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Today, we ride (because they're making D.C. shitty again)

Admittedly, many things have improved during Mayor Bowser’s terms (it seems like so much after so much pressure, and so many failings due to mealy-mouthed language and corporate capture, and a heavy sprinkling of Vichy inspo).

Regardless, Donnie J.T. and his cult are insistent on making D.C. shitty again: from reckless, malicious downsizing as opposed to reform, to an ongoing, expensive, legally dubious occupation of our streets by National Guard troops, to effectively stealing 1 billion dollars in local District taxes, to dictating sweeping changes from his myopic cataract-laden view through the highly refracting window of “The Beast."

Which, currently, means, ripping out the 15th Street NW Protected Bike Lanes (in the midst of the Cherry Blossom festival, which needs to manage teeming masses of pedestrians and cyclists alongside vehicles safely).

So, today, we ride.

Fuck this stupid war

A friend of ours is active duty Air Force. He got deployed to Qatar for a tour last spring instead of his usual stateside assignment. He’s there now. The base he’s at was one of the first places Iran hit after our attack. My spouse just texted to tell me she saw his wife and daughter arriving at school after very obviously crying together.

I mean it isn’t the same as the families that lost someone already, and we don’t know what it was about, but this is a buttoned-down military family who believes in this kind of service (in a way that, frankly, I do not) and it’s fucking shit that they’re exploited in this way and pushed to the edge in this way.

Zero regrets having fallen asleep in the process of getting the kiddo to sleep rather than my intention of enduring the Putin-esque nearly hours-long fictitious free styling of Donald Trump. However, there is a now a flat beer as a casualty.

I imagine the Board of Peace being kind of like Dragon’s Den/Shark Tank/The Apprentice. Just dumber, crasser, and if we exclude the launching power of The Apprentice in even given Trump visibility, more negatively impactful on the world.

Clippings for January 27, 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 AntĂłnio Guterres tells BBC

    AntĂłnio 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…