I WILL NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR YOOOOOUUUUUUU

This ain't it, chief.

Senator Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be "reformed, not abolished" and plays a "role" in the country following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in her home state.

It is very easy to say that of course we need immigration enforcement, but Trump has corrupted the existing institutions  so much that we need to begin again.

That should be the "moderate" position.

Morning

Get it started 

Sunday Night

Rock on.

Sunday Evening

Monday's coming

Denmark, You Can Bring Down This Government

Just ban export of Wegovy to the US.

Protests

Dems hate protests for both understandable and bad reasons, but if people don't see much leadership from the people they elected, then they are going to find their own way.

There is no magic wand, nobody thinks there is, but good politicians could at least convincingly fake that they were on the side of people being gunned down by the government agency they keep supporting, and few of these guys can do that.

Awkward

The Labour government came right out of the gate centering NATO, mostly as a way to shore up their credentials as Tough Guys Unlike Those Hippies.

This government will have a ‘NATO first’ defence strategy: article by the Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary

Just an example, from right after they came to power in July, 2024. They've repeatedly invoked NATO allegiance as a kind of tough guy/patriot/"foreign policy realist" test, melding it to chestbeating support for Ukraine as a kind of battle cry (supporting Ukraine is fine, the usual belligerence backed by little is not).

A bit tough now that Starmer is doing everything Donnie tells him, even as Donnie can't even remember his name.

If You Mean Your NYT Colleagues You Should Say That

He doesn't, of course, he just means he hasn't been paying attention to or doesn't approve of any actual protests, but instead wants a nice story of protests.

Morning

Sunday funday.

Saturday Night

Rock on.

Promises, Promises

I did see this one very briefly on the front of nytimes.com, but I bet this is one all the news outlets instantly forget for some reason (it is already gone from nytimes.com).

Our Friends In The North

You know what this is in reference to.  Passifiume is the Toronto Sun's Ottawa Bureau Chief.

Voted Most Likely To Be Arrested After A Hard Drive Check 8 years in a row by his colleagues (maybe).

Depraved Murderous Liars

I know I can be too pithy sometimes,  but I don’t think I need 1200 words to state: any journalism which obfuscates this about the Trumpers, which they themselves gleefully boast about regularly, consistently, does not prioritize informing readers.  Instead, it is merely a kind of ritual peformance in which everyone acts  their roles as scripted for some theater production of The President And His Journalists, with little interest in portraying actual reality.

Of course there are good journalists and good journalism, but almost all news gets filtered through politics these days.

There was no golden age, but that news is rarely just news, but is instead contested in the politics arena, with quotes from Both Sides, is, if not new, worse than it used to be.

Better Things Aren't Possible

A telling thing during the dipshit centrist mad struggle oppose Mamdani was how much they squealed and snorted with derision about any positive campaign promise. They would switch, between "this is bad," "this isn’t possible," and "sure this is a nice idea but in my back pocket I have a better plan for achieving it" as they always do.

But they made clear that what they oppose is doing good things unless it involves a means-tested refundable tax credit funneled through a McKinsey-blessed public/private partnership.

Progress is possible.

Gov. Hochul, Mayor Mamdani announce push for free child care for NYC 2-year-olds

The sustainable future of "blue" states and cities is making life better and easier. Universality - which isn't in this yet - has to be the goal. 

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Happy Hour

Get happy

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against Trump

Not quite everyone, maybe not the hardcore MAGA (though plenty of conservative grifters), but all the journalists and pundits academic institutions and lawyers and businesspeople who have submitted.

America's Worst Humans

George Borjas

One of Borjas’s direct contributions to the Trump administration this past year was his extensive behind-the-scenes work on Trump’s overhaul of the H-1B visa system for highly skilled workers that added a $100,000 fee, according to three people familiar with his work and a White House official, who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share internal deliberations. Borjas had previously written about the “well-documented abuses” of that program over the years.

Doing The Fucking News

NYT reporter (an actual reporter, not one of Dash's politics gang) informs CBS they don't know what they are talking about.

Rubio is no longer the acting administrator of USAID. He handed that to OMB director Russ Vought in August for Vought to finish the shutdown of the dismantled agency. Politico did a story on it, and we spoke to Vought’s office about it as well. https://t.co/9TCO9vlDuA https://t.co/O7fARtIpcw

— Edward Wong (@ewong) January 9, 2026

The Minority Whip

I know it's mosty a fake job in the Senate, but Dick Durbin is, actually, the Minority Whip.

7 Democrats just voted today to confirm a Trump judicial nominee who refused to say what happened on January 6 or answer who won the 2020 election: Durbin Hassan Kaine King Klobuchar Shaheen Welch

— Jonathan Cohn (@jonathancohn.bsky.social) January 9, 2026 at 1:41 AM