We will protect our home
This photograph was posted by Radley Balko in his amazingly comprehensive round-up post of February 3rd. He called it "Too Much Ice", and of course, the overwhelming content is about ICE's rampage, particularly in Minneapolis, but there's a bunch of other things, too, including the weather.
I thought I'd try to post this while I'm not watching the State of the Union speech. I'm sure the snippets in the morning will be less stressful. Trying not to think about Iran.
"Most Conservative Students Don't Feel Persecuted on Campus: A new survey of college students contradicts Republican rhetoric that campus culture is hostile to right-wing views. Despite widespread political rhetoric claiming that colleges suppress conservative viewpoints, new data shows that most college students feel free to express themselves regardless of their political affiliation. According to a report that Gallup and the Lumina Foundation published today, just 2 percent of all college students—including 3 percent of Republicans—say they feel they don't belong on campus due to their political views. That's one of the many disconnects between public perceptions about higher education's climate and value and what students say is actually happening on campus, according to the report, 'The College Reality Check: What Students Experience vs. What America Believes.'"
A Democrat flipped a seat in Texas in a district Trump won in 2024 by a wide margin. And no, this was no Harold Ford "Democrat", this was a union leader, Taylor Rehmet, more Berniecrat than Blue Dog or Dixiecrat, with a 14-point margin. Most articles treat it as a warning for Republicans, but perhaps it should say more to Democratic consultants who insist that only a Joe Manchin can win in these red seats.
"Every Single Participant in NYT Focus Group Preferred Progressive Candidates Over Moderate Ones: 'The Democratic Party needs to embrace voices that resonate with people,' said one participant [...] 'Spineless' was one word a participant had for the Democratic Party when asked to describe it. Another said the party appears 'paralyzed' while a 46-year-old Latina woman from Nevada said Democrats in Congress are 'sellouts and suckers.'"
"Don't Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court's Tariff Decision [...] This is a case where the legal merits of the President's action were just too transparently bogus even for this Court to manage and — critically — his actions and the theories undergirding his claims to the power were, for the Corrupt majority, inconvenient. The architect of the current Court — the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo — was behind the litigation that undid the tariffs. That tells you all you need to know. In this case Trump's claim to power was neither in the interests of the Republican Party — the Court's chief jurisprudential interest — nor any of their anti-constitutional doctrines. So of course they tossed it out. This may sound ungenerous. It's simple reality."
Dday, "Trump Justice Department Poised to Preserve Ticketmaster Monopoly: Settlement talks on a monopolization case against Live Nation are under way, with Kellyanne Conway and other MAGA lobbyists seeking a sweetheart deal. [...] The imminent settlement of the high-profile case has once again triggered tumult inside the Justice Department between Antitrust Division lawyers who are more wary of lobbyist-driven decision-making and Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, which is eager to please Trump allies and vested interests. [...] President Trump issued an executive order last year demanding a crackdown on price-gouging in event ticketing, making Davis's advocacy for Live Nation, the company that dominates the space, even more embarrassing."
"Reporting Says Rubio 'Deliberately' Lying to Trump About US-Cuba Talks: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long sought regime change in Cuba, and new reporting from Drop Site News on Monday suggested he may be intentionally misrepresenting the Trump administration's current policy in the communist country to achieve his goal. The outlet reported that, based on the accounts of five Cuban and US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, the 'deal' that President Donald Trump has said is likely to be finalized soon is not being pursued in any high-level, official diplomatic discussions. Soon after issuing an executive order that labeled Cuba an extraordinary threat, accused it of harboring terrorists, and threatened other countries with sanctions if they provide oil to the Cuban government, Trump said his administration is 'talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens.' But one senior White House official explained to Drop Site that 'he's saying that because that's what Marco is telling him.'
"Attorney General Schwalb Files RICO Lawsuit to Dismantle Razjooyan Slumlord Empire: First-Of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Aims to Permanently Shut Down Sprawling Real Estate Fraud Scheme That Exploits Tenants, Lenders, and District Government & Worsens DC's Affordable Housing Crisis. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb today filed a first-of-its-kind civil lawsuit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to dismantle an extensive real estate fraud scheme led by slumlord Ali 'Sam' Razjooyan, his brother Eimon 'Ray' Razjooyan, and their mother Houri Razjooyan. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) alleges that the Razjooyans are operating a vast, illegal real-estate empire that controls dozens of apartment buildings in DC. Over the past decade, the Razjooyans have acquired over 70 primarily rent-controlled buildings – 90% of them in Wards 7 and 8. Through a Ponzi-like scheme, the Razjooyans deceive lenders with fake financial documents and false promises to renovate the buildings and then rent them to tenants who receive housing subsidies that are reliably paid by District government and that are above the rent-stabilized amounts. Instead of fixing up the properties, the Razjooyans use the loan proceeds to enrich themselves, pay off loans from previously purchased buildings, and buy new properties to perpetuate the scheme. The buildings then fall into disrepair, forcing hundreds of the District's most vulnerable tenants to live in horrific conditions, including rodent and insect infestations, gas leaks, electrical hazards, mountains of trash, mold, and flooding. At the same time, the Razjooyans are defrauding the District agencies that pay their tenants' housing subsidies—more than $16 million to date—by falsely claiming that the properties are safe and habitable, a required condition for receiving the rent subsidies. By allowing so many apartments to become uninhabitable, the Razjooyans are decreasing the housing supply in DC and worsening the District's affordable housing crisis."
"The 'Most Massive Attack On Free Speech' Is Happening Right Now, And The Twitter Files Crew Is Mighty Quiet: For the last five years, we had to endure an endless, breathless parade of hyperbole regarding the so-called 'censorship industrial complex.' We were told, repeatedly and at high volume, that the Biden administration flagging content for review by social media companies constituted a tyrannical overthrow of the First Amendment. n the Missouri v. Biden (later Murthy v. Missouri) case, Judge Terry Doughty—in a ruling that seemed to consist entirely of Twitter threads pasted into a judicial ruling—declared that the White House sending angry emails to Facebook 'arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States' history.' Never mind that the Supreme Court later reviewed the evidence and found that the platforms frequently ignored those emails, showing a lack of coercion, leading them to reverse the lower courts for lack of standing. To the 'Twitter Files' crowd and the self-anointed 'free speech absolutists,' the mere existence of government officials simply requesting private companies to look at terms of service violations was a sign of the end of the Republic. So, surely, now that the Department of Homeland Security is issuing administrative subpoenas—legal demands that bypass judges entirely—to unmask the identities of anonymous political critics, these same warriors are storming the barricades, right?" No, no more than they had a word to say when during Trump's first term someone ended up in jail for a political opinion on social media.
Again, the NYT wrote another article claiming it's "moderates" for the win, so have a rebuttal from Noah Berlatsky called, "If Moderates Overperform, How Do You Explain Sinema? [...] I'm hesitant to offer any one rationale here, but there are a few points worth noting. First of all, a lot of moderate policy positions poll very badly. For example, increasing the minimum wage is popular with Democrats, with Independent, and even with Republicans—in branding herself as a moderate by elaborately opposing a minimum wage hike, Sinema actually embraced an incredibly unpopular position."
RIP: "Chuck Negron, Founding Member of Three Dog Night, Dies at 83: Negron's lead vocals powered many of the band's biggest hits, including 'Joy to the World,' 'One,' 'Easy to Be Hard,' 'Old Fashioned Love Song', and 'The Show Must Go On.'" I saw them at a festival at Atlantic City and they put on a helluva show. They were a cover band, which many people disdained, but boy, they sure picked the songs.
RIP: "Bud Cort, star of Harold and Maude, dies aged 77." Yeah, he did other stuff, but this is one of our most beloved movies of all time and he will always be Harold to us.
RIP: "Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader, dies aged 84: A trailblazer in the civil rights movement and Democratic politics, Jackson championed the rights of Black, poor and working-class people with his 'rainbow coalition'The Rev Jesse Jackson, the civil rights campaigner who was prominent for more than 50 years and who ran strongly for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, has died. He was 84. 'Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,' the Jackson family said in a statement." I will never forgive the Clinton gang for deliberately sidelining him in favor of Al Sharpton.
Mark Kermode pulled no punches in his review of Melania.
Spider-Noir - Official Black & White Teaser Trailer (2026) Nicholas Cage, Brendan Gleeson
In case you missed it, here's Bruce Springsteen's song "Streets Of Minneapolis".
And Billy Bragg's "City of Heroes".
00:5 GMT comment
