Absolutely Hairy-Scary

The latest on the fight on ICE's future. Also: We've found the global warming!

Author

Brad Johnson
February 01, 2026

PRESENTED BY AN INNOCENT THING

It’s Sunday night, I’m on the train home to Washington, D.C. It’s freezing on the East Coast of the United States and freakishly hot pretty much everywhere else.

“What kind of environmental contamination should the council focus on? …The worldwide accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. What an innocent thing this is, just the cigarettes we smoke and the jet fuel we use, but the things that the scientists tell me might happen by this measurable or small little increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere are absolutely hairy-scary. Already I gather that we have been able to measure in at least a finite amount that we have changed this balance. We are pretty efficient, we humans.”

Ralph MacMullan, hearings on the formation of the Council on Environmental Quality, United States House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation, June 13, 1969

The Senate has stripped Homeland Security from the final fiscal-year 2026 government-funding minibus, setting a deadline of two weeks to negotiate a new deal on Congressional appropriations for the department overseeing Der Trump’s roving gangs of masked carjackers, kidnappers, and executioners.

After Trump agreed to Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) deal, the Senate overcame a last-minute tantrum on behalf of the January 6 rioters by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and cleaved the $64 billion Homeland Security package from the five-title guns-and-butter minibus (Defense, National Security-State, Financial Services-General Government, Labor-Health-Education,, and Transportation-HUD), putting DHS on a two-week continuing resolution.

The Senate deal has been sent to the House, where Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is showing surprising spine, taking the position that it’s House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La., no relation) responsibility to pass Trump’s deal with his GOP majority. The House works on a pure-majority basis for most decisions, so this is the proper stance for the opposition party to take.

The House GOP will be down to a 218-214 majority as long as Johnson honors Saturday’s belated election of Democrat Christian Menefee to fill Texas’ 18th, vacant since March after the death of Sylvester Turner.1 Johnson is “convinced” that his fractious caucus of white-supremacist backstabbers “will get this done by Tuesday.”

We’ll see!

hey pigs don’t speak latin we’ve been lied to

— 🅿️rofessor Kiosk 💊 (@professorkiosk.wtf)2026-02-01T08:02:19.714Z

In all seriousness, I've been trashing the Congressional Democratic leadership for how they’ve ceded a lot of their leverage (they have) and are making profoundly weak demands on DHS (they are) but a two-week national debate on whether Trump’s state terror is defensible as “immigration enforcement” (it’s not) is excellent.

A Black-capped Chickadee showcasing winter fashion by donning a snowflake accessory.

— Jocelyn Anderson Photography (@jocelynanderson.bsky.social)2026-01-31T23:12:39.989Z

Before I get back to my quiet-car nap, let’s check in on how America’s doing on the climate-disaster front. Adaptation, baby!

Unions are fighting to keep FEMA alive:

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and a broad coalition of labor organizations, nonprofit groups, and local governments filed a supplemental complaint today challenging the unlawful and drastic reduction of staff at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Team Abundance! has brought in Trump as their heavy hitter. He’s asserting he can eliminate all health, safety, and building codes in the Palisades by executive order:

Donald Trump announced that he has signed an executive order to “cut through bureaucratic red tape” and speed up reconstruction of tens of thousands of homes destroyed by the January 2025 Los Angeles-area wildfires. The US president’s order, which he announced on Tuesday but signed on Friday, seeks to allow homeowners to rebuild without contending with “unnecessary, duplicative or obstructive” permitting requirements, the White House said in a statement. The order directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) to find a way to issue regulations that would preempt state and local rules for obtaining permits and allow builders to “self-certify” that they have complied with “substantive health, safety and building standards”.

Oh right, it’s summer on the other side of the globe:

ENDLESS HELL IN AUSTRALIA 36C AT NIGHT 49C IN THE DAY Crazy MINIMUM 35.9C Arkaroola 4th hottest night in Southern Hemisphere history Another 49C+ day in New South Wales RECORDS all time 49.1 Fawlers Gap 49.0 Smithville 48.9 White Cliffs Monthly 48.4 Ivanhoe 46.0 Forbes

— Extreme Temperatures Around the World (@extremetemps.bsky.social)2026-01-31T11:48:15.018Z

For us Americans, that’s 98°F at night and 120°F in the day.

Speaking of climate disasters, long-time denier-for-hire Bjorn Lomborg is all over the Epstein Files. Michael Mann has the receipts.

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1  Saturday featured another Texas special election, to fill a vacant State Senate seat. Democrat Taylor Rehmet defeated Leigh “Whoa Black Betty” Wambsganns by 14 points in a district Trump had won by 17 points.

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