ICE agent: "If you raise your voice, I'll erase your voice"; Trump's A.I. slop; bye, bye Bovino; "bomb cyclone" snow dump this weekend?
It's National Blueberry Pancake Day!
Subscriptions are free. There are no paywalls hiding stuff. Everything is visible to all levels of subscribers. That said, a paid subscription will help keep the lights on and, more importantly, keep the puppies and kitties in kibble and litter.
If you like what we’re doing but don’t want to go the paid subscription route, please consider donating a buck or two. Every little bit helps. In this case, it’s not a cliché, but the truth.
—Kevin G. Barkes
January 28 is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 337 days remain until the end of the year. Unfortunately, as of this writing, 1,087 days remain in Trump’s term of office.
(Note: none of the links below are behind paywalls. They’re either on free sites or are gift articles. If you land on a page obscured by pop-ups asking for your email or showing a subscription offer, just look in the upper right corner of the pop-up for the close icon.)
Knee-deep in the hoopla:
Minnesota:
CNN's Anderson Cooper speaks to a woman who recorded the fatal encounter between Alex Pretti and federal officers. (Video)
There have been sixteen shootings by Department of Homeland Security agents since July. The Trump administration has declared all of them justified, before probes into the incidents have been completed.
“If you raise your voice, I will erase your voice”: Article includes video of an government agent making the threat after Alex Pretti’s murder. Getting away with killing civilians appears to have emboldened federal immigration agents.
Internal review contradicts White House narrative of Pretti’s death.
Two federal officers fired shots during encounter that killed Alex Pretti, DHS tells Congress.
How Greg Bovino proved too openly fascistic for Trump. And what it means—or doesn’t—that border czar Tom Homan is taking over.
Trump defends Noem as she faces bipartisan calls to step down.
Inside an AI start-up’s plan to scan and dispose of millions of books. “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” an internal planning document unsealed in legal filings last week said. “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”
Trump’s use of AI images pushes new boundaries, further eroding public trust, experts say.
Why there’s simply no need for an iPad anymore. Foldable iPhones, touchscreen MacBooks may crowd out the Apple tablet.
Bomb cyclone may bring another major snow storm to the east coast this weekend.
Florida man stole $400k in luxury toilets then sold them on Facebook Marketplace. The heist included 400 “smart toilets”, whatever they are.
Late Night:
Trump demotes Greg Bovino as GOP turns against Minnesota crackdown | The Daily Show. (Video)
Trump scrambles to clean up mess in Minneapolis, calls protesters paid agitators.-Jimmy Kimmel (Video)
Bye Bye, Bovino | Noem is the face of Trump’s ICE mess | Presidential decay | The “Melania” disaster-Stephen Colbert (Video)
“The President should retire” - Fox & Friends | Colbert cold open (Video)
Trump is furious about Bad Bunny and Green Day’s Super Bowl Performance-Seth Meyers (Video)
Cleansing the palate: here’s a photo of my office kitty, Anna, listening as I read her the potential entries for today’s newsletter. What can I say? She’s a tough audience.
Bookmark KGB Report Notes and check periodically for cartoons, memes, news, commentary and other stuff that didn’t fit or broke between e-mail newsletter issues. It’s also a great place to comment and chat.
Keep scrolling down. Lots of interesting stuff in Quote of the Day, Holidays, On This Day, Birthdays, and Deaths. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll learn something new.
History highlight:
1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. (Video)
Quote of the day:
You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.
-Dorothy Parker (Wikipedia link)
(More Dorothy Parker quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Daisy Day, Data Privacy Day, Global Community Engagement Day, International Day of Peaceful Coexistence, International Lego Day, International Mobilization Day against Nuclear War, International Reducing CO2 Emissions Day, Library Shelfie Day, National Blueberry Pancake Day, National Gift of the Ladybug Day, National Kazoo Day, National Pediatrician Day, Pop Art Day, Rattlesnake Roundup Day, and Thank a Plugin Developer Day.
On This Day:
1986 – Space Shuttle program: STS-51-L mission: Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. (Video)
1985 – Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) recorded the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief. (Video)
1981 – Ronald Reagan lifted remaining domestic petroleum price and allocation controls in the United States, helping to end the 1979 energy crisis and begin the 1980s oil glut.
1977 – The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which dumped 3 metres (10 ft) of snow in one day in Upstate New York. Buffalo, Syracuse, Watertown, and surrounding areas are most affected.
1973 – Vietnam cease-fire went into effect.
1958 – The Lego company patented the design of its Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.
1958 – The “In Cold Blood” murders of the Clutter family were committed.
1956 – Elvis Presley made his first national television appearance. (Video)
1922 – Knickerbocker Storm: Washington, D.C.’s biggest snowfall, caused a disaster when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed, killing over 100 people.
1915 – An act of the U.S. Congress created the United States Coast Guard as a branch of the United States Armed Forces.
1909 – United States troops left Cuba, with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
1902 – The Carnegie Institution of Washington was founded in Washington, D.C., with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.
1813 – Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United Kingdom.
1754 – Sir Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity in a letter to a friend.
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Read for free with Kindle Unlimited!
Some Birthdays:
1998 – Ariel Winter, American actress
1981 – Elijah Wood, American actor and producer
1977 – Joey Fatone, American singer, dancer, and television personality
1972 – Amy Coney Barrett, American jurist, academic, attorney, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
1969 – Mo Rocca, American comedian and television journalist
1969 – Kathryn Morris, American actress
1968 – Sarah McLachlan, Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist, and producer
1959 – Frank Darabont, American director and producer
1955 – Nicolas Sarkozy, French lawyer and politician, 23rd President of France
1954 – Rick Warren, American pastor and author
1950 – Barbi Benton, American actress, singer and model
1936 – Alan Alda, American actor, director, and writer
1929 – Acker Bilk, English singer and clarinet player (died 2014)
1912 – Jackson Pollock, American painter (died 1956)
1910 – John Banner, Austrian actor (died 1973)
1887 – Arthur Rubinstein, Polish-American pianist and educator (died 1982)
1873 – Colette, French novelist and journalist (died 1954)
1855 – William Seward Burroughs I, American businessman, founded the Burroughs Corporation (died 1898)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2021 – Cicely Tyson, American actress (born 1924)
2004 – Lloyd M. Bucher, American captain (born 1927)
1996 – Jerry Siegel, American author and illustrator, co-created Superman (born 1914)
1988 – Klaus Fuchs, German physicist, politician, and atomic spy (born 1911)
1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger crew
Gregory Jarvis, American captain, engineer, and astronaut (born 1944)
Christa McAuliffe, American educator and astronaut (born 1948)
Ronald McNair, American physicist and astronaut (born 1950)
Ellison Onizuka, American engineer and astronaut (born 1946)
Judith Resnik, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (born 1949)
Dick Scobee, American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (born 1939)
Michael J. Smith, American captain, pilot, and astronaut (born 1945)
1939 – W. B. Yeats, Irish poet and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1865)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
If you like KGB Report, please share with a friend.
Subscribers get all content for free. If you sign up for a paid subscription, you get my eternal gratitude, and maybe some occasional photos of the dogs and cats here at the South Park Casa de Pelaje y Cajas de Arena.
Old KGBReport.com archives (not the stuff here on Substack), all the way back to the previous century.
Current weather in South Park, PA (Personal station on Weather Underground)
KGB Quotations Database Search (KGB Quote-A-Matic)
DCL Dialogue Online (an archive of my DCL Dialogue columns which appeared in DEC Professional (later renamed Digital Age) magazine from March, 1987 through December, 1995.)
Excellent roundup KGB, thanks! My view from Canada: pretty scary place down there
I’ll look forward to reports on the World Cup boycott, discussions are starting!