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Less Than Zero: A wintry mixtape

Published by Dennis Hartley on January 24, 2026

In my review of the documentary Antarctica: A Year on Ice, I wrote:

For decades now, my long-time Alaskan friends and I have speculated as to why no one has ever thought to produce a documentary about the unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience shared by the thousands of men and women who worked on the massive Trans-Alaska Pipeline construction project back in the 1970s. From 1975-1977, I worked as a laborer on the project (that’s right…Fairbanks Local #942, baby!), doing 6-to-10 week stints in far-flung locales with exotic handles like Coldfoot, Old Man, Happy Valley, and the ever-popular Pump Station #3 (now that was one cold motherfucker).

These remote work camps, frequently the only bastions of “civilization” for hundreds of square miles in all directions, developed their own unique culture…part moon base, part Dodge City. It’s a vibe that is tough to explain to anyone who wasn’t actually there. Traditionally, I usually cite the sci-fi “western” Outland as the closest approximation.

They don’t call Alaska “The Last Frontier” for nothing. Yippee ki-yay.

Yes, the subarctic can be harsh and otherworldly. Yet, there is also poetry there…as these verses from Robert Service’s “The Spell of the Yukon” attest:

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;
The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t

I second that emotion. From my review of the documentary Happy People: A Year in the Taiga:

As I was watching the film, a certain sense of familiarity began to gnaw at me. It was something about the stark wintry beauty of naturally flocked spruce forests, the crisp contrast of white birch against blue skies, and the odd moose galumphing into the frame. Or maybe it was the relentless vampirism of swarming mosquitos during the short but intense sub-arctic summer. Then it dawned on me. I had lived there! Was this a past life memory? Then I remembered that I don’t believe in that sort of thing…so I Googled a map of Siberia, which solved the mystery: the village of Bakhta lies roughly on the same longitude as Fairbanks, Alaska, where I lived for 23 years. I couldn’t see Russia from my house, but I now feel a spiritual kinship with these hardy Siberians. Okay, I’m not a survivalist (if I were to venture out on Gennady’s trap line; I’d end up like the protagonists in Kalatozov’s Letter Never Sent). But I think you catch my drift…

I suppose this is my (typically) long-winded way of assuring you that I’m not just blowing smoke when I say that I feel your pain if you are in the path of the massive winter storm dumping on the U.S. this weekend:

Winter Storm Fern could etch itself into weather history in four different ways across the South, Midwest and Northeast.Some winter storms affect only a relatively limited area. Not Winter Storm Fern.

Fern is expected to dump significant snow and/or ice over 34 states affecting over 220 million people in the U.S. That’s almost two out of every three Americans, according to population estimates.

Fern will also dump significant snow in parts of southeastern and Atlantic Canada.

This storm will lead to widespread dangerous travel for days, and “catastrophic” ice accumulations in the South could lead to widespread power outages and tree damage, according to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center. […]

This could be the region’s most widespread, damaging ice storm in at least several years, with damage that could take days to recover from.

Weather forecasters are also warning about possible snow accumulations of 12 inches or more in some areas, as well as record cold temperatures.

I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; … then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

–from “The Cremation of Sam McGee”, by Robert Service

Don’t try that at home, kids…but do what you can keep warm, and stay safe. In the meantime, grab yourself a cup of hot chocolate (those directly in path of the storm may want to add a splash of Kahlua), a good pair of noise-cancelling ‘phones, and curl up with my wintry mixtape. As usual, best enjoyed in the order presented:

“The Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin

“Waiting for the Winter” – The Popguns

“Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles

“Baby it’s Cold Outside” – Pezband

“Snowman” – XTC

“Winter in the Country” – Cleaners from Venus

“Valley Winter Song” – Fountains of Wayne

“Life in a Northern Town” – The Dream Academy

“Skyway” – The Replacements

“Snowstorm” – Galaxie 500

“Winter Song” – The Screaming Trees

“Winter” – The Rolling Stones

“South Side of the Sky” – Yes

“Rangers at Midnight” – Crack the Sky

“The Northern Lights” – Renaissance

“Snowbound” – Genesis

“I Am a Rock” – Simon and Garfunkel

“California Dreaming” – Mamas and the Papas

“Sometimes in Winter” – Blood, Sweat, and Tears

“Wintertime Love” – The Doors

“Winter Winds” – Fotheringay

“Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of a New Day)” – Jethro Tull

“Snowflake” – Kate Bush

“Snow is Falling in Manhattan” – Purple Mountains

“A Winter’s Tale” – Jade Warrior

More reviews at Den of Cinema

— Dennis Hartley

Stephen Miller’s Database

Published by digby on January 24, 2026

This is why the agent who shot Renee Good was filming her. It was for a facial recognition database of enemies of MAGA.

Recall:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will potentially treat opponents of President Donald Trump’s policies as “domestic terrorists,” according to a leaked memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi to all U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The document, which was first published over the weekend by investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein, appears to represent the first attempt to implement Trump’s calls to target left-wing activists and others who protest his administration’s policies as “terrorists” affiliated with antifa, an anti-fascist movement that often serves as a boogeyman for the right.

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In the Dec. 4 memo, Bondi instructed the DOJ to compile a “list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” under U.S. law. 

The memo suggests Bondi is working from an exceedingly broad definition of “domestic terrorism” — and an exaggerated perception of the threat it poses. And despite the administration’s denials, the memo suggests it could target Americans based on their political beliefs, not their actions.

“For too long, rampant criminal conduct rising to the level of domestic terrorism—e.g., organized doxing of law enforcement, mass rioting and destruction in our cities, violent efforts to shut down immigration enforcement, targeting of public officials or other political actors, etc. —has been tolerated,” she writes. 

The alleged perpetrators of these actions are defined by extreme viewpoints, anti-American sentiments and a willingness to use violence to serve those beliefs, the attorney general claims. 

Among the “anti-American sentiments” Bondi enumerates are anti-Christianity, anti-capitalism, “adherence to radical gender ideology,” “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality” and “views in favor of mass migration and open borders.”

That covers a whole lot of ground, doesn’t it?

He’s Got A Big Mad

Published by digby on January 24, 2026

This was Trump a few days ago saying that if Canada can get a trade deal with China, good for them:

That was a few days ago. But since Carney spoke at Davos which is being praised as a major historic speech, Trump is on another anti-Canada rampage:

Notice the typically puerile “Governor” Carney.

Our Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is also trolling Canada with this nonsense:

I guess they are literally fomenting a civil war with Canada with the hopes that Alberta will do this and bring the U.S. into the fight? It seems crazy but everything is crazy so why would we think they wouldn’t do this?

The specter of Albertan separatism is real for Canada. Organizers throughout the province need only to collect 178,000 signatures by May 2 to force a referendum on independence. If successful, the Canadian government would need to negotiate in good faith on a potential separation.

Conservative influencers in America have gleefully talked up the prospect of Alberta leaving Canada and eventually joining the U.S. Meanwhile, Carney and his Liberal caucus is attuned to the threat. “People are talking,” Bessent said. “People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”

Are Albertans so far gone that they agree with Trump’s insults toward Canadian troops? May be. They are the MAGA people of Canada. But I wonder if they’re going to love not having affordable health care, mass shootings every day and a masked secret police invading their cities at will?

Bessent has become quite the nasty little bitch:

Bessent, who called Carney a “globalist” and panned the Canadian leader’s time working as a climate envoy at the United Nations, spoke amid a series of clashes between Trump and Carney in Davos, Switzerland, where the two spent time this week at the World Economic Forum.

This is all because an increasingly senile Trump made a complete ass of himself during this first month of January 2026, from Venezuela to Minneapolis to Greenland and our allies have decided they can no longer afford to appease him . So he’s having a tantrum.

It’s quite a moment for us and for the world. I sure hope Americans are paying attention because this is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before and it could go very, very sideways.

Meanwhile, Here’s The Weird Delusional Right Wing Obsession O’ The Day

Published by digby on January 24, 2026

They are so stupid they actually think Greenland has penguins:

If you’re wondering what this crazy bullshit is all about:

Some of our international competitors understand just how idiotic this is:

No Apology

Published by digby on January 24, 2026

Yeah, I don’t think this is going to do it. Acting like you never said what you said and expecting people to ignore it isn’t going to work with the UK. Your cult will accept this but normal people won’t.

In case you haven’t heard, this is about Trump having a tantrum at Davos saying that NATO never helped the US and, sure they sent a few troops to Afghanistan but they stayed way back and didn’t fight, which is a bald faced, grotesque lie. The NATO countries were not amused.

So this spoiled orange freak writes this thinking that it’s all good now. It is not.

Don’t Throw Out Those Masks

Published by digby on January 24, 2026

They may be all you have to protect yourself

This is a massive risk. Don’t be surprised if it happens. And now, instead of a CDC or NIH that at least has real scientists running it we have cranks and quacks in charge. It’s just terrifying.

Qualified Immunity. What Could Go Worng?

Published by Tom Sullivan on January 24, 2026

If it wasn’t for bad faith, they wouldn’t have no faith at all

Let’s talk about “qualified immunity” (via the National Council of State Legislators):

The doctrine of qualified immunity protects state and local officials, including law enforcement officers, from individual liability unless the official violated a clearly established constitutional right.

The evolution of qualified immunity began in 1871 when Congress adopted 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which makes government employees and officials personally liable for money damages if they violate a person’s federal constitutional rights. State and local police officers may be sued under § 1983. Until the 1960s, few § 1983 lawsuits were successfully brought. In 1967, the Supreme Court recognized qualified immunity as a defense to § 1983 claims. In 1982, the Supreme Court adopted the current test for the doctrine. Qualified immunity is generally available if the law a government official violated isn’t “clearly established.”

If qualified immunity applies, money damages aren’t available even if a constitutional violation has occurred. If qualified immunity doesn’t apply, while the government employee or official technically is responsible for money damages, the government entity virtually always pays. So qualified immunity protects states and local governments from having to pay money damages for actions not yet deemed unconstitutional by a court. 

The qualified immunity doctrine is very favorable to states and local governments. “Clearly established” means that, at the time of the official’s conduct, the law was sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would understand that what he or she is doing is unconstitutional. According to the Supreme Court, qualified immunity protects all except the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.

The Supreme Court has offered multiple justifications for qualified immunity, including that it encourages government officials to “unflinching[ly] discharge . . . their duties” without worrying about being sued for actions a court has not yet held violate the constitution.

Note how much “clearly established constitutional right,” “reasonable official,” and “except plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law” rely on good-faith behavior. “Qualified immunity” breaks down when we have people who do not respect the rule of law both on the enforcement and on the interpreting side of American justice.

We now routinely see lawless DHS/ICE thugs assaulting citizen observers and accusing observers of the assaults. The agents’ purpose is to arrest critics, threaten them with felony assault, and perhaps charge them with assaults that the federal agents committed. This is to minimize citizen oversight of agents’ civil rights violations, initimidate critics, and in the case of Renee Good, even kill them. All protected by qualified immunity.

It is a rule designed to protect government officials operating in good faith and playing by and respecting the rule of law. That horse left the barn some years ago.

A couple of examples from this week.

Democrats have introduced a string of bills to limit or remove qualified immunity in the wake of behaviors on display in Donald Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s ethnic cleansing operation. As I wrote two weeks ago, none of these bills have a prayer this term. They are mainly for P.R. But I’d be inclined to present the stack to any DHS agent threatening me and ask him if he knows what the statute of limitations on civil rights lawsuits is in this state. Those bills might come back to bite him and his family in the future. It’s a bluff, of course, but I’d expect few of these idiots to know that.

Ice Of Another Kind

Published by Tom Sullivan on January 24, 2026

Hour by hour

Weather dot com headline Friday night.

The headline above appeared on the Weather Channel’s site Friday night. We on the east coast are bracing for whatever Mother Nature has in store later today. Whether it will be “catastrophic” where I live remains unknown. (Commercial weather forecasters love to hype big weather events.) Still, there could be widespread tree damage and power outages due to an expected ice storm followed by temperatures in the low single-digits on Monday night. And we’re still cleaning up the tree damage from Helene’s visit on September 27, 2024.

A 3:13 a.m. email from The Guardian carried the subject line “A(nother) week where decades happen.” That’s after a year where decades happened, including for civil servants like those at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS).

Hurricane Musk fell upon Washington, D.C. last February. A gleeful Elon Musk precipitated rounds of staff cuts to the agencies Americans depend on to warn us of impending weather disasters like the one forecast for this weekend. By April 1 over 1,000 lost jobs with more expected as the purges rolled on.

As The Guardian reported April 1:

“Dysfunction is the polite way of putting it, you could also say it is incompetent chaos,” said Andrew Rosenberg, formerly the deputy director of Noaa’s national marine fisheries service.

“This administration is paying people on administrative leave and asking staff to name five good things they’ve done but they get email bounce backs when they do because the inboxes are full. If you were looking at the inverse of efficiency, this would be it.”

Then came the whipsaw as — whoops — Musk’s ad hoc “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) realized that, hmmm, maybe we need some of the people who warn the public of tornadoes and hurricanes. By August, DOGE was backtracking. NOAA received permission to refill 450 positions at NWS “after a summer of deadly, extreme weather.” That is “nearly all” the “critical positions” lost in the spring to Musk’s college-age hackers.

My ice storm warnings are changing by the hour. Maybe that’s NWS experts staying atop changing weather data and fine-tuning forecasts as the storm develops. Or maybe it is because like Helene survivors here in Western North Carolina, NWS is still recovering from last year’s Hurricane Musk.

Politico reports, “The monster storm that’s threatening to dump snow across much of the U.S. could be a test of the Trump administration’s willingness to help states after natural disasters.”

Help? We’re still waiting for the help Trump promised us last January. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Joe Biden, he said, was “very bureaucratic” and “very slow.” As of September, we’d received “less than $5 billion of the estimated $60 billion needed for full recovery.” The promised aid is still dribbling out.

Politico again:

With heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain forecast to begin falling Friday and continuing into Monday over a massive swath of the country, from the Rockies to the Atlantic, governors from dozens of states could be forced to navigate shifting policies under President Donald Trump, who has set efforts in motion to reduce the flow of disaster aid to states. As governors declare emergencies ahead of the storm, some are wondering whether the White House will reject their requests for federal funding to help pay for cleanup and repairs if predictions for over a foot of snow in some areas prove accurate.

“They’re preparing for the worst,” said a former senior Federal Emergency Management Agency official who was granted anonymity to describe discussions with state officials. “They’re preparing for no grants, no money.”

Ice is bad, but is I.C.E. worse? The Trump administration thinks so (CNN):

Homeland Security officials have urged disaster response staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to avoid using the word “ice” in public messaging about the massive winter storm barreling toward much of the United States, according to two sources familiar with the directive.

The concern is that the word could spark confusion or online mockery, given the ongoing controversy surrounding US Immigration and Customs Enforcement — also known as “ICE.”

The guidance, informally delivered to a group at FEMA Thursday by officials from the Department of Homeland Security – which oversees both FEMA and ICE – comes as states across the South brace for potentially devastating ice accumulations, with some areas expecting a quarter -inch or more.

Head : desk. Mock away.

Friday Night Soother

Published by digby on January 23, 2026

Baby slow loris!

 The Bronx Zoo has announced the birth of an Endangered pygmy slow loris, born December 13, 2025 as the first primate born at the zoo’s new immersive World of Darkness exhibit.

The pygmy slow loris is a small primate native to Southeast Asia. They are considered Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with habitat loss and poaching for the illegal pet trade contributing to rapid population decline. The Bronx Zoo participates in the pygmy slow loris Species Survival Plan (SSP), a breeding program managed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to maintain a genetically diverse population of the Endangered species.

Slow lorises are born fully furred with their eyes open and reach an adult weight of about one pound. Infants are carried on the mother’s stomach and intermittently “parked” on branches while the mother forages for food. The baby will become more active and independent as it grows, becoming fully weaned around 6 months of age. Bronx Zoo animal care staff will determine the baby’s sex at its first veterinary exam.

These guys are very cute, but they’re also deadly:

I love them anyway.

Leopards In Florida

Published by digby on January 23, 2026

No wait! We’re wingnuts too!

Heidy Sánchez took her 17-month-old daughter to a routine check-in last April with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Tampa, Fla. During the appointment, federal authorities told her that she was being detained and that her husband should pick up their daughter, who was still breastfeeding. Two days later, Ms. Sánchez, 44, who worked as a home health aide, was deported.

Ms. Sánchez’s story quickly spread across social media, in part because she is Cuban, a group that had long been treated differently than other immigrants, even when they entered the country illegally.

That has changed under President Trump.

He has repatriated more than 1,600 Cubans in 2025, according to the Cuban government. That is about double the number of Cubans who were repatriated in 2024. And in the years that Mr. Trump has been president, he has sent more Cubans back than his three predecessors.

Those numbers are greater for Cubans who were deported by land into Mexico. Some of them had been in the United States for decades and built families and businesses, but were removed because of an old criminal conviction — say, from Miami’s infamous cocaine cowboys days in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Well now. All those Cuban exiles who supported Republicans for decades are finding out that they aren’t so special after all. Not even Marco Rubio has stepped up to defend them.

And yet…

Polls suggest that most Cuban American registered voters, who tend to be Republican, continue to support Mr. Trump, said Michael J. Bustamante, an associate history professor and director of Cuban studies at the University of Miami who studies Cuban American political culture. But he said that he had noticed “a growing amount of unease” throughout the community.

A growing sense of unease? There should be:

Legal immigration has also been all but cut out. Mr. Trump enacted a travel ban on 19 countries, including Cuba, and ended a family reunification program. U.S. officials are rejecting visa applications, which can take years to complete. Last month, the Trump administration paused all Cuban immigration cases, including pending naturalization, residency and asylum applications.

“It’s the most sweeping rollback of Cuban migration channels since the Cold War,” said María José Espinosa, the executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas, a nonprofit strategy organization based in Washington.

This is why no person of color, immigrants from anywhere or even foreigners visiting the country should trust the Republicans. Did they really think these racists see a difference between a Cuban and a Mexican? Please.