Friday News Roundup
- On Sunday, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol was formally indicted on insurrection charges for declaring martial law this past December. Former U.S. Senator from New Jersey Bob Menendez has also been sentenced to 11 years in prison after conviction on bribery and corruption charges. Now that’s how you do it! Now if only we could apply this same treatment to a certain Republican president…
- Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked Donald Trump’s unilateral freeze on all federal grants and loans. In response, Trump quietly rescinded the memo authorizing the freeze. This is so under the radar that I had to use links from the BBC to document this. I think it proves how worthwhile it is to stand up to Trump and not surrender to him in advance, even if the comatose U.S. media fails to emphasize it.
-
An Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet carrying 64 people. It is believed the crash has left no survivors. Because a leopard never changes its spots, Trump blamed the disaster on DEI. A White House statement dated yesterday January 30 specifically blamed the Biden Administration for implementing “dangerous “diversity equity and inclusion” tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities in the FAA.”
The White House statement contains several misleading claims, if not outright lies. People with intellectual disabilities do work for the FAA, but they don’t direct air traffic. According to a CBS News factcheck of Trump’s claims, air traffic controllers “must undergo extensive training and meet rigorous standards, including mental and physical fitness tests.” So, if a MAGA member of your family starts claiming that Biden DEI standards put people with dwarfism and Down syndrome into the air traffic controller’s chair, now you have the facts.
According to Jonathan Koziol, the Headquarters Department of the Army Aviation Directorate Chief of Staff, said that the Black Hawk helicopter’s flight would have been deemed “low risk.” Shawn Pruchnicki, a former airline pilot and current professor of aviation studies, hypothesized that both the helicopter and airplane might have been in each other’s respective blind spots. In my opinion, the risk of military aircraft colliding with commercial aircraft should be upgraded, because even if the event is unlikely from a probability standpoint, the consequences for loss of life can be so catastrophic. This crash occurred because an Army helicopter had an annual training flight. It is absurd to me that military training flights come anywhere near Dulles or Reagan report in D.C. It’s as foolhardy as directing a driver with a learner’s permit onto the track of the Indy 500.
- Hedge fund billionaire Scott Bessent was confirmed as Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury. Bessent, a former Democratic donor">“ascertain the stupidest possible scenario that can be reconciled with the available facts”) says that Trump probably appointed Bessent because he wanted somebody gay in his Cabinet who outranked Pete Buttigieg. We’ll see how long Bessent lasts in the role. Will it be measured in years or in Scaramuccis?
- The Chinese startup DeepSeek released the DeepSeek-R1 model for free on Apple’s App Store, which led to a massive sell-off of American tech stocks on Monday, erasing over $1 trillion in value. The hardest company hit was the chip maker Nvidia, which lost almost $600 billion, the greatest loss faced by any company on the American stock market ever. A science website pondered whether this is a “Sputnik moment” for the American AI sector.
- Israel has banned the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from providing any aid in Gaza, including food and basic medical care, effective January 30.
Mass Deportation Watch
- On January 21, the Trump administration reinstated the “remain in Mexico” policy, which prevents migrants from staying on U.S. territory while waiting for a court to review their immigration claims.
- On January 22, Catholic Charities of San Diego told CNN that Customers and Border Protection would no longer be releasing migrants into their care, a signal that the Trump plans to put more migrants in less humane detention facilities.
- On January 23, the Trump Administration announced that it would deploy 1,500 Army and Marines personnel to the southern border at El Paso and San Diego.
- On January 31, Donald Trump announced that he plans to use the military prison at Guantanamo Bay as a detention center for immigrants.
- To date, Trump has already arrested at least 3500 immigrants and authorized 3 deportation flights, all of them with Latin American immigrants.
- At least 15 indigenous Americans in New Mexico and Arizona have reported being harassed by ICE agents despite presenting tribal ID.
Pandemic Watch
- On his first day in office, Donald Trump announced withdrawing from the World Health Organization. According to analysis by Johns Hopkins University, consequences of the withdrawal include WHO losing 12-15% of its budget and the U.S. losing access to WHO’s global disease alert system. The negative effects will be compounded by Donald Trump’s agency-wide gag order imposed on HHS, which also prohibits communication between Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and WHO.
- On January 29, Rose Acre Farms, the second biggest egg producer in the United States, confirmed an avian flu outbreak at their Seymour, Indiana facility.
- In another recent development, the state of Georgia announced on January 17 a complete suspension of poultry sales by farmers in the state due to the threat of avian flu.
Wildfire Watch
- According to data from the State of California, the Palisades fire is 99% contained and the Eaton fire is 98% at press time. An 80-acre fire in San Diego, which began on January 21, is still not contained but it appears to be far enough from inhabited areas that California’s state fire department has not yet been mobilized.
- On January 16, four days before Trump’s inauguration, the EPA began assessing properties burned in the wildfires for hazardous materials. Thankfully, a new EPA press release dated January 28 indicates that Donald Trump is not interfering with the EPA’s work at cleaning up the wildfire area.
Culture War Watch
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed his department to freeze all passport applications with the non-binary “X” gender identifier.
- Brendan Carr, Trump’s new chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has revived three investigations of media bias at ABC, CBS, and NBC, but refuses to start a similar investigation at Fox News. (This is my surprised face.)
- As of Wednesday, Donald Trump moved to fire at least 12 Justice Department officials who investigated him. In addition, according to an article in the military newspaper Stars & Stripes, Donald Trump appointed election denier Ed Martin as the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin’s marching orders from Trump are to begin a “project” of administrative harassment against the prosecutors of the 1,600 defendants in the January 6 insurrection against the U.S. capitol.