W
Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon
In October, a retiree emailed a DHS attorney to urge mercy for an asylum seeker. Then DHS subpoenaed his Google account and sent investigators to his home.
WaPo:
Might be time to switch to Proton Mail....
Interesting. Here in Illinois, the inspections are done by a state agency and you don't pay anything. Well, except the taxes that we pay to support state government.
If your car flunks you can't renew your license plates until you can pass the inspection.
Meanwhile...
This Insight highlights an Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) docket (46322) in which Amazon and a regulated utility, Northern Indiana Public Service (NIPSCO), are speedily developing generation to meet Amazon’s data center-related demand. This docket is unique in that:
It offers a template for how a utility, a tech company, and a state commission can remove impediments to quickly serving megaload customers and insulate other customers from risks associated with that service.
The IURC has willingly waived some of its jurisdictional authority.
The 2,400 MW in Amazon data center capacity is among the largest contracted capacity commitments between a utility and a data-center customer in the nation.
https://insight.factset.com/nipsco-proposes-special-contract-for-amazon-data-centers-in-indiana
Then there's the natural gas part of NIPSCO's business.
The IURC opened an investigation into NIPSCO in November 2025. At the time, regulators said NIPSCO found an issue with “a not-insignificant number of its natural gas meters.”
The problem stems from new technology being installed on 870,000 natural gas meters across northern Indiana, designed to allow NIPSCO to get gas readings without meter readers having to drive around.
The IURC said NIPSCO found the error and provided bill credits but didn’t tell customers there was an issue.
In December, NIPSCO told 21Alive that safety and accurate billing are its top priorities. The utility said the issue was discovered as it rolled out “automated metering infrastructure” but it wasn’t caused by the new smart meter technology.
https://www.21alivenews.com/2026/01/30/state-regulators-continue-nipsco-gas-meter-investigation/
For those who aren't familiar with the acronym, it stands for Northern Indiana Public Service. They've been in the news around here lately because NIPSCO customers have seen their rates skyrocket.
Last fall, NIPSCO warned customers their winter bills may go up by 16%. But some customers say the increase is higher than that, and now they are forced to make choices on what bills to pay this month.
Candles are lit. Lights are off. The fire is going all day. The thermostat is never above 67 degrees. Despite these cost savings measures, Terry and Ron Achterhof cannot afford this month's bill from Northern Indiana Public Service Company.
"We don't live beyond our means. We live comfortable; he has worked his whole life, now this," Terry Achterhof said.
Their NIPSCO bill skyrocketed this month.
"I screamed my lungs out; it was $1,447 for one month, one month," Achterhof said.
Terry Achterhof says her bill started at $320 last spring and went up to $523 in June. Last month, it rose to $877 and now $1,447. Her husband has diabetes and other health issues. His medication costs hundreds of dollars a month. The big NIPSCO bill has put the retired Chesterton couple in a position where they must make choices.
This summer, a CCP agent impersonated a Stanford student. Under the alias Charles Chen, he approached several students through social media. Anna*, a Stanford student conducting sensitive research on China, began receiving unexpected messages from Charles Chen. At first, Charles's outreach seemed benign: he asked about networking opportunities. But soon, his messages took a strange turn.
Charles inquired whether Anna spoke Mandarin, then grew increasingly persistent and personal. He sent videos of Americans who had gained fame in China, encouraged Anna to visit Beijing, and offered to cover her travel expenses. He would send screenshots of a bank account balance to prove he could buy the plane tickets. Alarmingly, he referenced details about her that Anna had never disclosed to him.
He advised her to enter China for only 24 to 144 hours, short enough, he said, to avoid visa scrutiny by authorities, and urged her to communicate exclusively via the Chinese version of WeChat, a platform heavily monitored by the CCP. When Charles commented on one of her social media posts, asking her to delete screenshots of their conversations, she knew this was serious.
Under the guidance of experts familiar with espionage tactics, Anna contacted authorities. Their investigation revealed that Charles Chen had no affiliation with Stanford. Instead, he had posed as a Stanford student for years, slightly altering his name and persona online, targeting multiple students, nearly all of them women researching China-related topics. According to the experts on China who assisted Anna, Charles Chen was likely an agent of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), tasked with identifying sympathetic Stanford students and gathering intelligence.
https://stanfordreview.org/investigation-uncovering-chinese-academic-espionage-at-stanford/
Nearly 40% of Stanford undergraduates claim they’re disabled. I’m one of them
One of the most prestigious universities in the US offers perks to those who say they have ADHD, night terrors, even gluten intolerance. You’d be stupid not to game the system
Behind the scenes. More chaos.
Under the fluorescent lights of an American Legion hall near Atlanta, in front of more than a dozen Democratic activists, Geoff Duncan apologized for all the things that he did as a Republican.
He regrets opposing gun control. He’s sorry for fighting the expansion of Georgia’s Medicaid program. And he’s most remorseful about supporting some of the strictest abortion rules in the country.
“Unlike most folks in politics, I’m willing to say I’m sorry for that,” Duncan said.
He’s doing a lot of apologizing these days because the former Republican is running for governor as a Democrat, trying to win over members of his newly-adopted party in a crowded primary in a critical battleground state. Although some view Duncan as an interloper, he’s pitching himself as Democrats’ best chance to break their 24-year losing streak for Georgia’s highest office..
Yea, he went there. I kinda figured that the Fulton County raid was setting the stage.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-republicans-nationalize-elections-rcna257098
Penguins come in from the cold.
https://www.wane.com/dont-miss/penguins-at-long-island-aquarium-brought-inside-due-to-extreme-cold/
You are now entering The Twlight Zone...
Link to videoNot so long ago, Ammon Bundy was the most famous right-wing militia leader in America. His two armed standoffs with federal agents had made him the face of the Patriot Movement: a loose assemblage of anti-government extremists, Second Amendment maximalists, and more than a few white nationalists. Even some mainstream elements of the Republican Party embraced him as a modern folk hero. But Bundy’s criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown now threatens to make him a pariah within his own community.
In November, Bundy self-published a long essay titled “The Stranger,” in which he labeled the Trump administration’s treatment of undocumented immigrants a “moral failure.” “To call such people criminals for lacking official permission” to be in the country, he wrote, “is to forget the moral law of God, the historical truth of our own founding, and the Constitutional ideals that continue to define justice.” On a recent livestream following the killing of Renee Good in Minnesota, Bundy told his audience that ICE’s conduct “clearly looks like tyranny.” If the government threatened his family, he said, he would fight back by whatever means necessary.
I spoke with Bundy a few hours after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. “It’s sickening to me,” he told me over the phone, “just to see the parallels of history repeating itself.” (In his November essay, he had compared the administration’s treatment of immigrants to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.) He added, “When it comes to the more humanitarian side of it, I think the left has it much more correct than the nationalist right.”
Atlantic:
Anybody watching the movie today? 
Woodstock Willie didn't see his shadow. Early spring here!
Phil had bad news for Punxsatawney. They get six more weeks of winter.
Guess this is one way to avoid the embarrassment of cancellations.
President Trump said Sunday he will move to close Washington's Kennedy Center performing arts center for two years starting in July for construction, his latest move to upturn the storied venue since returning to the White House.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/01/nx-s1-5695832/kennedy-center-renovations-trump
The orange man spoke at a black tie dinner last night.
WaPo:
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson urged Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to resign and told their bosses to leave Portland in a scathing statement issued Saturday after federal agents launched tear gas at a large crowd protesting near the Portland ICE facility.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson wrote. “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame.”
Thousands of protesters, including children, marched through Portland and enveloped the blocks around the South Waterfront facility Saturday afternoon. Federal agents launched tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd shortly after it arrived after some crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate.
I used to love to go for a walk in Door County after a fresh snow. The animal tracks crisscrossing the road were like a map of where anything had been, and in most cases, what they were. There was one time when we saw a long snake-like line through the snow. We finally figured out that it was Morgan, our neighbor's golden retriever. Bill had left Morgan's leash on him in case he needed to restrain him if a car drove by. The leash dragged behind the dog, creating the snow snake. 
