Source: Associated Press
“U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that Iran proposed negotiations after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown targeting demonstrators there, a move coming as activists said the death toll in protests rose to at least 544. … More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces. With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.” (01/11.26)
https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-us-israel-war-nuclear-economy-ae5add408f0dbc724962d41cc37c939a
Source: USA Today
by Rex Huppke
“[W]e are less than two weeks into the new year, and what we have seen from a president and a Republican Party ostensibly put in control of the country to lower food prices and improve the lives of hardworking Americans is chaos and death. At his 2025 inauguration, Trump said: ‘Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable.’ Bandying about like pirates snatching other nations’ oil and gunning down Americans in the streets doesn’t jibe with stopping wars or nurturing a new spirit of unity. … Even if you, for some reason, approve of a federal agent shooting multiple times into a vehicle while recording video on his cell phone, there should at least be some universal agreement that the Trump administration’s response to what happened in Minneapolis has been vile, inflammatory and sickeningly tribal.” (01/11/26)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/01/11/trump-minneapolis-ice-shooting-venezuela-imperialism/88086833007/
Source: The Bulwark
“America Used to Know This Was Wrong.” (01/10/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLyWEIez7Qo
Source: Reuters
“The dollar and Wall Street futures dropped and gold jumped on Monday as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Trump administration had threatened him with a criminal indictment over the refurbishment of the central bank’s headquarters. … S&P 500 futures fell more than 0.5%, while safe-haven gold – which investors buy as hedge against both turmoil and inflation – hit another record high as money markets priced in a slightly higher chance of short-term U.S. interest rate cuts. … Fed chief Powell had responded to the Trump administration’s threat of a criminal indictment by calling it a ‘pretext’ aimed at pressuring the central bank to cut interest rates.” (01/12/26)
https://archive.is/Ltf80
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp
“When government shoves its nose into markets, the supposed beneficiaries usually end up losing. Politically connected businesses pocket more money. Government bureaucrats enjoy more power. Everyone else pays through the nose. Politicians’ assertions of contrary motivation just add insult to injury.” (01/10/26)
https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20265
Source: euronews [EU]
“Hamas announced on Sunday that it will dissolve its current administration in Gaza after a Palestinian technocratic leadership committee assumes control of the region, as is required by the US-brokered plan for the enclave. The Gaza militant group and the rival Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians’ internationally recognised representative, have not announced the names of the technocrats, who are not supposed to be politically affiliated, and it remains unclear if they will be cleared by Israel and the US. The government and other elements of the truce that went into effect on 10 October, such as disarming Hamas and sending an international security force, are to be supervised by the ‘Board of Peace,’ an international body headed by US President Donald Trump. The members of the board are still unknown.” (01/12/26)
https://www.euronews.com/2026/01/12/hamas-says-it-will-dissolve-its-gaza-government-when-new-palestinian-body-takes-over
Source: New York Post
by James Bovard
“Mayor Mamdani promised New Yorkers Jan. 1 he would ‘replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.’ Luckily, psychiatrists have not yet classified ‘rugged individualism’ as a mental illness. But Mamdani’s vision of cozy collectivism is tricky to reconcile with what I saw in Communist Romania in November 1987. … In Romania, ‘warmth’ was an abstraction that existed primarily in propaganda campaigns exalting the supreme leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu. To save energy to fulfill the Five-Year Plan for factories, the government routinely cut off the electricity to hospitals, causing 1,000 deaths the previous winter. The infant mortality rate was so high, the government refused to register children as being born until they survived their first month. On the streets …. People stopped me and pleaded for packs of Kent cigarettes — the de facto second currency — they could use to bribe doctors to get health care for their sick children.” (01/10/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/10/opinion/mamdanis-collectivist-warmth-is-a-lot-like-commmunist-chill/
Source: New York Times
“Mounting outrage over an ICE agent’s [murder] of a woman in Minneapolis spilled into streets across the country on Saturday, as crowds of protesters mobilized against what they called the excesses of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. The ‘Ice Out for Good’ campaign held demonstrations in small towns and major cities, including some that have been central targets of President Trump’s immigration crackdown. The protests came three days after an ICE agent in Minneapolis [murdered] Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen at the wheel of a car, during an encounter in South Minneapolis.” (01/10/26)
https://archive.is/K3oEM
Source: The Intercept
by Alain Stephens
“From a purely tactical standpoint, the operation was a textbook display of American might: fast, overwhelming, and successful, with U.S. forces in and out of Venezuela before most of the world had even processed what was happening. But almost immediately, that show of force collided with a harder reality at home: Only 1 in 3 Americans say they support it, an unusually low level of approval at the very outset of a U.S. military operation. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken January 4 to 5 found that just 33 percent approved of the U.S. removing Maduro, while 72 percent reported their concerns about the U.S. getting too involved in Venezuela. Support breaks sharply along party lines, with Republicans backing the operation at far higher rates than Democrats and independents. Historically, Americans have given new conflicts much more leeway. ” (01/10/26)
https://theintercept.com/2026/01/10/venezuela-trump-pointless-wars/
Source: New York Post
“Ukraine struck three Russian oil rigs operating in the Caspian Sea on Sunday following Moscow’s large-scale bombardment over the weekend that left thousands without heat or power in Kyiv. Footage released by Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) revealed the moment Kyiv launched three separate explosive drones overnight targeting drilling platforms belonging to Lukoil, one of Russia’s largest oil producers. … Ukraine has ramped up its attacks on Moscow’s oil and gas plants as a way to cripple Russia’s war machine after targeting oil rigs in the Caspian Sea last month. Along with the drone strikes on the oil rigs, Ukraine also targeted the Russian city of Voronezh on Sunday, killing one woman and injuring three others, according to regional Gov. Alexander Gusev.” (01/11/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/11/world-news/ukraine-strikes-russian-oil-rigs-in-caspian-sea-after-moscows-intense-drone-bombardment/
