Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Jonathan Zimmerman
“When Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, two of them fatally, at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — in self-defense, he said — Republicans made him into a hero. But when Alex Pretti showed up at an anti-ICE demonstration with a loaded handgun, Trump administration officials condemned him as a ‘would-be assassin’ and a ‘domestic terrorist.’ It’s outrageous. And hypocritical. Yet when it comes to guns, everyone’s a hypocrite right now. All of us are allowing the fatal shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis last week to alter our principles.” [editor’s note: Nope, not all of us – TLK] (01/28/26)
“A Ugandan court on Wednesday released on bail a prominent rights activist whose detention was seen by campaign groups as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent ahead of the country’s general election that was held on January 15. Sarah Bireete, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Governance, a Kampala-based pressure group, was detained on December 30 after questioning the accuracy of the voter register to be used in the poll. She was later charged with offences related to alleged unlawful disclosure of voters’ information. … Rights groups and the opposition have long accused his government of using the military to suppress dissent. The government denies those accusations.” (01/28/26)
“merica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy — it’s food.” (01/28/26)
“Artificial intelligence offers potential for governmental transformation, but like all emerging technologies, it can only catalyze meaningful change when paired with effective operating models. Without this foundation, AI risks amplifying existing government inefficiencies rather than delivering breakthroughs. The primary barrier to AI-based breakthroughs is not an agency’s interest in adopting new tools but the structures and habits of government itself, particularly excessive risk management; rigid hierarchies; and organizational silos rather than adaptive problem solving and effective service delivery. Structural reform is critical and must accompany adoption of AI.” (01/28/28)
“Whores are the authority on masculinity. If you want to understand hunger, you don’t ask a hungry person. You ask someone who sells food. Whores sell masculinity to men. We don’t put it like that, of course. We sell sex, nominally. Because sex is what masculine men are supposed to want. Sex and power and resources. But they’re not allowed to want anything else. It’s not masculine to want to be touched softly. It’s not masculine to want to feel important or loved or interesting or special or attractive. Feelings are for girls, unless the feeling is anger or lust. It’s the same with food, too. Or really anything else you want to sell. What you’re selling isn’t a product or service, ultimately. It’s a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s a dream. Look at advertising.” (01/28/26)
“If you deploy a paramilitary force to terrorize the public — which certainly was the goal of flooding ICE and CBP agents into the Twin Cities — you must support your thugs and back up the narrative that the people they brutalize and perhaps kill had it coming. You can’t enforce rules and regs for this force. That will reveal contradictions and undermine your Manichean tale of good (us) and evil (them). This is about power and decidedly not about the rule of law. The aim is to obliterate the rule of law. So are we now in a police state? Not quite.” (01/28/26)
“The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved dangerous flight routes that allowed an Army helicopter to fly into the path of a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025, to calamitous results. … the investigating board also castigated the agency for not doing enough to respond to warnings about longtime risks to safety and found a complacent culture within the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport that relied too heavily on pilots in the airspace being able to see and steer clear of each others’ aircraft, a practice called visual separation. They also determined that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet involved in the crash, and altimeters that, unbeknown to the helicopter pilots, habitually gave faulty readings of altitude, also contributed to the tragic crash.” (01/28/26)
