Dennis Goris @dennisgoris.bsky.social Be careful on those roads #ICE
An American citizen, a mom who was just dropping somebody off, has been assassinated in broad daylight on the street by ICE thugs.
Putting armed ignorant racist and masked grunts out on the streets will have inevitable consequences. There was not one ounce of empathy from either Noem or the President. This is way beyond absolutely disgusting. The Rubicon has now been crossed.
ICE Barbie claims “The Agent was in Danger“, but we have all seen the clips and can clearly see that is total BS. Thank God there is video and we don’t have only Kristi Noem’s lies about this. If there were no videos, as is the case with other ICE terrorist incidents, just imagine how big the lies get.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
—George Orwell (1984)
JD Vance supports murdering American citizens. He’s made that perfectly clear. If he’s willing to defend the murder of Renee Good, he would defend your murder, too.
What really needs to happen is very very clear …
Insights and reactions …
Meanwhile William Wolfe urges the Trump administration to deploy “overwhelming, righteous force” in response to the fatal shooting of a protestor by an ICE agent in Minnesota: “Triple the ICE agents in Minneapolis. Send in the National Guard. Invoke the Insurrection Act. Arrest Tim Walz. Arrest Jacob Frey. Put the city on lockdown. Round up all the domestic terrorists. Remove all the illegal immigrants.“
- That’s a direct call for authoritarian escalation. When your solution to a crisis is mass arrests and military lockdowns, you’re not defending law and order — you’re abandoning it.
As always, it is the political cartoonists who are best are expressing how we all feel.
Clay Jones – ICE is a domestic terrorist organization. #ReneeNicoleGood #ICE #DomesticTerrorist #Trump #Minneapolis
Rob Rogers – AG Pam Bondi called the victim shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis a domestic terrorist, despite having no information about the woman. Trump agreed, of course. #Trump #ICE #Minneapolis #shooting #Immigration
Nick Anderson – MAGA Field Guide #ICE
The Investigation
Oh come now, you know how corrupt these people all are, you know exactly where it is going.
Believe them when they tell you who they are
They’re fucking Nazis. If you don’t believe me, just ask them. *They’re* the ones now giving speeches over banners with the slogan below.
They want us to stop using the words fascism and Nazism and racism because there is a reason those words exist and they are the reason.
Venezuela Updates
As is to be expected, Trump did what he did with no consideration of the consequences or what comes next.
CNN: “Trump may have made a major miscalculation about Venezuela’s oil… US oil executives are unlikely to dive in headfirst — the situation remains uncertain, Venezuela oil industry is in shambles, history of seizing US oil assets…” A big distraction/photo op www.reuters.com/business/ene…
Crazy —@mrglobaltoo.bsky.social pointed out oil companies won’t jump at the chance to spend $100 BILLION to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure. Trump’s solution? WE PAY FOR IT FOR THEM. The corruption is endless. They are looting the treasury. www.reuters.com/business/ene…
The supposed justification for it all is indeed now confirmed to be total fiction. It’s so embarrassing — the Trump DOJ’s Maduro indictment accuses him of leading the “Cartel De Los Soles”, which as I previously mentioned last week is not a real thing. Reality now catches up and so they have now dropped that BS claim – www.nytimes.com/2026/01/05/u…
- Muduro might actually win the US vs Muduro case – and if so, what happens then?
- Trump cancelled $18 billion for NYC projects, so ppl hate him there, I really do not see any attempt at a jury trial working out for him (but to be fair, they hated him long before he canceled any projects, most there have known he was a POS for quite some time).
He has no beliefs, his one goal is to enrich himself and inflate his image …
Meanwhile, here is how it is going so far in the nation that he now supposedly runs – Travel warning… Americans urged to leave Venezuela…
The crackdowns are intensifying. The Maduro regime remains in power, with Delcy Rodríguez in command. This was never about democracy or protecting the people of Venezuela. They continue to live in danger and fear while Trump tries to cut deals with the regime to seize their oil …
- As is always the case, everything he touches turns to complete shit due to his utter incompetence.
Matt Davies – (pointing out that he is opening rater a lot of cans of worms)
Greenland
Nick Anderson – The Next Cold War
Jan 6
The White House is now blaming the Capitol Police for the jan 6 violence …
Nick Anderson – Soft on Crime For @contrariannews.org
Peace Prize Bribe
Machado went on Hannity begging and groveling to Trump so that he will change his mind and let her be president. Truly sad that this is the alternative for Venezuelans to Maduro and his cronies.
We now have a peace prize recipient offering to trade it to imperialist regime changers who murdered her countrymen in exchange for political power … Giving her the prize turns out to have been a really bad decision.
So how did it play out?
We have Machado above offering to share her Nobel Peace Prize with Trump if she could run Venezuela. Meanwhile Maduro’s VP offered to give Trump 30 million barrels of oil if their regime could remain in power.
It was always about $$ and oil.
Trump took the oil …
The above is blatantly illegal. A president can’t go into the oil business and then decide where to spend the money. We are completely untethered from our founding document with a lawless president and a Republican Congress which has abdicated all Constitutional authority.
You know that when he writes “to benefit the people” he means himself and his friends.
Reading the above also suggests that Trump is stealing spending power from Congress. Given this move it would be insanity for Democrats to vote to fund the government later this month.
They need to shut it down until the president stops wiping his ass with the Constitution.
Epstein
Rob Rogers – Despite Trump engaging in an active cover-up and trying to distract us with anything he can, the Epstein files keep coming. #Trump #EpsteinFiles #EpsteinTrumpCoverUp
GROK
“Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok facing backlash from governments around the world after a recent surge in sexualized images of women and children generated without consent…” – www.bostonherald.com/2026/01/06/t…
Corruption on a truly epic scale
Reality finally catches up with some. NBC: “A federal judge Tuesday ordered Trump ally Lindsey Halligan to explain why she continues to call herself the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia even though another judge determined she was unlawfully appointed to the position…” www.nbcnews.com/politics/jus…
Mehdi calls out the very blatant fraud and corruption taking place …
- The above list is far from complete. For example he left off the drug kingpin President of Honduras and the billionaire crypto crook that traitor tRUMP pardoned.
Trump says he wants to increase the bloated military budget by half a trillion dollars for 2027. As republicans claim to care about the debt and fraud as the pentagon fails audit after audit.
I speculate he plans to push forward with his empire building lunacy …
Multiple layers of Lunacy and utter incompetence
If you are wondering how the economy is working out, then the below is the answer, and it will not be a shock to anybody …
Other ICE Gestapo updates
Clay Jones – Maduro on ICE
US Healthcare
Trump: “Effective today, America will no longer require 72 ‘jabs’ for our beautiful, healthy children. We are moving to a far more reasonable Schedule, where all children will only be recommended to receive Vaccinations for 11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases.“
- Ironclad guarantee – if Trump claimed something, then it is BS.
- As those of you with kids know – children are not required to receive 72 shots. That number is a gross exaggeration sometimes circulated online. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends immunizations for roughly 17–20 different diseases from birth through adolescence, some of which require multiple doses at different ages. This is sometimes miscounted as “72” if you include every single booster and combination dose.
- In 2026 nothing says ‘protect public health’ like rolling the dice on preventable diseases. – This is Eugenics. Call it what it is.
MAGA Christian Cranks
The nuttier right-wing religious fanatics within the MAGA cult are as always doing their thing, and so here are this week’s samples.
- Yes, this is indeed the flat-earth believing nut who previously ran back in 2022 with a “Jesus Guns Babies” banner. She causes many satirists a lot of distress as they try to top what she actually says and does.
When Joshua Haymes leads his family in prayer, he explicitly prays “that God would give [his wife] grace to obey me.“
- This all feels very much like a weird religious bondage fetish.
- Professional history relies on rigorous source criticism, engagement with existing scholarship, and peer review. When people without that training shape national institutions like the Smithsonian, the risk is not “different opinions,” but selective evidence, anachronism, and ideological framing presented as fact.
- The Bartons are well known for promoting a version of American history that emphasizes the U.S. as a uniquely Christian nation, often downplaying or misrepresenting: 1) the founders’ religious diversity, 2) the Enlightenment roots of American constitutionalism, 3) and the deliberate separation of church and state. That isn’t just interpretation—it’s a political project, and one that many credentialed historians (including conservative ones) have publicly criticized.
- We are going to need a bigger eraser in 2029 to wash away all the BS.
- How it works is this. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 says …”Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged“. That is then interpreted to mean Christianity needs to be promoted via schools. That reading of it very blatantly fails any critical-thinking sniff test for 3 reasons. 1) It does not specify Christianity, let alone any doctrine, church, or theology. “Religion” in the late 18th century was a broad, plural term that included many traditions and explicitly avoided state establishment. 2) It does not mandate religious instruction, only that education be encouraged. There is no requirement about curriculum, clergy, prayer, or scripture. 3) It explicitly protects religious liberty elsewhere in the same document, stating that no one shall be deprived of rights “on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments.” That directly contradicts the idea of state-sponsored Christianity.
- It is actually the intolerance and fanaticism of Christian Nationalism that will destroy religious freedom, liberty, and democracy. At its core it is basically fascism.
Tim Barton thinks that if people would just “get beyond” everything that President Donald Trump says and does, they’d realize what a great president he is.
- A president’s words and actions aren’t distractions from the job — they are literally the f**king job. Policy, conduct, respect for law, treatment of allies and opponents, and use of power all flow directly from what a president says and does.
- What Barton is really arguing for isn’t deeper analysis, but selective blindness: ignore the parts that are controversial, unethical, or damaging, and focus only on outcomes his supporters like. That’s not statesmanship; it’s partisanship for people with Alzheimers.
- Asking people to “get beyond” what a president says and does isn’t a defense — it’s an admission that those things are indefensible.
MAGA Christian Cranks: Venezuela
As you might anticipate, many of them were jumping on the Venezuela bandwagon as they followed their beloved Orange Lord and Saviour (better known as the Anti-Christ).
- Hank is clearly quite determined to explore previously undiscovered nuttiness.
- And lo, the Lord spake unto Hank, saying: “Thus saith the Almighty—please ignore geopolitics, international law, and basic reality, for I have oil futures to manage.”
Heidi St. John is outraged that people are criticizing the Trump administration’s capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro: “Our progressive, leftist, Planned Parenthood infused, evil education system has produced entire generations of people who have no idea what time it is politically, don’t know history at all, don’t understand the wisdom of our founding fathers, can’t balance a checkbook, don’t know what a woman is and now, cry like a bunch of babies because the US took out a dangerous, evil criminal and freed the Venezuelan people from tyranny.”
- Nothing says ‘I understand geopolitics’ like blaming Planned Parenthood and checkbook skills while celebrating an illegal military kidnapping as civic education.
Mario Murillo rejoices over the Trump administration’s operation: “God has sent a geo-political earthquake. The lazy observer will see this as human warfare. The praying saint will see something deeper. The end is near. Our redemption draws nigh. A merciful God is giving America and other nations a final chance at revival and a global harvest.”
- Apparently military strikes are now the new Holy Spirit. Who knew salvation came with uniforms and camo?
Lance Wallnau praises Trump for toppling Maduro in order to protect “America’s oil reserves.“
- Reminder: This is Trump personally striving to enrich himself by stealing somebody else’s oil.
Johnny Enlow claims that the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro will lead to proof that “Donald Trump won the [2020] election.“
- Yes, he really believes the weird whacky claim that Venezuela rigged the 2020 election. Unfortunately so does Trump, that’s apparently part of why he grabbed Maduro.
Rep. John McGuire justifies the capture of Maduro on the grounds that “we’ve lost more people from [drug] overdose since 2020 than died in World War II”: “If that’s not a war, I don’t know what war is.“
- It is true that drug overdose deaths in the United States have been very high in recent years. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed tens of thousands of fatalities annually. For example, CDC figures for 2024 reported roughly 76,000 U.S. overdose deaths in a 12-month period — high by historical standards. … however … (Yes of course you knew this was coming, the claim is BS) … U.S. military fatalities in World War II numbered over 400,000 — far greater than recent annual overdose totals
- The drug claim is total BS, it always has been. The primary driver is that it is an attempt to steal their oil … but even that has failed.
Eric Metaxas declares that Maduro “is one of the most evil men on planet Earth”: “Imagine if some nasty person broke into your home and raped your children. How would you feel toward that person? Maduro is that guy.”
- Calling Maduro ‘the guy who broke into your home and raped your children’ is an extreme metaphor, not evidence. Serious criticism of his government for the human rights abuses, political repression, and corruption is valid, but hyperbolic personal analogies only inflame emotions and distract from documented facts.
- If he is looking for a list of morally obnoxious leaders in our times then there are a few very obvious candidates. Vladimir Putin (Russia): actions in Ukraine, reported war crimes, targeting civilians, forced deportations. Kim Jong-un (North Korea): brutal totalitarian regime, prison camps, systemic human rights abuses. Bashar al-Assad (Syria): use of chemical weapons, targeting civilians during the Syrian civil war. Aung San Suu Kyi / Myanmar military leaders: persecution and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya (though she lost power, the military remains in control).
- I should add the obvious. Trump is doing his best to also be on that list.
Weirdest of the Weird
- The deep irony here is that Nick believes that only Catholics are “True” Christians and all others are really heathens, and Joel believes that only Evangelicals are true Christians and all others are heathens. They skated over that bit during their “conversation”. Meanwhile with all the obnoxious rhetoric both dish out I don’t think either are Christian-ing correctly, but to be wholly fair, most Christians happily ignore all that Jesus said, so there is that.
Meanwhile …
Even More Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons.
Media Corruption
SCORCHING @Variety review of @tonydokoupil’s “bland” “inauspicious” debut as the CBS News(max) anchor — following the @bariweiss playbook with an “unchallenging” Hegseth “press release” of an interview parroting Trump’s narratives. variety.com/2026/tv/colu…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is ceasing operations
The Post-Gazette was one of the oldest newspapers in the U.S. with nearly 240 years of history. Its closure means Pittsburgh and its region may lose a major source of local reporting, leaving fewer outlets covering local government, courts, schools, and community issues.
Critics and local commenters have argued that the owner’s business decisions (including labor relations) exacerbated the newspaper’s financial struggles
In June 2018, the Post-Gazette fired Rob Rogers after repeatedly refusing to publish his cartoons critical of then-President Donald Trump. Rogers said many of his cartoons were “too angry” and suppressed by management.
The firing of editorial cartoonist Rob Rogers was not a direct cause of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announcing it will cease operations, but it did play a role in the paper’s broader decline in reputation, internal morale, and trust with readers and staff, which contributed to long-term weakening of the institution.
Observers (including journalists and commenters) saw the firing as part of a broader shift in editorial direction and management decisions that contributed to public criticisms of ownership and a decline in institutional credibility.
Finally
Jimmy Kimmel on the Awful ICE Shooting in Minneapolis & a Baseline of Decency Being Gone in America
Jimmy talks about the horrible shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an ICE officer, the full force of the White House and right wing commentators trying to convince us that this woman was part of a left wing terror effort, Trump falsely posting that the victim Renee Good “ran over an ICE officer,” Kristi Noem saying that it was an act of domestic terrorism, JD Vance doing his best to defend the indefensible, we got a copy of Stephen Miller’s high school yearbook which is very interesting, we see what the parents of some of our staffers think they should be working on in the new year, and This Week in Unnecessary Censorship.
Trump Admin: Obey Or Die | AI Health Advice | The Best Of The Worst Gadgets From CES
Trump’s propaganda machine wants you to believe the killing of Renee Nicole Good wasn’t a senseless and predictable crime committed by our government, artificial intelligence is creeping into the health care system in dubious ways, and a $5,000 smart toilet that can call for help is the best new gadget of the year.