Winter In America

Feeling Chilled,

This analysis of new video of Renee Good’s homocide by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross shows that Good tried to miss him when he stood in front of her vehicle, preparing to shoot her, by passing hius cellphone camera to his left hand and then tossing it on her vehicle to touch the vehicle with his left hand, as he aimed his gun to shoot her through the windshield. He might or might not have contacted the side of her vehicle with his leg as it passed, but he shot her twice more through her window when he was unthreatened, to assure a kill. What are the “classified” ICE rules of engagement with American Citizens? You can start about 3:30 and scan forward for the actual video clips which just take a few minutes and are remarkably clear. ICE SHOOTING: NEW Explosive Evidence – DOJ Blocks Investigation (New Video Breakdown)

CNN has 3 minutes of 3D animation and those short video clips of Jonathan Ross shooting Renee Good 3 times, derived from and including this new video, with moment to moment analysis, (This looks like an intentional killing, not necessary self-defense.) https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/23/us/video/3d-imaging-examines-renee-good-shooting-john-miller-digvid-vrtc

FBI agent resigns after trying to investigate ICE officer who shot Renee Good An FBI agent who wanted to investigate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer who shot Renee Good has resigned, according to the New York Times.
The New York Times reports that Tracee Mergen left her supervision role after being urged to drop a civil rights inquiry into Jonathan Ross.
Federal investigators have refused to work with Minnesota state agencies on an investigation into Good’s death.
The announcement comes after six federal prosecutors, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, resigned last week amid pressure to investigate Renee Good’s widow. https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/fbi-agent-resigns-after-trying-to-investigate-ice-officer-who-shot-renee-good/

Emerging Evidence Provides Basis for Opening Investigation of ICE Agent Who Killed Renee Good, Julia Gegenheimer On January 7, ICE Agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, on the streets of Minneapolis. The Justice Department has refused to open a criminal investigation into the shooting, hastily declaring it an act of self-defense that does not warrant a criminal inquiry. But despite statements by administration officials to the contrary,there is more than enough for DOJ to investigate here. I know from experience.
For over a decade, I was a prosecutor in the Criminal Section of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the office dedicated to—and staffed with experts on—investigating and prosecuting officer-involved shootings and other uses of excessive force. From reviewing, investigating, and prosecuting law-enforcement misconduct cases, I know both whether and how DOJ, across administrations, would look into something like the Jan. 7 shooting.
I also know just how challenging such investigations can be and how difficult these cases are to prove. Prosecutors must first find that the force used was excessive as a matter of constitutional law.That means, in Fourth Amendment parlance, the force was an objectively unreasonable seizure. Prosecutors must prove this under a legal standard that explicitly allows “for the fact that…officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989).https://www.justsecurity.org/129439/investigation-ice-jonathan-ross-renee-good/

ICEAgents approached Alex PrettiRN as he filmed them, not the other way around, They were roughing people up, and went after him when he tried to shield a protester they has beaten down, sprayed him with mace, beathim down in a scrum, beat him in the headwith a metal object, pulled his 9mm handgun from his waistband where he had not touched it, stepped back, then several officers shot him 10 times to make sure he was dead. CNN video analysis sheds new light on killing of Alex Pretti https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/25/us/video/minneapolis-ice-shooting-alex-pretti-visual-analysis-digvid

How the US and Israel exchange tactics in violence and control - Two decades of Israeli-US police cooperation includes training in racial profiling and violent suppression of protests. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/6/12/how-the-us-and-israel-exchange-tactics-in-violence-and-control

ICE has arrested and detained witnesses. Naked Capitalism has a grouping of stories: ICE Execution in Minneapolis I don’t know how America survives this level of willful, institutionalized savagery. By most counts, ICE pumped ten bullets into a ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, for the crime of filming them and trying to intercede on behalf of a woman they had shoved to the pavement. The evidence of the execution is clear cut. ICE has not just gunned down an innocent man, but is also successfully terminating what remained of the rule of law in the US. A sampling of the evidence: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/ice-execution-in-minneapolis.html

Chemical Torture: Pepper-Sprayed While Pinned Down: A Searing Scene Provokes Outrage
Images of a man getting pepper-sprayed at close range while being held down by Border Patrol agents fueled more tension in Minneapolis. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/us/minneapolis-man-pepper-sprayed-pinned-video.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G1A.j9wa.vNR2mntSe-OX&smid=url-share

Gil Scott Heron “Winter In America”

Professor Ugo Bardi posts this article, which assrts that the core of a civil-war dynamic is when government forces treat all citizens as potential enemy combatants, which is how Israeli armed forces are trained to treat non-Jews, and how ICE appears to have been trained to engage American citizens, though this remains “classified”. Why are ICE rules-of-engagement “classified”? THE SECOND US CIVIL WAR - It is not science fiction. It has already started

THE SECOND US CIVIL WAR

Thomas Neuburger, Black Sites and Black Days This is a follow-up to our recent Minnesota Black Site post: Is ICE Running a Black Site in Minnesota? ‘They were put in cells reserved for U.S. citizens’

Is ICE Running a Black Site in Minnesota?

Is it really fair to call the ICE prison at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building a “black site”? Let’s take a look. “Black site” is a scary term. It’s been frequently used for places where the CIA maintains off-the-radar prisons, where abducted terrorists are taken, held and usually tortured.

Black Sites and Black Days

ICE Is Scanning Civilians’ Faces, Telling Them They’re Being Entered Into a Terrorism Database https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ice-database-facial-scan

Documents Prove The Trump Administration Arrested Students for Criticizing Israel
Newly unsealed court records illustrate how the US government specifically targeted students for pro-Palestine speech. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/ozturk-khalil-documents-deportation-pro-palestine-protest-canary-mission/

Minneapolis Shooting Sets Stage For Government Shutdown Unless Republicans Cave On DHS https://www.zerohedge.com/political/minneapolis-shooting-sets-stage-government-shutdown-unless-republicans-cave-dhs

William Murphy, The Erasure Economy: How Survival Becomes a Crime in America When housing is a commodity and survival a liability, America forces its most vulnerable into displacement and exile. When survival becomes illegal in your own city, displacement isn’t a side effect—it’s the policy.
This is the quiet logic of the Erasure Economy: a political system that systematically removes people once they stop being profitable. Housing in the United States is no longer organized around shelter; it’s organized around extraction. Rent, mortgages, zoning, and “quality of life” ordinances function together as a sorting mechanism—not to house people, but to decide who gets to stay.
Start with affordability. Wages stagnate while rents and home prices soar, driven by financialization, speculative investment, and landlord consolidation. Housing is treated less like infrastructure and more like a financial asset class. Once that happens, scarcity becomes a feature, not a bug. High prices are not a failure of the system—they are the system working exactly as designed.
Now look at the escape hatches people turn to when traditional housing becomes impossible. Tiny homes? Banned or strangled by zoning codes written for single-family suburban fantasies. Manufactured housing? Bought up by private equity, rents jacked up, residents displaced. Living in a vehicle? Criminalized through parking ordinances, anti-camping laws, and constant police harassment. RV living, once a retirement fallback, is now treated as a public nuisance. Car camping becomes a misdemeanor. Existing while poor becomes a crime... ..Forced migration is the endgame. Seniors on fixed incomes are pushed out of the cities they built. Low-wage workers are driven farther and farther from jobs that still depend on their labor. Entire populations are shuffled across state lines, into deserts, into forests, into invisibility. This isn’t mobility—it’s exile... The real crisis isn’t homelessness. It’s a political economy that refuses to make space for people it no longer profits from.

The Erasure Economy: How Survival Becomes a Crime in America

Filthy homeless encampments pop up across Manhattan after woke new NYC mayor vowed to stop clearing them away https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15491609/homeless-encampments-nyc-zohran-mamdani.html

Snitch on your foreign coworkers to the government. USDA Researchers Instructed to Investigate Foreign Colleagues President Donald Trump’s administration is directing employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate foreign scientists who collaborate with the agency on research papers for evidence of “subversive or criminal activity.”
The new directive, part of a broader effort to increase scrutiny of research done with foreign partners, asks workers in the agency’s research arm to use Google to check the backgrounds of all foreign nationals collaborating with its scientists. The names of flagged scientists are being sent to national security experts at the agency, according to records reviewed by ProPublica. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/usda-researchers-instructed-to-investigate-foreign-colleagues.html

Across the pond: UK Home Secretary’s Shocking Admission About the Emerging AI Surveillance State UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the person nominally in charge of the UK Police, justice system and MI5, sat down for an in conversation event with the former Prime Minister (and current Labour government’s eminence grise) Tony Blair, organised by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. In that conversation, made a chilling admission about the government’s ultimate goal of AI surveillance.
From the Daily Telegraph, the only mainstream newspaper besides Scotland’s The National to deign to cover the story:
“AI and technology can be transformative to the whole of the law and order space.”
“When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. Similarly, in the world of policing, in particular, we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we’re trying to do.”
[Bentham, an 18th-century philosopher and social theorist, promoted the Panopticon as a circular prison with a central inspection tower from which a single guard could observe all inmates all the time while unseen.] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/uk-home-secretarys-surprisingly-candid-admission-about-real-reason-for-ai-surveillance-state.html

Conor Gallagher, The US’ New National Defense Strategy Calls For A World War-Like Military Build-Up https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/the-us-new-national-defense-strategy-calls-for-a-world-war-like-military-build-up.html

Smartphone-chip AI: China reveals 200-strong AI drone swarm that can be controlled by a single soldier — ‘intelligent algorithm’ allows individual units to cooperate autonomously even after losing communication with operator https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/china-reveals-200-strong-drone-swarm-uses-intelligent-algorithm-to-allow-individual-units-to-cooperate-autonomously-even-after-losing-communication-with-operator

The EU finally used an economic threat against Trump. But the markets forced his climbdown Earlier diplomatic talks between American, Danish and Greenlandic representatives addressing the reasons behind the US wish to annex Greenland – national security, the mineral resources under its land mass and its quick access to space – had not made the breakthrough. Further Nato and European assurances on these questions seem to be part of the “framework” that Rutte and Trump discussed to end the crisis, such as banning China from mining exploration and offering a base for the US Golden Dome project.
But what really changed the calculus was dangling the possibility of retaliatory measures to the tune of $93bn, making the markets jittery and Trump fold. Europe, too, can use economic leverage to its advantage. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/24/eu-economic-threat-donald-trump-greenland

Trump threatens 100 percent tariff on Canada over China deal
Donald Trump’s threat comes after Canada reached deal with China last week on trade of agriproducts, electric vehicles. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/24/trump-threatens-100-percent-tariff-on-canada-over-china-deal?traffic_source=rss

Trump warns of ‘big retaliation’ if Europe divests from US stocks and bonds
US President Donald Trump says Washington holds “all the cards” in economic disputes after a Danish fund said it would sell its entire holdings of US Treasuries — about $100 million. https://www.trtworld.com/article/fbd4bbb30f5b

‘Repatriate the gold’: German economists advise withdrawal from US vaults
Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts Germany holds the world’s second biggest national gold reserves after the US, of which approximately €164bn (£142bn) worth – 1,236 tonnes – is stored in New York. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/24/repatriate-the-gold-german-economists-advise-withdrawal-from-us-vaults

“Protection” racket? US must have rights to Greenland’s resources as it defends its territory — vice presidentnt JD Vance added that US President Donald Trump is working on the details of a Greenland deal https://tass.com/world/2075791

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US-brokered Russia-Ukraine talks close with no breakthrough
On eve of day two of talks in UAE capital, Russian attacks cut off about 1.2 million from power in sub-zero temperatures.​ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/24/us-brokered-talks-on-ukraine-close-with-no-breakthrough

Iran’s Unrest: The Confrontation That Failed to Ignite What began as economic protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar was quickly exploited and transformed into something far more dangerous. Within six days, international actors received communications from Iranian Kurdish separatist groups requesting logistical support. This included field hospitals and medical and emergency supplies.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attempted to contain the unrest through dialogue and economic changes. Yet, intelligence reports reflected an organized, multi-layered protest map unfolding. Bazaar protest leaders soon recognized that the street had slipped into chaos. They formally withdrew and informed authorities that they bore no responsibility for the events. Reformist opposition figures further highlighted that the country was being driven into a trap... ..The state moved quickly against rebellious groups in cities and provinces. Armed groups operating inside urban centers were confronted directly. Calm during daylight hours under heavy deployment was followed by intensive night operations. Police units flooded major intersections and residential quarters, backed by undercover teams and rapid-response forces. Any act of arson, armed attack, or sabotage triggered immediate pursuit and arrest.
In parallel, authorities launched a comprehensive cyber operation to track the networks distributing footage across domestic and international platforms. They then imposed a near-total communications blackout. Internet access was restricted to a narrow group of authorized users. Anyone broadcasting from inside Iran without clearance was treated as part of a foreign information operation.
The turning point came in Kermanshah. Iranian security services detected suspicious activity along the country’s western borders. They uncovered an activated plan combining mass protests with armed assaults on state institutions. Police stations, civil administration offices, and emergency services were targeted. The objective was to create a high level of chaos and then seize control of the province’s civil and security administration centers.
Washington could not calculate Tehran’s response to any military attack. The risk was a regional fire.
Authorities classified the operation as a foreign-backed military rebellion. US President Donald Trump publicly called on protesters to escalate and seize government centers. When he said that “help is on its way,” he was not speaking rhetorically. The plan on the table was a combined military operation — air and ground — focused on Kermanshah. Its purpose was to dismantle Iran’s command structure in the province, impose an aerial blockade, and allow insurgent forces to consolidate control. Money was used to mobilize citizens. Teenagers received between $3 and $5 to burn pictures of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, while elderly men were paid similar amounts to overturn and set fire to garbage bins. Authorities noted the participation of female operatives in violent acts, including surprise shootings, before disappearing into alleyways. Other groups prepared and threw Molotov cocktails at vehicles and shops. Large quantities of weapons were later seized, including pistols and hunting rifles used in attacks on security forces... ..Israeli intelligence operating inside Iran and from Iraqi Kurdistan informed Washington that Tehran was regaining control rapidly and that the protest infrastructure was collapsing... By that stage, the United States was not prepared for a full-scale confrontation. At best, limited strikes were considered to provide cover for insurgent advances. But Iran’s internal containment neutralized that option... ..Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey entered emergency consultations with the US administration, warning that the confrontation could spiral beyond control. All four countries refused to allow their territory, airspace, or bases to be used in any attack on Iran... These countries knew they would be first in the line of fire. This forced the US administration to search for alternatives to any potential military campaign. With no clear military pathway and no certainty over Tehran’s response, Washington was left with few viable options.
The war was not abandoned; it was postponed. https://en.al-akhbar.com/news/iran-s-unrest--the-confrontation-that-failed-to-ignite

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Iran Threatens to ‘Sink’ USS Abraham Lincoln as U.S. Carrier Strike Group Enters Gulf Waters, Is Iran Capable of Sinking It?​ Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the carrier’s arrival as a “deliberate provocation,” while IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami declared that Iranian forces have their “finger on the trigger.” In statements broadcast on state media, Salami warned that any U.S. strike would trigger an “all-out war” and claimed Iran could destroy American warships with missiles “faster than the enemy can react.”
​ Central to Iran’s messaging is the Fattah-1 missile, unveiled in 2023 and repeatedly showcased since then as a hypersonic system capable of speeds exceeding Mach 13. Iranian officials claim the weapon employs a maneuverable reentry vehicle, allowing it to evade interception by U.S. naval air defenses and strike high-value targets at sea.​ https://www.thedefensenews.com/news-details/Iran-Threatens-to-Sink-USS-Abraham-Lincoln-as-US-Carrier-Strike-Group-Enters-Gulf-Waters-Is-Iran-Capable-of-Sinking-It/

Articles from informed sources on US-Israeli war against Iran: Art-of-the Deal Theatre or War? Ronen Bergman: ‘The Ayatollahs won the first round; Iranian regime not in danger’ - A compilation tracking consequential & strategic observations on US-Israel-Iran -- Analysis & reports from various sources

Art-of-the Deal Theatre or War? Ronen Bergman: 'The Ayatollahs won the first round; Iranian regime not in danger'

Really big, deep ditches: Israel Is Turning the Yellow Line Splitting Gaza into a Physical Barrier Last month, the Israeli military began constructing earth berms in areas along the yellow line, physically cutting off Palestinians from the Israeli-controlled zone and the rest of Gaza.

Israel Is Turning the Yellow Line Splitting Gaza into a Physical Barrier

How Israeli settler violence empties Palestinian villages Settler violence has forced over 100 people out of a Palestinian Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, rights groups say. The pattern of harassment is also being repeated elsewhere. https://www.dw.com/en/how-israeli-settler-violence-empties-palestinian-villages/a-75595251

A Report Too Damning to Air – Inside Israel’s ‘Living Hell’ Prison System​ https://www.palestinechronicle.com/a-report-too-damning-to-air-inside-israels-living-hell-prison-system/

Israeli Attacks Kill Two Children in Gaza as Belgium Bans Transit of Arms to Israel​ https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-attacks-kill-two-children-in-gaza-as-belgium-bans-transit-of-arms-to-israel/

Another Gaza baby freezes to death on Netanyahu’s watch – Not a ceasefire Day 106​ https://israelpalestinenews.org/another-gaza-baby-freezes-to-death-on-netanyahus-watch-not-a-ceasefire-day-106/

Civil society organizations in Gaza: 18,500 patients and wounded in need of urgent medical evacuation​ https://english.palinfo.com/news/2026/01/24/356471/

That deep Venezuelan tar is very hard and expensive to get out. Only a Fraction of Venezuela’s Oil Is Economically Recoverable https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Only-a-Fraction-of-Venezuelas-Oil-Is-Economically-Recoverable.html

The US stole Venezuelan oil from all previously seized tankers.​ https://en.topwar.ru/276914-ssha-ukrali-venesujelskuju-neft-so-vseh-zahvachennyh-ranee-tankerov.html

Trump administration weighs naval blockade to halt Cuban oil imports - “Energy is the chokehold to kill” the Cuban regime, said a person familiar with the discussions. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/23/trump-administration-weighs-naval-blockade-to-halt-cuban-oil-imports-00744708

Mexico reviews oil shipments to Cuba amid U.S. pressure and rising geopolitical tensions https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/mexico-reviews-oil-shipments-to-cuba-amid-us-pressure-and-rising-geopolitical-rising

Colin Todhunter, India: The Great Dispossession and the Battle for the Future of Food If there’s one country that captures the global battle over who controls the basic building blocks of life, it’s India.
With more than half of its 1.4 billion people dependent on agriculture for a living, the stakes transcend national borders. What is taking place in India is a high‑stakes laboratory for a global script: the methodical dismantling of indigenous food systems to be rebuilt in the image of transnational capital. https://www.globalresearch.ca/india-great-dispossession-battle-future-food/5913156

This Massive Winter Storm Is COMPLETELY ENGINEERED! – Dane Wiggington​

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This ​shutoff system can be remotely activated for any reason, or no reason: Effort to Repeal ‘Kill Switch’ Mandate for Cars Fails in Congress On Thursday, the House rejected Representative Thomas Massie’s amendment to H.R. 7148 on a 164–268 roll call,blocking defunding of Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
​ Section 24220 of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act mandates all new U.S. vehicles sold after 2026 include advanced drunk and impaired‑driving prevention technology, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is still finalizing details on technology options like cameras and sensors.​ https://ground.news/article/effort-to-repeal-kill-switch-mandate-for-cars-fails-in-congress_3f4782

UNITED HEALTHCARE CAUGHT PAYING OFF NURSING HOMES TO LET SENIORS DIE INSTEAD OF SENDING THEM TO THE HOSPITAL UnitedHealth falls on report it secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers

Boone Cutler 🦬🇺🇸 🦅@boonecutler

UPDATE BELOW ON THIS STORY- 🚨🚨🚨 UNITED HEALTHCARE CAUGHT PAYING OFF NURSING HOMES TO LET SENIORS DIE INSTEAD OF SENDING THEM TO THE HOSPITAL UnitedHealth falls on report it secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers | Reuters reuters.com/business/healt…

reuters.com

UnitedHealth falls on report it secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers

5:18 AM · Jan 22, 2026 · 111K Views

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New filtration technology could be gamechanger in removal of Pfas ‘forever chemicals’
Researchers found a new way to filter and destroy Pfas chemicals at 100 times the rate of current systems https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/23/pfas-forever-chemicals-filtration

​Dealing With Reality (featuring tomatoes brought in last week after light freeze)