Odds and Ends — 27 January 2026

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

Coronavirus and Public Health:

Trump policies at odds with emerging understanding of COVID's long-term harm

Politics:

Venezuela’s Leader Has Had ‘Enough’ of Trump’s Orders

Venezuela’s acting president Delcy Rodríguez said Sunday she has had ‘enough’ of Washington’s orders, as she works to unite the country after the US capture of its former leader Nicolás Maduro.
Rodríguez has been walking a tight-rope since being backed by the US to lead the country in the interim; balancing keeping Maduro loyalists on board at home while trying to ensure the White House is happy.

Greenland Shuts Down Talk of Sovereign U.S. Bases

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/2015808592184570138
- MollyJongFast

White House Tells Republicans to Keep DHS Funding

The White House on Monday urged the Senate to pass the six-bill appropriations package to avert a partial government shutdown and signaled it doesn’t want Department of Homeland Security money separated out.

But will Democrats play along in the Senate?

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2015940032196976695
- RonFilipkowski

———— Minnesota Under Siege ————

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2015833070335590565
- RonFilipkowski

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/2015520419600609502
- atrupar

https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/2015851054446031322
- HeerJeet

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong

I don’t know what the feds expected when they surged into Minnesota…
Perhaps the Trump-administration officials had hoped that a few rabble-rousers would get violent, justifying the kind of crackdown he seems to fantasize about. Maybe they had assumed that they would find only a caricature of ‘the resistance’—people who seethed about Trump online but would be unwilling to do anything to defend themselves against him.
Instead, what they discovered in the frozen North was something different: a real resistance, broad and organized and overwhelmingly nonviolent, the kind of movement that emerges only under sustained attacks by an oppressive state. Tens of thousands of volunteers—at the very least—are risking their safety to defend their neighbors and their freedom.

https://twitter.com/BillKristol/status/2015884595162448173
- BillKristol

https://twitter.com/TheRealThelmaJ1/status/2015950648161042813
- TheRealThelmaJ1

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/2015926724236595613
- RonFilipkowski

https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/2015888113449435231
- SethAbramson

Decoding Republicans in the Trump Era

To cover the Republican Party in the age of President Donald Trump requires a grasp of cryptology.
Because of the unflinching personal loyalty he demands, and punishment he’ll administer on public dissenters, leading GOP officials speak in rhetorical code.
And in the aftermath of the second killing by federal agents of a protester in Minnesota, there’s been a stream of statements, comments and sound bites from party lawmakers that beg for translation.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/2015862755362844888
- atrupar

https://twitter.com/PanasonicDX4500/status/2015803539180654593
- PanasonicDX4500

https://twitter.com/MikeNellis/status/2015942086118281392
- MikeNellis

Judge Orders ICE Chief to Appear in Court

Minnesota’s chief federal judge has demanded the acting head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personally appear in court Friday to explain what the judge described as repeated failures to comply with dozens of court orders amid its enforcement efforts in the state.
Said U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, in a remarkable filing: “The court’s patience is at an end.”

https://twitter.com/SundaeDivine/status/2015752261561917853
- SundaeDivine

https://twitter.com/vincempls/status/2015875994649776207
- vincempls

https://twitter.com/JonathanCohn/status/2015960198049903105
- JonathanCohn

https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/2015939153582817366
- drmistercody

https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/2016107450139611589
- EdKrassen

———— The Epstein Coverup ————

https://twitter.com/caitlinmcgowan/status/2015831066112565250
- caitlinmcgowan

https://twitter.com/sadgirlcassi/status/2015833476142874854
- sadgirlcassi

———— Autocracy R Us ————

“Democracies are fragile. They can flip into dictatorships. Liberties that seemed won for all time can be squandered.” — Volker Ullrich

What the Administration Is Signaling to Federal Agents

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the Trump administration’s immigration operation in Minnesota is not just that agents of the state are killing peacefully protesting citizens on the streets. It’s that they’re doing it with the expectation of impunity, backed by top government officials who are brazenly lying about what happened.

https://twitter.com/danprimack/status/2015789094811353466
- danprimack

The Trump Administration’s Lies Insult the Intelligence of Every American

Following ICE’s killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, the president and his top officials have spun false narratives and prevented investigation. Congress must act

https://twitter.com/missmayn/status/2015898163060887735
- missmayn

https://twitter.com/lmcgaughy/status/2015839650632401324
- lmcgaughy

The Logical End Point of Letting Trump Do Anything

On January 23, 2016, Donald Trump notoriously declared, ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.’ That statement was understood at the time as a metaphorical expression of the depth of Republican voters’ commitment to him…
The dynamic Trump observed is that he had created a bond with his supporters that no outside facts could break, even something as blatant as a cold-blooded killing on an American street. And that is the nub of the crisis into which we have plunged over the past decade.
All politicians spin and distort to some extent, of course. Trump’s innovation was to grasp that, because the conservative movement had trained its devotees to ignore mainstream media and rely completely on information supplied by its own loyalists, his ability to control his supporters’ perceptions effectively had no limit. And because his supporters would believe anything, he could do anything.