What’s in today’s Jan. 16, 2026 issue
🌎 Chris on US imperialism in Greenland & Latin America
🎥 Dave revisits a 1940s movie about US fascism
✍ Micah’s corner
Hi friends,
Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. My job here is usually to sum up the news that Dave has covered in the past week. But Dave is sick this week, which means there’s less to summarize, which means I’ve been mostly left to my own devices. In the past, when Dave has left me similarly unsupervised, I’ve tried to launch hostile takeovers that involve explaining the news through Marvel references. Today, history repeats itself.
Trump at Davos (Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images
The Davos World Economic Forum is happening as I write this. It also happened in the fourth issue of writer Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men run. In that issue, different countries weigh how they exert control through their economic influence. It’s a helpful introduction to the World Economic Forum in real life. There, President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on eight European nations if they didn’t agree to let him take control of Greenland. Then, he backed down from that threat after saying he’d reached a deal over Greenland. The details of that deal are still unclear, but Trump has said it’ll include “all the military access” he wants. Economic power — be it Krakoan in a Marvel comic or American in the real world — is shaping people’s lives around the globe.
There’s been a lot of attention on Trump’s ambitions to take over Greenland. The morning I’m writing this, articles and live blogs about it abound on the homepages of the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. The attention is warranted. But it’s also been interesting — and, honestly, disheartening — to see less attention on Trump’s imperialist ambitions in Latin America. After his administration captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump threatened that Greenland may be next. In the same breath, he also threatened Iran, Cuba, Colombia and Mexico.
And I don’t mean to suggest that journalists aren’t paying attention to the threatened invasion of those countries at all. Search for it, and you’ll find it. But it’s also hard to deny that Greenland is dominating the conversation right now. Even with Greenland taking center stage at Davos, it’s hard for me to not critique newsrooms’ focus here as a Eurocentric choice, especially when US involvement in Latin America in the past and present plays a huge role in global and domestic politics.
I’m on a reporting trip for Mother Jones right now in Miami, my hometown, covering how Venezuelan and Cuban diaspora groups are reacting to this. I had one set of grandparents emigrate from Cuba under a US-backed dictatorship there. Those same grandparents melded into a brand of Cold War-era Cuban conservatism in Miami that was largely shaped by — and that largely shaped — US foreign policy toward Latin America. Our country’s involvement in the region was the lens through which I first began to understand politics growing up.
That involvement is playing out right now in a big way. Recent reporting shows that the US secured cooperation from Maduro’s vice president before attacking Venezuela, and that it’s actively seeking regime change in Cuba this year. Migrants from both countries have been targeted by the Trump administration and its federal agents occupying and terrorizing US cities. US imperialism, immigration, and fascism at home are all linked, and that link is playing out before our eyes right now.
And speaking of fascism in the US, Dave did power through his cold to make one video this week about this.
Don’t be a sucker
In the 1940s, the U.S. Army made a film called “Don’t Be A Sucker.” It warned Americans about fascism at home after the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. The film features a man spouting anti-immigrant rhetoric to rile up a crowd, using familiar tropes of immigrants taking American jobs. Decades later, President Donald Trump is saying the same thing as this fictional fascist — even without evidence to back it up.
Fictional Fascist also said “it’s up to you and me to fight them,” decades before Vice President JD Vance urged people to “take America’s streets back for the American people.”
The film also shows the POV of a refugee from Europe, recalling how the Nazis gave another man in the film “a uniform and they pumped up his ego.” Today, ICE is planning a $100 million recruitment campaign.
Other parallels speak for themselves, like the character in the film recalling how Nazis “gambled with other people’s liberty” as ICE reported nearly 67,000 detentions last year, how they treated Jewish people as “a convenient excuse for all the nation’s ills” as Trump ramps up his anti-immigrant rhetoric even more, how they “decided to abolish the truth” as we saw DHS lie about the killing of Renee Good, how they used government propaganda as Trump and his allies try to build up a new media empire, how they arrested religious leaders as federal agents today have arrested clergy members.
Subscribe…. independent and newsworthy.
Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered, I turn things over to him for some analysis. But with Dave out this week, we’re turning things over to LNI co-founder Micah Gelman.
The Cheech and Chong original (1971)
Hello friends,
It’s Micah subbing in for Dave who has been down with the flu this week. This year’s flu strain is no joke. It’s still not too late to get the flu vaccine despite R.F.K. Jr.’s apparent attempts to kill as many Americans as possible by undercutting public confidence in vaccination.
In Dave’s absence, I want to update you on a few exciting things happening at Local News International, a division of Family Loser, LLC.™️
If you missed the Sunday/Monday newsletter, Dave fulfilled a promise we made when we started — to explain who paid us last year and how we accounted for that money. You can read the newsletter, or check out our Ethics & Transparency page which has the 2025 report. With apologies to Sarah Hashemi, I made the chart myself.
In total transparency, pun intended, we have updated our pledge to include a new one: We are Independent. As Dave talked about Sunday, we don’t take money from politicians, political parties or political action committees. Here’s the updated pledge which removed We are Where You Are. To be clear (thanks, Obama) we are still where you are, but it didn’t really fit with an ethics commitment.
If you think we should add something to the pledge or make something clearer, please let us know by emailing [email protected]. Lauren, Dave and I read and respond to all incoming messages.
NewsRadio’s version (1995)
Two of the funding sources Dave mentioned on Sunday are USAFacts and News Revenue Hub.
Lauren, Dave and I are helping USAFacts, a non-profit founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with their social video strategy. USAFacts is a great organization dedicated to helping ordinary people find and better understand government data.
We’re helping them recruit for a new Social Media Video Manager role at their Bellevue, Washington offices. Here’s a link to the job description and you can reach out to me or Lauren on LinkedIn if you want more information about the role or know someone who would be a good candidate. You must be willing to relocate to the Seattle-area.
The Simpsons (2011)
We’re also proud to be working with News Revenue Hub, which is marking it’s 10th anniversary this month. In their own words, News Revenue Hub is helping newsrooms “build stronger, more sustainable business models for journalism.” Thanks to the team there, including CEO Mary Walter-Brown, Sarah Bishop-Woods, Abbey Gingras, Ashley Guckert and former Postie Sophie Ho for supporting us and connecting us with newsrooms around the country doing incredible work in challenging circumstances.
You get two rewards for making it to the end of this newsletter. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Nym!
awwwwwwwwwww cutie
Your second is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide a non-news related link somewhere above. In the blurb about Dave’s video, I linked to the Wikipedia article for Senator Robert Kelly, a Marvel Comics character whose heel turn away from anti-mutant fanaticism I’m currently seeing about in my big X-Men read through.
Until next week!
Chris
