Quantum Vibe, 01/12/26
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott Bieser
Cartoon. (01/12/26)
Category: Opinion
Kill, smear, cover-up
Source: Popular Information
by Judd Legum
“On January 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. After her death, Good was subjected to a vicious smear campaign by the President, the Vice President, administration officials, and their allies. The baseless attacks against Good are a coordinated, brazen and callous government propaganda effort. The goal is to convince Americans to believe an official narrative over objective evidence — including video of the incident. It is an ongoing campaign to legitimize the homicide of an American based on misinformation.” (01/12/26)
How the Murder of Good Changes the Stakes for Good
Source: Washington Monthly
by Jonathan Alter
“o one can predict how the murder of Renee Good will change this country. But there’s an encouraging history of change the aftermath of certain violent and tragic events, and a poor track record for governments that shoot their own people in the streets. Even when this story is pushed out of the headlines by some new outrage, we may look back on it as the moment when Donald Trump lost his grip. Of course, the ICE story will likely get worse before it gets better. … why am I hopeful that after tensions escalate for a time, we’ll get some accountability—if not for Good’s murder, then for Trump’s efforts to establish an American police state?” (01/12/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/01/12/how-the-murder-of-good-changes-the-stakes-for-good/
As 2026 Begins, the Pendulum Is Swinging Toward War and Oppression
Source: Common Dreams
by Klaus Moegling
“The beginning of 2026 falls into a period of increasing global social destruction. Multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe OSCE are being systematically destroyed. Countries such as the US and Russia are withdrawing from these institutions or attempting to obstruct them through blocking behavior. US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are political leaders who are dismantling or destroying the remnants of democracy in their countries, increasing repressive pressure on their populations, and acting aggressively toward the outside world. They find international law rather annoying, ignore it, and develop a right-wing and authoritarian nationalism, within the framework of which the ruling circles in the US and Russia enrich themselves excessively and disregard everything that previous values in terms of decency and justice demand.” (01/12/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/2026-war-authoritarianism
Is Bitcoin Too Public to Become Central‑Bank Money?
Source: Bitcoin.com
by Sergio Goschenko
“The issue of bitcoin’s lack of privacy has been raised as a key concern that may affect its adoption as a central bank digital currency by state nations. In the latest episode of the ‘All-In Podcast,’ venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya presented his contrarian take for 2026, stating that central banks will realize both gold and bitcoin have limitations, and will seek out a ‘completely new cryptographic paradigm.’ This new paradigm will be controlled by the central bank’s balance sheet and will be ‘fungible, tradable, and completely secure and private.'” [editor’s note: The LAST thing central banks want is secure/private currency. That would limit the ability of the regimes linked to the central banks to steal it from us and monitor our use of it – TLK] (01/12/26)
https://news.bitcoin.com/is-bitcoin-too-public-to-become-central%E2%80%91bank-money/
Sovereign Credit, Affordability, and the Crisis Ratchet
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Michael Dioguardi
“In modern political debate, rising costs of living are usually blamed on markets. Housing is ‘unaffordable.’ Healthcare is ‘broken.’ Education is ‘too expensive.’ The proposed remedy is almost always the same: more public spending, more intervention, more emergency programs funded by government credit. But what if the affordability crisis is not a failure of markets at all? What if it is the predictable outcome of how modern governments finance themselves? From an Austrian perspective, the affordability crisis is best understood as a monetary and institutional phenomenon. Since the early 1970s, governments like the United States have operated under a system of discretionary sovereign credit, where spending is no longer meaningfully constrained by taxation or savings.” (01/12/26)
https://mises.org/power-market/sovereign-credit-affordability-and-crisis-ratchet
Trump’s Shrinking Coalition
Source: The Atlantic
by Jonathan Chait
“Trump is alienating anti-system voters because he now controls the system. His appeal lay in his opposition to established power, but now that he has it, he is flexing it gleefully. He is the warmonger, the censor, the face of the Epstein cover-up. It is hard to remain an outsider while holding the world’s most powerful job. But Trump seems not to have anticipated this, in part because he had far less trouble maintaining his anti-establishment identity in his first term. He managed this because that term consisted mainly of failures. … Trump is no longer making this complaint about the established forces working against him, because he has solved this problem. His presidency is filled with loyalists. He has largely overcome any reluctance that officials might have had in carrying out his most unethical or illegal demands. He can’t present himself as anti-system, because he has become the system.” (01/12/26)
The Machinery of Terror
Source: The Chris Hedges Report
by Chris Hedges
“I have seen the masked goons who terrorize our streets before. … I know these goons. I have been a prisoner in their jails and spent hours in their interrogation rooms. I have been beaten by them. I have been deported, and in several cases banned, from their countries. I know what is coming. Terror is the engine that empowers dictatorships. It eliminates dissidents. It silences critics. It dismantles the law. It creates a society of timid and frightened collaborators, those who look away when people are snatched off streets or gunned down, those who inform to save themselves, those who retreat into their tiny rabbit holes, pulling down the blinds, desperately praying to be left in peace. Terror works.” (01/11/26)
Iranian protesters showing courage in the face of tyranny, but Israel-obsessed liberals don’t seem to care
Source: New York Post
by Melanie Phillips
“As the Iranian uprising continues to escalate, it’s been reported that hundreds of protesters have been killed by the regime’s security forces. The internet, phone signals and lighting have been cut, and it’s feared the killings are intensifying behind the blackout. Yet the Iranian people have increasingly poured onto the streets to confront the regime’s murder and torture squads. There’s never been such a mass display of raw courage in the teeth of such vicious repression. If the regime does fall, this will be a seismic event, reshaping the region and world politics. The insurrection might be the most consequential global event so far this century. Yet from Western liberals, there’s been little more than pursed lips. There have been no demonstrations in support of the embattled protesters.” (01/11/25)
Don’t mourn the fall of the “rules-based order”
Source: spiked
by Tim Black
“On 3 January, US special forces removed Venezuela’s president and brutal despot Nicolás Maduro from power. A few hours later, at a hastily arranged press conference, US president Donald Trump seemed even more pleased with himself than usual. Perhaps his excitement explains the Freudian slip. ‘I watched last night one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty,’ he said, before quickly correcting himself – ‘I mean, it was an attack for justice.’ But the truth was out. … But Trump’s legion loathers among our political and cultural elites are not seeing the Venezuela intervention as an attack on national sovereignty. No, they’re casting it above all as an attack on the so-called rules-based order itself.” (01/11/26)