Read it.

Conservative activist Jake Lang was physically assaulted Saturday during an “anti-Islam” rally in downtown Minneapolis, leaving him with scrapes and bruises as counterprotesters overwhelmed the small demonstration, local reports say.

Lang, a controversial figure pardoned this year by President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, organized a protest in support of federal immigration enforcement.

As he left the area, a crowd of counterdemonstrators confronted the group and Lang appeared to be struck, suffering noticeable injuries. Police intervened and ordered crowds to disperse.

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The recent U-Haul Growth Index shows that people are voting with their feet against Pennsylvania and other purple and blue states that have become inhospitable as places to live, work, and raise a family. And these out-migrators are heading to redder states that welcome them.

In 2025, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee topped U-Haul’s ‘in-migration’ states, measured by one-way customer moves.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania ranked an abysmal 44th.

The impact of losing friends and families — and their wealth — to other states should be the canary in coal mine for Pennsylvanians getting ready for another election year in 2026. We need to recognize that bad state-level policies are driving tax dollars and our neighbors to more friendly environments.

In fact, the blue-to-red migration is profound across the country.

Read it.

A man was seen on video allegedly being chased into a parking garage and struck in the head with a flagpole by a mob of apparent anti-ICE agitators, as violent protests unfolded Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis.

The mob continued following the unidentified man, who was walking to a car in the garage to leave, and allegedly pepper sprayed a gash on his head and struck the wound with their hands.

“I’m trying to be done, but you guys keep harassing me,” he told the crowd, his jacket soaked with blood.

A protester could be heard shouting into a megaphone, “Hey no seriously, this guy needs medical help—he needs mental help. The bleeding is natural for Nazis, but he needs mental help.”

“F— you Nazi,” agitators shouted as they followed him into the garage.

Read it.

They combined a blend of slimy and sticky proteins to produce a fast-acting, bacteria-blocking, waterproof adhesive for use in biomedical applications.

Daily Record (UK).

After being inspired by the film ‘Crocodile Dundee’, an American model named Ginger Meadows decided to explore the Australian Outback for herself, a decision that tragically ended in disaster.

The 24-year-old from Snowmass Village in Colorado, a popular ski resort very different to the arid lands of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

On March 29, 1987, she and her friend Jane Burchett embarked on a journey to visit King’s Cascade aboard a luxury boat, the Lady G. After their Australian adventure, they planned to travel to Papua New Guinea.

The boat, captained by Bruce Fitzpatrick and a small crew, arrived at the stunning yet infamous waterfall known for its crocodile population. Despite warnings about the dangerous creatures inhabiting the water, Ginger and Jane chose to take a risk and go for a swim.

Evolution is a stone cold bitch.

Scott Alexander of Astral Codex Ten.

Thanks to everyone who sent in condolences on my recent death from prostate cancer at age 68, but that was Scott Adams. I (Scott Alexander) am still alive1.

Still, the condolences are appreciated. Scott Adams was a surprisingly big part of my life. I may be the only person to have read every Dilbert book before graduating elementary school. For some reason, 10-year-old-Scott found Adams’ stories of time-wasting meetings and pointy-haired bosses hilarious. No doubt some of the attraction came from a more-than-passing resemblance between Dilbert’s nameless corporation and the California public school system. We’re all inmates in prisons with different names.

But it would be insufficiently ambitious to stop there. Adams’ comics were about the nerd experience. About being cleverer than everyone else, not just in the sense of being high IQ, but in the sense of being the only sane man in a crazy world where everyone else spends their days listening to overpaid consultants drone on about mission statements instead of doing anything useful. There’s an arc in Dilbert where the boss disappears for a few weeks and the engineers get to manage their own time. Productivity shoots up. Morale soars. They invent warp drives and time machines. Then the boss returns, and they’re back to being chronically behind schedule and over budget. This is the nerd outlook in a nutshell: if I ran the circus, there’d be some changes around here.

Watch it.

hoe_math explains what’s behind the Renee Good situation.

Reagan-Era Judge Calls Trump ‘Authoritarian’ As He Prepares To Block Deportations (Katelynn Richardson/The Daily Caller)

Right-wing media are describing pro-immigrant Minnesota activists using the language of war (Media Matters for America) The Left would never do that, of course.

The Companies Behind ICE (Sludge)

Live Unfree Or Die (Paul Blumenthal/HuffPost)

Biden-Appointed Federal Judge Blocks Trump Admin’s Move To Withhold Minnesota Food Stamp Funds

DERANGED: Acosta Floats Choking CBS’s Dokoupil, Welch Says ICE Is Like ISIS

Trump’s DHS has shot 11 people during immigration enforcement operations since September (NBC News)

How Republicans criticize Trump without criticizing him: From the Politics Desk (NBC News)

Patty Murray to White House: No Funding Increase for ICE (Pablo Manríquez/Migrant Insider)

Judge rules feds in Minneapolis immigration operation can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters (Associated Press)  Good luck finding a ‘peaceful’ protester.

How Trump Is Using Violent Tragedies to Divide America (Mark Follman/Mother Jones)  No mention of how Trump-haters are causing violent tragedies to divide America.

Watch What They’re Doing: Trump Threatens to Make War on the States (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

Some Trump administration social media posts mirror extremist rhetoric (Jason Abbruzzese/NBC News)

I’m a Minneapolis sociologist who studies violence. Here’s how ICE observers are helping. (Nicole Bedera/MS NOW)

.Democrats grapple with ‘rising clamor’ for Trump impeachment ahead of midterms (Benjamin Siegel/Associated Press)  Which, without a majority in either the Senate or the House, is pure virtue-signaling.

Dem Sen. Coons Leads Delegation to Support ‘Kingdom of Denmark’  Democrats never forget which side they’re on, and that side is rarely America.

Dispatch from the occupation (Don Moynihan/Can We Still Govern?)

‘Maybe DHS Was a Bad Idea’ (Nick Miroff/The Atlantic)  Of course it was a bad idea. But after the 9/11 attacks, every politician and his dog had to be seen as ‘doing something’, including GWB, so (as usual) that urge produced stupid legislation.

Brooks Describes ICE in Minneapolis As Almost An ‘Armed Occupation’  Pseudo-conservatives at the New York Times are busy these days pushing the Narrative.

Trump, 79, Appears to Forget Name of Woman Who Just Gave Him Her Nobel Peace Prize (Jack Revell/The Daily Beast)

Well, President Donald J. Trump finally has his Nobel Peace Prize. … (Heather Cox Richardson/Letters …)

Algemeiner: Vance Can’t Be Silent on Antisemitism  Sure he can. Just watch him.

Trump’s Greenland Demands Spark Protest Rallies Across Denmark (Sara Sjolin/Bloomberg)  Dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

US federal forces blind two protesters shot in face with ‘less-lethal’ munitions (Roque Planas/The Guardian)

ABC, CBS Omit Shovel-Wielding Assailant In ICE Traffic Stop Shooting

Hundreds march in Greenland to support Arctic island in the face of Trump’s threats to take it over (Associated Press)

Trump Is Making China Great Again (Catherine Rampell/The Bulwark)  This appears to be the New Narrative at the Bullshitwark.

America’s myriad afflictions (Philip Bump/How To Read This Chart) Philip Bump loses his shit.

Minneapolis braces for march called by pardoned Jan. 6 rioter (Washington Post)

The Stupidest Trump Move So Far (Paul Krugman)  The vacuum speaks.

Of Course: MS NOW Compares Administration’s Minnesota Reaction To Hitler

This Is the Only Card Trump Can Play (Jamelle Bouie/New York Times)

Read it.

Congress created Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to briefly assist those in need. Shakespeare warned, “Ingratitude is monstrous; and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude.” In the case of TPS, “multitude” is correct. As of January 2025, approximately 1.4 million foreign nationals in the United States were shielded from removal under the program.

The Trump administration decided to terminate TPS for several countries, with Somalia as the most recent. That choice is the right step in a long-overdue course correction for an immigration program that previous administrations exploited far past its statutory purpose.

Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, following political turmoil and the outbreak of civil war. At the time, granting temporary protection to Somali nationals already present in the United States was an act of kindness.

Over three decades later, Somalis remained dependent on the charity extended to them by the United States and distorted the TPS program beyond recognition from its original legislative intent.

Read it.

The House Oversight Committee is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and her rapidly rising family wealth after her latest financial disclosure listed her net worth at $30 million, the New York Post reported.

“We’re going to get answers, whether it’s through the Ethics Committee or the Oversight Committee, one of the two,” Oversight panel Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told the Post.

The report comes as federal agents investigate a growing fraud scandal in Minnesota, the cost of which federal prosecutors estimate could top $9 billion.

UPDATE: House, feds probe to unravel mystery of ‘Squad’ Rep. Ilhan Omar’s skyrocketing wealth: ‘It’s not possible’ (New York Post)

The Radicalist.

I read a shocking statistic today. In an essay for Compact Magazine, “The Vanishing White Male Writer,” Jacob Savage writes:

Not a single white American man born after 1984 has published a work of literary fiction in The New Yorker.

Not a single one.

I sat with that, as they say, and then, of course, I thought of my recent essay, “The banal provocation of Doreen St. Felix’s racism,” and the fact that, in the Remnick era, as Andrew Sullivan succinctly put it when sharing the piece, white male writers are deliberately censored from the pages of the magazine, yet a sociopathic racist is given a staff writing position. Remnick, by the way, refers to David Remnick, who has been the editor of The New Yorker for the last 27 years. But America’s preeminent literary magazine wasn’t always what it is today.

Watch it.

Rebecca Madigan does a deep dive.

Read it.

Migrants are vastly overrepresented in UK crime statistics, with new data revealing they are the suspects in 80% of all train theft arrests despite making up just 10% of the population.

Analysis from the Centre for Migration Control (CMC) shows that foreign nationals accounted for 79.3% of arrests for theft of passenger property across Britain’s transport network during 2024–2025.

A total of 9,771 arrests were recorded by British Transport Police over the period. Of these, 3,688 involved foreign nationals, representing 37.7% of all arrests. Migrants also accounted for 36.6% of arrests for sexual offences, 35.7% for violent crimes, and 39.6% for drug-related offences. In raw numbers, this equates to 225 migrant arrests for sexual offences, 900 for violence, 187 for drugs, and 304 for theft of passenger property.

Robert Bates, Research Director of the CMC, told GB News: “Immigration has caused a crime wave on British trains and public transport. Immigrants are vastly overrepresented in arrest figures, particularly when it comes to theft.”

Read it.

Following his conviction for incitement against an ethnic group—and the murder of his co-defendant Salwan Momika—a prominent opponent of Islam critic has fled Sweden and is now seeking asylum in America.

Salwan Najem—who carried out several high-profile Quran burnings with Momika in the summer of 2023—left Sweden during the spring and entered the United States, where he is currently detained while awaiting review of his asylum application.

The move came after a series of legal and security events that the activist says made his situation in Sweden untenable. On January 29th last year Najem’s co-defendant Salwan Momika was shot dead in his apartment in Södertälje while livestreaming on TikTok. The likely reason for Momika’s execution was his harsh and vocal criticisms of Islam.

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That said, Border Czar Tom Homan offered a strategy that could hit those stirring the chaos hard, and of course may set a dangerous slippery-slope precedent for civil rights when the shoe is on the other foot. Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle Thursday, Homan made clear that while protesters have the right to demonstrate, crossing the line by interfering with enforcement will carry consequences far beyond a court date.

“This job,” Homan told host Laura Ingraham, “and these people who wanna — you know, follow ICE, film ICE — you know what? You can protest; they have that right.” But, he added, “when you cross a line, and we’ve proven it, if you interfere or impede or assault an ICE officer, you will be prosecuted.”

Read it.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood before reporters on Jan. 7 to discuss the military operation that took place in Venezuela four days prior, he added another element of intrigue. He planned to meet with Danish officials this week to discuss purchasing the world’s largest non-continental island: Greenland.

…

When Rubio sits with Danish leaders for those first discussions, he will have entered upon diplomatic deliberations that stretch back to the Andrew Johnson administration. The first inquiry to purchase Greenland from the Danes came in 1868 from Secretary of State William Seward. America had recently purchased a tundra to its northwest: Alaska. That purchase in 1867 was initially mocked as “Seward’s Folly” by the press, but of course, after the discovery of gold and oil, Seward’s decision was more than justified. Nonetheless, Congress proved disinterested in the icy territory to its northwest.

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How to make ‘affordable care’ unaffordable: Mandate coverage that people don’t want and don’t need because of ideology.

Read it.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s interview with Christopher Rufo last week highlighted that there is still unfinished business at DOGE, where fraud, waste, and abuse may account for as much as 10% of the total federal budget. We even joked that the scale of recent fraud uncovered in Democratic states could compel Elon Musk to return to DOGE in some capacity, as his recent X posts targeting dark-money NGOs suggest renewed interest.

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Democratic Socialist Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was triggered this week by a Homeland Security post on X featuring a B-2 stealth bomber overhead and a cowboy below, accompanied by the text in the center of the image that read: “We’ll Have Our Home Again.”

“What does it evoke in you when you see this? Literally, when I see it, as a Muslim, as a Palestinian, as a child of immigrants, I see it as something that evokes the feeling that I’m not welcome here,” Tlaib said.

Tlaib’s reaction is very revealing. She called herself “a Muslim, a Palestinian, a child of immigrants” and doesn’t even bother to call herself an American.

Read it.

The driving ethos of academia, “publish or perish,” is fighting for its life.

The requirement that scholars constantly publish or face academic ruin has been considered the primary engine of scientific discovery for decades. But a growing movement of universities and researchers is trying to banish the practice to the archives, saying it has perverted the pursuit of knowledge and eroded the public’s trust in science.

Reformers at top universities in Europe and the U.S., including Cambridge, Sorbonne, and UC Berkeley, say this traditional system of advancement has led to an explosion in the growth of low-quality research, with little meaningful impact on academic fields or society. It has also sparked the spread of fraudulent research, as “paper mills” churn out fake articles for sale to academics seeking to pad their CVs.

Read it.

Don’t be too surprised if sometime later this day, Friday, the president invokes the Insurrection Act to tranquilize the city of Minneapolis, since aerial spraying of Olanzapine is probably out of the question. Where, oh where, are the mythologized “nice,” and “above-average” people of Minnesota, once praised in song and sketch on those long-ago Saturday nights of The Prairie Home Companion?

They have been replaced by a mutant army of psychotic Transtifa wendigos on the payroll of Arabella Advisors (now operating as Sunflower Services), or the Tides Foundation, or some other Soros-connected money-laundry.

And many have come from other states, possibly even other nations (or planets), to join the Cluster-B viragos native to the city in the crusade to defend “Joe Biden’s” legion of illegally imported Democratic Party voters.

This acute agitation in the streets against federal officers is obviously and brazenly abetted by those in charge: Governor Tim Walz, Mayor Jacob Frey, and Attorney General Keith Ellison. Walz is a huckleberry for the ages.

Did you catch his smarmy sob-story act the day before yesterday, weeping for his “communities” and “neighbors-of-color,” “who continue to stand up for freedom with empathy, blah blah.” Who does this fraudster think he is kidding with his act?

Read it.

In Japan, workers rely on healthy lunch bowls for under $4. Japanese media literally tracks these prices because they’re a daily staple for working people. The Japanese media reported on a surge in their price from $2.63 to $4.25 in 2021.

In America, we track grocery prices. Restaurants are luxury goods.

The U.S. lacks this budget restaurant tier! There’s obviously demand for it. We’d buy $4 balanced meals if we had the option.

How does Japan’s restaurant market do this?

It’s not grocery prices; Japan’s grocery prices are ~18% higher than the United States.

It’s not hourly wages. Japan’s minimum wage ($6.68 an hour) is similar to America’s ($7.25).

Babylon Bee.

Beautiful plumage, just like the Norwegian Blue.

UPDATE: 9 Easy Ways To Avoid Getting Attacked By Law Enforcement (Babylon Bee)

Read it.

The relationship between energy consumption and national wealth is one of history’s most consistent patterns.

From coal-fired Britain to oil-powered America to today’s renewable energy leaders, access to abundant, affordable energy has been the foundation of economic prosperity. This correlation isn’t coincidental — it’s mechanical. Energy powers industry, transportation, communication, and virtually every productive activity that generates wealth.

The Industrial Revolution provides history’s clearest demonstration. Britain’s dominance in the 18th and 19th centuries directly correlated with its exploitation of coal reserves. Coal powered steam engines, which mechanized textile production, iron smelting, and transportation. Britain’s GDP per capita increased roughly 10-fold between 1750 and 1900, precisely tracking its exponential increase in coal consumption.

Nations without coal access — or unwilling to industrialize — remained agrarian and poor. The energy-wealth gap widened dramatically during this period, creating the modern developed-developing world divide. As an aside, this is how a nation with crooked teeth and zero cuisine could go about bullying and colonizing much of the world.

Trump has made ICE a 70-30 issue — for Democrats (G. Elliott Morris/Strength In Numbers)s

The Minneapolis Crucible — Will we forge democracy anew? (Paul Krugman)  To make it equivalent to progressive totalitarianism, perhaps? The vacuum speaks.

‘Stop Proposing This Populist S–‘ (NOTUS)

One State, Two Very Different Views of Minneapolis (New York Times)

Trump’s promised manufacturing boom is a bust so far (David J. Lynch/Washington Post)  Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Democratic lawmakers urge FTC to investigate Trump phone (Brian Cheung/NBC News

Iceland demands answers from US after Trump ally cracks 52nd state joke (Ketrin Jochecová/Politico)

Bipartisan bill targets Trump’s Greenland talk (Joe Gould/Politico)

Mayor Frey: Residents Are Asking Us ‘to Fight ICE Agents in the Street,’ But We Don’t Have Enough Police

With Blood on His Hands, Trump Is Eager To Invoke Insurrection Act (David Kurtz/Talking Points Memo)

NY Times Editor Schmoozes Soros-Tied Venezuelan Expert to Slam Trump’s Plans

Nobel Committee Takes Heat at Home as Machado Courts Trump (New York Times)

Democrats Introduce NOPE Act As Both Parties Claim Politically Motivated Prosecution  Democrats have learned that what goes around comes around.

Abolish ICE? It’s a Slogan Some Democratic Critics of ICE Would Abolish. (Jennifer Medina/New York Times)

How a billionaire with interests in Greenland encouraged Trump to acquire the territory (Tom Burgis/The Guardian)

Minnesota Is Just the Beginning. California and New York Are ‘Next’ (Wired)  I certainly hope so.

CNN Tries Casting Doubt On Story Of ICE Agent Being Attacked With a Snow Shovel

Trump’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaign in Minneapolis (Ryan Cooper/American Prospect)

DHS: NY Times’ ‘Despicably Misleading Headline’ Is Why Media Aren’t Trusted

Let’s Make Renee Good the Last Person That ICE Kills (Robin Wonsley/The Nation)

The View’s Token Republican Cheers Walz Deploying Guard Against ICE

How Trump could use the Insurrection Act to pummel Minnesota (Axios)

Trump’s military threat comes as Minneapolis reels under ICE (Nick Halter/Axios)

Mike Johnson Goes Off Rails in Vile Gaslighting Display on Trump, ICE (New Republic)

‘Treason’: Elon Musk urges imprisonment of educators accurately teaching US history (Raw Story)  Come get your Narrative, right here.

ICE Is Losing the Political Battle (New York Times)  They hope.

The Minnesota War Zone Is Trump’s Most Trumpian Accomplishment (Susan B. Glasser/New Yorker)

Dem Rep. Thanedar Bill Would Abolish ICE; ‘Beyond Reform’

ACLU Sues to Halt Trump ICE Crackdown in Minnesota

Something Is Rotten in the State of America (David French/New York Times)  The Left’s favorite ‘conservative’ does his virtue-signaling.

Trump, Vance, and the Mainstreaming of Far-Right Hate (Andrew Weinstein/Moral Clarity)

Trump Cabinet secretaries conspired to violate Constitution, judge says (Joanna Slater/Washington Post)

Simon Rosenberg on Trump’s no good, very bad year (Public Notice)

‘Dumbest thing I’ve ever heard’: Republicans amp up their resistance to Trump’s Greenland push (Jordain Carney/Politico)

Machado Presents Trump With Gold Nobel Peace Prize Medal

CNN poll finds majority of Americans say Trump is focused on the wrong priorities (CNN)  Of course it does.

War Powers Resolutions Keep Failing. Democrats Are Going to Try Again Anyway. (Hamed Ahmadi/NOTUS)

Another Way Republicans Are Overplaying Their Hand on Immigration (Gillen Tener Martin/Washington Monthly)

Trump could be close to unleashing the state violence he’s always wanted (Philip Bump/MS NOW)  Philip Bump loses his shit.

Norway Stunned After Machado Gifts Nobel Peace Prize Medal to Trump (Bloomberg)

Cooling Inflation Doesn’t Mean Tariffs Were Harmless (Jonathan Levin/Bloomberg)  Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

Read it.

A 2025 Intelligence Assessment by the government of Denmark highlights the long term Russian and Chinese ‘threat’ in Arctic waters, at a moment Greenland officials have rejected the US assertion that the large resource-rich island and its waters are being gradually influenced and taken over by the Russia/China ‘menace’.

Trump has recently stated, “We need that because if you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and, bigger, there are Russian submarines all over the place. We’re not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re going to do if we don’t.”

Read it.

Renowned Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and later Freedom Watch USA, has long predicted (along with other top intel experts) increasing violence from the Left in a Marxist style Bolshevik Revolution.

Read it.

Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and Palantir chairman, has emerged as the first major donor in what is expected to be a high-dollar campaign to block a proposed California wealth tax, The New York Times reports.

Thiel gave $3 million to a political committee aligned with the California Business Roundtable late last year, marking the first publicly disclosed seven-figure contribution to oppose the proposed 5% tax aimed squarely at billionaires.

The donation signals that Silicon Valley’s ultra-wealthy are shifting from private planning to public resistance as supporters of the tax work to qualify it for the November ballot.

Read it.

In an incredible Senate hearing meant to address the dangers of abortion pills sold online without proper oversight, a Democratic witness turned the spotlight on herself by refusing to acknowledge that only women can get pregnant.

Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN tapped by Democrats, evaded direct questions from Republicans, prioritizing “identities” over scientific fact. This exchange highlights how insane woke ideology has infiltrated even medical testimony, undermining protections for women and enabling potential abuse through lax regulations on chemical abortions.

The hearing exposed real risks, like men coercing women into abortions by easily obtaining pills online—no in-person checks required. Yet Verma couldn’t—or wouldn’t—affirm basic truths, leaving observers questioning how such “experts” hold medical licenses in the first place.

Any purported physician who cannot say—or refuses to say—what a woman is ought to be barred from the practice of medicine.

Fortune magazine, a Voice of the Crust.

California’s proposed wealth tax aims to go after billionaires’ balance sheets, but it largely sidesteps the way many ultrawealthy people actually generate spendable cash: they borrow against their assets, tax?free, and never “realize” income in the first place. As long as that borrowing model stays intact, a one?time levy on wealth may raise money once, but it does little to change the system that lets cash?poor billionaires live richly while reporting very little taxable income.?

California is weighing a ballot measure, the Billionaire Tax Act, that would impose a one?time 5% tax on the total assets of state residents worth $1 billion or more. The tax would apply to anyone who was a California resident on January 1, 2026, with payment due in 2027 and the option to stretch it over five years for an additional charge.?
Supporters, led by a major healthcare workers’ union, pitch the measure as a way to raise roughly $100 billion to backfill expected federal healthcare cuts and force the wealthy to pay what they call their fair share. Gov. Gavin Newsom has warned that the levy could backfire by accelerating a departure of high?net?worth residents, even as he continues to defend the state’s broader progressive tax system.?

To take this example from the abstract into the practical, consider the examples of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Mr. Beast, the world’s most popular YouTuber. Musk does not live on a normal “salary” the way most people do, with most of his wealth tied up in shares of his companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, and he typically finances his spending by borrowing against those holdings and occasionally selling stock. In that sense, he is extremely asset?rich but comparatively low on ordinary cash income, using large credit lines backed by his equity to pay for homes, jets, and other expenses instead of taking regular paychecks.

…

The deeper problem lies in how modern billionaires convert paper wealth into cash without ever showing much taxable income. Rather than selling stock or private?company shares and realizing capital gains, they pledge those assets as collateral, borrow against them, and use the loan proceeds to fund everything from yachts and mansions to new investments.??

Because U.S. tax law does not treat borrowed money as income, these loans incur no income?tax bill, even when they finance lavish lifestyles. Policy analysts often describe this as the “buy, borrow, die” strategy: buy appreciating assets, borrow against them to live, then let heirs inherit those assets with stepped?up basis after death, erasing much of the embedded tax liability.?

Search YouTube for ‘buy, borrow, die’ and you’ll get dozens of videos explaining how this technique works. This is only the tip of a very big iceberg of techniques very rich people use to reduce or eliminate taxable income, if you have the time to go down that rabbit hole.

SciTechDaily.

For generations, scientists and food companies have been trying to recreate the taste of sugar without the health problems that come with it. From saccharin in the 19th century to newer alternatives like stevia and monk fruit in the 21st, the goal has been to keep sweetness while reducing excess calories, tooth decay, and the growing risks of obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

Researchers at Tufts University now report progress toward that goal. In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, the team describes a new biosynthetic method for producing tagatose, a naturally occurring but very rare sugar. Tagatose closely resembles table sugar in taste and could offer a way to sweeten foods with fewer negative effects. Scientists say it may also come with additional health benefits.

The Telegraph (UK).

Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, has “presented” Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize as she attempted to woo the US president.

Mr Trump has made no secret of his desire to be awarded the honour, which has been bestowed on several former presidents including Barack Obama. [For no reason other that being The Magic Negro.]

Ms Machado, whose liberal Vente Venezuela party is widely believed to have won the 2024 election, was given the award for “promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”.

It follows claims Mr Trump did not back installing Ms Machado as the country’s leader following Nicholas Maduro’s capture because she was given the honour.

Asked whether she had given Mr Trump her award during their meeting on Thursday, Ms Machado said: “I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

She said she had done so “in recognition [of] his unique commitment [to] our freedom”, although it was not clear whether Mr Trump accepted the medal.

Watch it.

Elizabeth Davis runs the nmumbers.

Read it.

On Thursday, January 15th, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that District Judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey had no jurisdiction to order the Department of Homeland Security in June last year to release Mahmoud Khalil, an Algerian-Palestinian Columbia University graduate, from custody.

The appeal court’s decision in Khalil’s case is a clear victory for the Trump administration in its efforts to deport the antisemitic pro-Palestinian activist. Khalil was detained in March 2025 and held in a Louisiana immigrant detention centre awaiting deportation after he led illegal student protests at Columbia University in support of Hamas after the October 7 massacres. As we reported, less than a year after arriving at Columbia on a student visa, Khalil was involved in illegal occupations of buildings, served as the negotiator on behalf of the occupying students with the university, pressuring the administration to accommodate student demands based on their illegal activity, and helped organize an illegal encampment on the campus that denied access to “Zionist” students.

The Thursday ruling said under the Immigration and Nationality Act, Khalil’s claims needed to be heard through an appeal of a final order of removal from an immigration judge, and the judge who had halted his deportation last summer, had no jurisdiction in the matter.

Read it.

Democrats like to say, for a lack of a better term, that Republicans hate sick people. I have cystic ?brosis: a chronic, life-threatening genetic disease, and I’m sick and tired of Democrats lying and fear mongering to people who are already sick and tired.

The Affordable Care Act was fundamentally flawed from the start, and was never designed to function without massive, unsustainable subsidies. It ultimately was doomed to fail. The ACA drove up costs, narrowed provider networks, and reduced access to care.

In fact, the ACA is one of the main reasons I kept working even when my doctors told me I was too sick to do so.

I had to maintain my private insurance. Without it, I would have lost my doctors, faced longer wait times, lost the ?exibility to complete treatments outside the hospital, and been cut o? from the quality care I needed, not just to stay alive, but to remain a functioning member of society.

And somehow, Democrats are now pushing something even worse than the A?ordable Care Act: universal health care.

Read it.

n October, a politically connected illegal alien was charged with ramming ICE vehicles in Los Angeles. He was shot and wounded by an ICE officer, but after a grand jury indicted the illegal alien, an Obama judge threw out the charges.

The case was all too typical of how commonplace car attacks on ICE and immigration law enforcement had become and how sanctuary cities had conspired to legalize them.

The death of a radical leftist activist accused of attempting to ram ICE personnel with her SUV in Minneapolis, may be the first official fatality, but it’s also the inevitable result of normalizing car attacks, promoting them as a tactic and then protecting their perpetrators from the consequence. Radical judges and activist groups can protect an activist from the law, but not from a bullet, and driving a 5,000 lb SUV at armed men was always going to end one way.

Democrat officials, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, have tried to pretend that the fatal shooting showed that ICE is violent and “out of control.” The media has barraged viewers with that same false narrative using misleading and out of context scenes.

But there is a pattern to ICE shootings. Every ICE shooting in the last 4 months involved individuals trying to ram ICE personnel with their vehicles just like the Minneapolis case.

Read it.

The Irish schoolteacher who became famous over his perseverance in protecting his freedom of conscience returned to his former workplace on Thursday morning, January 15th, less than 24 hours after being released from prison, despite a High Court warning that doing so could see him jailed again.

Enoch Burke, a German and history teacher and an Evangelical Christian, arrived at Wilson’s Hospital School in central Ireland shortly after 9.15 a.m., one day after walking free from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

Burke had been released on Wednesday by the High Court to allow him to prepare legal proceedings against a disciplinary appeals body reviewing his dismissal from the school.

The judge warned that the release was conditional on Burke not presenting himself at the school and stated that he would be returned to prison if he did.

Read it.

President Donald Trump threatened to deploy the U.S. military in Minnesota following attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the state.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial Thursday morning.

The Insurrection Act allows the president to deploy the military to states in certain cases of unrest or to enforce federal law.

Republican lawmakers had previously called on Trump to invoke the law and arrest Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat.

Read it.

Protests erupted again in Minnneapolis after federal law enforcement officer shot a Venezuelan man in the leg Wednesday night after being attacked by him and two others wielding a snow shovel and broom.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the Venezuelan man was an illegal immigrant who fled a traffic stop by federal agents in his car. When he crashed his vehicle, he fled on foot and then violently resisted arrest, the agency said.

At that point, the agent making the arrest was attacked by two more individuals, and “the original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick,” the agency said. The agent, “fearing for his life,” fired his gun in defense and wounded the Venezuelan man in the leg. The three alleged assailants then fled and barricaded themselves inside a nearby residence.

Federal agents entered the apartment, arresting the men, according to the local ABC affiliate KSTP. The illegal alien who was shot in the leg was taken to the hospital and was reported in stable condition, according to Reuters.

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German prosecutors have decided not to bring criminal charges against a rejected asylum seeker who killed a 16-year-old girl at a train station in Friedland last summer, ruling that he was not criminally responsible at the time of the attack.

The Göttingen public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday, January 15, that the suspect, an Iraqi national whose asylum application had been rejected, was suffering from schizophrenia at the time of the incident and was therefore not legally culpable.

According to investigators, the man pushed the teenager, identified as Liana K., into the path of a freight train travelling at around 100 km/h (about 62 mph) on August 11, killing her instantly. The case drew nationwide attention, in part because the suspect was subject to a deportation order at the time.

Instead of pursuing a murder trial, prosecutors have initiated preventive detention proceedings, which could result in the suspect being placed in a secure psychiatric hospital rather than a prison. An expert assessment concluded that his mental illness rendered him not criminally liable.

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The saga of federal benefits fraud in Minnesota is still being told. Democrat Gov. Tim Walz dropping out of his bid for reelection to a third term is only the latest chapter.

Reports of fraud in child care operations, and the connection to Twin Cities’ Somali immigrants, go back almost a decade. But state politicians and the legacy media initially ignored or downplayed the story, probably because most of the perpetrators were from a minority that carries “intersectional” clout in woke circles and electoral clout for Democrats.

In 2025, the magazine County Highway reported in depth on the scam, followed by the City Journal, and finally even The New York Times. Walz, who has been in power for nearly eight years, tried to shift blame away from himself and from Somalis on to President Donald Trump and conservatives for noticing. It didn’t work.

But there’s an underlying story that is no less important: the much larger cost of absorbing millions of low-skilled immigrants.

‘Obnoxious! Horrible!’ The View Melts Down Over Trump Finger Flip  As if they haven’t done something similar.

Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed (Ken Klippenstein)

Union backs Ford worker who traded insults with Trump during Michigan plant visit (Louis Casiano/Fox News)  My, what a surprise.

ICE error meant some recruits were sent into field offices without proper training, sources say (Julia Ainsley/NBC News)  Sources say! That proves it!

The Minnesotans trying to stop ICE (Vox)

Some Democrats fume as Kristi Noem impeachment gains steam (Andrew Solender/Axios)

The Fascist Takeover is Here — Senator Jeff Merkley urges Americans to wake up. (Jennifer Rubin/The Contrarian)  Jennifer Rubin loses her shit.

ICE Wants 10,000 More Agents on Our Streets (Jeff Nesbit/The Contrarian)

Trump is making China – not America – great again, global survey suggests (Jon Henley/The Guardian)  Survey suggests! That proves it!

China Blames Trump For Its Staggering $1.2 Trillion Trade Surplus Amid European Howls Of Outrage

ICE Is Beyond Reform (Mary L Trump/The Good in Us)  Trump’s deranged niece loses her shit.

Mother Jones Sues the Bureau of Prisons for Ghislaine Maxwell Records (David Corn/Mother Jones)

Federal agent shoots man officials say assaulted officer in Minneapolis, prompting protests (CNN)

ICE officer shoots man in leg in north Minneapolis after shovel attack, officials say (Stephen Swanson/CBS News)

Left-Wing Chaos Continues In Minneapolis As Federal Vehicles Looted

Rep. Don Bacon says House could impeach Trump if U.S. invades Greenland (Ben Doody/Omaha World-Herald)

Democrats need to shut down Trump’s terrorist government (Stephen Robinson/Public Notice)

Inside Trump’s ‘crazy world’ of milk bottles, sled dogs and threats to bomb Iran (Stephen Collinson/CNN)

The Gaudy, Nasty Fictions of Donald J. Trump (New York Times)

Trump’s mass deportations are in big trouble (Brittany Gibson/Axios)  They hope.

Scoop: ACLU sues Trump at record pace in year one (Russell Contreras/Axios)  My, what a surprise.

Watch it.

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) does a deep dive.

Just in case you are wondering.

Watch it.

Hint: Government is the problem, not the solution.

Moral: Always check to make sure the car comes with a spare tire.

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itchen work is all about proportions: sometimes the recipe is for four servings but you need six; maybe the recipe calls for 80 g of butter but you only have 57 g, so you have to adjust the other ingredients to match.

We could use an electronic calculator to figure out the rescaled amounts, but a slide rule makes it so much easier. The picture above was taken while following a recipe that called for 2 tsp of baking powder, and I wanted to make as large a batch as I could given the remaining 3.3 tsp of baking powder I had – a proportion of 2:3.3. You can see the slide rule is set to a proportion of 2:3.3 because – if you open the image in a new tab to make it larger – the number 2 on the C scale (on the bottom of the sliding middle part) is above 3.3 on the D scale just below.

But wait, the number 1 on the C scale is also just above 1.65 on the D scale. And 14 (or, if you will, 1.4, since with slide rules we ignore decimal points) on the C scale is above 23.1 on the D scale. Indeed. It’s set to those proportions too, because they are the same proportion. This is what makes the slide rule so powerful.

You can also do this in Excel, which is probably easier to find than a slide rule.

ABC News, a Voice of the Crust.

The U.S. experienced negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.

Although the administration has undertaken aggressive removal efforts, the negative number is mostly due to a significant drop in entries into the U.S., the report said.

“We estimate net flows of -295,000 to -10,000 for the year,” the Brookings study stated. “Though a high degree of policy uncertainty remains, continued negative net migration for 2026 is also likely.”

Read it.

Oversight Project President Mike Howell joined “The Signal Sitdown” this week to discuss a new force analysis conducted by The Oversight Project into the ICE-involved shooting of a woman in Minnesota.

“Our team of career law enforcement has carefully reviewed all available evidence and has cleared the officer,” the force analysis reads from the Oversight Project, which has more than 60 years of law enforcement experience on its team. “The ICE officer in question is not only innocent, but was entirely justified in his actions. We pray that the far-left comes to their senses and ends this violence.”

Renne Good, 37, was shot last week by an ICE officer after allegedly attempting to run him over in Minneapolis. Within hours, thousands of protestors gathered, and local lawmakers called for ICE to leave the city.

“Immediately after that event, every anti-American liberal wacko became a ‘use of force’ expert, right? You have a lot like Omar [Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.] and others saying this is murder and all the Democrats saying this is murder,” Howell said. “It’s just incredibly frustrating to watch that because of the effect it has on a population.”

Through these claims’ lawmakers, like Omar, have made, they have convinced this “mentally ill and unhinged population” that you can attempt to block a federal officer from doing their job. Omar did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal.

“They’ve called for the violence against the ice officers,” Howell said. “And now they’re use of force experts too.”