Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

The Teelgraph (UK).

A Muslim activist who was jailed for his part in an armed terror plot is standing to become a Birmingham councillor in May.

Shahid Butt was imprisoned for five years in 1999 for conspiring to bomb the British consulate, an Anglican church and a Swiss-owned hotel in Yemen.

Yemeni prosecutors said the gang had been sent to commit violence by Abu Hamza, the hate preacher, who was the father of one of the convicted men.

Mr Butt has been unveiled as a candidate for an alliance of independents set to contest about 20 seats in the Birmingham city council election on May 7.

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.

Alex Pretti CONFIRMED Not Protesting, Group Of 50, CONSPIRED To Commit Felonies (Tim Pool) My, what a surprise.

Tragedy As Entire Studio Audience Drowns In Flood Of Jimmy Kimmel’s Tears (Babylon Bee)

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino decries ICE ‘Gestapo’ comparisons as critics target ‘Nazi-coded’ coat  You can’t make this shit up.

ICE: These Are the People Anti-ICE Agitators in Minneapolis Are Trying to Protect

Why Does Pam Bondi Want States’ Voter Rolls? (Jennifer Rubin/The Contrarian)  So she can check for voter fraud, Jennifer. Try to keep up.

Incitement? ABC Journo Predicts More MN Protesters Will Bring Guns to Fight ICE

Scoop: Stephen Miller behind misleading claim that Alex Pretti wanted to “massacre” agents (Marc Caputo/Axios)

House Dems Demand Noem’s Firing, Threaten Impeachment  It didn’t work against Trump, and it won’t work against Noem.

CNN Host Suggests Guns Should Be Brought to Bear Against ICE Agents

DHS: ICE Officers Face 8,000 Percent Rise in Death Threats

Stop Letting Republicans Off the Hook for the ICE Killings (Dan Pfeiffer/The Message Box)  He must be reading different newspapers that I am.

Families of Trinidadians Killed in U.S. Boat Strike Sue Trump Administration (Hamed Ahmadi/NOTUS)  Good luck with that.

Patel Says FBI Has Discovered Groups Funding Minnesota Protests

Ohio AG Candidate Elliot Forhan: ‘I Am Going to Kill Donald Trump’ (Breitbart)

Donald Trump Can Be Stopped (Jonathan Chait/The Atlantic)

ICE Barbie Throws Stephen Miller Under the Bus to Save Her Job (Vic Verbalaitis/The Daily Beast)

California bill would ban ICE agents from jobs in teaching and policing (Sara DiNatale/San Francisco Chronicle)

City Prosecutors Join Forces to Bring Charges Against Federal Agents (Shaila Dewan/New York Times)

This Focus Group Should Absolutely Terrify Trump (Sam Stein/The Bulwark)  Doubtful that a ‘focus group’ will terrify anybody, much less Trump.

“Go ICE”: Chicago-Area Teacher Put On Leave For Two Words Posted On Facebook

Don’t Make Bovino the Fall Guy for the Violence Trump Long Craved (Bill Scher/Washington Monthly)

In her screams, the desperation of a community under siege by ICE (Sabrina Shankman/The Boston Globe)

Donald Trump Is Frightened (Greg Sargent/New Republic)  Greg Sargent is delusional.

The White House’s shocking lies about Minneapolis (Christian Paz/Vox)

In Minneapolis, far-right influencers frame ICE resistance as terrorism (Brandy Zadrozny/MS NOW)  To the Narrative Media, there is no right but the far-right.

In six violent encounters, evidence contradicts Trump immigration officials’ narratives (Reuters)

Trump Ally Shocked at President’s ‘Psychological State’ in Private Meeting (Leigh Kimmins/The Daily Beast)

ICE’s Brutality Is Its Weakness (Omar Wasow/New York Times)

How Dems Can Tame ICE (William Kristol/The Bulwark)  Keep lying?

Five Constitutional Amendments Trump Is Ignoring in Minnesota (Pema Levy/Mother Jones)

Read it.

A nurse at Virginia Commonwealth University Health has been terminated after posting a series of videos urging sabotage against ICE agents, including injecting them with paralytic drugs and poisoning their food and drinks.

Yes, really.

The unhinged suggestions highlight the escalating threats faced by law enforcement amid leftist campaigns to obstruct deportations of criminal illegal aliens.

Read it.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is facing backlash after comparing federal immigration officers to Nazis while promoting legislation aimed at restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.

Krasner, a liberal prosecutor whose campaigns have received backing from billionaire George Soros, made the remarks during a press event outside City Hall backing a new “ICE OUT” initiative, which seeks to sharply limit ICE activity on city property.

“This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis. That’s what they are,” Krasner said. “In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them. If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.”

The comments immediately drew condemnation from Republicans, including Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., who told Newsmax that Krasner’s rhetoric was dangerous and irresponsible.

fPopular Mechanics.

I’m sure you’ve seen hand-wringing articles in the Narrative Media about the so-called “doomsday clock”, one of the most Useful-Idiot scams of the Cold War.

It’s the opening session of the three-day 2025 Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The gathering is convened by scientists and nuclear security experts alarmed that a new arms race, eroding global cooperation, and the rise of artificial intelligence in warfare—among other factors—are pushing civilization closer to catastrophe. Timed to the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test, the world’s first nuclear explosion, the assembly aims to produce a declaration urging world leaders to reduce the nuclear threat.

The same urgency drives the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and its iconic Doomsday Clock, the stark graphic that represents how close we are to self-annihilation. The clock is set yearly by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board chaired by Daniel Holz, PhD, a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Chicago.

In January, six months before the Nobel Assembly, Holz stood at a lectern at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., to announce the time. “It is now 89 seconds to midnight,” he said, as four solemn presenters swiveled a turntable to reveal a pared-down quarter clockface, a white wedge rimmed by black dots for numbers, the hands angled so sharply they overlapped. It was the closest to midnight since the clock’s inception in 1947.

Atlas Press.

Take history books. The average ancient historian led troops, tutored a prince, governed a province, advised a king, made a fortune, fell from favor, was exiled, and buried 7 of their 10 children. The average modern historian passed a few tests then wrote a book on their laptop next to their cat. And worse, they all passed the same tests at the same institutions. And they all wrote the same statements on their applications to get into those institutions. And while attending those institutions, they all adopted the same opinions. Anyone who did otherwise was filtered out before they could become a professor with a publishing deal. Everything is like this now.

Meanwhile Xenophon was an Athenian student of Socrates who joined a Greek mercenary group that marched 1000 miles into Persia to overthrow the King of Kings on behalf of the King’s brother. When the King’s brother died and the group’s commanders were all killed by Persian treachery, he led the troops 1000 miles home himself while being constantly harried by hostile armies. He then tried to establish a colony on the Black Sea, survived a mutiny, raided the Thracians, fought for the Spartans, was exiled by Athens, and settled down to manage an estate and write it all up.

Contrast Xenophon with Mary Beard, who studied at Cambridge and now teaches at Cambridge. She holds the same opinions as everyone else at Cambridge. She’s remarked before that, “I actually can’t understand what it would be to be a woman without being a feminist.” This seems like a peculiar failing for an ancient historian. After 9/11, she wrote an article saying that many people thought “the United States had it coming,” and that “world bullies, even if their heart is in the right place, will in the end pay the price.” That caused some controversy on the world stage, but earned her a promotion at Cambridge. I don’t know if she’s ever talked publicly about religion or democracy or climate change or immigration, but I could tell you exactly what she thinks about these things anyway. So why would you bother reading what she thinks about Rome? The answers are just as predictable.

Read it.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) attempted to hide payments to terrorists and their families last year despite its president’s claim that such transactions had ended, according to the U.S. State Department.

A nonpublic State Department notice provided to Congress and obtained by The Washington Free Beacon determined that the PA paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, the same year PA President Mahmoud Abbas publicly claimed he had dismantled the long-criticized “pay-to-slay” program.

Rather than ending the payments, U.S. officials concluded the PA quietly shifted them to a newly branded system designed to evade donor scrutiny as the Ramallah-based government sought influence in postwar Gaza.

Israeli intelligence assessed that $144 million was funneled to terrorists and their families in 2024, with at least $214 million committed through 2025.

Read it.

According to financial disclosures filed last year, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s net worth has surged in recent years. Omar reported that her husband held stakes valued between $6 million and $30 million in a venture capital firm and a winery. That sudden and dramatic increase in wealth has now drawn scrutiny. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to open an investigation into how such a meteoric rise occurred so quickly, and she is also under criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.

The existence of the federal probe became public after President Donald Trump mentioned it in a Truth Social post on Monday. Trump wrote, “the DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘Congresswoman’ Illhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars. Time will tell all.”

Read it.

Republicans could see a major shift in congressional seats to Texas and Florida, while Democrats could be facing painful losses in California and New York if redistricting projections based on the 2030 Census hold true.

Such population shifts could also translate into meaningful gains in electoral votes, potentially allowing Republican presidential candidates to win national elections without needing to carry traditional battleground states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

The projections were made by Jonathan Cervas of Carnegie Mellon University and released Tuesday on X by The Redistrict Network. They are based on 2025 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

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?

Times News (UK).

“In many cases these were pitched as senior-level roles, but they obviously don’t exist.”

A Times investigation by senior investigations reporter Shanti Das reveals how criminal networks are exploiting vulnerable migrants by selling fake job credentials which would allow them to remain in the UK for up to £20,000. The scheme uses real Home Office-approved companies to issue false paperwork for jobs that do not exist, with much of the activity taking place openly on public Facebook groups.

Read it.

The 2025 immigration figures for France have just been published, and, unsurprisingly, they paint a catastrophic picture, with a constant and sustained increase in arrivals on French territory. However, these figures only cover legal immigration: if we add estimates of illegal arrivals, it becomes clear that the feeling of being overwhelmed by an invasion experienced by many French people is not just a figment of their imagination.

France issued 384,230 first residence permits—valid for up to 12 months—last year, an increase of 11.2% over the previous year. This figure is essential because it is the ultimate indicator for measuring legal immigration, as Nicolas Pouvreau-Monti, director of the Observatory of Immigration and Demography, points out in an interview for Atlantico. It does not include renewals of residence permits, European foreigners, or minors, which means that it is actually a low estimate of the number of arrivals.

The increase, which is substantial over one year, is even more impressive from a long-term perspective. The number of residence permits granted in 2025 is about three times higher than the number of new residence permits granted 30 years ago.

Emmanuel Macron is not solely responsible for this situation. The increase in immigration began well before he came to power. However, there has been a clear acceleration since he took office.

The Foundry.

Alex Pretti reportedly had at least one previous encounter with federal immigration officials before he was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday.

About a week before his death, federal officers tackled Pretti, breaking one of his ribs as he was shouting and blowing a whistle while agents were attempting to make arrests in Minneapolis, CNN first reported.

Anti-ICE protesters have commonly used whistles to alert passers-by to the presence of immigration enforcement agents in the area.

Read it.

A Pakistani asylum seeker who was living in taxpayer-funded accommodation last year raped a vulnerable 18-year-old woman while she was alone in a park in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

Before being convicted on Monday, Sheraz Malik, 28, had his asylum status hidden from the public by Judge Nirmal Shant, who prevented the press from reporting on it until the end of his trial.

But Lee Anderson, Reform MP for the constituency in which this crime took place, revealed his status last summer, asking: “Why would it affect the trial … I will not shut up and do not care about the consequences.”

Times News (UK).

As immigration rules have tightened in recent months, some migrants already working in the UK, whose visas have been cancelled, find themselves in a precarious position. Agents are selling a workaround, offering to arrange fake jobs which can be used to obtain real visas, in exchange for exorbitant fees. The Times went undercover, posing as a migrant facing deportation, to expose how this black market is operating.

The Foundry.

A Virginia judge on Tuesday blocked a Democrat redistricting plan designed to give the party more seats in Congress.

Judge Jack Hurley Jr., a judge on the Tazewell County circuit court, ruled that the Democrat-controlled state Legislature did not follow procedure to approve a state constitutional amendment on redistricting.

Democrat Speaker Don Scott of the Virginia House of Delegates stated on X following the ruling, “We will appeal immediately, and we expect to prevail. Voters—not politicians—will have the final say.”

But that trick never works….

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 Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.

to hear some Silicon Valley insiders tell it, California is on the verge of economic suicide. This November, Californians will likely vote on a ballot initiative that would levy a one-off tax on the wealth of about 200 of the state’s richest residents. Garry Tan, the CEO of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, posted on X that the measure would “kill and eat the golden goose of technology startups in California.” Investors and tech executives are threatening to leave the state. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been angling for a centrist presidential pivot, has vowed to “do what I have to do” to stop the initiative.

Sure, I believe that.

Many progressives, however, see the billionaire tax as a long-overdue effort to finally force the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share. Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, calls it a “model that should be emulated throughout the country.” In their telling, hyperbolic claims about the death of innovation and entrepreneurship in California are a smoke screen for the fact that billionaires simply don’t want to pay higher taxes.

They keep bloviating about ‘their fair share’ but none of them will give you an exact definition of what ‘fair share’ means—they’re just sure that what’s now is not it. They also won’t explain why the current ‘share’ is not ‘fair’.

The essence of the progressive ideology is that progressives ought to be able to spend your money whether you like it or not. Progressives are thieves, pure and simple.

The unfortunate reality for progressive backers of the wealth tax is that what billionaires think about the policy, and how they react to it, will determine whether it succeeds. If voters approve the tax, they will be making a huge bet on billionaire psychology. That would be a very high-stakes wager indeed.

And the more they are assholes about it, the more billionaires will leave. Progressives are, in a free society, their own worst enemies.

the california wealth-tax idea originated as a response to a federal tax cut. Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act lowered taxes for corporations and rich individuals and paid for those cuts in part by reducing Medicaid spending. That left a roughly $20 billion annual shortfall in California’s health-care budget. If left unfilled, that could cause 1.6 million low-income Californians to lose their health care, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. In response, one of the state’s largest health-care-employee unions teamed up with a group of progressive economists and lawyers to come up with a way to make up the difference: impose a one-off 5 percent wealth tax on California’s billionaires.

“Hold still while we pick your pocket.”

The Telegraph (UK).

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked by a protester as she called for the resignation of Kristi Noem during a town hall meeting in Minneapolis.

The man leapt from his seat while Ms Omar was addressing the audience and sprayed a liquid at her using a syringe, before being tackled and apprehended by security.

The incident came a day after Donald Trump said the 43-year old congresswoman was the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Perhaps he thought she would melt, like the Wicked Witch of the East.

UPDATE: SHE STAGED IT??!

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.

The Telegraph (UK).

Sir Keir Starmer led a legal case that opened the door to hundreds of British soldiers being pursued for alleged war crimes, The Telegraph can disclose.

The now Prime Minister worked free of charge alongside his close ally, Lord Hermer, now the Attorney General, and the now disgraced solicitor Phil Shiner on a human rights claim in 2007 that reshaped the law governing troops in war zones.

Court documents unearthed by The Telegraph reveal Sir Keir was a lead barrister on the case, which ultimately led the Ministry of Defence to order fresh inquiries into deaths in Iraq. It triggered years of criminal investigations into soldiers who had been wrongly accused, at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

Johnny Mercer, the former veterans minister, accused Sir Keir of “unleashing the witch hunt against British troops”.

As part of the 2007 case, Sir Keir and Lord Hermer urged the courts to order a fresh inquiry into a British soldier who had already been cleared twice of murder over the death of an Iraqi man in 2003 (see extracts below), telling judges that earlier investigations had been “perfunctory” and “wholly inadequate”.

My, what a surprise.

The Times (UK).

Seven in ten Britons think BBC News needs to change to meet the requirements of society, according to the findings of a landmark government study.

The Value of BBC News survey, commissioned by the culture secretary Lisa Nandy, found the majority of adults were satisfied with the broadcaster’s news coverage. Almost three quarters of respondents found it valuable personally and to the nation.

But while almost a quarter of the 3,325 people polled believed the BBC met society’s needs extremely well, a majority felt changes were required.

The results emerged as Nandy commissioned the first research in a decade into public attitudes towards the BBC as a whole. Both studies will influence the way in which the government approaches crucial negotiations with the BBC for its new charter in January 2028.

How is this a surprise?

ATQUE: BBC Faces Backlash for Omitting Jews from its Holocaust Coverage

Watch it.

Democrats have been thieves since forever.

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.

The Other McCain.

You think you hate the liberal media enough, but you don’t — and that’s probably a good thing. It would be psychologically unhealthy to hate anyone as much as the liberal media deserve to be hated.

Heather Schwedel is a writer for Slate, which was one of the pioneering political commentary sites back in the dial-up modem days of the 1990s. If you’re old enough to remember when AOL discs came in a box of cereal — seriously, that actually happened for a few months in 1996 — you may remember when Microsoft hired Michael Kinsley (former New Republic editor and then co-host of CNN’s Crossfire) to be editor of Slate.

That was 30 years ago. In 2004, the Washington Post purchased Slate, but when Jeff Bezos bought the Post in 2013, he had no use for Slate, which is now property of a separate firm, Graham Holdings. This trek down memory lane doesn’t do much to explain why Heather Schwedel is on Slate’s payroll, but it does give you some sense of the downward trajectory of Slate’s prestige. The latest milestone on this descent into infamy is Schwedel’s article with this headline, “Well, That Is One Way for J.D. and Usha Vance to Respond to the Erika Kirk Divorce Rumors.”

The Shit-Losers: Amanda Marcotte, Jennifer Rubin, Will Bunch, Greg Sargent, Philip Bump. Their entire job is thinking up new names to call Trump. That’s all they do. Report on the news? Sorry, ain’t nobody got time for dat.

Read it.

The 17-year-old “Virginian” pictured above is named Fasihullah Safar. Although he hails from Virginia, the jihad attack that brought about his arrest was perpetrated in New Jersey, which is more thoroughly Islamized than Virginia.

“Safar” is an Arab surname, but based on his mug shot, there is probably an admixture of more diverse DNA among young Fasihullah’s antecedents, perhaps an imported (or enslaved) bride from Malaysia, Indonesia, or the Philippines.

The young mujahid not only yelled “Allahu Akhbar” during his knife attack on police officers (Patch felt obliged to explain that “Muslims have denounced the phrase’s usage as a battle cry in acts of terrorism”), he also proclaimed his devotion to the Islamic State during his testimony in court, and expressed his desire to join the group. As a result, it’s difficult for law enforcement and the news media to claim that the motive for the assault is unknown — you can’t find a clearer declaration of Islamic jihad. And in this case there has been no attempt to write the youngster’s behavior off as mental illness: he pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to eighteen years in the slammer.

One wonders how many generations separate young Fasihullah from the ancestors who first arrived in the USA. Britain’s experience with the 7/7 attackers suggests that it would not be at all unusual if the youngster is a second- or third-generation Muslim who was “radicalized”. Such radicalization may occur online, but it can also happen simply by his engaging in the devout study of Islamic scriptures under the tutelage of an imam at the local mosque. Unless an immigrant family completely abandons its affiliation with Islam — which almost never happens — later generations are likely to become ardent practitioners of jihad.

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:….

The Telegraph (UK).

Donald Trump has sacked the border patrol chief leading his immigration raids across the country after the fatal shooting of a nurse in Minneapolis, according to sources.

Gregory Bovino was removed from his role as “Commander at Large” of Border Patrol and is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported.

The removal of Mr Bovino, who has been the face of Mr Trump’s mass deportation campaign, is a signal that the US president is rethinking his administration’s most aggressive tactics.

I like to think that Trump has a plan but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.

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”.)

Times News (UK).

Overt comments by US representatives in support of a separatist movement in the Canadian province of Alberta are “unbecoming and troublesome,” says former deputy premier of Alberta and founder of the ‘Forever Canadian’ petition, Thomas Lukaszuk.

Minnesota ICE Shooting Has Sparked A Crisis of Trust In America | Amy Frederiksen

Amid Minneapolis Tensions, Republicans Continue to Back ICE  No reason not to. They’re enforcing the law, the thing we all voted for Trump to do.

Tim Walz Says He Will Do Anything To Keep Minnesota Residents Safe Except Cooperate With Federal Law Enforcement (Babylon Bee)

J6ers Wishing They Had Thought Of Branding Themselves ‘Legal Observers’  (Babylon Bee) “Legal Observers” are protesters who stand by with camera-phones as the remainder provoke law enforcement, hoping to get video that they can twist into supporting the Narrative. They are NOT ‘innocent bystancers’. They are Leftist co-conspirators.

Alex Pretti’s ICE murder is beyond politics. This is about good vs. evil (Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer)  Will Bunch loses his shit.

Trump administration goes after Second Amendment rights in justifying Minneapolis shooting (Jonathan Allen/NBC News)  The first time I can recall NBC saying anything positive about the Second Amendment.

NBC’s Kristen Welker: Are Dead American Citizens The Price of Trump’s Immigration Policy?  They are if they’re stupid law-breakers.

The Trump Administration Is Lying to Our Faces. Congress Must Act. (New York Times)  The NYT is lying to our faces, and it’s safe to say that Congress will not act.

Believe Your Eyes — People are risking their lives to document agents in Minneapolis. (Charlie Warzel/The Atlantic)  And interfering with law enforcement in a carefully calculated operation.

For Trump, the Truth in Minneapolis Is What He Says It Is (Peter Baker/New York Times)  Just like the Narrative Media!

Margaret Brennan Tries to Run the Detained Kids Hoax, Gets SHUT DOWN

Moderate Sen. Jacky Rosen urges Noem’s impeachment as Dem fury grows over Minneapolis shooting (Mary Clare Jalonick/Associated Press)  Jacky Rosen is NOT a ‘moderate’.

Democrats grow louder on calls for Kristi Noem to resign or face impeachment (Megan Lebowitz/NBC News)  When you’re getting flak, you know you’re over the target.

Minn. AG calls Trump administration version of shooting ‘flat-out insane’ (Karen Tumulty/Washington Post)

Former Vikings captain says Minnesota liberal resist ICE because ‘we’re deporting their voters’ (Fox News)

NY Times Rends Garments Over Bovino’s Coat: ‘Some Minds Go Straight to the SS’  Mostly the people who see Nazis under every buxh.

Cam Higby’s ‘SignalGate’ Potentially Ties Unrest to Minn. Dems

“He Was a Good Man” — The federal government murders another American citizen (Mary L Trump/The Good in Us)  No, he wasn’t—he was a left-wing agitator LARPing as a revolutionary.

How the Trump Administration Rushed to Judgment in Minneapolis Shooting (New York Times)  No coverage of how the NYT rushed to judgment on the Minneapolis shooting,  of course.

Demands for Minneapolis Shooting Investigation Grow as Trump Officials Blame Victim (Associated Press)  AP burnishes its Narrative Media credentials.

What Trump officials claimed about Alex Pretti — and what the evidence actually shows (Daniel Dale/CNN)  Accordint to the Narrative.

Read it.

Mainstream media outlets rushed to paint Alex Pretti as a blameless ICU nurse gunned down by heartless Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis on Saturday. They highlighted his work caring for veterans and seized on video snippets showing him holding a phone. The New York Times ran with that angle, running the headline “Man Killed by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun,” and claimed that footage captured Pretti only with his phone in hand, insisting that agents had no reason to believe he was armed during their encounter.

Media outlets are also quick to point out that Pretti held a valid Minnesota concealed carry permit and legally owned the gun, as if that absolved him for his actions against the Border Patrol agents.

Others point out that he had no criminal record, just traffic tickets.

This, they argue, proves he was an innocent victim, not an agitator.

But what the mainstream media isn’t telling you is that Pretti wasn’t just some random bystander.

According to Jeanne Massey, a neighbor, Pretti was part of a “Signal ICE” group chat of volunteers who organized a sophisticated operation to track ICE activity in real time and alert each other when agents were in the area.

These folks patrol streets, blow whistles, alert residents, and film operations to disrupt arrests.

That puts him not on the sidelines but plugged into the very network that coordinated responses to federal enforcement operations.

Mother Jones profiled the group just last week.

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 New Neo.

There is nothing simple about this case. I’ve been mulling it over and watching videos, and the only thing that’s clear to me is that the situation is murky and (as is often the case) people tend to see what they want to see or expect to see or what conforms to their pre-existing notions. I’ve read many things about it already that turn out to be untrue – or seemingly untrue.

Despite the plethora of videos, none of them show enough to come to a definitive conclusion. We don’t know exactly what led up to the confrontation, or exactly what Pretti was doing with his hands during it, or what was seen and understood by whom, or whether as the officer removed Pretti’s gun it misfired and that set off the fatal shooting in response to a misperception, or many of the most important things we would need to know to come to a strong conclusion about guilt or innocence.

I watched the following video to the bitter end, and although the speakers don’t come to any definite conclusions and it is extremely long, I think it’s valuable to watch at least some of it because it illustrates how very confusing the various videos of the shooting are. One thing that seems to be true is that whether Pretti’s weapon accidentally discharged (in the hands of the officer) as the first shot of the series is of great importance, because if that were the case it probably would absolve the officers of criminal although not civil liability.

Time to review the Chris Rock video, “How not to get your ass kicked by the police.” Minnesota could use some of that wisdom.

Human Events.

Scenes from Minneapolis on Saturday night showed anti-ICE protesters occupying a “no-ICE zone,” an area that appeared to be protected by Minneapolis police and the National Guard, which was deployed by Governor Tim Walz earlier that day.

Footage from the scene showed National Guard members and police officers lining surrounding streets, with outer barricades set up on each block in all directions. Dozens of people remained inside the zone despite temperatures dropping below zero throughout the night. The situation drew comparisons to the CHOP or CHAZ autonomous zone established in Seattle in 2020 during the height of the George Floyd protests, when protesters created a self-declared autonomous area within the city.

Many protesters gathered in the cold to pay tribute to Alex Pretti, an armed protester who was shot by federal agents during a confrontation over the weekend. Protesters were seen lighting candles and laying flowers in a quiet vigil.

Minnesota is now in a state of insurrection, supported by the Governor and the state government.

Tim Pool has a summary: Watch it.

The Times (UK).

Dozens of protesters have been arrested for trespassing at HMP Wormwood Scrubs during a demonstration in support of a Palestine Action prisoner on hunger strike.

Some members of the group got into a lobby at the west London prison on Saturday night, banging lockers and chanting through megaphones.

Scotland Yard said that some demonstrators had threatened police officers and refused to leave the site when asked, preventing access for prison officers.

However, the protesters said they had been kettled by the Metropolitan Police and subjected to forceful arrest in the course of a peaceful protest. The Met said it had arrested 86 people for aggravated trespass.

Leftist protesters have a very strange definition of ‘peaceful’.

Read it.

I’m not suggesting rooftop solar subsidies are the sole cause of California’s fiscal crisis, California’s economic mismanagement is far broader than just the subsidies. But signing a bill to throw $60 billion at a self inflicted cost of living crisis probably won’t help fix the state’s financial problems.

California’s 2025 state government deficit was $18 billion dollars. This year’s budget is projected to be $35 billion deficit. What do you think the 2026 California deficit will be?

Will future historians look back on the coming collapse of California, and identify a desperate attempt to subsidise soaring green energy prices as the final straw which broke the state economy? Or will historians focus on the wealth expropriation bill as the trigger for the collapse? What do you think?

Read it.

After two years of Hamas supporters assaulting NYPD officers and Jewish community members, besieging synagogues, blocking streets, vandalizing buildings and making death threats, New York Attorney General Letitia James finally took action. Against Jews.

In a press release, AG James, who had previously worked to shut down the NRA because she disagreed with its politics, announced that she had closed down Betar, a pro-Israel group , for appearing at synagogues to defend them from Muslim mobs, for claiming that “that all devout Muslims ‘hate America’, and for making derogatory remarks about Islam and Gaza.

Shortly after nearly all New York politicians condemned Hamas supporters showing up outside a Jewish school to chant, “we support Hamas”, a fairly straightforward case of bias intimidation, Attorney General James instead decided to announce action against a Jewish protest group rather than against the Islamic and Antifa groups whom it had been defending against.

Many of the ‘charges’ laid out by AG James are forms of speech that may be derogatory or abrasive towards Islam, Muslims or Islamic terrorists, but are not in any way illegal.

The Foundry.

government spent $1,827,134,000,000—and, according to the Treasury Department, ran a deficit of $602,376,000,000.

The federal debt closed the calendar year at $38,514,009,184,232.72. That equaled approximately $285,733 for each of the 134,790,000 households there were in the United States in 2025, according to the Census Bureau.

What did Congress do when it came back from its Christmas break? It passed a spending bill full of earmarks.

Minneapolis shooting hardens Democrats on government shutdown (Axios)

We Should Talk About The Morality of Political Violence (Ken White/The Popehat Report)

Appeals Court Rejects Justice Dept. Push for Arrest Warrant for Don Lemon (Alan Feuer/New York Times)

Minneapolis Live Updates: Man Killed by Federal Agents Was Holding a Phone, Not a Gun (Associated Press)  Sure, I believe that.

Colorado parents of man killed in Minneapolis urged him to be careful at ICE protests (The Colorado Sun)  Guess he was too stupid to listen. Think of it as evolution in action.

State Terror Has Arrived (M. Gessen/New York Times)

Emergency Triad: Another American Has Been Murdered by Our Government (Jonathan V. Last/The Bulwark)

ICE is full of COWARDS. They are all absolute, pathetic, untrained COWARDS. DEFUND AND PROSECUTE. (Seth Moulton/YouTube)  I don’t see you going out in subzero temperatures for 18 hours at a time to round up the illegal invaders that are corrupting our country. Doesn’t take much bravery to spout off on YouTube.

Lefty Protestor Bites Off Federal Officer’s Finger

Trump’s Goons Are the Terrorists. This Is What We Must Do Now (David Rothkopf/The Daily Beast)  We need to write a lot of rage-bait editorials. That’ll fix ’em!

The Instant Smear Campaign Against Border Patrol Shooting Victim Alex Pretti (David Gilbert/Wired)  As opposed to the constant perpetual smear campaign agaist ICE.

Shooting renews urgent legal effort to restrict ICE’s Minnesota operation (Politico)

Republicans are worried about Trump’s deportation campaign, and our new poll shows why (Politico)  We asked a whole bunch of AWFULs and they all agreed.

Fatal shooting in Minneapolis renews protests; video raises questions about DHS account (Washington Post)

Trump’s sudden retreat on Greenland shows that limits still exist (Karen Tumulty/Washington Post)  No, it just means that he’s been playing simpletons like the people who write for the Washington Post.

CNN’s Phillip Claims ‘Legitimate Fear’ Of ICE In Minneapolis Justifies Running From Them  But they’re not ‘running from them’, they’re ‘interfering with them’. I see no trace of fear there, legitimate or otherwise. They seem to think that this is some kind of LARP.

Alex Jeffrey Pretti Knew He Wanted to Help Others (New York Times)  So he interfered with law enforcement and got shot. Some help.

ICE is clearly out of control. This week the Senate can actually do something about it. (Mike Zamore/MS NOW)  Out of proglodyte control, certainly.

Monsters — And their enablers are accessories to murder — I was working on another wonkish post … (Paul Krugman)  The vacuum talks a great fight, doesn’t he?

Alex Pretti’s Sig handgun has history of accidentally firing — offering possible clue to why Border agent shot him (Anthony Blair/New York Post)

The ICE killing of Alex Pretti, the second in Minneapolis, prompts quick legal action (Chris Geidner/Law Dork)

Death Squads Execute Second Dissident (Carole Cadwalladr/How to Survive …)

Execution in Minneapolis — The contrast between, on one hand, federal shock troops’ brutal … (Jennifer Rubin/The Contrarian)  Jennifer Rubin loses her shit.

Left-Wing Activists Run Shadow Police Force On Signal To Target ICE In Minneapolis

Border Patrol chief praises agents who killed Alex Pretti (Avery Lotz/Axios)

Yes, It’s Fascism (Jonathan Rauch/The Atlantic)  If it were fascism, you would be in jail.

There’s More to Greg Bovino’s Coat Than You Think (Derek Guy/Politico) Dunh dunh DUNHHHHHHH….

Videos of deadly Minneapolis shooting contradict government statements (Hannah Fingerhut/Associated Press)  Of course they do, because they were deliberately by the protest-industrial complex to support their version of the Narrative. The same thing was done in the case of Renée Good.

The killing of Alex Pretti is a grim turning point (Zack Beauchamp/Vox)  It’s not a ‘turning point’ at all, except perhaps in the Democrat push for a Protesters’ Veto over law enforcement activity.

What MAGA Really Thinks of the Second Amendment (Jonathan Chait/The Atlantic) Really? Really? Jonathan Chait is now supposed to be an expert in what “MAGA thinks”? Pull the other one….

Read it.

Pork accounts for more than a third of the world’s meat, making pigs among the planet’s most widely consumed animals. They are also widely reviled: For about two billion people, eating pork is explicitly prohibited. The Hebrew Bible and the Islamic Koran both forbid adherents from eating pig flesh, and this ban is one of humanity’s most deeply entrenched dietary restrictions. For centuries, scholars have struggled to find a satisfying explanation for this widespread taboo. “There are an amazing number of misconceptions people continue to have about pigs,” says archaeologist Max Price of Durham University, who is among a small group of scholars scouring both modern excavation reports and ancient tablets for clues about the rise and fall of pork consumption in the ancient Near East. “That makes this research both frustrating and fascinating.”

Read it.

Where have the amateur researchers gone, and how do we bring them back?

We used to have a broad class of people who didn’t Have To Work For A Living, and the Left has devoted the last 150 years to make such people impossible. (They haven’t succeeded yet, but they’ve reeduced it to a bare remnant.)