Wired Magazine Makes the Case That ‘We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower’; Lots of Alarming ICE News–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Jan. 22, 2026

Indy Digest: Jan. 22, 2026

The degree to which many national news sources have bent over backward to appease Donald Trump has been alarming—and depressing.

The billionaire owners of The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times killed editorials endorsing his opponent. ABC News paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit many saw as frivolous. Meta paid him $25 million to settle a lawsuit stemming from their suspension of his accounts after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And most appalling of all, CBS News has rolled over in multiple ways to make the president happy (or, well, at least less angry). Amazon (whose executive chairman, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post), Apple and Meta have all made large donations to the president’s White House ballroom project.

What happened to “afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted”? All of these organizations have decided that profit is more important than standing up to someone whose actions have been dictatorial in many ways.

That said, not all national media sources have cowered. Despite the actions of their organizations’ owners, reporters at The Washington Post, ABC News, CBS News and Los Angeles Times have continued to report critically on the Trump administration’s actions. And some national outlets have stepped up their coverage—none more so than Wired magazine.

I’ve sung Wired’s praises in this space before, and I’ll probably do so again, because the reporters at Wired are killing it. While I could share many examples of the magazine’s excellent reporting and analysis, I’ll discuss just one, published on the day we went to press: an amazing analysis piece by Garrett M. Graff, headlined “We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower.”

Here’s the lede:

Imagine you were Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping and you woke up a year ago having magically been given command of puppet strings that control the White House. Your explicit geopolitical goal is to undermine trust in the United States on the world stage. You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the U.S. to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

Nothing.

In fact, the split-screen juxtaposition of three events this week—Trump’s own nearly two-hour commemoration of his one-year anniversary as president; the gathering of defiant, rattled global elites in snowy Davos; and the spectacle of Denmark and its European allies building up a military force in Greenland with the express purpose of deterring a US military takeover—might someday be seen as heralding the official end of the grand experiment in a rules-based international order that has kept watch since World War II.

In the first three weeks of 2026, Trump’s Mad King rantings about Greenland have accelerated into something far more stunning and alarming: A superpower is choosing to self-immolate and torch its remaining global trust and friendships, including and especially NATO, the most potent geopolitical alliance in world history, at the precise moment when it had been reinvigorated and renewed and at its strongest and largest ever in the wake of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Graff’s piece gets even better from there. He makes his case rather powerfully.

These are weird and concerning times. We’ve always needed journalists—at the national, state and local levels—to report on our government fairly, honestly and accurately, but we’ve never needed them more now.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Apologies for the deluge of ICE-related news in this section, but, hoo boy, there’s a lot of ICE news worth knowing. First: Hundreds of Minneapolis businesses and organizations are closing down tomorrow to protest the ICE raids that have roiled the city. The Minnesota Star Tribune says: “Businesses across Minnesota will shutter temporarily Jan. 23 as part of an economic blackout intended to show support for immigrant workers, customers and neighbors who have been the target of federal agents. The ‘ICE Out! Statewide Shutdown’ is calling for Minnesotans to skip work, school and shopping Friday. Hundreds of small businesses, from restaurants and grocery stores to yoga studios and yarn shops, announced plans to either close their doors, donate proceeds or both—even though many said participating would hurt their bottom line. Conceived by faith and union leaders, the shutdown is the latest in a series of organized protests in the Twin Cities and statewide since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer killed Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. … A run of demonstrations has led up to the big day, from churches to malls, to construction sites and the State Capitol. Wednesday afternoon, immigration agents descended on Minneapolis’ Karmel Mall three times and detained three people in less than two hours. Scores of Somali business owners had gathered there for a planned protest.”

• The Justice Department tried to bring charges against journalist Don Lemon for being at a protest inside a Minnesota church last weekend. A judge said no. CNN reports: “A federal magistrate judge rejected the Justice Department’s initial attempt to bring charges against journalist Don Lemon for appearing alongside protesters who breached a Minnesota church over the weekend, a source told CNN. ‘The Attorney General is enraged at the magistrate judge’s decision,’ a person familiar with the matter said. Attorney General Pam Bondi has been on the ground in Minnesota for two days meeting with federal prosecutors from the state. Lemon, who is a former CNN host who now makes content independently, was with dozens of anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters as they rushed into Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday morning, interrupting a church service and leading to tense confrontations, CNN has reported. Lemon has said that he was present at the demonstration as a journalist and not as a protester.”

• Related-ish: ICE has been claiming that agents can enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant—despite what the Fourth Amendment says. The Associated Press reports: “Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press, marking a sharp reversal of longstanding guidance meant to respect constitutional limits on government searches. The memo authorizes ICE officers to use force to enter a residence based solely on a more narrow administrative warrant to arrest someone with a final order of removal, a move that advocates say collides with Fourth Amendment protections and upends years of advice given to immigrant communities. … For years, immigrant advocates, legal aid groups and local governments have urged people not to open their doors to immigration agents unless they are shown a warrant signed by a judge. That guidance is rooted in Supreme Court rulings that generally prohibit law enforcement from entering a home without judicial approval. The ICE directive directly undercuts that advice at a time when arrests are accelerating under the administration’s immigration crackdown.”

• Also related: ICE has stopped paying third parties for detainees’ medical care. Yes, really. CBS News says: “As the number of people held in U.S. immigration detention has surged nationwide, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stopped paying outside medical providers for detainee care, according to newly reported government records—a breakdown that coincides with a Georgia-led Senate investigation documenting dozens of cases of alleged medical neglect inside ICE facilities. According to reporting by Popular Information, ICE has not paid third-party medical providers for detainee treatment since October 3, 2025, instructing providers to hold all claims until at least April 30, 2026. The lapse comes as the detained population has ballooned from fewer than 40,000 people in January 2025 to more than 73,000 today. Federal law requires ICE to provide necessary medical care to people in its custody. … ICE detention centers rely heavily on outside doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies, especially for specialized or off-site care.” Wow.

• A researcher writing for The Conversation says that while filming ICE agents in public is legal, doing so may attract the attract the attention of the feds: “Footage isn’t just images. Photos and video files often contain metadata such as timestamps and locations, and platforms also maintain additional logs. Even if you never post, your phone still emits a steady stream of location signals. This matters because agencies can obtain location through multiple channels, often with different levels of oversight. Agencies can request location or other data from companies through warrants or court orders, including geofence warrants that sweep up data about every device in a place during a set time window. Agencies can also buy location data from brokers. The Federal Trade Commission has penalized firms for unlawfully selling sensitive location information. Agencies also use specialized ‘area monitoring’ tools: ICE purchased systems capable of tracking phones across an entire neighborhood or block over time, raising civil liberties concerns. The tools could track a phone from the time and place of a protest – for example, to a home or workplace.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … stain removers! Fox Business says: “Roughly 1.5 million bottles of a popular household cleaning product sold nationwide are being pulled from shelves over concerns they may be contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria, federal regulators say. Boston-based company Thrasio has issued a recall of its Angry Orange Enzyme Stain Removers after determining the products could contain Pseudomonas aeruginosa, according to a notice released Thursday by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Pseudomonas aeruginosa can pose serious health risks to people with weakened immune systems, lung conditions or external medical devices, the CPSC warned.”

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