Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – January 18, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
Dingbat imperialism and its malcontents
Dingbat Imperialism, the Lowest Stage of Capitalism
John Ganz, Jan 13, 2026 [Unpopular Front]
Germany planning ‘Arctic Sentry’ Nato mission to protect Greenland
[Telegraph, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
Tech billionaires behind Greenland bid want to build ‘freedom cities’
[Responsible Statecraft, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
The Oligarchs Pushing for Conquest in Greenland
Casey Michel, January 13, 2026 [The New Republic]
Trump’s fixation on filching the island territory from Denmark may seem like the demented ravings of a mad king. But to a cohort of plutocrat weirdos, it makes perfect sense.
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]
How Trump gave the green light for the killing of protestors.
[Borderland Talk with Jenn Budd, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
…I will argue to my dying day that he did not see her or her wife as an actual physical threat in that moment, but someone who should be taught a lesson. This analysis is based in my experience as a former agent, and teaching lessons to people who do not respect our authority is rampant in ICE, Border Patrol and CBP. Watch HBO’s Critical Incident to see all three agencies teach Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas this lesson….
But in October, things changed.
ICE shot at protestor Marimar Martinez hitting her five times on October 4, 2025. Now, Renee Good is dead. What changed? Why has ICE started shooting at people trying to warn the community of their presence when they did not before?
What changed is that ICE and other agencies performing civil immigration enforcement were given a directive from the President of the United States to label them as “domestic terrorists.” On September 25, 2025, before the Martinez shooting, Trump issued an executive order titled, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Political Violence.” This EO changed the definition of who is considered by federal agents to be a “domestic terrorist” to include:
- anti-Americanism
- anti-capitalism
- anti-Christianity
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government
- extremism on migration
- extremism on race
- extremism on gender
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.
To be fair, people like Marimar and Renee who maintain what the right-wing and this administration considers “extremism on migration” have been considered “domestic terrorists” for quite some time now. But they were not given the green light to kill them until the administration officially designated them as ‘domestic terrorists” in the executive order….
Chris Hedges, Jan 11, 2026
The Trump administration is consolidating the familiar machinery of terror of all authoritarian states. We must resist now. If we wait, it will be too late.
I have seen the masked goons who terrorize our streets before. I saw them during the “Dirty War” in Argentina, where 30,000 men, women and children were “disappeared” by the military junta. Victims were held in secret prisons, savagely tortured and murdered. To this day, many families do not know the fate of their loved ones.
I saw them in El Salvador, when death squads were killing 800 people a month. I saw them in Guatemala under the dictatorship of José Efraín Ríos Montt. I saw them in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile and in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I saw them in Iran under the rule of the ayatollahs where I was arrested and jailed twice and once deported in handcuffs. I saw them in Hafez al-Assad’s Syria. I saw them in Bosnia, where Muslims were herded into concentration camps, executed and buried in mass graves.
I know these goons. I have been a prisoner in their jails and spent hours in their interrogation rooms. I have been beaten by them. I have been deported, and in several cases banned, from their countries. I know what is coming….
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
https://x.com/sandibachom/status/2010874067419873362
Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed
Ken Klippenstein [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]
Important.
‘ELITE’: The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid
[404 Media, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]
“Stupod B*tch”: GoFundMe for Minnesota ICE Agent Is Chilling
[New Republic, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
US Border Agents Intentionally Stepped in Front of Moving Vehicles to Justify Shooting at Them
[Nation, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
Michale Macher, Phenomenal World, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
How a 40-second encounter led an ICE agent to shoot and kill a Twin Cities resident
[Minnesota Star Tribune, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
[NC: Comprehensive report and not a good one for ICE.]
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
GarrisonLovely@GarrisonLovely
.
cofounder Joe Lonsdale just endorsed apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia and said the US should move toward their model of open white supremacy.
My final message before I’m on an FBI watchlist: Palantir, Epstein, & The New York Times
Juan Sebastian Pinto [a former Palantir employee, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
Strategic Political Economy
China curbs high-frequency trading to de-risk markets
[Asia Times, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]
[TW: Worth noting to show, yes, it is possible to actually regulate financial markets.]
Global power shift
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 01-17-2025]
Seyed M. Marandi: Violent Riots & a Massive War Coming
Glenn Diesen [YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
‘Kill Switch’—Iran Shuts Down Starlink Internet For First Time
Zak Doffman, Jan 12, 2026 [Forbes]
We have not seen this before. Iran’s digital blackout has now deployed military jammers, reportedly supplied by Russia, to shut down access to Starlink Internet. This is a game-changer for the Plan-B connectivity frequently used by protesters and anti-regime activists when ordinary access to the internet is stopped..
“Despite reports that tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran,” says Iran Wire, “the blackout has also reached satellite connections.” It is reported that about 30 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic was (initially) disrupted,” quickly rising “to more than 80 per cent” within hours.
The CIA/Mossad Operation to Spark a Color Revolution in Iran has Failed
Larry Johnson [via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
The “Trump Doctrine” Is Shaped By Elbridge Colby’s “Strategy Of Denial”
Andrew Korybko [via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
Trump Declares National Emergency to Protect Stolen Venezuela Funds
[Antiwar, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
[Black Mountain Analysis, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
Felonomics
1 Year Into Trump 2.0, the Social Security Administration Is in Disarray
Martin Burns and Mary Liz Burns, Jan 16, 2026 [Common Dreams]
They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals
Regulators say DoorDash and Uber Eats chiseled NYC delivery workers out of $550M in tips
[Gothamistvia Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
LAWYER: Cops Have a NEW “Social Score” to Label You a Threat
[Hampton Law, YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
[NC: Usefully tells you which settings to disable/enable on your iPhone or Android to reduce data extraction. Even though I had told my tech woman to do that, she had missed some. Surprised it does not recommend turning off WiFi save when you specifically want to use it (yours truly is perfectly happy to pay for connectivity for the sake of my privacy, which I infer is a outlier practice). My ride share app asks I turn on WiFi to facilitate geolocation, which despite GPS, is pretty poor otherwise. I prefer to type in my pickup.]
Scott Ritter [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]
[Ritter’s accounts zeroed out without explanation.]
Climate and environmental crises
Ocean Temperatures Just Hit a Dire New Record
[Scientific American, via Naked Capitalism 01-13-2025]
World’s richest 1% have already used fair share of emissions for 2026, says Oxfam
[The Guardian, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
Democrats’ political malpractice
Do the Democrats Have the Guts to Outflank Trump on Defense Industry Looting?
Les Leopold, Jan 13, 2026 [Wall Street’s War on Workers]
Monopoly Round-Up: Why Did Trump Just Attack the Fed and Corporate America?
Matt Stoller, Jan 12, 2026 [BIG]
Resistance
What to Do If ICE Shows Up: Know Your Rights
Kim Wehle, Jan 11, 2026 [Zeteo]
Here are five guidelines for how to respond if US federal immigration agents stop, approach you, or knock at your door.
1. If ICE stops or intimidates you, do not precipitously flee
2. If detained (even temporarily), you can stay silent
3. ICE can make certain arrests without a warrant, but it cannot search your home without either a judicial warrant or your consent
4. If detained, you can ask the ICE agent to identify themselves
5. You can hire a lawyer after an arrest, but whether you can immediately call one depends on state law….
Here’s How You Can Challenge Wage Garnishment for Defaulted Student Loans
[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 01-12-2025]
Civic republicanism
Aurelien [via Naked Capitalism 01-15-2025]
Last week, I suggested that these days governments and the private sector were increasingly following a policy of nihilistic destruction, which was the logical, if uncomfortable, outcome of the kind of apocalyptic individualism now rampant everywhere after the unchallenged triumph of Liberal ideas.
I think that case is sufficiently well established, and this week I want to look in more detail at specific areas where this is happening, or has even happened, and consider what some of the practical consequences may be. They are all logically deducible from the ultra-individualist, almost autistic, mindset that Liberalism at its worst entails, and it may be worth saying just a word about that first….
Jefferson Hamilton
Quite short by your standards! Is there any non-YouTube source for that “social score” link and its recommendations? It is so very tiresome to wade through a fifteen minute video when I’m sure what I am interested in would take less than two minutes to read.
spud
youtube is now my go to for real information. agreed, cumbersome, but good. for decades, from the late 1990’s till about two years ago, alt.politics.economics was my place for information and posting. then they closed down.
went to a famous blog, got the boot because i attacked “OUR” free trade agreements, my take on fascism, and my warnings that america was turning into a police state, all you needed to do is to see the police in action on youtube which i pointed out. and i never viewed the free trade agreements as ours.
today, its Ian Welsh, which i view as important, and youtube. thank god for both.
different clue
Hmmm . . . I wonder if some of the DemParty officeholders are beginning to grow a brain.
” Yahoo News
Calls to invoke 25th Amendment grow as Trump tries to acquire Greenland. How does it work, and has it been used before? ”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/calls-to-invoke-25th-amendment-grow-as-trump-tries-to-acquire-greenland-how-does-it-work-and-has-it-been-used-before-213524306.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Why might I suspect “growing a brain”? Maybe they are using a reverse-psychology trick on the Republican officeholders to trick them into keeping Trump right there in the Presidency for a long while more, in hopes that life in America and for America will get so utterly bad as the Republicans keep protecting their beloved God-Emperor from those horrible Democrats and their fake lies and hoaxes about Trump’s mental state that the entire Republican Party will go down with the Trump when it finally sinks.
If that is what these DemParty officeholders are doing and that is their intention, it is a high-risk gamble. Because in this scenario America itself could also go down with the Trump when the Trump finally sinks.
different clue
Here is another bunch of re-broadcast contents by African aggregator of American content NanyaCym.
By this point in time, one might as well describe it plainly. White Privileged Leftists who expect to lose none of their own White Left Privileges if the Republicans win the mid-terms are demanding that people “not vote” in the mid-terms. Some Black commenters are shown condemning this and condemning them and their Privilege in the plainest possible terms.
” W🤍 Pe0ple Are About To Repeat The Biggest Mistake B🖤 Pe0ple Warned Them About👉🏾 The Unfixable FAFO ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSnPLrVV16g
different clue
Here is an interesting little talk-snippet from someone who calls herself an “americanist”, which I suspect means an academic americanologist/ american studies person at a University or similar institution. She is offering comparisons with supporting reasons between today’s ICE and the Slave Patrols of pre-Civil-War Slaverist America. She offers some things that I didn’t even know. Such as that in the early days of the immediate-post-reconstruction period, that many White Southerners were lynched along with Black Southerners by the Confederoid Insurgency to terrorise the entire population of all races into submitting to resurgent Confederoid Slaverist rule.
” Slave patrols were also meant to control the white population | “The idea being to create terror against anybody who would stand up to the regime.” | They know it was a mistake coming here, MN is civic minded ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/minnesota/comments/1qj0dbo/slave_patrols_were_also_meant_to_control_the/
different clue
Here is an American Black content-creator named Willie D. This is not re-videocast by an African aggregator-revideocaster. This is his own videocast from right here within America itself.
He is using the possible saving of White Power Activist’s life from White Minnesotans by a Black bystander as a jumping-off point to discuss the proper treatment of enemies.
” Black Man Who Saved Jack Lang GOES OFF on “Blacks” ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyzDnd45CLs
I like the way he thinks. I would not want to be his enemy. I believe this is the proper approach to Klan Maganazi Trumpamerica if we can carry it out. But first we have to survive the Klan Maganazi Trumpamerican offensive and occupation-consolidation effort currently underway.
different clue
Here’s an interesting article from reddit which I will offer here because things disappear from findability on reddit just as they do on you tube. It is about the Republican officeholders’ clever plan to outlaw several tens of millions of women from voting in the 2026 election. It has to do with some very clever electoral engineering within the SAVE Act. The person offering this article offers some advice and ways to get more advice on the grindingly tedious and painful process of gathering all the heaps and piles of documentation necessary for each voting-age woman who wants to protect their voting rights from this clever SAVE Act trick to be able to do so.
“Glass Empires By W. A. Lawrence
Republicans Will Detonate Their Secret Weapon at the Midnight Hour to Stop Women from Voting”
https://wendy664.substack.com/p/republicans-will-detonate-their-secret?utm_medium=android&triedRedirect=true
If Trump or Vance gets this bill, Trump or Vance will sign it. In an alternate reality, a President Harris would not sign this bill. There is a difference between Trump and Harris which the Left can exert itself to pretend does not exist and would not have existed.
different clue
Here is a little video from the ” Dangerous Newsbreak” series of vidcasts. It is titled:
” STOP ICE: Key Corporations to BOYCOTT NOW ”
It starts by describing how Minnesotans will tomorrow be holding a one day working stoppage, schooling stoppage and buying stoppage. ( I would imagine it is partly an experiment to see how many Minnesotans can do that one set of things on the one same day. Lessons will be learned and applications will be engineered.)
it goes on to describe 5 companies of national reach and fame which are particularly overt and egregious ICE-collaborators and suggests they be boycotted to pressure them to stop assisting ICE in its efforts. It also offers a link-or-two for more detailed information on these economic boycott actions and a carefully curated list of targets.
Here is the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs6L4RsKIzo
different clue
Here is an interesting video called: ” A Former Black Panther Speaks: Can America Be Saved?” He looks old enough to have been from the original Panther period. I am no expert obviously, but he seems “real” in a way that various cardboard-replica Pop-Up Panthers lately appearing just don’t. I don’t know his name. He gives some advice and explains why he gives it and how to work it.
It seems specific and do-able by the people to whom it is directed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3mIzBzK_F8
different clue
Here is a little video called: ” ICE taking pics of legal observer’s car: “We have a nice little database and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist. So have fun with that.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1qkxhsa/ice_taking_pics_of_legal_observers_car_we_have_a/
A good reply to this ICE-man would be ” we are building a nice little database ourselves and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist your own self.”
Bipartisan Democrat cucks wouldn’t think that way. Neither would kumbaya liberal-pacifist cucks. Non-liberal non-pacifist non-cucks should be thinking about ways to exploit Bipartisan Democrat cucks and kumbaya liberal-pacifist cucks as useful idiots.
( If millions of people are idiots, can we at least make them useful to us? A useful idiot is better for our side than a useless idiot, or a useful idiot for the enemy side).
different clue
Now, here’s a little video that will really upset James Hogg and the Liberal Fascist Pig gun-control creeps. ( Though I suspect videos of Black people with guns still upset them even more . . . )
” He’s so excited and he just can’t hide it ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1qkr72d/hes_so_excited_and_he_just_cant_hide_it/
The optics would have been better if he could have been all sad and somber about it instead of smiling. Because the time will come when the KlanMaga NaziTrump Right will gtry giving him something to not-smile about. But still, he has done the right thing. ( And those of us who feel unequal to the burdens of gun-ownership still have a right to NOT bear arms our own personal selves, if that is what we individually and personally choose. ” If you don’t believe in Abortion, don’t get one.”)
Is Gun Control really the hill that the Democrats want to die on? Really? Lets see how that works out for them in 2026.
different clue
And this, about yet another AI fake image from the Trump Occupation Regime . . .
” ‘Dark, Bizarre Stuff’: White House Posts Deepfake Image of Arrested ICE Protester Crying: “All of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1qks3tc/dark_bizarre_stuff_white_house_posts_deepfake/
different clue
Here is a random comment from an anti-Trump thread, offering advice to EUropean leaders which they will never read or even see. Still, it was fun to offer it.
” They need to just treat him and his freakshow as an occupation regime at this point, he’s out of threats to make, just reach out to all the people and politicians that hate him here and do what they can to help them resist him. And humiliate him at every turn, don’t meet with him etc. ”
I wonder what would happen if all the foreigners currently “boycotting America” decided to understand events in America as being the opening stages of a currently not-yet-violent Civil Culture War in its early stages. What if ” Blue America” and counter-Trump foreigners were to co-focus their “boycottery” on selectively boycotting goods and services from those parts of the country which are majority Klan Maganazi Republican? In order to slowly and comprehensively attrit and degrade those regional economies and societies to depopulate those areas and reduce their power? What if the few most Klan Maganazi states with the highest population percentage of Irredeemables could be isolated and turned into social and cultural sumps into which every Klan Maganazi Irredeemable from all the other states could be encouraged to drain into? Then those few states could be expelled from the Union and surrounded with a Big Beautiful Wall to keep the Irredeemables from further polluting the rest of OUR decontaminated country.
Get them concentrated into one contiguous place so all the leopards can find all the faces.
different clue
here’s something from the r/technology subreddit.
” Is Your Ring Doorbell Footage Going Straight to ICE’s Massive Spy Network? | Ring partners with Flock to feed doorbell footage into federal databases used by ICE for immigration enforcement ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1qks90c/is_your_ring_doorbell_footage_going_straight_to/
Are there Ring Doorbell owners who disapprove of President Miller’s Trumpenvance ICE? If there are, is there a way for them to disable or dismantle or remove their Ring Doorbell devices?
different clue
( Should I apologize for all these offered comments? If I don’t offer them they will disappear never to be findable again. And I won’t complain if any are deemed not worthy to be published. I offer them just in case they are as worthy as I hope and believe them to be).
Here is a post about a very recent opinion delivered on the Trump Administration by a French General.
” What are your thoughts? ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/DiscussionZone/comments/1qkx1d7/what_are_your_thoughts/
( The thoughts are in the post itself) . . .
Ian Welsh
I appreciate your comments adding new sources Different Clue. If they don’t get approved fast, all that means is that I’m AFK. Sometimes I am not able to approve comments for a longer period.
different clue
@Ian,
Thank you for the kind words. I was never upset about ” time before posting”. Time constraints, technology constraints, energy constraints and a real life to be lived in the real world. I was just getting pre-emptively concerned that I might be considered to be ” hogging the comments”.
( I still wonder why so few of my fellow readers who comment regularly on all the other posts show up so very rarely to comment on Tony Wikrent’s posts).
different clue
Here is another release from the African content-creator/American content aggregator-revidcaster.
” TURKSIH American Man & Colleague Who Were Against DEI Apologized To B🖤 Pe0ple For Voting Against 👉🏾 ”
( That title reveals an analytical weakness that some of the African content-creators suffer from. They don’t understand the nuances of America, American political culture, etc. While I haven’t actually watched the video yet, I would be deeply surprised if Cenk Uygur and etc. were ever against DEI. What they were against was the concept of “voting for the lesser evil”. So they counseled voting against Harris one way or another. Since I believed in voting against the Greater Danger, I voted for Harris as the best I could do to help get Trump defeated. ((Voting against Harris didn’t even slow down the genocide, as all the Best-Informed people predicted it wouldn’t.)) Events have proven that to have been the exactly correct thing to have done. Anyway, one can use the slider-bar to find and only watch the aggregated revidcast American content and miss CimNaya’s own commentary unless one has the time to watch that too. I don’t have that time so all I can say is . . . God made a Slider Bar.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U1_ObTvd4k