So I don't really follow the news, except that adjacent stuff that pops up on hacker news... Is the administration serious or is this like just a distraction while they do something else when no one is paying attention?
So I don't really follow the news
1) A rapidly growing economic crisis due to aggressive and inchorent foreign policy decisions
2) The new force of Gestapo murdering and harming citizens in cities all across the nation
A real privilege.
If history is any guide, ICE may be better compared to the SA. Their job is to make it safe for the future Gestapo to operate unmasked... at which point the unprofessional street thugs in ICE will find that they've become a liability to the regime.
As I understand it, the right to record police has never actually been tried definitively at the SCOTUS level. The Republicans certainly have the tools on the SCOTUS bench to prohibit it now, so look for a case to be brought at some point.
1: https://reason.com/2026/01/08/you-have-the-right-to-record-i...
2: https://www.kqed.org/news/12070260/what-you-need-to-know-abo...
But, they were actual police, highly effective. (Torured, murdered, commited genocide ... buy were actual trained cop good at being cops and good at genocide).
You can only threaten your friends so many times before they cut you out, and Trump is going on a year straight of threatening us (Canada, but also Greenland) with annexation, and the EU with sanctions and tariffs.
It doesn’t matter if the US government are serious or are posturing, the message is clear: prepare for existential warfare (economic or militarily) or be faced with it.
I think Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech yesterday captures the shared sentiment outside of the US very well. It’s worth listening to and lays bare the cracks in international diplomacy the last 80 years.
I personally find the argument that it’s about masking something clever weak. There are two things going on: repeatedly admitting US manufacturing can’t keep up with China and desperately trying to bring it home, and “Donroe Doctrine” colonialism where the US wants to lean on the weak to extract money out of them.
Maybe next year Trump is going to say “look how strong I made NATOs military, no more freeloaders here, this was all a ruse”, but I doubt it.
And my personal raw take, as a Canadian: we’ve shown we will take a punch to the nose for the US, it’s going to be impossible to look at our relationship the same for a generation. I’ve worked for US companies (as do most of our best and brightest), we have tight security integrations, this all feels incredibly unnecessary.
American here with Canadian family members.
Agree 100%, this whole thing was incredibly dumb from the beginning. Trump's dementia and ego will ruin (has ruined?) the US's standing in what was the former West. What a sad day to be alive.
"Nearly all Epstein files still unreleased a month after Congress deadline" - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/19/jeffrey-epst...
I wish I could ignore all of this because I am tired man.