curated news excerpts & citations
Belly of the Beast: Halliburton Admits U.S. Drove Them Out of Venezuela
President Donald Trump met with major U.S. oil companies to discuss Venezuela’s oil future. But during the meeting, one executive acknowledged that his company didn’tleave Venezuela because of the Venezuelan government, but due to U.S. sanctions imposed by Trump himself six years ago.
Halliburton Company’s CEO confirmed their operations in Venezuela ended in 2019 after sanctions made it legally impossible to stay, despite decades working in the country and hundreds of Venezuelan workers employed by the company.
The contradiction is not unique to Venezuela. The same dynamic has played out in Cuba: the U.S. imposes “maximum pressure” sanctions that drive out U.S. companies, destroy the economy, and immiserate the population. Then the U.S. points to the resulting collapse as proof of failure and the reason why the doors need to be opened to U.S. companies — except the U.S. was the one that closed them in the first place.
Money Control: Trump asks why US oil companies left Venezuela, CEO cites 2019 sanctions
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reason: Federal Agents Used a Battering Ram to Enter a Minneapolis Home Without Valid Warrant, Video Shows
“Any American should be terrified by…such an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment,” said the arrestee’s attorney.
(reason more…)Akedah Fulcher-Eze on Facebook
One of the smartest things I’ve heard regarding the killing of Renee Good by Jonathan Ross came from Andrew Weissman, a career DOJ prosecutor and now an NYU Law professor. He said if he were prosecuting the case, he wouldn’t deal with the first shot. It’s too murky. Was she driving forward or trying to get away? Did the ICE agent fear for his life or didn’t he?
Instead, Weisseman would focus on shots two and three, which were fired from the side of the car, reaching through the driver-side window and pointblank in the victim’s head. It’s indisputable that the ICE agent was *not* in danger at that time. Combined with his calling Renee a “F-ing B” (on video) as her SUV rolled ahead, it would be easy to make the case that he fired his gun the second and third times out of hostility or rage or frustration, but certainly not as an act of self-defense.
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arsTECHNICA: FBI fights leaks by seizing Washington Post reporter’s phone, laptops, and watch
FBI searches home and devices of reporter who has over 1,100 government contacts.
(arsTECHNICA more…)Just the News: DHS employee leaks sensitive information on thousands of ICE, Border Patrol agents
Maris Kabas: ICE is headed to Maine
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Jess Piper: The Teachers
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We talked about how much closer to being run over teachers are when working the car line each morning than Jonathan Ross ever was when he murdered Renee Good.
(Jess Piper more…)
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People’s World: Trump’s war on D.C.’s Black youth
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404 Media: Cop Used Flock to Wrongfully Accuse a Woman Then Refused to Look at Evidence That Exonerated Her, Body Camera Shows
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Rebecca Solnit: Weak Violence, Strong Peace: Who We Are in This Crisis
It’s getting more extreme out there, especially in Minnesota where the unaccountable army of the Trump regime has, in the wake of its murder, beaten up employees, ripped civilians from their cars, kidnapped people who are in every way outside their mandate, knocked on doors demanding to know where the Asian neighbors live, and generally spread terror. Their prime target is brown and Black people, especially Somali immigrants, but they murdered a white woman who had shown up in solidarity. The claim that they are after immigrants and refugees who are criminals faded away long ago, and they are now assaulting and kidnapping citizens, people with spotless records, Native Americans, and anyone who gets in their way. As Heather Cox Richardson put it Tuesday, “the agents’ mission increasingly looks as if it is to frighten opponents of the administration into submission. But instead of submission, they appear to be sparking deeper and deeper opposition.”
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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Mary Geddry: “Absolutely Not Necessary”
How Denmark, Greenland, and NATO rejected Trump’s demand to own the Arctic
(Mary Geddry more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – January 14, 2026
Today is officially Ratification Day, the anniversary of the day in 1784 when members of the Confederation Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War and formally recognized the independence of the United States from Great Britain.
It almost didn’t happen.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Flu antivirals: What to know and when to use them
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Decoding Fox News: Fox News Predicts Mass Suicide by ICE
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
