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Clippings for January 20, 2026

Clippings for January 20, 2026

Clippings for January 19, 2026

  • DOJ says won’t investigate ICE agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good

    US Justice Department says no to probing the ICE agent, despite public outrage over Renee Good’s shooting in Minnesota.

  • Trump links Greenland dispute to not getting Nobel Peace Prize

    The US president says he no longer feels obliged to think only of peace, after not being awarded the annual prize.

    This isn’t how Nobel prizes work (they are not determined by the government or the people of Norway, never mind Denmark). But that hardly matters, does it? As Paul Kafasis notes, there’s a reason the 25th Amendment exists.

  • US believes its power matters more than international law, UN chief António Guterres tells BBC

    António Guterres says Washington’s “clear conviction” is that multilateral solutions are irrelevant.

  • Billionaires have more money and political power than ever, Oxfam says

    Charity says superrich 4,000 times more likely to hold political power than others and own all social media companies.

    Oxfam also estimated that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than common citizens and cited a World Values Survey of 66 countries, which found that almost half of all people polled say the rich often buy elections in their country.

    Oxfam also noted that there were 142 significant antigovernment protests across 68 countries last year, which it said authorities typically met with violence. “Governments are making wrong choices to pander to the elite and defend wealth while repressing people’s rights and anger at how so many of their lives are becoming unaffordable and unbearable,” Behar said.

  • Around 1,500 soldiers on standby for deployment to Minneapolis, reports say

    The troops are an option should Donald Trump decide to use them to quell anti-ICE protests in the city, an official tells CBS News.

    In a Sunday interview on CBS Face the Nation, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned Trump’s threat to send more troops into the city, saying the existing presence of federal ICE agents is already an “occupying force that has quite literally invaded our city”. “You can go through whatever rhetorical flourish you want, but when you have 3,000 ICE agents and border control come to the city, when you’ve got this supposed threat of 1,500 military coming to the city, yeah, that’s very much what it feels like,” Frey said.

Clippings for January 18, 2026

  • Red-state Republicans seek climate ‘liability shield’ for fossil fuel industry

    If enacted, Utah and Oklahoma measures would restrict litigation against oil companies over role in climate crisis

    Big oil is not the only industry seeking limits on legal accountability. Pharmaceutical giants have pushed state and federal lawmakers to block some pesticide-focused lawsuits, successfully lobbying for such measures in Georgia and North Dakota. More recently, lawmakers attempted – but failed – to weaken pesticide regulations via a national bill. Tech companies have also raised concerns about lawsuits over harms linked to artificial intelligence, prompting federal and state proposals – including in Colorado and Texas – that would shield companies from certain civil claims.Attempts from the oil industry to skirt liability are “expressions of fear”, said Inslee.

  • Microplastics are undermining the ocean’s power to absorb carbon

    Tiny plastic particles drifting through the oceans may be quietly weakening one of Earth’s most powerful climate defenses. New research suggests microplastics are disrupting marine life that helps oceans absorb carbon dioxide, while also releasing greenhouse gases as they break down. By interfering with plankton, microbes, and natural carbon cycles, these pollutants reduce the ocean’s ability to regulate global temperatures.

    The authors stress that plastic pollution and climate change must be addressed together. “In this way, the effects of climate change could be lessened by taking appropriate action to slow down the production of microplastics,” they state.

  • Homeland Empire • EQUATOR

    From Venezuela to Minnesota, Trump is trying to create a borderless American power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic into a single domain of impunity

    Violence is not power. Dominance without hegemony is dangerous, but fragile. Democratic ferment, unlike kinetic action, tends to be slow, until it isn’t. The political opposition desperately needs trustworthy leadership and organisation, but it is anything but timorous. As we already see, it will take many people willing to risk being on the other side of terrible violence. But in a waning American age, the struggle to defeat the Homeland Empire can also teach us to finally see the horizons of a world shared in common.

  • Conservative Influencer Chased From Minneapolis Streets by Counterprotesters

    A protest at City Hall was organized by a conservative influencer to draw attention to a fraud scandal in the state. He was chased by counterprotesters lobbing water balloons in frigid temperatures.

  • $1 Billion in Cash Buys a Permanent Seat on Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’

    The board was originally conceived to oversee the rebuilding of Gaza, but its charter does not mention the Palestinian enclave, suggesting a possibly broader mandate.

  • She protested at Stephen Miller’s home. Now police are investigating.

    Barbara Wien, a retired peace studies professor, believes she was confronting a threat to her community with her protest of Stephen Miller. Some say she’s the danger.

Clippings for January 17, 2026

  • Dispatch from the occupation

    What life is like in Minneapolis now

    As a large, public Minneapolis high school was dismissing students for the day, two teachers parked in front of the school were violently extracted from their cars and abducted by ICE officers. No warrants were presented; no documents requested or checked. Both abducted teachers were US citizens. Students observing the abductions were assaulted with pepper spray by the federal officers, with some fleeing to shelter in the public library across the street. In response, Minneapolis public schools canceled classes for two days and subsequently went to a hybrid attendance option ─ because, as they told parents in an email, they did not feel they could keep their students safe. This is our federal government terrorizing its citizens.

    During a subsequent hybrid class in the same school ─ with mostly White students in the classroom and mostly students of color online ─ an online student’s apartment building was raided by federal officers. The teacher had to stop class to support the affected student, who was rightfully terrified. Class was interrupted for the day as students texted or called their families for support. None of our students feel psychologically safe; learning has all but come to a halt. This is our federal government terrorizing its citizens.

    A man walking his child to the school bus stop in the morning was abducted by federal officers. A child was left abandoned and terrified on the street. This is our federal government terrorizing its citizens.

  • Medical examiner likely to classify death of ICE detainee as homicide, recorded call says

    A fellow detainee says he witnessed Geraldo Lunas Campos being choked to death by guards at the ICE detention center in Texas on Jan. 3.

  • ‘Unconstitutional conspiracy’: Judge slams Trump administration over targeted deportations

    A Reagan appointee pointedly rebuked decisions by Trump, Rubio and Noem.

  • Judge Restricts Immigration Agents’ Actions Toward Minnesota Protesters

    A federal judge ordered agents not to retaliate against people “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” in the state and not to stop drivers who are not “forcibly obstructing” officers.

This household has had to fight off something right up to the end of the year. Good riddance 2025, except for every moment The Childe has grown up through and past… too fast.

Today I have a family gathering but it may also need to be a day for de-conflicting local git repositories and iCloud and some dumb things that happened by accident with 2 laptops in play. It is helpful to have a project to go heads-down on, separate from both local and remote obligations.

Remember when end-of-year emails from your services were novel and useful? Yeah, I’m not sure I do either…

The original machination.org was kind of a relentless real time (as soon as I consumed something and gave it some sort of credence in my mind) link log. The post yesterday was a more emblematic of a later stage, a slightly more sanely paced round-up. Thought about doing it again today. No. I’ve got other stuff I need to do. I was pushing through being sick and hanging the noose of the world’s news as seen by me around my neck isn’t going to help. Maybe intermittent long links, Tim Bray style. The things that stick with me and why and how, that don’t seem too redundant to what has stuck in the zeitgeist. If I can keep a good habit.

But what a wild headline ride this last day, huh? Definitely worth getting off and stepping back for a moment, at least.

What a horrible habit, reading the news

This is a sample of headlines from the past day. This is what the initial version of Machination.org looked like during President George W. Bush’s term. The tagline was “devices of trade and war.” It gained some traction among a subset of other like-driven link loggers during those early days. Eventually I couldn’t keep up with the pace I had set and didn’t foresee (or desire) how to monetize this habit.

I had day jobs, a life, and started seeing other professional publications and blogs, even Harper’s Weekly Review email that were doing it faster and better than I was.

Then, RSS and Twitter really eliminated this… this… act of OCD-as-calling-for-others’-focus, for me. It seemed like everyone who would, could see what I saw just as fast.

But I still do this in my head as I scan the news, actively seeking out multiple news sources through various direct access methods, social media, and other mechanisms. I imagine many of us do.

The Indian Health Service Is Flagging Vaccine-Related Speech. Doctors Say They’re Being Censored.

Officials have deemed terms like “immunizations” and “vaccines” risky “buzzwords” that require approval to be used in social media posts, pamphlets and presentations.

They’re really throwing a blanket on things, huh?

Trump calls Democrat video to troops ‘seditious behaviour, punishable by death’ Trump calls for Democratic lawmakers to face trial for ‘seditious behavior’

The six Democrats later panned Trump’s reaction, writing in a joint statement that “no threat, intimidation, or call for violence” would deter them from defending the Constitution.

“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law,” they said. “Our servicemembers should know that we have their backs as they fulfill their oath to the Constitution and obligation to follow only lawful orders. It is not only the right thing to do, but also our duty.”

Gmail can read your emails and attachments to train its AI, unless you opt out

If you use Gmail, you need to be aware of an important change that’s quietly rolling out. Reportedly, Google has recently started automatically opting users in to allow Gmail to access all private messages and attachments for training its AI models. This means your emails could be analyzed to improve Google’s AI assistants, like Smart Compose or AI-generated replies. Unless you decide to take action.

Home Prices on a Warming Planet

Violent ‘storms’ hidden under Antarctica’s ice could be speeding its decline “When ice freezes and melts, it creates vortices that drag warmer waters from the depths to the surface, where they eat away at the continent’s rapidly degrading ice shelves.”

More than 250 arrested in Charlotte as immigration crackdown escalates

Charlotte is the latest US city that Trump has targeted with federal troops, following similar measures in bigger cities like Chicago and Los Angeles earlier this year. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told the BBC that those arrested are criminals and gang members.

But local lawmakers and residents have railed against the detainments, which the federal government has dubbed “Operation Charlotte’s Web”. The state’s Democratic governor has alleged people are being targeted because of their race.

In a statement released on Wednesday, a DHS spokesperson said the operation has led to the arrest of “some of the most dangerous criminal illegal aliens”, including gang members.

…

“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin colour, racially profiling and picking up random people in parking lots,” Stein said on Sunday. “This is not making us safer.”

Border Patrol leaving Charlotte, sheriff and local officials say

Masked federal agents in paramilitary gear worked out of large SUVs arresting people, prompting businesses to close, especially in east Charlotte, and families to keep children out of school. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said over 370 people have been arrested in the Charlotte area as of Thursday. DHS has declined to provide many details, and would not release the names or information on most of the people arrested or taken. It remained unclear what has happened to them. Federal agents targeted grocery stores, churches, and residential areas. At night, they flew drones. Throughout the week, agents faced opposition from protesters and community activists who tracked their movements and blew whistles to alert people to their presence, shouted in their faces, and filmed them.

Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country “A massive cache of Flock lookups collated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shows as many as 50 federal, state, and local agencies used Flock during protests over the last year.” See also: How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists

Grand jury investigating potential misconduct in probes of Trump critics “You guys are like the Keystone Cops,” Bish said she told the investigators. “You’re investigating each other.”

“Shitshow:” Greg Bovino’s Zero Success Rate

Bovino, I noted, was batting just 9% on his claims that protestors had engaged in violence.

Well, yesterday, the case of Dana Briggs, a 70-year old Air Force veteran charged with assault when he fell as officers were pushing him back, was dismissed too. He had planned to call Bovino as a witness at his December trial. Bovino’s success rate at substantiating his claim there were any rioters from that day is now zero.

“We’re Broken”: As Federal Prisons Run Low on Food and Toilet Paper, Corrections Officers Are Leaving in Droves for ICE

Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with ‘suspicious’ travel patterns

The predictive intelligence program has resulted in people being stopped, searched and in some cases arrested. A network of cameras scans and records vehicle license plate information, and an algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Federal agents in turn may then flag local law enforcement.

Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view. They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.

Once limited to policing the nation’s boundaries, the Border Patrol has built a surveillance system stretching into the country’s interior that can monitor ordinary Americans’ daily actions and connections for anomalies instead of simply targeting wanted suspects. Started about a decade ago to fight illegal border-related activities and the trafficking of both drugs and people, it has expanded over the past five years.

“U.S. District Judge (ruled) that the federal government’s deployment of National Guard troops to the District is illegal.” FREE D.C.

Nursing Excluded as ‘Professional’ Degree By Department of Education We wouldn’t want any professional nurses, now, would we? And we certainly don’t want to smooth out access to bolster a flagging workforce. This is how much Trump hates his own voters.

New US rules say countries with diversity policies are infringing human rights

How a French judge was digitally cut off by the USA “The reason for the US sanctions are the arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They were indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the context of the destruction of the Gaza Strip.”

CAIR sues Texas governor over ‘unconstitutional’ terror designation

“The lawsuit we have filed today is our first step towards defeating Governor Abbott again so that our nation protects free speech and due process for all Americans,” Masri said. “No civil rights organisations are safe if a governor can baselessly and unilaterally declare any of them terrorist groups, ban them from buying land, and threaten them with closure,” she said.

When a shield becomes a shackle

Today’s Cloudflare outage illuminates another infrastructure dependency we’ve sleepwalked into: defensive consolidation. Sites adopt Cloudflare not for performance but survival, protection from the automated scraping that feeds AI systems and other bots that now dwarf human traffic.

In defending against automated consumption, most hand control to intermediaries. When Cloudflare stumbled this morning, some sites that delegated DNS entirely couldn’t even disable Cloudflare to restore access. The protection became a jail.

Once again, this isn’t inherently about Cloudflare.

It’s about thoughtful defense architecture versus reactive adoption. The question isn’t only whether to use these services but how to use them while retaining agency.

Before reaching for the CDN, consider the actual threat. Is it sustained abuse or periodic spikes? Are you conflating high traffic with hostile traffic? A statically generated site, if otherwise practical, might simply weather the storm. Rate limiting at your application layer might suffice. Sometimes vertical scaling costs less than the complexity you’re adding (Cloudflare makes it free or cheap for small endeavors, so once again it depends on how you value things and what you can afford).

When you do need stronger defenses, maintain your exits. Keep authoritative DNS separate from your CDN provider. Use CNAMEs, not full delegation. It is too easy to hand over the DNS keys, especially for a simple web site, but this is like a reverse mortgage on your house. Maintain an origin subdomain for direct access. Document your configuration outside your provider’s walled garden. _Test your ability to redirect traffic _ away from your protector.

I’ve found a lot of the kinds of efforts I’ve worked with can get by with fairly humble technical solutions, and commodified technical solutions can do well by them (I worked on, and owned the end-of-life of a platform that was essentially commodified). It still requires having a person on hand who understands what is being paid for and can take ownership of different circumstances that arise, adapt, and when surprised, learn and iterate.

At the very least, consider whether solutions for immediate problems are worth ceding control. In some cases, sure. But if you didn’t even have the resources on hand to intentionally make the choices and if the results caused unexpected pain, start looking for resources that understand the Internet, value lean and independent development, and are interested in what you do and what you need and can interrogate you and the technologies within reach to find an informed and suitable match.

Did I mention that I am, like everyone, looking for new work?

Gardens vs. giveaways

So much more vision than in D.C.

A relatively low-effort, certainly less expensive, high-impact community-centric and green way to re-use a stadium site. Certainly better than what D.C. is actually going for now.

Moot now, anyway, as the old RFK stadium was being taken down before the options going forward were finalized and the Commanders deal reached. There was an option for the site without a publicly subsidized NFL stadium.

Instead, I guess we have RFK Jr. (or Trump!?) stadium to look forward to… and compromised, commercialized environment around it.

The best way we can honor service members is to send the National Guard home

There isn’t an obvious public link to this specific message, sent out on Free DC’s list, though their site has plenty of their digital campaign materials about this and other issues they advocate for. I thought it was excellent though. Once again, I think of my passed grandfather, Battle of the Bulge veteran, Republican, who I know would find this use of the military offensive.

I’ve reproduced the core of the email I received, including their emphasis and links (minus ActionNetwork’s redirects):

Armed soldiers don’t belong in our communities. The National Guard isn’t supposed to police American civilians. They are not supposed to chase down children, intimidate people on the street, harass residents for simply being outside, or be used as props in Shake Shack photo-ops.

Trump is trying to make the National Guard do all these things here in DC as well as in Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles, and Portland. Guard members themselves are increasingly fed up with it.

Yesterday we learned that National Guard members are increasingly questioning their role in Trump’s agenda of occupation and deportation.

“This is just not what any of us signed up for, and it’s so out of the scope of normal operations,” said J, a member of the Ohio National Guard who spoke on condition of anonymity. "[Y]ou want me to go pick up trash and dissuade homeless people in D.C. at gunpoint. Like, no dude."

J isn’t alone. In September, leaked documents revealed that the Guard knows its occupation of American cities is “leveraging fear,” driving a “wedge between citizens and the military,” and promoting a sense of “shame” among some troops and veterans. That’s not what service members deserve.

This Veterans Day, the best way we can honor service members is to send the National Guard home. These deployments are unsafe, unlawful, inappropriate, and a waste of public funds. Our demand remains: National Guard Out Now.

Dick Cheney’s death should be a reminder that we must fix the process of politics whatever content we would advocate for. Cheney is, as much as anyone else, the godfather of Donald Trump. As Jonah Goldberg put it, Trump is kind of his “Frankenstein’s Monster.”