“The past year has completely discredited any claim that choosing between the Democratic and Republican parties would be merely a matter of ‘pick your poison’ with the same end result. In countless terrible ways, the last 12 months have shown that Donald Trump’s party is bent on methodically inflicting vast cruelty and injustice while aiming to crush what’s left of democracy and the rule of law. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party’s leadership persists with the kind of elitist political approach that helped Trump win in 2024. Hidebound and unimaginative, Senate leader Chuck Schumer and House leader Hakeem Jeffries have been incapable of inspiring the people whose high-turnout votes will be essential to ending Republican control of Congress and the White House.” (01/20/25)
“The UK government has defended a deal to give the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and lease back a key military base, following criticism from US President Donald Trump over its handling. In a post on social media, Trump labelled the move as ‘an act of great stupidity’ and ‘total weakness,’ months after he and senior US officials endorsed it. In response, the UK government said it would ‘never compromise on our national security,’ while the prime minister’s official spokesperson insisted the US still supported the move.” (01/20/25)
“Donald J. Trump was inaugurated for a second term as president exactly one year ago. It is safe to say the country, and the world, will never be the same. President Trump has engaged in energetic and bold governing and diplomacy, fulfilling campaign promises like boosting domestic energy production, while also seeking peace in turbulent parts of the world and attempting to follow through on long-term ambitions, like acquiring Greenland. He has engaged with the press on a near-daily basis, boosted recruitment for our military, dismantled harmful left-wing shibboleths like DEI, convinced our NATO allies to spend more on their own defense, junked burdensome regulations that interfered with our country’s progress …. It is an incredible boatload of accomplishments.” [editor’s note: Well, until you delete the parts that are made-up bullshit. Then it’s not quite so incredible – TLK] (01/20/25)
“The UK has approved China’s plans for a huge new embassy in central London, despite opponents warning it could be used as a base for spying and pose security risks. Security Minister Dan Jarvis said intelligence agencies had been ‘integral’ to the process and he was ‘content any risks are being appropriately managed.’ The decision, which has repeatedly been delayed, had posed a challenge for the government, as it seeks to balance its desire for closer ties with Beijing with warnings of the threat posed by China. It comes as Sir Keir Starmer is expected to visit Beijing early this year, becoming the first UK prime minister to do so since 2018.” (01/20/25)
“It has been obvious to informed observers for at least a decade that EVs are where car production as an industry is going to land, sooner or later. They are faster, simpler, cheaper to run and maintain, dramatically more efficient, and most importantly, produce no direct carbon emissions, when stacked up against cars running on fossil fuels. So, the Inflation Reduction Act contained a large subsidy package for the manufacture and sale of EVs. Automakers got a variety of subsidies for building batteries and EVs, while car buyers got a $7,500 tax credit for purchasing them. That way, the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis) could start to catch up with Chinese companies, which stole a march on America the first time Trump threw a wrench into the EV transition.” (01/20/25)
“Federal immigration agents bashed open a door and detained a U.S. citizen in his Minnesota home at gunpoint without a warrant, then led him out onto the streets in his underwear in subfreezing conditions, according to his family and videos reviewed by The Associated Press. ChongLy ‘Scott’ Thao told the AP that his daughter-in-law alerted him on Sunday afternoon that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were banging at the door of his residence in St. Paul. He told her not to open it. Masked agents then forced their way in and pointed guns at the family, yelling at them, Thao recalled. ‘I was shaking,’ he said. ‘They didn’t show any warrant; they just broke down the door.'” (01/20/25)
Source: New York Post
by US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
“Youtube and its parent company Google deserves to be sued. For the past three weeks YouTube has been hosting a video that is a calculated lie, falsely accusing me of taking money from Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. It refused to remove the video. It is, of course, a ludicrous accusation, but paid trolls are daily spreading this lie across the internet. This untruth is essentially an accusation of treason, which then leads the internet mob to call for my death. Advocating for liability for Google is no small step for me. I have long defended the private-property rights of internet companies and long defended them against overzealous, partisan abuses of antitrust law …. But I will not sit idly by and let them host a provably false defamatory video, which is now part of a widespread harassment campaign.” (01/19/25)
“Drug overdose deaths in the United States fell by more than 20% last year, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the country’s porous borders. ‘The fall begins at the end of the Biden administration, but the question is, was it in anticipation of a tough-on-crime president coming in?’ said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct criminal justice professor at Penn State Lehigh Valley. According to the data, which looked at deaths through August 2025, they were on the rise going into Trump’s first term but remained largely flat, then they spiked and plateaued when President Joe Biden took office. While the CDC did not provide a reason for the decline, it coincides with stronger border enforcement.” (01/20/25)
“Republican Mike Johnson has delivered a historic speech to the British parliament, the first U.S. House speaker to address the body. Johnson spoke as U.S. President Donald Trump bitterly lashes out at America’s most trusted allies, posting overnight that the United Kingdom is acting with ‘GREAT STUPIDITY’ in national security he intensifies his own claims to forcibly take Greenland in the Arctic. ‘I told the president that I felt that my mission here today was to encourage our friends and help to calm the waters, so to speak,’ Johnson told British lawmakers. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, described Trump’s planned new tariffs over Greenland as ‘a mistake, especially between long-standing allies’ and called into question Trump’s trustworthiness, saying that he had agreed last year not to impose more tariffs on members of the bloc.” (01/20/25)
“The authoritarian threat in the United States no longer lurks on the horizon. It’s here, unfolding at a breakneck pace. And it appears with an American face: increasingly undemocratic rule, galvanized at the ballot box, governing through strongman tactics, bolstered not just by extralegal force but through legal mechanisms, backed by stubborn popular support. People have been fighting back. One study found the number of protests in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term well surpassed the heyday of the ’Resistance’ to Trump’s first. But disruption isn’t enough. The most effective strategy — deeply rooted in American history — is to build a broad front across class, sector and ideology to isolate and defeat authoritarian power. The contemporary protest movement is growing fast but has not yet achieved this necessary solidarity.” (01/19/25)
