Read it.

The idea of a ‘global village’ was once romantic to many who witnessed the rise of the internet and has remained highly appealing to the liberal-minded generation Z. Study abroad programs, which were once affordable only to the privileged, are now part of many university curricula. My recent encounters as a law teacher in Berlin (Germany) with (aspiring) participants suggested that such programs can harm society by grooming morally arrogant and historically illiterate future leaders—bureaucrats, lawyers, and policymakers with shiny CVs who, despite their travels, remain ensconced within their ideology nurseries.

Read it.

Repeated snowfall and freezing rain have coated the open-air insane asylum known as Berlin in a thin sheet of slippery ice since the beginning of January. To spare plants, city environmental laws have long forbidden using salt on pedestrian paths and stairways, and so residents have been falling and injuring themselves at such high rates that emergency rooms have had trouble keeping up:

Feel free to laugh at these fools. I did.

The New Neo.

On yesterday’s thread about anti-MAGA rage in the health professions, there was some discussion about the leftism of therapists. I’m unaware of any threats by therapists to kill MAGA fans. But then again – unlike nurses and doctors – they’re not in the business of directly tending to their clients’ bodily needs, so they don’t have as much opportunity – or is it temptation?

But I think it might be time to recycle a post I wrote in May of 2023 on the topic of the leftism of therapists, and the fact that many have been refusing to treat people on the right for many years prior to Trump. So the rest of this post is a repeat of that earlier post.

Read it.

You’ve seen the articles: healthcare workers (often nurses) who boast that they won’t treat MaGA supporters or even that they’ll harm or kill them. Another variant is the same claim about not treating, or outright harming, Israelis.

This shouldn’t surprise us, although it probably does. People who work in healthcare are people, after all, and there’s always been a certain number of natural sociopaths drawn to the profession. We’ve always heard of the random nurse or doctor who injects patients with something lethal, although their numbers have mercifully been very low. But they have always existed.

However, what’s going on now seem to be a new phenomenon, and although it continues to involve a small number it’s certainly more people than the group I described above. This time, also, they seem to have little awareness that they will face any negative consequences for publicly stating their willingness to harm or kill patients. They brag about their intent to commit such crimes, and seem to consider it a good way to virtue-signal. When they are suspended or fired, they’re probably very surprised.

If they are young (and by “young” I mean anything under forty) they’ve been steeped in leftist education, for the most part. So some of this is a generational phenomenon. Then there’s widespread TDS and the demonization of anyone supporting Trump, which has increased over the years rather than decreased. I see it myself, nearly constantly. It becomes standard in many circles, and that escalates matters as well, when one’s colleagues and friends and family seem to all agree that MAGA equals Nazi. That thought is reiterated and magnified through the MSM, Democrat and NeverTrump politicians and pundits, and social media.

Healthcare professionals often go into the profession through a desire to do good, and if killing Nazis is good then they’ll do that, too. Nor is their professional training politically neutral, either.

Read it.

The Justice Department is joining a lawsuit against the University of California, Los Angeles medical school for alleged race-based admissions that it says violate a Supreme Court ruling.

Last May, student groups sued the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA regarding the continued use of race in admission practices, despite a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that barred universities from using race as a factor in admissions decisions.

Plaintiffs who brought the initial case included Students for Fair Admissions, which previously sued Harvard and the University of North Carolina in cases that were decided by the high court. The other plaintiff is Do No Harm. Both groups represent students denied admission into the UCLA medical school.

“Even after the Supreme Court banned race-balancing, the Geffen School kept discriminating by using illegal DEI preferences in admissions,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a public statement Thursday.

Read it.

In my most recent report on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, I noted that the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) leadership is sharply criticizing Canada’s MAID program, which is now linked to organ donation, with one top official calling it a “strange new horror” and a cautionary example for other countries.

Now, even more disturbing revelations about the program are being made, which underscore the correctness of every concern expressed about this program.

Ontario’s chief coroner has released two new reports from the province’s interdisciplinary MAID Death Review Committee, examining same? or next?day provision of MAID and the use of waivers of final consent. The committee’s mandate was to look beyond individual files to the patterns they reveal.

Several of the cases reveal that the process for some included coercion and rushed decisions.

Read it.

Vlad has posted an excellent essay about the dialectical methods used in the information war by globalist communists (which may be a redundancy) to manipulate the masses. Below is a lightly edited version of his introduction.

Ars Technica.

Minnesota resident Nicole Cleland had her Global Entry and TSA Precheck privileges revoked three days after an incident in which she observed activity by immigration agents, the woman said in a court declaration. An agent told Cleland that he used facial recognition technology to identify her, she wrote in a declaration filed in US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Cleland, a 56-year-old resident of Richfield and a director at Target Corporation, volunteers with a group that tracks potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles in her neighborhood, according to her declaration. On the morning of January 10, she “observed a white Dodge Ram being driven by what I believed to be federal enforcement agents” and “maneuvered behind the vehicle with the intent of observing the agents’ actions.”

Cleland said that she and another observer in a different car followed the Dodge Ram because of “concern about a local apartment building being raided.” She followed the car for a short time and from a safe distance until “the Dodge Ram stopped in front of the other commuter’s vehicle,” she wrote. Cleland said two other vehicles apparently driven by federal agents stopped in front of the Dodge Ram, and her path forward was blocked.

“An agent exited the vehicle and approached my vehicle,” Cleland wrote. “I remained in my vehicle. The agent addressed me by my name and informed me that they had ‘facial recognition’ and that his body cam was recording. The agent stated that he worked for border patrol. He wore full camouflage fatigues. The agent stated that I was impeding their work. He indicated he was giving me a verbal warning and if I was found to be impeding again, I would be arrested.”

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. AWFULs think that they can do this sort of thing with no consequences.

She Fucked Around and Found Out.

The Foundry.

Every day, it seems anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement agitators perpetrate a new atrocity against innocent people, and Democrats demonizing ICE arguably bear some of the blame.

On Sunday, they effectively laid siege to the Home2 Suites by Hilton Hotel, smashing the windows and spray-painting anti-ICE slogans, leading both state police and federal agents to respond.

On Tuesday, Virginia Commonwealth University Health announced that it fired a nurse after she released social media videos urging medical providers to use a “sabotage tactic” against ICE, preparing syringes with saline or succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant that can cause temporary partial paralysis.

In arguably the most infuriating example, agitators invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, in the middle of a service, and effectively shut it down. They reportedly screamed in the faces of crying children, prevented parents from getting to their children, and stopped terrified parishioners from leaving. They justified this by noting that one of the pastors works for ICE.

The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, at the hands of immigration enforcement have contributed to the climate of hostility against ICE, but those incidents arguably do not explain this extreme hatred.

What leads people to think it’s acceptable to target ICE so much that they’re willing to harass innocents?

Seven extreme statements from Democrat officials might provide an answer.

Read it.

The United States has pulled its membership in the World Health Organization (WHO), and many other nations are rethinking their participation. Of course, this could change with some future administration. The institution itself is not going anywhere. This is why it is crucial to understand the case for why the United States needed to pull out and cut all funding.

It’s also critically important that other nations join us and leave this organization. To top it all off, the WHO has become a pillar of duplicity even now.

Over the weekend, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “While WHO recommended the use of masks, physical distancing and vaccines, WHO did not recommend governments to mandate the use of masks or vaccines and never recommended lockdowns.”

This claim is easily refuted.

Read it.

The killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last Saturday sparked national outrage – particularly when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and his right to carry while protesting. The incident resulted in two federal agents involved in the shooting being placed on leave, and the ouster of US border patrol chief Gregory Bovino as the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation drive.

While the circumstances of his death are still under investigation – many believe this gun went off after an agent took it off his body, spooking the shooter or shooters – he was known to federal authorities, and had suffered a broken rib during a violent confrontation with agents about a week before his death, CNN reported Tuesday.

Now, new footage appears to show Pretti armed and spitting at ICE agents before he smashes the taillights of their black SUV during a wild confrontation roughly a week before his death.

Read it.

Most of the recent vitriolic opposition to ICE is a feint by unrepentant open-borders progressives. They won the first round when Joe Biden was elected president, lost the second when Donald Trump returned to office, and are back for a rematch.

Democratic leaders portray ICE agents as violent Gestapo thugs and murderers. They claim ICE kidnaps good people off the street, rips apart their families and communities, and deprives them of due process. They give lip service to deporting the “worst of the worst,” but they lead sanctuary cities that release hardened criminal illegal aliens and incite protesters to harass and prevent ICE from arresting rapists, child predators, and killers.

For most, the venom has little to do with how ICE performs its mission and everything to do with preventing the Trump administration from undoing Biden’s brazen deluge of illegal migrants. But for the protests, ICE would be nearly invisible to most Americans, who abhor these violent confrontations. Instead, two Americans have tragically died in Minneapolis.

Democratic leaders deflect when challenged with the fact that disruption and mistakes would be greatly reduced if sanctuary cities turned over criminals already confined. Minnesota alone refuses to comply with 1,360 detainers for illegal aliens in its jails, including 500 previously ordered to be deported by federal judges.

Read it.

A network of far-left nonprofits linked to Marxist financier Neville Roy Singham is leveraging Minnesota-based Black and Somali student organizations to mobilize child protesters in a planned “ICE Out of Everywhere” action on Friday, assessed as a coordinated general strike intended to inflict economic disruption amid widespread protests following multiple fatal shootings of protesters by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis.

“We support the call from Minnesota-based Black and Somali student organizations — on Friday, January 30, join the national day of action to say ICE OUT OF EVERYWHERE!” Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) wrote on X.

Read it.

New footage has emerged showing Alex Pretti interacting with immigration authorities in Minneapolis more than a week before the 37-year-old ICU nurse was shot and killed by federal law enforcement.

A Jan. 13 video provided by The News Movement, a media outlet geared to Generation Z, shows a man who appears to be Pretti shouting at a federal officer before the officer walked back to his SUV.

As the vehicle began to drive away, Pretti kicked it twice, shattering the taillight on the second kick.

“Our footage was analyzed by the BBC, whose facial recognition technology confirmed his identity to a 97% degree of accuracy,” the video’s narrator said.

The Telegraph (UK).

Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti spat at ICE agents and kicked their SUV during a tense confrontation almost a fortnight before he was shot dead by two federal immigration officers, new video appears to show.

The 37-year-old nurse, who was killed by federal officers in the city on Saturday, was involved in an angry, physical confrontation with agents 11 days earlier.

Newly released footage appears to show Pretti spitting at agents and kicking an ICE vehicle so hard that he breaks its rear brake light. He is then bundled to the ground by agents in tactical gear.

Read it.

A 21-year-old Texas woman has been charged with arson and burglary after allegedly breaking into and setting fire to a Republican Party headquarters.

The attack reflects a dangerous escalation of political extremism, GOP leaders said.

Grace Carol Brown was arrested Thursday in New Braunfels after authorities said she smashed windows, broke into the Comal County Republican Party headquarters, and started a fire inside the building.

What is it with girls and nose rings these days?

The Foundry.

Zohran Mamdani’s policy and funding proposals could precipitate an economic and political crisis in New York City reminiscent of the movements that led to Communist China, the Soviet Union, or Socialist Venezuela.

To finance this red vision, New York’s mayor proposes an additional 2% income tax on New York City’s noncorporate businesses and residents making over $1 million annually.

He claims that this revenue will address residents’ affordability concerns by allowing the government to provide discounted or free services. These socialist policies range from rent freezes, affordable housing, city-owned grocery stores, free buses, no-cost child care, and mandating a $30 minimum wage.

Time to leave.

The Telegraph (UK).

Labour has been accused of peddling misinformation by sharing a misleading clip from a speech made by Reform UK’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election.

The party became embroiled in a row on social media after posting a video from an address given by Matthew Goodwin.

In the video shared on X, Mr Goodwin tells an audience: “I was lucky enough or unfortunate enough to be in Manchester a few days ago and the energy in this room is ten times what it was in Manchester so congratulations.”

Reform’s latest candidate thinks about where he’s standing to represent”.

Labour are like Democrats excedpt without the low animal cunning.

Read it.

Agatha Christie never spun a mystery as perplexing as that of white liberal women going all in on protecting criminal illegal immigrants. Screaming, screeching, blowing whistles, cursing like sailors with Tourette’s who just hit their thumb with a hot hammer.

The other day, a poor Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent tried to explain to horn-honking protesters, “We’re here to arrest a child sex offender. … That’s who you guys are protecting.” He may as well have been speaking Sanskrit.

“Insane,” he said, as he drove away.

Insanity? If not, close enough to be its doppelganger.

Read it.

My nephew lived with us for many years. And then he moved to Arizona for many other years. But the State of California still sent him jury summons. And ballots. I will speak of both.

Babylon Bee.

Things in America are getting pretty dicey these days. So dicey, in fact, that people in blue states are starting to wonder if it’s time to evacuate to the safety of more politically conservative places. Knowing when to get out of Dodge is vital.

The Babylon Bee has compiled the following list of clear signs that it’s time to move to a red state:….

Read it.

Two Somali pedophiles (one of them named Mohammed), a Somali rapist, a Laotian ‘child fondler’, four other Laotian sex predators, five Mexican pedophiles, another Mexican who sodomized a girl, along with Honduran, Liberian and Ugandan pedophiles.

Those are the reasons that Democrats decided to once again burn down Minneapolis.

It makes the last time when racist rioters set parts of Minneapolis on fire because a ‘gentle giant’ who had robbed a pregnant woman at gunpoint died of a drug overdose seem almost moral.

Radical activists have taken to prowling around cafes, blowing whistles and trying to run over ICE immigration law enforcement officers to protect deportation targets who, contrary to what the media’s non-stop propaganda operation claims, are not your ‘next door neighbors’, but your next door sex offenders (some of the ICE deportation targets were nailed for failing to register as sex offenders including a Liberian charged with “”strongarm sodomy of a girl”.)

Read it.

The mid-19th century Gold Rush earned California the nickname “Golden State.” Over generations, the region became a place of aspiration— a projection screen for ambition and prosperity. Here, the American Dream coalesced into tangible stories of social mobility. Today, the state has become the stage for a political experiment that mirrors Europe’s globalist ideology.

This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was entirely overshadowed by Donald Trump’s speech. The U.S. President declared the centrally planned EU-style climate socialism a failure, sending a chill through those who had benefited economically from the past years’ policies and fully embraced the green transformation agenda.

A politician who seems particularly devoted to this European-style centralist approach is California Governor Gavin Newsom. The day after Trump’s grand Davos performance, Newsom had the chance to present his perspective—a performance that quickly struck observers as bizarre. He labeled the Western leaders’ response to Trump’s policies as pathetic, accusing them of cowardice and bowing to the Trump administration. Symbolically, he carried a pair of bright red Trump Signature Knee Pads as a political prop, claiming he should have brought a full set for every world leader.

This hardly reflects the conduct of a serious statesman, particularly as his policies at home have generated genuine economic problems and deep social upheavals.

The American Mind.

The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who was shot after hitting an ICE officer with her car according to video footage, have many asking the question, “What exactly do these anti-ICE activists think they are doing?”

The seemingly incomprehensible decision by Good, a mother with stuffed animals in the glove box of the vehicle she used to obstruct the enforcement of federal law, is leaving people scratching their heads. Reporting that Good became an activist through a peer group at her child’s progressive, social justice-focused charter school has not provided many answers. Media outlets like CNN have sought to demonstrate that the work Good was involved in was more like a side project of the local Parent Teacher Association than domestic terrorism.

But reality was something else.

As the New York Post reported, Renee Good and her significant other were actively involved with the organization Minnesota ICE Watch, and regularly attended trainings with the group. The group on social media openly promotes a manual on de-arrest tactics, a term used by activists that can include assaulting law enforcement officers to allow fellow activists time to escape. These tactics aren’t merely civil disobedience, where a protestor calmly accepts being arrested to highlight a perceived injustice. These are direct action tactics designed to impede and subvert law enforcement, including through the use of physical force.

The Other McCain.

The Saturday morning shooting of an armed anti-ICE rioter in Minneapolis triggered still more mayhem in the city despite below-zero temperatures. It has become obvious to everyone paying attention that the so-called “protests” (which are, in fact, a conspiracy to obstruct federal law enforcement) are being carefully coordinated.

The Telegraph (UK).

A 106-year-old Cotswolds private school is to close amid Labour’s VAT raid.
Rendcomb College, near Cirencester, Gloucestershire, announced that it would shut this summer because of “the economic situation facing independent schools across the country”, as well as its current and projected pupil numbers.
It said the school would not be “financially viable in the future”, meaning 380 children will be forced to move elsewhere.
David Tyler, the former chairman of Sainsbury’s, attended Rendcomb College in the 1960s.
Saqib Bhatti, shadow education minister, told The Telegraph: “Labour’s schools tax is an ideological attack on aspiration and on people who work hard to be able to invest in their children’s education.
“Every time a school is forced to close thanks to this tax, it means more children’s lives are disrupted and more pressure on the state sector.”

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Read it.

Left-wing nonprofit groups in Minneapolis appear to have moved beyond pressure campaigns targeting ICE agents and federal law enforcement, shifting from street protests/riots toward actions that may disrupt critical infrastructure on Friday. The apparent objective is to target economic chokepoints and critical infrastructure, a pressure tactic consistent with the color revolution playbook previously deployed by dark-money funded NGO networks aligned with the Democratic Party’s protest-industrial complex and financed by left-wing billionaire foundations.

Local media outlet The Minnesota Star Tribune reported on Friday evening that “at a demonstration outside Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport’s main terminal, a Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman said police arrested roughly 100 demonstrators.”

The Foundry.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot an armed man in Minneapolis on Saturday who the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said looked like was about to “massacre law enforcement.”

The incident happened just 17 days after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed Renee Good, who had hit the agent with her vehicle, in the same city.

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation that the most recent shooting occurred when agents were carrying out a “targeted operation” and it appeared the now-deceased man was about to inflict “maximum damage” against law enforcement officers.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a Saturday press conference that the deceased was a 37-year-old white male who lived in the city.

“At 9:05 AM CT, as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here,” McLaughlin wrote in her statement.

DHS shared with the DCNF a photograph of a gun with two magazines. ICE and Border Patrol are both agencies of DHS.

“The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming,” the assistant secretary continued. “Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots. Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene.”

“The suspect also had 2 magazines and no ID—this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” McLaughlin added.

Think of it as evolution in action.

UPDATE: Man waving gun at feds attempting to arrest illegal criminal in Minneapolis shot dead by agent, DHS says (New York Post)

The Other McCain.

And about time.

Read it.

Minnesota leftists showed no pangs of conscience after disrupting a Sunday worship service at Cities Church in St. Paul. The church was targeted because one of its lay elders works in federal law enforcement—specifically, serving as the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director for St. Paul. But, despite sparking national outrage, the anti-ICE demonstrators are only doubling down.

“Today, we are calling for the resignation of so-called pastor David Easterwood from Cities Church,” declared career activist Nekima Levy Armstrong, who led the Sunday demonstration, at a Tuesday press conference organized in front of the Hennepin County Government Center. “We are asking Cities Church to operate in truth and integrity and the true meaning of the gospel and to recognize that David Easterwood’s dual role as a pastor and the director of the ICE office is a most definite conflict of interest, and it cannot stand.”

The change in venue was the only accommodation activists made to public criticism, although it still lacked a reasonable connection between means and ends. On Sunday, agitators demonstrated in a church to protest government action. On Tuesday, they assembled at a government building to protest the church.

Protestants—making trouble for the rest of us for 500 years and counting.

The Foundry.

I don’t expect much from the Episcopal Church, but it still speaks volumes when a bishop refuses to condemn the invasion of a church service.

Last weekend, a group of agitators invaded Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, taking over the sanctuary, terrifying children, and chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!”

It wasn’t a peaceful protest. It wasn’t a demonstration. It was a horde of Vandals entering the sanctuary and coopting it for their political agenda.

Such an attack reminds me more of the sack of Rome than Martin Luther King, Jr.

Read it.

The former superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district is expected to plead guilty in federal court Thursday to two charges, including falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen, which could result in a lengthy prison sentence and increased risk of deportation.

Ian Roberts, a native of Guyana in South America and a former Olympic runner, ascended as an exuberant and inspiring leader over a two-decade career in urban education. For two years, he was superintendent of the Des Moines public school district, which serves 30,000 students.

Just weeks into a new school year, Roberts was detained by federal immigration officers. The Sept. 26 arrest stunned community members and drew national attention to his history of criminal charges and falsified credentials.

Roberts in October initially pleaded not guilty to one count of making a false statement for employment and one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm while being in the country illegally. Roberts is now expected to plead guilty to both charges, according to a plea agreement he signed Wednesday.

Read it.

“Governor Newsom, who strikes me as Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken, may be the only Californian who knows less about economics than Kamala Harris.”

That was Treasury Secretary Steve Bessent at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, delivering a remarkably on point put down of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

And the put down was warranted given that Newsom was hopping from camera to camera at the conference, painting himself as the leader of the American resistance against the American president, and generally acting the fool.

I always thought Newsom looked like how the Devil’s lawyer would be portratyed in a movie, but a mix of the main villain from “American Psycho” and Barbie’s boyfriend certainly seems spot on.

Read it.

On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump promised to end federal spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. Yet the government has continued to award contracts based on race and sex. Despite rampant fraud and multiple court rulings against the practice, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has used “disadvantage” essays from business owners to skirt the rules and continue discriminatory programs that dole out billions in government contracts.

For decades, the federal government has awarded certain special contracts exclusively to so-called disadvantaged businesses and women-owned small businesses. Until 2023, SBA presumed that racial minorities were “disadvantaged.” The resulting discrimination was absolute: according to an analysis conducted between 2020 and 2023, these programs made not a single award to white men.

Though the second Trump administration has taken steps to limit these contracts, the largest disadvantaged-business initiative—the SBA’s 8(a) program—is thriving. The program “is still one of the most lucrative and sought after” SBA certificates, one contracting lawyer said in November. In fact, fiscal year 2025 saw the largest 8(a) spending on record, totaling $26 billion.

President Trump signed an executive order forbidding federal DEI discrimination, and a federal district court struck down the SBA’s presumption that minorities are disadvantaged. How, then, has 8(a) survived?

Read it.

During oral arguments in Wolford v. Lopez, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that the post-Civil War “Black Codes” – a set of openly racist laws enacted in the Democrat-controlled South to strip newly freed Black Americans of basic rights, including the right to possess firearms – could serve as legitimate historical precedent under the Supreme Court’s Bruen test. That test evaluates modern gun laws by asking whether similar restrictions were accepted in the nation’s historical tradition. The case concerns a Hawaii law that bars licensed gun owners from carrying firearms onto privately owned property open to the public. Jackson relying on the Black Codes for constitutional guidance is hilarious, as those laws were explicitly designed to deny civil rights to Black Americans in defiance of emancipation.

Read itl.

Seventeen House Republicans gave California Democrats a late Christmas present this month when they crossed the aisle to vote for extending enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies for another three years.

Not only did they move these massive handouts one step closer to permanent entitlement status, but they failed to advance reforms that would actually lower health care costs, like closing the Intergovernmental Transfer loophole that has cost taxpayers tens of billions over time.

The Senate should stop this bill in its tracks and—in anticipation of pushback from those who have never seen a government expansion they didn’t like—prepare to argue to the public why propping up a broken system won’t reduce health insurance premiums. As I argued in The Hill, these subsidies just mask the true cost of government distortion.

Since the Affordable Care Act passed, average family premiums have exploded to more than $25,000 per year. Government subsidies haven’t stopped that rise. They’ve enabled it—by insulating insurers from competitive pricing and reducing any pressure for meaningful reform.

And while Washington debates whether to extend temporary tax credits, states like California are quietly siphoning off billions in federal Medicaid dollars through legalized budget fraud tied to the Intergovernmental Transfer loophole.

Read it.

California Democrats should listen to The Rolling Stones.

Or the Beatles—The Taxman lays it out directly.

The band famously fled England in the 1970s, heading into tax exile in the south of France.

Mick Jagger and his mates weren’t alone—a generation of rock royalty abandoned the U.K. because of its steep taxes: David Bowie opted for Switzerland; Rod Stewart went to California.

“We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all,” Stones guitarist Keith Richards recalled to Fortune.

Progressives are now transforming California into what Britain was before Margaret Thatcher—and it’s not celebrities who are leaving, but the billionaires who drive Silicon Valley’s economy, and therefore the state’s.

The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act ballot measure is a recipe for reverse alchemy, turning the Golden State into lead.

Read it.

According to plans from the Federal Chancellery, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, is set to significantly expand its surveillance capabilities. The focus is particularly on internet communication transmitted from within Germany abroad, which is to be included in the agency’s monitoring catalog going forward.

After months of heated debate over the expansion of the Brussels censorship apparatus under the Digital Services Act and ‘Chat Control,’ attention to the EU Commission’s surveillance ambitions has temporarily faded in Germany. Now, however, a draft bill from the Federal Chancellery, obtained by WDR, NDR, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, is triggering renewed alarm.

The proposed expansion of BND powers makes one thing unmistakably clear: German policy is moving in lockstep with the EU Commission, with full force directed against the privacy and communication of citizens, journalists, and government-critical organizations.

Read it.

Social media is agog with posts about the usual flurry of bill introductions that accompany a new legislative session, in this case, the Commonwealth of Virginia. A new legislative session began this week following November’s odd-year elections.

The home state of Patrick Henry, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and four of our nation’s first five US presidents opened it’s new Democratic trifecta – nearly a 2:1 majority in the House of Delegates, with Democrats flipping 14 previous GOP seats – and it’s more tenuous 21-19 Senate majority last week, following the inauguration of our former CIA case officer Governor; our first-ever Muslim Lt. Governor; and our reckless driving Attorney General who muses about killing his GOP opponents.

We’re off to a great start.

The influx of Deep State apparatchiks (and their families and hangers-on) to northeast Virginia, and it’s consequent conversion of an Other Left Coast hell-hole, is one of the ongoing tragedies of this century.

Time to leave.

Read it.

A federal law enforcement officer was injured in Southern California on Wednesday after an illegal alien allegedly tried to evade arrest by ramming officers with his vehicle, prompting agents to fire defensive shots, according to the Trump administration.

The incident occurred in Compton, near Los Angeles, as Department of Homeland Security agents moved to arrest what the agency described as “a violent criminal illegal alien” from El Salvador.

DHS said the suspect “weaponized his vehicle and rammed law enforcement” during the attempted arrest, according to a statement posted on X.

“Fearing for his life and safety, an agent fired defensive shots,” the statement said.

Read it.

Investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger has accused the radical left of getting people killed through ongoing delusions and interference with federal immigration enforcement, pointing to the fatal shooting of Renee Good as a prime example.

Appearing on FOX News Channel’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Shellenberger highlighted how leftist rhetoric and actions are radicalizing individuals like Good, leading them into perilous situations while obstructing lawful operations.

“I think left is getting people killed at this point. There’s no other way to say it,” Shellenberger stated. “These are not difficult issues, legally, morally. The public voted for a president who is implementing his policies, it’s undemocratic to halt the implementation of those policies, which is what is happening.”

On the other hand, every Leftist cosplayer that gets shot means one less to bother the rest of us. Think of it as evolution in action.

Read it.

Leaders of a Black Lives Matter-aligned coalition claimed responsibility for organizing the mob disruption that shut down a Christian worship service in Minnesota on Sunday, defending their actions even as the Department of Justice launched a federal investigation.

Dozens of anti-ICE activists stormed Cities Church in St. Paul, chanting slogans, confronting congregants, and forcing worship to a halt.

Video posted to social media shows protesters yelling “ICE out” inside the sanctuary in what President Donald Trump on Tuesday called a “church raid.”

The protest was organized by a coalition that includes Racial Justice Network, Black Lives Matter Minnesota, and Black Lives Matter Twin Cities. BLM Minnesota livestreamed the takeover.

If you’re wondering why an organization named “Black Lives Matter” is involved with the death of an AWFUL protester, join the club.

Read it.

Read it.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is investigating the city of Minneapolis’s “comprehensive racialized housing plans,” the department said in a statement on Jan. 16.

The Foundry.

Affordability has become the latest mantra for Democrats as they gear up for midterm elections. Yet, blue states lead the nation in driving up the cost of basic essentials like electricity and water, new studies say.

A recent report by the Institute for Energy Research, titled “Blue States, High Rates,” found that while average electricity prices across America increased by nearly 40% since 2021, Americans in left-leaning states paid significantly more than their conservative compatriots.

The report states that the vast majority of states with electricity prices above the national average are Democrat-led states. By contrast, red states comprised eight of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices.

“Because of the Federal Power Act, the states have most of the discretion in terms of how they want to structure their electricity markets,” Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research and one of the study’s authors, told The Daily Signal. “We have seen over the past 10-15 years that typically blue states have high rates and red states, especially in the south and southeast, have much more reliable and affordable electricity for their ratepayers.”

The Foundry.

California’s biggest union is once again up to no good. Dissatisfied with the piles of cash they’ve already stolen from California high-earning taxpayers, who are subject to a 14.4% income tax rate (the nation’s highest), double digit sales taxes, and the second-highest tax burden in the country, the SEIU is now clamoring for a “one-time” 5% tax on the net worth of “billionaires” to fund health care for illegal immigrants.

Yes, you read that right. Tax the rich even more to pay for ballooning costs of failing, state-run health care.

The initiative that voters will likely decide upon in November is the pinnacle of progressive envy. It’s not enough that the top 1% of taxpayers already fund half of the state budget. They’re greedy for more, and the initiative’s new authority to tax net worth is a harbinger of unprecedented government intrusion into our lives.

We can first look to the retroactivity clause, which ensures that any taxpayer who did not have the foresight to flee the state by Jan. 1, 2026, will be subject to the tax if voters approve it in November. Progressives are well aware of the millions of people, trillions of dollars, and multiple congressional districts that have already left California for the freer shores of Florida, Texas, Tennessee, and other zero-income tax states. This time around, the victims of their tax hikes won’t have the chance to vote with their feet.

The initiative also singles out the most successful entrepreneurs who built their companies from nothing into unimaginable success. For many founders, the tax could be well over 5%.

Read it.

The United Kingdom is facing an unprecedented surge in small boat migrant arrivals under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with more than 65,800 crossings recorded in his first 19 months in office. Since the start of the Channel crossing crisis in 2018, over 193,500 migrants have arrived, roughly equivalent to the population of Norwich.

In 2025 alone, over 41,474 migrants completed the 21-mile journey, with an additional 23,242 arrivals during Starmer’s first six months. Despite sub-zero conditions in Calais and Dover earlier this month, provisional figures indicate more than 900 have already crossed in 2026. Starmer’s daily average of 117 arrivals far exceeds Boris Johnson’s 58 per day, who reached 65,784 in 39 months.

The rising numbers have serious public safety implications. Analysis from the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) shows that migrants accounted for 79.3% of train theft arrests in 2024–2025, despite making up only 10% of the population. Migrants were also disproportionately involved in violent crimes, sexual offences, and drug-related arrests.

Read it.

The Democrat Left wants Americans to believe that excessively armed ICE agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere are kidnapping law-abiding immigrants en route to church or heading home from work.

New Jersey congressional candidate Analilia Mejia moaned that “grandmothers and gardeners are being targeted by federal enforcement agencies with no accountability.”

Attorney General Keith Ellison, D-Minn., called the people his ilk are shielding, “the most vulnerable neighbors in our community.”

“They haven’t been able to produce any evidence that they are finding people who are undocumented who have committed crimes,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., told MS NOW’s evening anchor Chris Hayes. “It is unleashing complete terror on the residents of Minnesota.”

A fresh serving of facts swiftly refuted these Leftist lies.

Read it.

Remember the viral video of a woman screaming ‘I’m a U.S. citizen’ as ICE agents pulled her from a car in the Florida Keys? The media and politicians pounced – ICE ‘arrested an American citizen’. Turns out this person was detained by ICE because she refused to identify herself and was driving her boyfriend’s vehicle. Afterwards, reports disclosed that the boyfriend was in the country illegally. She chose not to comply. Perhaps she wanted the situation to escalate? Much of the debate about ICE has become political theater.

Michael Barone.

Minnesota? Somalis? Nine billion dollars in alleged welfare fraud?

To understand what’s going on from a distance, it helps to understand basic culture. Minnesota was settled largely by people of Scandinavian and German ancestry.

In survey after survey, Minnesota has ranked No. 1 or No. 2 among states, often just behind neighboring and much smaller North Dakota, in social connectedness, civic participation, workforce participation and voter turnout. It has traditionally led the nation in levels of trust and conscientiousness.

This has been coupled with political behavior that resembles Scandinavian patterns. Minnesota, like North Dakota and fellow neighbor Wisconsin, had lively socialist-leaning third parties in the 1930s. It’s still the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, the result of a fusion engineered by future Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1944.

As you might expect, Minnesotans have built a high-tax, high-spending state government. Like Scandinavians, they have trusted the state to provide services and have trusted individuals not to cheat in claiming benefits. Public support for these programs, as in Scandinavia, has traditionally been founded on confidence that aid goes only to the genuinely deserving.