AI competitors in 2026 Business Times
The Bezzle
Class Warfare
Released this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ labor share of income for Q3 2025 is the lowest on record. pic.twitter.com/LvcUIPGHDD
— Mike Konczal (@mtkonczal) January 8, 2026
Knowing Something Better in Your Bones Working Class Storytelling
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Canadian Armed Forces spy scandal exposes covert campaign to smear and silence critics of Ottawa’s role in Ukraine war WSWS
~~~~~~~~
How many anti-Chuk Canucks could Chuk Canucks chuck if Chuk Canucks could chuck anti-Chuks?
Two? Matthew and Brady (nyuk nyuk Tkachuk)
Dual citizens- both—Brady resides in Ottawa, and Matthew is in Florida. Coincidences abound!?
I have this amazing Montana Dot Connector ™ Tin Hat that makes every brighter star part of a larger constellation.
Don’t forget Keith
“Exclusive: Trump administration mulls payments to sway Greenlanders to join US”
What a brilliant idea. I don’t know why this was never considered before. Everybody knows that money solves all problems, amiright? Lately I have been watching Ken Burn’s series “The American Revolution” and it occurs to me now that all the British had to do to solve this problem in 1776 was to offer every Colonist twenty pounds to stay with the Empire. Those Colonists would have then told people like George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to go pound sand. It would have been glorious and instead of States you would have eventually had Provinces with local Lords and Barons to keep the people under control. It would have been a lot cheaper than waging that war that they lost anyway. And if Trump really wants to sweeten the pot for those Greenlanders, he could offer them access to the American healthcare system instead of that commie, socialist healthcare system offered by Denmark.
all Greenlanders could fit in a first-tier football/soccer stadium with plenty of room leftover.
Even USD 100,000 / year for 10 years for each Greenlander is a rounding error in the bloated US military-security-foreign affairs budget
That money would easily be eaten up by end of life medical costs. What a scam.
It’s a great idea indeed! I mean, we USians all loved getting our fat tariff checks last year, didn’t we?
Hey! Your check is in the mail! Trust us!!!!!
Remember – “Buying is Better than Bullets!”
you jest, but it’s not as though denmark doesn’t have a really gnarly history of separating greenlander babies from their mothers for utterly spurious reasons. there’s not a lot of love for the indigenous among the blonde and blue eyed set in copenhagen…
I can recommend “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” for those who wonder how much love the United States has shown for its indigenous peoples.
If Trump wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he should offer each Russian soldier $10,000 to withdraw from Ukraine. This would be a better use of funds than spending $1.5 trillion on unnecessary military equipment. $10,000 is a substantial sum for Russians, so they would likely accept the offer.
Could give them all those seized Russian assets maybe?
That would work out to something close to half a million for every one of the estimated 700,000 Russian troops stationed in Ukraine. Much more realistic than the ten grand offered by the OP. That offer verges on an insult : commit treason for less than a year’s average pay.
You must be new here. Each Russian soldier get more than that for signing up. If you want them to betray their Motherland for cash, you better start adding zeroes. That one helicopter pilot did it for half a milion. He ended up having deadly hot lead poisoning in Spain, so he did not have much time for spending, though.
It would have been cheaper it the Federal Government would have bought all of the slaves from the plantation owners, and there would have been no loss of life from the war. But it wasn’t about slavery.
“The president also said it would be a “great honor” if Machado decided to give him the Nobel Peace Prize she won last year.”
Is Trump under the impression that a Nobel prize is transferable like a winning scratch-it ticket ? I can easily imagine Trump insisting that he counts as a Nobel peace prize winner if Machado were to simply hand the physical medallion over to him.
You think that Trump would also expect her to hand over the $1.17 million prize money as well? Hey, money is money. Funny thing was up until Mauro’s kidnapping, Trump was saying that she was the real winner in Venezuela’s last election. Now they are saying that she does not have the support to put together a replacement government in that country. Hmmm. Anybody know if Juan Guaidó is still free for a new job?
There won’t be any money if Julian Assange succeeds in his lawsuit.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nobel committee approved the transfer. The earlier award of the prize to Machado seems to indicate they would approve of Trump’s actions in Venezuela.
But they can’t get around the fact that Machado fulfilled none of the requirements of being awarded that prize. And that is something that Assange can prove in court.
Is Machado under the impression giving Trump her prize would get her into power in Venezuela or even insure her continued safety and aliveness?
As to the transfer, well, small concern to Trump. Once he has the trinket, he’ll just declare himself the winner, facts be damned. Which kind of surprises me he hasn’t invented a US organization to present himself with an award for peace yet?
Secondhand Nobel Peace Prize is still more legit than the firsthand one in economy.
There was a coin dealer in LA who put on coins shows on the Queen Mary in Long Beach (what amazing woods throughout the ship) and he bought a Nobel Prize Medal and used it as a draw to get people to come to the coin show.
Gresham’s Law hit Alfred & co. in 1980 when the fineness went from 23k to 18k, about 20% less precious, for those of you playing at home.
I might be one of the few to have held both an Academy Award and Nobel Prize Medal, so i’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
With a whiff of inflation, we could buy a ho-hum Nobel Prize Medal (not for Peace-as if he’d know the difference) for around $200k, and pacify him if only for an afternoon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_N._Hinshelwood
The FIFA peace prize is more legitimate.
Judge Napolitano and Aaron Mate`. utube, ~22+ minutes.
Aaron Maté : When Law Dies, Freedom Follows – MURDER in Minneapolis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-rzFK4YCsM
For those who’s panties are in a twist about Greenland (and Iceland).
Please read the histories of the two since WWI in Wikipedia.
The United Snakes has absolutely strategically, logistically and economically controlled these areas at least since 1939. These two places have had U.S. troops in occupation on one level or another since that time.
That Donnie Baby is saying the quite part out loud is the only real change.
This is bogus and you are out of line in with your preening. You insinuate that readers and site authors lack the sophistication to understand that treaties and contracts that can and do confer substantial legal and property rights. As we have explained, and was discussed long form in a recent Financial Times article, the US already has considerable basing rights with respect to Greenland that it is barely using. Denmark has offered extensive further concessions. But Trump wants formal possession out of his sense of grandiosity. He wants Greenland as a personal monument, the same way he wants his face added to Mount Rushmore. Contrary to your misrepresntation, Trump in a fresh New York Times interview that he wants the US to own legal title, and not merely have effective control.
Let’s tell he we have made contact with the Moon beings and they want to make him King, and then send him to the moon. On a SpaceX rocket. Line up some World Leaders to cry about how jealous they are and how much they want to be the King of the Moon.
At this point, that’s the best plan I have.
A year at Thule, Greenland was a threat to scare young AF lieutenants. I opted for Alaska.
It has been the site of a U.S. missile warning radar since well before I entered service in1972. The radar upgraded several times over the decades.
Many of the support staff were contractors.
Those who’s panties are not in a twist about Greenland (and Iceland), are going commando.
I appreciate that comment. We certainly need more humor in this timeline.
But doesn’t going commando then risk “other things” getting twisted over Greenland?
Oregon Lawhobbit: It isn’t as if the family jewels have to be kept in their case all day.
More practice Is recommended.
Rocco: and looking at paintings of San Rocco seems to indicate that he himself went commando
*south park voice*
Nice.
‘Ahmed Hassan 🇾🇪 أحمد حسن زيد
@Ahmed_hassan_za
The ongoing military preparations in Iran do not suggest a defensive posture at all.
Over the past 24 hours, Iran has taken steps that indicate offensive preparations.’
The Russians said that they were asked by Israel to tell the Iranians that the Israelis have no intention of attacking Iran. Of course the Russians were also asked to pass the same message on to the Iranians before – just before the 12 day war. Meanwhile I think that the Russians are evacuating Embassy staff in Iran as if they know something.
Stardate 2026, somewhere in the nth degree
We got X)erxes with his anti-cloaking device, now the shields are down and they are casting apsersions online. Scotty, how are we on de-riskium crystals?
I’m giving the Zionists all I got, Captain!
With respect to the labor share of income, I wonder if that excludes gig / 1099 workers.
I assumed that recent trends were due in part to higher capital gains, but 1999-2000 did not reflect a similar downtrend in wages’ share of income.
I would be certain that it does include 1099s. Why would you think otherwise?
The post-2020 sudden drop (sudden relative to the prior macro trend) somewhat correlates with the rise of gig apps, although Uber and Lyft were active before 2020.
After several additional searches, the AI Overview (which I hardly view as gospel, particularly after several recent cases where it provided incorrect answers) stated the following:
“Overall Labor Share: The FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) system provides data series for the overall “labor share” of national income (compensation of employees) which has been generally declining since 2000. This measure typically focuses on traditional W-2 employees and often excludes the income of most independent contractors, which is usually classified as proprietor’s income or self-employment income.”
It wouldn’t have anything to do with gig workers being lower cost than traditional labor, would it? Seeing as how that’s the whole point….
Sorry, AI is going be unreliable.
Both W-2s and 1099s are reported to the IRS. Any business has to 1099 a contractor, otherwise that expense is not tax deductible unless the amount is less than $600. So some casual worker pay would slip through the cracks.
There would be no reason for FRED not to capture 1099s and extrapolate from that.
A solo operator has to pay self-employment tax on the entire amount of their earnings. So that would be easy to get from the IRS. But I could possibly see FRED neglecting that.
The part that is tricky is that those who are “self employed” via closely held corporations or partnerships have to decide every year how much to pay themselves in salary v. in business profit. The tacit assumption is that they would underdeclare salary and show more in business profit.
Thanks. From the link below, and you allude to the compensation issue in your last paragraph:
“Here and, indeed, throughout this article, “proprietors” is taken to mean “unincorporated proprietors.” Incorporated self-employed workers are technically employees of their own corporation; thus, their compensation is already included in the “employee compensation” category.
. . . .
20 Note that the proprietors we are referring to here are defined as unincorporated self-employed workers. Proprietors whose businesses are incorporated are covered by the CES survey, because these workers are employees of their own corporation.’
So there is an effort to capture self-employed earnings, but LLC and S-corp shareholders might not pay themselves a salary and let it flow straight to Schedule . That said, in many states there is a tax advantage for S-corp and LLC shareholders/members to pay themselves a salary (to claim a deduction for the employer portion of FICA?).
No, as an S-corp, you are asking for an audit if you do not pay yourelf a salary. And the ratio of what you take as salary v. profit has to be reasonable for your business type (as in you can’t take an itty bitty salary and a ton in profit). This has been the consistent advice of all my tax advisers. I would assume that is true for LLCs.
The rise in gig and casual employment well predates 2020.
I don’t regard AI as reliable and I actively discourage its use.
Labor share of national income has been falling since the early 2000s, FFS, and markedly as of then. I wrote about it in the Conference Board Review at the time.
To add: 1099 income is not equivalent to wages/labor income, so it would be correct to attempt to adjust self-employment GROSS income to parse out costs and what could be attributed to busines profit. We featured posts back in the day on how Uber drivers mistakenly compared their gross hourly pay after gas to an hourly wage and broke down to show how much the vehicle was costing them and how much lower their hourly wage equivalent really was. The BLS goes to some length to approximate self employment income v. business costs and profits, by industry category. It would be hard to think, given that, that FRED would not.
To put it another way, as someone who has been self employed since 1989: anyone who can stand to be a payroll should be on one. In the great majority of cases, having an employer eat risks and overheads is a way better deal. The shift to gig work DOES represent a lowering of labor income, properly computed. That is the point.
I will ask a colleague who is likely to know.
I wonder if I’m doing my small part to help those dismal statistics by getting two 1099s for two different independent contractor gigs….
https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2017/article/estimating-the-us-labor-share.htm
“Exclusive: India plans to scrap curbs on Chinese firms bidding for government contracts”
This is big news this. It is a sign that India is removing irritations with China and to have things on a more peaceful basis. It may be that Modi has woken up to the fact that there an be no stable relation with Trump unless India agrees to become a vassal state. You can see this with the terms that Trump offers India. So better to make nice with China who is also under attack by Trump and give mutual support to each other.
Few US strategists foresaw the rapprochement between Russia and China but none had rapprochement between China and India in the cards. If somehow Pakistan enters the mix then the end of the world is nigh.
I wonder if they will really go in though. I seem to remember all sorts of foreign firms going into India, like Samsung, and getting all these massive court ordered fines and penalties that were not really able to be contested in the Indian court system. Will they fall for it again?
Re “Does ChatGPT refer with Names?”
The article was full of the worst kind of intellectual name-dropping and the endnote reads “This paper arose from a sustained philosophical conversation with OpenAI’s GPT-5.”. ‘Nuff said. Pseuds’ Corner….
That last line sounds like a punch line. Anybody remember the 1950 film “Harvey” with James Stewart? It’s the story of a man that had a 6 ft 3+1⁄2 inch tall white invisible rabbit as a friend who was named Harvey. That somehow sounds more benign that arguing philosophy with GPT-5.
“Well, I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it.”
I saw him play in ‘Harvey’ live on stage in London in 1975. Happy days :)
Can Magic 8 Balls Really See the Future?*
by R. U. Kidding, et al.
*This paper arose from a sustained question and answer session with a Magic 8 Ball.
We here in the Homeland are completely “Behind the Magic 8 Ball!” [And we have the “works” to prove it.]
…who Ouija choose?
Wasn’t there a co-author to that paper named I. P. Freely?
Knowing Something Better in Your Bones Working Class Storytelling
I’ve been following Gwen for a while now. Really appreciate her down to earth writing and appreciation for what Wisconsin stood out for, in a political and social sense, until only the past 20 years or so. At least the UW system still exists.
Her post from this morning is poignant and worth a read.
https://substack.com/@gwenfrisbiefulton/note/p-184019869?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7fumy
Minneapolis shooting: Corbin says it in his sub stack and I’ve heard it mentioned a few times elsewhere, that the woman that was killed was a *legal observer*. I spent a couple of years as a legal observer so I can tell you what we do. We go around and talk to the police and get their names and badge numbers the numbers of their cars what equipment they’re using and describe the scene and protest in general terms. The purpose of this is so that if there is an incident that occurs the lawyers have information that they can use to demand information (discovery?) from the police. I was instructed that, in the context of being a legal observer, I shouldn’t participate in the protest in any way. I should not do selfies, hold signs or participate in chants. (In fact, when I did it, I quit participating in protests entirely so as to maintain my detachment.) And having done this 10 years ago in Sacramento I can tell you that even then the police were often hostile, even though I was completely professional.
https://www.nlg.org/massdefenseprogram/los/
So we should ask ourselves, what might she have seen and recorded that would threaten ICE?
Or did ICE Target her specifically because she was a legal observer? Was it to discourage the actions of further legal observers and to destroy the program entirely?
This may explain why she would “panic”.
And this may explain why the investigation has been removed from the local cops.
The fact that she was a legal observer makes this killing much more chilling and it should be analyzed in this context. We should demand to know what she recorded and have more discussion of what it means when a person who is a legal observer, and separate from the actual protest, is gunned down.
This has been very difficult for me, knowing that it was a *legal observer* who was brutally murdered while trying to leave the confrontation, since that’s something I used to do and would still be doing if I was in the US…. I’ve developed IBS over it in fact.
Thank you for this explanation. It would also likely mean that the lady they murdered was filming everything she was observing, I imagine? That might partially explain why the Feds don’t want any local law enforcement involved.
I’m a retired lawyer and served as a legal observer in Baltimore after the police murdered Freddie Gray. Me and my fellow observers were closely surveilled by the police, uniformed and undercover. They made it clear we were considered threats. I walked around with a notebook and a brightly colored hat that identified me as a legal observer. I am sure that they were hoping I would inadvertently break a law so that they would have a pretext to harass/arrest me and tear up my notebook and that possibility was an important part of my training and daily preparation. The police and other agencies monitoring the protests and my role in them were difficult and dangerous, but not like this. We don’t yet know if this victim was acting in her role as a legal observer when she was murdered, but I agree that it should be a legitimate and necessary part of any real investigation. It’s absolutely chilling to me personally.
As I understand it she is alleged to have participated or lead a caravan or individual legal observers in cars that was following ICE around and filming them. Whether these folks were participating (or any of this is true) is beyond my scope. What I do know is that I’ve spoken to a half dozen folks at length in the last couple of days about this issue, generally MAGA/conservative types, and some are horrified but a couple of them take the attitude that the left is out to get us and so might as well start the death squads while “we can”, so to speak. Quite frankly, it’s starting to get ugly and I don’t see a way out of it, only a way through it.
Please see the tweet above. This looks to be entirely allegations from right wing media. Her ex disputes them.
I would have believed it until I saw the footage released this afternoon, which makes it more likely she as involved in a larger caravan/process of filming ICE actions. The deceased partner was acting antagonistically towards ICE, if not baiting them. She also told the deceased to “drive baby drive” when the deceased was ordered out of her car.
That said, it isn’t right, it isn’t justice, and the whole matter is tragic. I was taught to move very cautiously and deliberately around armed men, especially veterans, barking orders. If the ICE cop is truly an Iraqi war vet who experienced “combat”/police actions, was run over by another suspect, and is following IDF training, then we are putting jumpy pit bulls amongst the populace. It is a recipe for disaster. My personal hunch / fear is that this is part of a larger plot to force an issue to a head to allow 47’s admin to start targeting citizens engaging in messy protest and challenging the state with domestic terrorism charges.
Some I have spoken to on the far right – think way beyond Fox but not quite Virginia Dare readers – are still pissed off about what they saw as carte blanche under BLM in the summer of 2020 and are waiting for “their” day. I wish everyone would just chill before we end up with another Ludlow Massacre / Bonus Army on the Mall / 4 Dead in Ohio.
Thanks for this explanation. This looks more and more like organized tyranny, rather than mere violence by law enforcement, systematically aimed at silencing regime opponents and dissidents through extralegal or illegal means. Not surprised that variants of this has been going on before, but whatever mask there was has definitely has been dropped. This has to be stopped by all means necessary solely the reason that this is wrong, unjust, and tyrannical, not because who’s doing it or whom it is directed at.
It’s seems pretty clear that there was a large degree of pre-existing animus towards the victim. The ICE agents get straight out of their SUV without even a pretence of civil behaviour, not a “what’s seems to be the problem, ma’am” or a “please ma’am, we’re going to have to arrest you if you continue to block traffic” but rather, without any preamble, “get out of the car, get out of the f***ing car” immediately followed by an attempt to reach in and try and force open her door. Is that supposed to be proper police procedure ?
Her ex-husband just tweeted that she was not an activist.
I have read only a few claims that Good was a legal observer.
But DHS is smearing her and the right wing press is dutifully amplifying. Remember, “activist” = Satan to hard core conservatives:
Well, if it turns out that she wan’t even an activist who was already known to the agents but rather someone who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time then it just makes the ICE agents’ apparent belligerence seem even more inexcusable.
Ryan Grim has now posted bodycam footage from the shooter to Twitter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer much clarity as to what precisely happened seeing that the camera isn’t pointed in the right direction at the critical moments. However, it does show a clear hostility between the two parties that suggests this wasn’t simply a random encounter.
A big unsolved question is why her vehicle was in the road in the first place. Was she blockading or was she stopped earlier for a different reason?
I ask this because an ICE
SUV is ahead of her own car, and the shooting officer seemingly came from that SUV.
The videos only show a minute leading up to the shooting. What is clear is the woman was fleeing for her life, a very sensible thing. I read the story of the man who was detained in Chicago and had ribs broken, after which my policy was run from ICE no matter what.
The officer made a choice in jumping ahead of the SUV when it was reversing. He had a chance to step to the side. Technically, yes, another video from another angle shows the officer being hit by the car as she was fleeing.
Its all of the circumstances and they look very disturbing.
The implications of the Portland shooting are even more disturbing.
I have to disagree with the idea that the video from the alternative angle shows that the officer was hit by the car. Rather, being so low-quality and taken from so far away, it offers reasonable doubt, but only in a world where the much more clear-cut cell phone footage doesn’t exist.
We have put up several videos breaking this down.
1. She was not blocking the road. Cars were passing in front of her. One broadcast (which had gotten footage before the shooting started) said she was letting other cars leave the area before she did. She was not obstructing anything and ICE accordingly has not attempted to pin that on her.
2. A second by second breakdown showed that indeed even with the agent that shot her being by the front headlight of her vehicle, her turn would have cleared him even with him moving a bit into her path. And he could have moved the other way.
One wonders how much more blatant lying, propagandizing and worse we can take, as the powers that be call their actions good, while hiding behind the outskirts of the FBI.
It was Occupy for me. I was co-counsel with the ACLU and a member of the NLG, and did LO duty with both. We wore the neon green ballcaps, and employed A/V, phones and even a drone. The police in my town maintained contact fairly well (the city police were non-parties to litigation), and were educated fairly well regarding our function, so I did not personally encounter much hostility with police (aside from isolated instances involving ignorant goons).
I did not see any footage or photos that showed me that the victim was wearing indications of her LO status, but I presently do not believe that would have made a difference here, since the killing was plainly murder. If she was adorned with LO signifiers, worse, but the whole thing is chilling regardless.
@Expat2uruguay & @BrianH: I am in complete agreement. I resigned my license after this shindig (after 20 years).
Oh, one more thing. If she was an LO and acting properly as such, then by definition, and by contract, she was not an activist re: that incident.
> US oil groups warn they will need guarantees to invest in Venezuela FT. The money quote: ‘“No one wants to go in there when a random fucking tweet can change the entire foreign policy of the country,” said one private equity investor who specialises in energy.’
2010: Money is Speech. 2011: Corporations are People. The practical redefinition of Liberal as Open Borders meant that as labor flowed to where work was and began to organize, capital could be withdrawn with a much smaller lag time, and relocate in a global marketplace. The other day I responded to The Rev Kev with
> Hypersonic is slow compared to Capital Flight.
In 2015, Qiao Liang wrote:
> [China] thinks that Washington will not fight Beijing for the next ten years… This means that Americans may schedule a war for ten years later. While war may still not happen in a decade, we must be prepared for it.
As of the new year, we’ve hit the shelf life on this statement. He was particular on the Unrestricted Warfare implications:
> As long as the [x] does not want a particular place to have capital, a missile can get there in … minutes. And when the missile goes down, capital can be still quietly and nicely withdrawn.
What has changed since he wrote this is the doubling of global internet connectivity, and the enormous groaf in social media influence. The money quote expresses this. Capital can move faster than labor, but opinion now moves faster than capital, and with it changes in value.
* * *
Qiao Liang: limesonline.com/en/regions/one-belt-one-road-14720766/
Open borders: J Kennan – Review of Economic Dynamics, 2013
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-health/
and
https://openai.com/index/openai-for-healthcare/
both announced this week.
mmm. no. just no no no no.
I know I have a history of , shall we say, trying to show the positives around gen AI.
but… a step too far even for me. I’ll stick to either lower consequence or instantly verifiable output.
I’ll drop the links in here and gently slink away with apologies for raised blood pressure.
This is about as far from William Osler as one can get. Serious concerns are being raised about newly minted physicians and physicians in training being unable to manage patient contact and diagnosis without access to ai. This ignores the role of deep, well trained observation and interviewing as well as labs, imaging and other procedures in the diagnostic process. Also, ignores the atrocious role of AI in mental health care via AI wherein the vulnerable have been coached to suicide. It is a long, slow, intense process to train capable physicians – the above is simply the hubris of AI.
I think OpenAI is genuinely honest about the objectives of its new service offering:
“to help you feel more informed, prepared, and confident navigating your health.”
It is not to “make you more informed, etc“, or to “help you get more informed, etc”, it is only, and very openly, to bring some fuzzy feeling to the customers of ChatGPT Health. You may well get actually less correctly informed and in fact less well-prepared, but if you feel you are more “confident navigating your health” (whatever that means), then ChatGPT Health will have provided exactly what it promises: there is no deceptive advertising in this blurb.
Just in the past 2 days…….
A gentleman comes into my office. 72 year old male. He has been on Enbrel ( an immunomodulating drug ) for about 10 years for a rather severe case of an autoimmune condition. It has worked. But good internists ALWAYS keep in mind that drug and others like it can cause all kinds of havoc with infectious diseases.
He was admitted to a hospital in a different state during Thanksgiving while visiting his family. He had pneumonia. Again this is a red alert for someone on Enbrel in that the course is almost always very different for them compared to someone who is immunocompetent.
He was there in that hospital for 3 days in the ICU than another 7 days in the hospital. His wife thought it would be a good idea to slowly drive back home in their RV. 30-50 miles a day. He has not been hospital level sick – but has been having an increasingly severe cough for the past 2 weeks.
He and the wife have been asking the AI every day during their travels for the past 2 weeks if these symptoms were normal after a pneumonia………( as an internist with 35 years and many patients on these drugs, the answer is no, this is not normal)……the AI dutifully doled out the medical advice every day that he is OK – just keep on keeping on.
They got home WED, came to see me yesterday AM. One look from my internist eyes with 35 years’ experience knew instantly that he was not well. He had “the look”. BP was very low at 85 systolic. A CT revealed multiple pulmonary abscesses in his chest. He is now in the ICU here fighting for his life…..at best he will need chest tubes and surgery. He is quite possibly not going to make it.
Folks, just do not do this. These programs are not ready for prime time – no matter what Zeke Emanuel says ( Zeke said yesterday that AI will be taking over all primary care in the next few years).
I do wonder what the medical malpractice ( for that is what the above is, if it had been given by a licensed MD) is for these companies and how we are ever going to find out. Why on earth are they being allowed to give out medical advice in the first place?
I am not OK with this whole situation.
Zeke is known for his “Why I hope to die at 75” 2014 article.
One can hope your patient lives to reach the Zekian limit.
Thanks for this. It’s terrible to contemplate an ai managed care plan, and stories like this speak exactly to that terror.
Thank you, IM Doc, for your continued high-quality comments.
As far as medical malpractice, I would imagine that some suits will happen, and at least one will result in a high dollar amount in damages awarded to the plaintiff(s). And then, every AI query involving medical advice will have small print legalese appended to the results to the effect of “this is not medical advice, please seek an actual physician,” which will then get ignored.
People will always do stupid things. I hope your patient makes it.
“On the lamb: 50 sheep break away from flock and storm German supermarket”
Witnesses report that they rampaged throughout that supermarket – until they reached the butcher’s section. Apparently the sight of the trays of lamb cutlets was just too much for them.
Sturmschaf.
…sheep thrills
Elia Ayoub. An elder is someone who is older than an olive tree.
Highly recommended. Lyrical. Elegiac, because it has to be. Ayoub chooses his words with care, each one as deliberate as a leaf on an olive tree.
To wit:
They have declared olive trees independent from their inconvenient roots. So many olive trees, inconvenient olive trees with inconvenient roots in an inconvenient land that was cared for by our inconvenient, non-existent grandparents.
Why do they hurt olive trees?
My friend, the brilliant artist F., who lives in Roma, taught me that we are people of the olive tree. For Italians, Beirut isn’t faraway, let alone the great countries of olive trees like Greece, Cyprus, Tunisia, and even France.
It is a kind of communion, eating olive oil, or savoring the many varieties of olives — green, purple, black — put up in brine or in olive oil. Even here in Torino, where olives don’t grow well, olive trees are in planters on balconies and on the terraces of caffès. There is something about them, even captured in a planter, that still manifests their dignity.
It is no wonder, then, why there were major demonstrations in Sicily to help to launch the Global Sumud Flotilla. Sicily is more than inconvenient, yet the olive oil from there is excellent. It isn’t far from Siracusa to Crete or Beirut or Haifa.
This show, long term, peripatetic, is worth your consideration.
https://segnonline.it/khalil-rabah-alla-fondazione-merz-di-torino/
Note the olive trees. They do well in a work of art.
One can see why Israelis can’t stand olive trees. But that is the Israelis’ problem, even if it is hard to forget the images of that Israeli murderer attacking the old woman in her olive grove and the journalist Jasper Nathaniel.
Yet is anyone older than an olive tree? I tend to doubt it. They are timeless, and we are their ungrateful children.
Thank you for this comment DJG.
Olive wood is unique in carpentry with its wonderful grain patterns and color, but cutting down a bearing, healthy olive tree for lumber is a sin. IMO to cut down such trees for no useful purpose at all is beyond redemption. May they be treated as they have treated others.
Thank you, DJG, for your praise of the most beautiful Ayoub piece and for your evocation of the olive tree.
I have a faint but very fond memory of a Greek Orthodox encomium that declares, ecstatically, that the holiness of an icon derives not from the image painted on it but from the qualities of the olive wood it is made from.
(St. John Chrystostom?)
“Venezuela frees ‘large number’ of prisoners after Maduro abduction”
Not sure what sort of reception that those heroes will receive. The other day they were interviewing this Venezuelan guy in the streets and who sardonically thanked all those people that were demanding a US intervention. That after 200 years as a country, that they were now being turned into a US colony.
I’ve seen people joking that Trump succeeded where both Chavez and Maduro failed; he destroyed the Venezuelan opposition – Venezuelans who dislike Maduro now dislike USA/Trump way much more.
I assume this is a gesture by the government to build national unity and show that when the push comes to shove “we’re all Venezuelans”.
Re: Fannie and Freddie being ordered to buy MBS
I am interested in what some of the brain trust here thinks. Not trying to create homework – just looking for off the cuff thoughts. And to check my math.
Mine is that, using 2020 as an example, the Fed was buying $40B of MBS a month during the pandemic. That was after the initial panic in March 2020, when they were probably buying that much every day for a week or two.
So $200B isn’t chump change, but it is equivalent to about 5 months of QE during the Fed’s most recent buying spree. Enough to give a short-lived boost to the mortgage market and drop rates by maybe a half a percentage point.
Knowing Taco, he’ll want to do shock-and-awe and blow the entire wad in one month, maybe right around March to jack the spring selling season.
My cocktail napkin says it won’t make any sort of longer-term difference. I have little idea on what the second-order effects might be. Crowding out other bond investors, and distorting markets with a short-lived spike seems likely.
Addendum: Wolf Richter seems to think that Trump is going to have to borrow the $200B by issuing Treasury debt:
https://wolfstreet.com/2026/01/08/fed-balance-sheet-drops-by-67-billion-for-the-week-standing-repo-facility-75-billion-to-zero-reserve-management-purchases-8-billion/#comment-666697
Wolf is a smart guy and I doubt him at my peril, but wouldn’t this require Congressional appropriation?
I suspect Trump will try to do some balance sheet games, i.e. financial engineering. Fannie and Freddie might not have $200B in cash but they could shift some things around to make it look like they do. And there is supposedly an IPO of Fannie and Freddie coming up soon … maybe the idea is to raise the money from investors and then buy the MBS? I’m out over my skis now.
More sleuthing: (I apologize in advance, I am feeling like Captain Ahab now)
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FNMA/fannie-mae/cash-on-hand?utm_source=copilot.com
Fannie Mae cash in hand was around $174B at end of 2024 … that doesn’t include Freddie Mac. So it sounds at least plausible that Trump plans to raid all that cash and deploy it to buy MBS.
And just what will Freddie and Fannie do with the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia after they acquire him?
Ha ha ha – by MBS I meant “mortgage backed securities” not the ruler of Saudi Arabia.
Maybe a bit more background is in order on Iran International (“millions pour into streets”) beyond being based in the UK.
Here’s Craig Murray last May:
Curious that this is now the source for reports on millions taking to the streets to demand the restoration of the Pahlavis. I think this probably deserves some digging and the rest of the article is interesting if anyone cares to have a go….
And now Shah’s son starts getting media attention. This Color Revolution (r) is the Peacock Revolution.
Iran’s exiled crown prince rises as a figure in protests, decades after leaving his homeland AP
Center for American Progress has loved Pahlavi for years.
Of course Iranians are going to have to ignore Pahlavi’s visits to Israel and being best buds with Bibi. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
Original innovation, not to be confused with an innovation that is a copy and hence not called innovation at all.
re: Germany
Ha!
Jacob Schrot (*1990), Merz´ nimwit head of the Chancellory and member of the re-founded German NSC, nothing less, who had come into politics via a 2009 TV casting show titled “I can Chancellor”, who most likely has the intellectual level of a high schooler, has been fired.
This won´t change anything. But it was a scandal that this moron was so high up. Hollowing out not only the visible parts of government which are worthless by design already but the invisible too, which so far at least had experience enough to not blow up the world.
German Wiki:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schrot
Re: Minneapolis
Im here in south Minneapolis a couple miles from Portland Ave and 33rd where Renee Good was killed. This whole ordeal feels like a series of provocations.
First, the somali fraud scandal goes nationwide (why this? why now? why a national story?) and culminates in significant weakening of Governor Walz.
Then the deployment of 2,000 ICE in an aggressive, highly visible, and confrontational campaign that seems to make bad/volatile community confrontations highly likely.
One such confrontation results in the shooting death of local mother-of-three Renee Good.
Followed by immediate provocative comments from Noam/Vance/Trump/etc.
Followed by the Feds (FBI) pushing the state/locals out of the investigation.
Followed by more aggressive raids instead of, say, some kind of de-escalation or cooling off period.
Finally, this note in the recent NYT interview “And Mr. Trump, who said he was elected to restore law and order, reiterated that he was willing to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military inside the United States and federalize some National Guard units if he felt it was important to do so.”
Seems like this is heading in a certain direction…
The regime are doing all they can to make enough trouble to get an excuse to cancel the next election. It hasn’t yet been a year since Trump 2.0 began. Will the ride get bumpier? I think so.
So Corbin Trent’s screed sounds like democrat boiler plate. I looked at his bio and he was a justice democrat and Bernie supporter. I supported Bernie 2016 and 2020
For the 2020 contest I put together a south central Kentuckians for Bernie meeting at the Lost river cave meeting room in Bowling Green, Ky(Hank Linderman that comments on this site was there). 3 days later the Pandemic hit and then the democrats knee capped Bernie. It seems like Mr. Trent is still expecting the democrats to save us. Not gonna happen.
Kristi Noem has explicitly stated that photographing ICE agents or impeding them in any way is an act of “Domestic Terrorism”.
Viewed in that light what happened in Minnesota was a Federal Agent neutralizing a Domestic Terrorist, not the cold blooded murder of an unarmed woman trying to escape a kidnapping.
“The Republic is threatened by enemies from within and without as never before”, and firm steps must be taken to preserve public order.
I’m sure that we can trust Kash Patel’s FBI investigator’s to come to the right conclusion…if they want to keep their jobs.
While TV prices have fallen to nearly nothing, costs likely haven’t fallen by nearly as much as the Construction Physics article implies. Manufacturers are making bank selling remote control button presets and harvesting smart TV data – revenue sources that didn’t exist 25 years ago. So they’re more than willing to sell the devices for next to nothing. Would be interesting to know how much production costs have declined from the manufacturing efficiencies cited in the article.
Marijuana prices have tumbled in tandem with TV sets, an ounce of herb used to cost as much an ounce of all that glitters once upon a time around the turn of the century~
You can now purchase an ounce of everyday schwag for fifty bucks in Cali, even cheaper in Oregon.
It’s never been a cheaper time to be a couch baked potato
Try picking up a modern 32 inch flat screen TV versus the wood enclosed console model from the pre digital age and you’ll get some inkling of why the cost difference.
And streaming TVs are a more recent phenomenon than the advent of LCD panels and yet the cost plunge has been ongoing since the arrival of the latter. I doubt spybotting has much to do with the price.
In the going along nicely Bizarro World mutual collapses of the USSR and USA, the Soviet Ruble was in theory worth a buck fifty, but not really worth anything, as nobody wanted them in the west.
Convertible in the Soviet Bloc party only, whose currencies suffered an equal fate, as in unwanted in the west.
Yugoslavia was different being on the outside looking in, and whereas exchange rates were nowhere near as close as you’d find at a for-ex place on the street in Paris, at least the currency was a little desirable.
We have a madman for a leader, and sadly the almighty buck is gonna suffer gravely for his singe.
Will roles be reversed and in a few years time, nobody wants anything to do with us, as the fiat lady sings?
RE: Marshall Island UBI. I lived in the Federated States of Micronesia for 2.5 years 15 years ago and can confirm that the background information is accurate. FSM funds most, if not all, government agencies (schools, the government itself, police, health care (!) ) via the Compact of Free Association. There is no economy to speak of. While no official numbers are forthcoming, the unemployment rate (when I was there) hovered around 70%. Not a typo, 70 per cent. Oddly, most people do not need to work, they can live off the land if they need to. The island I was on, Ponape, was considered 100% below the US poverty line, so every student enrolled in the College of Micronesia paid tuition with Pell grants. Strangely, the tuition was set a few hundred dollars below the Pell grant, the rest usually getting kicked up to the student’s parents.
I think our only way out of this mess is to somehow have DT Barnum admit he was wrong on something, sure it’d be a mess to clean up as he spontaneously combusts (some say the greatest of its kind) but it’ll clear the decks for maybe even a more odious toadie, all of the sudden elevated.
orange man and the next ten morons in the line of succession could stroke out today(or be eaten by sharks, but thats just my mental porn speaking) and nothing would change.
its the people behind the people we see.
only way to hurt them is to, en masse, stop buying their crap, stop using their “services”, and essentially shut the whole global economy down.
and we…meaning the global super duper majority who aint them..havent the cohesion, nor the shared worldview, to even begin such a project.