Lobsters to tequila: Cargo theft is eating America’s lunch and driving up food prices

As families across the country were preparing to celebrate Christmas, criminals were busy playing the Grinch. On Christmas Eve, a $400,000 shipment of live lobsters headed to Costco warehouses in Illinois and Minnesota vanished after pickup in Massachusetts. Posing as a legitimate trucking company, thieves disabled the truck’s GPS and disappeared with the load, a calculated act of cargo theft now under investigation by the FBI.

As brazen as it sounds, this was no one-off heist. Thieves recently made off with two truckloads carrying 24,000 bottles of Guy Fieri and Sammy Hagar’s Santo Tequila — worth more than $1 million — using fake carrier identities, spoofed emails and manipulated tracking systems to divert the freight. These high-profile heists are symptoms of a nationwide epidemic driven by organized theft groups that exploit digital platforms, stolen identities and fraudulent credentials to hijack the U.S. supply chain. Cargo theft now costs the trucking industry $6.6 billion annually, or more than $18 million each day. Those losses translate into higher insurance premiums, costly security investments and operational disruptions. With nearly three-quarters of stolen freight never recovered, consumers ultimately pay the price at the checkout line.

As they have for decades, bandits still stalk tractor trailers and strike when they are stopped at a rest area or even a traffic light. But strategic theft targeting trucking — which often involves elaborate techniques like fictitious pickup and identity fraud — has surged by 1,500% since 2022. The rapid digitization of the supply chain has opened up cyber vulnerabilities that organized theft groups exploit to steal freight remotely. 

AMERICAN TRUCKING INDUSTRY URGES LAWMAKERS TO ACT AS ONLINE CARGO THEFT SURGES

According to the transportation security firm CargoNet, food and beverages accounted for the greatest share of thefts in 2024, with dramatic spikes in meat and beverage loads during 2025. Criminals prefer these items because they are easy to resell and hard to trace. A broken seal can condemn an entire load and perishable goods rarely trigger rapid law-enforcement action.

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The fallout extends beyond higher prices. Retailers across the country have announced store closures, with executives citing persistent theft as a contributing factor. When stores shut their doors, communities can lose access to groceries, pharmacies and essential services, deepening food deserts and economic strain. And with grocery prices top of mind for voters this election year, lawmakers must confront this problem head-on.

That’s why we’re encouraged the House Judiciary Committee advanced the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA), which would finally give law enforcement the tools to investigate and prosecute organized cargo theft, improve reporting and strengthen public-private partnerships. With no clear federal jurisdiction, real-time data sharing or coordination, law enforcement is currently fighting these criminals with one hand tied behind its back. CORCA would change all of that.

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But a committee vote isn’t enough. CORCA must now pass the full House and Senate and be signed into law so consumers, truck drivers and American businesses are better protected at a time when grocery prices are already stretching household budgets.

If Congress fails to act, the next headline will not just be about missing lobsters or stolen tequila. It will be about higher prices and growing insecurity for American families. Let’s make sure this is the moment lawmakers stepped up to defend our supply chain, our businesses and the American consumer.

Why Holocaust remembrance matters as history is rewritten and antisemitism surges

In the small Polish town of Gniewoszów, the traces of Jewish life had been so thoroughly erased that even the tombstones from the destroyed cemetery were stolen and cut into millstones and pavers. In a sense, this is not so different from what is happening today, when facts are being warped and history reshaped into a means to advance political ideologies of the present. As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, none of us can sit idly by and let this happen.

When we arrived in Gniewoszów in 2014 — Anita to rededicate the Jewish cemetery where members of her family had once been buried, and Yoav to create a cinematic record — we did not anticipate that what began as a modest act of remembrance would become a decade-long quest to uncover a story of loss, silence, complicity and the urgent need to confront uncomfortable truths.

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So uncomfortable, in fact, that the office of Poland’s president is calling for the removal of our film from Polish television and streaming services.

While many Holocaust films focus on Nazi atrocities, our film, “Among Neighbors,” shifts the lens to the Polish people and what occurred after the war, when some Jewish survivors returned home only to face violence — and even death — at the hands of their former neighbors. It is a reckoning with a chapter too often omitted from the narrative, events that reveal the heights of human compassion and the depths of cruelty.

The town’s oldest residents, now in the twilight of their lives, break decades of silence, sharing secrets they have carried for a lifetime. Their poignant stories are brought to life with hand-drawn animated sequences, enriched by artful touches of magical realism. 

The heart of our story lies with two individuals: Yaacov Goldstein, one of the last living Holocaust survivors born in Gniewoszów, and Pelagia Radecka, an 85-year-old Polish woman who bravely shares her searing eyewitness testimony. 

And it took courage because the obstacles to truth-telling are formidable. 

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In 2018, Poland’s government passed a law against speech that blames Poland for any part in the Holocaust, a move that threatened to silence precisely the kind of testimonies our film preserves. The chilling effect of such legislation is felt not only in Poland, but wherever historical revisionism and antisemitism take root.

This story matters now because the forces that seek to rewrite history are not confined to one country or era. Violent antisemitism is on the rise in our country, too, including arson attacks from a Jewish student center in San Francisco to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion. Social media influencers proudly declare they are on “Team Hitler,” and famous athletes claim Jews “own every damn thing,” parroting the notorious forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Young people are too easily swayed by such voices, setting us on a very dangerous path. 

Throughout history, the welfare of Jewish communities has served as a barometer for a society’s health. When anti-Jewish sentiment proliferates, it erodes progress and contributes to cultural collapse. 

The list is endless of once-powerful realms who turned on their Jewish citizens, from Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Arab empires, the Ottoman Empire, Spain and the Polish Kingdoms — not to mention Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. They now exist only in history books and in the fantasies of terrorists and wannabe authoritarians.

Our film is a call to action: to resist the temptation to sanitize the past, to honor the complexity of human experience, and to recognize that the choices we make, as individuals and as societies, echo far beyond our own lifetimes.

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In making “Among Neighbors,” we sought to bring the past to life and ensure that the stories of the Jews who lived and died in Poland were not lost to history. In so doing, we came to challenge viewers to confront the uncomfortable realities that shape our world today. 

As attempts to rewrite history in favor of a more politically convenient narrative gain momentum, “Among Neighbors” offers a powerful counterpoint. True patriotism lies in facing the past honestly, no matter how painful the truth may be.

This is why we are screening the film at theaters, film festivals, community centers and schools across the U.S. and internationally. No attempt to silence this crucial chapter of human history — in Poland or elsewhere — will stop us. Indeed, such efforts only make more people interested in our film.

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As the last witnesses fade, the responsibility to face history honestly falls to all of us. Remembrance is our inheritance. Let us not squander it.

An illegal immigrant killed my daughter — leftists march for Renee, not for Katie

As I read and watched the coverage coming out of Minneapolis about the tragic shooting of a woman allegedly attempting to run over a federal agent with her vehicle, two things immediately came to me. 

First, how demonstrators were being stoked, inflamed and used by politicians for self-serving purposes. Second — and far more personal — where was the outrage when my innocent 20-year-old daughter, Katie Abraham, was killed by an illegal alien shielded and protected by Illinois’ sanctuary policies? 

Katie’s killer was Julio Cucul-Bol. He was using an alias. He is currently being treated for an incurable communicable infectious disease, according to court transcripts. Yet when my daughter was violently killed, there were no viral videos, no breathless media panels, no emotional press conferences and no candlelight vigils amplified by politicians and pundits. 

Where were the stories about how the car Katie was riding in — stopped at a red light — was struck from behind at nearly 80 miles per hour by a drunk-driving illegal alien?

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Where was the outrage over how first responders had to pry the vehicle open like a tuna can to pull my daughter’s lifeless body from the wreckage? 

It also struck me how the same media figures, politicians and commentators now expressing outrage over the Minneapolis shooting have had nothing to say about Katie. Nothing. 

But these politicians had this to say about the ICE shooting:

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New York City Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “We know when ICE agents attack immigrants, they attack every single one of us across this country.” 

Chicago Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson: “We stand in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis and with all of those across the country whose lives have been torn apart due to reckless actions by Trump’s lawless, racist force.” 

Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Karen Bass: “It happened because of the brutal and racist policies of the Trump administration that unleashed these agents.”

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The hypocrisy is impossible to ignore. 

The night before the June 12, 2025, congressional hearings on sanctuary policies, my wife and I happened to be eating dinner at the same restaurant as Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. I approached him, and we had a polite conversation. Walz offered his condolences for Katie’s death, which I appreciated. 

But the following day — while testifying in support of sanctuary policies — Walz did not say a single word about my daughter. Not one acknowledgment that Katie was violently killed by an illegal alien protected by the very policies he was championing.

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Instead, after the Jan. 7 shooting, he declared “that the Trump administration’s dangerous, sensationalized operations are a threat to our public safety.” 

At those same hearings, Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul also appeared. Yet my own governor, Pritzker, has offered Katie nothing but indifference, silence and disrespect. In my view, that is not compassion or humanity. It is entitlement — an aloof billionaire insulated from the consequences of his policies, exempt from the harm they cause, just like the illegal aliens he protects. 

As we approach the one-year anniversary of Katie’s death on Jan. 19, 2025, sanctuary policies continue to cause death and destruction. And our political leaders continue to double down.

AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT KILLED MY DAUGHTER. KATIE AND ILLINOIS ARE BOTH GETTING JUSTICE

It also struck me how the same media figures, politicians and commentators now expressing outrage over the Minneapolis shooting have had nothing to say about Katie. Nothing. 

Katie’s death was not a random act of fate. It was the predictable outcome of policy decisions made by Illinois leaders who chose ideology over accountability. 

States like Illinois and Minnesota have effectively nullified federal immigration law through sanctuary statutes that refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement — even when authorities possess credible information about an individual’s identity, background, or risk to public safety. These policies did not just fail my daughter and the other victims that night. They failed every citizen. And they failed even the people they recklessly import for political gain. 

This is not immigration policy. This is not compassion. This is cruelty. 

Sanctuary policies are often defended as “humane,” but compassion without structure is neglect. A system that invites people in while refusing to vet them, guide them, or hold them accountable does not uplift the vulnerable — it abandons them. 

This is not sympathetic governance. It is systemic irresponsibility. 

By refusing to cooperate with federal authorities, Illinois removed every guardrail that might have prevented tragedy. No meaningful background checks. No identity confirmation. No monitoring. No intervention — until it was too late.

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Katie paid with her life. 

And while my family grieves, Illinois leaders refuse to pause, audit or reassess these policies. There is no serious effort to implement even basic safeguards such as identity verification, health screening, language services or lawful employment pathways — measures that would protect both residents and newcomers. 

At those same hearings, Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker and New York Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul also appeared. Yet my own governor, Pritzker, has offered Katie nothing but indifference, silence and disrespect. 

Instead, officials hide behind slogans and accuse critics of lacking compassion. Their hyperbolic language inflames tensions rather than easing them. But that chaos is the point — it creates distraction, deflection and political cover for failed policy. I would also argue that it inflamed activists like Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old who was shot dead by an ICE officer. Her death is now being used as canon fodder against ICE, DHS and the Trump administration.

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Where is the humanity in all of this?  

Policies must be judged by outcomes, not intentions. When a system repeatedly produces preventable death, injury, fraud and disorder, it is broken. 

Illinois and other sanctuary states can — and must — do better. We need policies that are both lawful and humane. Policies that enforce the law while providing real structure, oversight and accountability. Policies that protect communities without dehumanizing anyone.

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Sacrificing people like Katie is not moral leadership. It is failure. 

If our leaders are unwilling to confront the consequences of their decisions, they should step aside. And if they refuse, citizens must demand better leadership at the ballot box.

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We deserve safety.  We deserve accountability. And we deserve leaders who value human life over political rhetoric. 

Sanctuary states have failed us all. They must do better. 

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‘Zohranomics’: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist math doesn’t add up

Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is focusing on affordability. But his “free stuff” policy agenda would flunk an introductory economics midterm.

For example: free bus rides will increase demand and cause overcrowding as service deteriorates. Can you envision New Yorkers queuing up like Londoners? Ditto free childcare, with risk of fraud. Ditto rent freezes, which are not likely to spur a rent-relieving housing supply surge.

Does Mamdani really think public employees will work the same long, intense hours at city-owned grocery stores that private-sector owners do to earn a living while building their generational wealth? Or that it’s a good idea to shutter natural gas plants supplying 500 megawatts of reliable energy, which New York’s Independent System Operator extended beyond their planned retirement in mid-2025 lest the city suffer blackouts. At much lower renewables grid loads than Mamdani wants, Germany had to import dirty coal to keep from going dark.

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Remarkably, however, these attempts to revoke the laws of economics aren’t even his worst ideas.

Still more dangerous for New York — and the nation, if the anti-progress “progressive” left continues making political inroads — is Mamdani’s deep hostility to capitalism and capitalists. What an oddity for the mayor of the capital of global finance. Nothing could be a greater threat to prosperity, especially the aspirations for upward mobility of the very groups that helped elect Mamdani.

The most fundamental force for prosperity is the drive of people to improve their lives and their children’s lives. For two and a half centuries, it’s been well understood why competitive capitalism and free market incentives — not socialism, not what Mamdani calls “the warmth of collectivism” — are the surest route to affluence.

In “The Wealth of Nations,” Adam Smith observed, “It is not to the beneficence of the baker, butcher and brewer that we owe our daily dinner, but rather their regard to their own self-interest.” When President George H.W. Bush put me in charge of our assistance programs after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germans described the collectivist sapping of incentives more tartly: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” No wonder their cousins in West Germany enjoyed such dramatically higher living standards.

SOCIALIST MAYOR MAMDANI INAUGURATED ALONGSIDE BERNIE SANDERS AND AOC ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

“I don’t think we should have billionaires,” Mamdani has declared. For the political left, “billionaire” has become an epithet, dripping with disdain. But most of us still admire the talented inventors and entrepreneurs who create the products and processes that expand our opportunities and improve our well-being. Yes, there is disruption along the way, and our safety net systems need to better mitigate the harms. But when was the last time you heard the pioneering builder of Tesla and SpaceX referred to in mainstream media as this generation’s greatest entrepreneur, rather than contemptuously as “billionaire Elon Musk?”

For New Yorkers, already straining under the city’s exorbitant taxes (with far from exemplary public services to show for them), Mamdani proposes both a wealth tax on the very rich and the highest corporate tax in the nation. Time will tell if he gets the necessary approvals from Albany. But the likely consequences would include an exodus of successful businesses, their well-paying jobs and highly taxed people, plus the jobs of many more who provide them with services. If you doubt it, look at high-tax, fiscally mismanaged, overregulated California hemorrhaging private sector jobs.

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More fundamentally, it is not possible to tax the rich without also taxing those trying to become rich. “Aye, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet might say. Mamdani and his consiglieres Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want us to emulate democratic socialist Sweden and Denmark. But the lessons that should be heeded are startlingly different from their misleading vision.

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Both nations abolished their wealth taxes because they were difficult to administer and raised little revenue, thanks to the disincentive to grow and locate wealth in the countries. Top income-tax rates for New Yorkers, combined with the federal levy, are comparable to Sweden and Denmark — but with a huge difference. The Swedes and Danes add a regressive 25% value-added tax (akin to a national retail sales tax) to finance their more-bloated welfare states. The result: U.S. after-tax per capita GDP is 50% higherthan Sweden’s and Denmark’s (there are other differences, both positive and negative, but the high tax and welfare state disincentives are a big part of the story). Trading lower incomes for higher taxes to pay for free stuff is a poor bargain destined to worsen over time.

Mamdani pledges: “We will prove that there is no problem too big for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.” He also promises “honest” budgeting. When the revenue raised is not sufficient to pay for the spending splurge, the higher taxes will have to include the broad middle class. Emulating democratic socialist Sweden and Denmark can only mean big increases in the city’s sales tax, which would hit lower income and younger New Yorkers especially hard. What a “warmth of collectivism” con job.

Fairfax County library defends displaying Pride book in children’s section after criticism

The Fairfax County Public Library is defending its decision to display a controversial children’s Pride-themed book in its collections.

On Monday, the LibsOfTikTok X account posted a photo of the book, “Grandad’s Pride,” by author Harry Woodgate, about a child, “Milly,” and her granddad spearheading a Pride parade for their town. 

The images shared by LibsOfTikTok show illustrations depicting sexually explicit Pride parade scenes, including men wearing bondage-style gear kissing.

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The post reads, “INBOX: Fairfax County Regional Library (@fairfaxlibrary) in VA is displaying a book called ‘Grandad’s Pride’ on the CHILDREN’S section. This book contains images of s*xually explicit Pride Parades, which feature men in bondage gear making out. Your tax dollars are being spent to groom and indoctrinate your children.”

The book’s Amazon listing states it is intended for children ages 3 and up, with a grade level of preschool.

“When your Gramps and I were younger, we went to lots of Pride parades. We marched and sang and danced and made lots of new friends along the way,” one page of the book reads.

‘NONSENSE’: EARLE-SEARS BLASTS FAIRFAX TRANSGENDER BATHROOM RULES IN FIERY CAMPAIGN STOP

“Can we go to Pride,” she asks. “We could go in your camper van!”

“Oh, my partying days are over,” the grandfather responds. “I’m far too old, and the city is far too busy.”

But the child persists, and the pair decide to organize their own Pride parade in their village.

VIRGINIA SCHOOL BOARD BANS EMPLOYEES FROM FORCING STUDENTS, TEACHERS TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS

“Grandad is older, but surely he has plenty of partying in him yet,” the book reads. “‘Why don’t we celebrate Pride here instead?’ I ask.”

The book continues, “Grandad needs some persuading, but the next morning we suggest my idea in the village. Soon, it’s decided,” the book reads, and the town works to put on their own Pride parade.

One illustration in the book shows a child holding a sign that reads, “trans kids are magic.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the Fairfax County Public Library cited its “Board of Trustees Official Policy Manual,” specifically Policy S, “Regarding the Recommendations about Current and Potential Library Materials.” 

The portion reads, “Fairfax County Public Library’s varied collection is available to all and represents a diversity of subjects and viewpoints. The library upholds the right of the individual to secure these resources, even though the content may be controversial, unorthodox, or unacceptable to some. The choice of library materials is an individual matter. Parents/guardians have the right to guide the reading, viewing, and listening of their children, but must recognize these rights in other parents/guardians.” 

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Why would a city mayor defend a dictator while his own streets continue to burn?

As I continue my walk across America from Atlanta into Alabama, I’ve met countless everyday heroes — hardworking parents, devoted friends, and faithful community builders — who pour their lives into lifting up neighbors and restoring hope in forgotten neighborhoods. Their quiet sacrifices rarely make headlines, but they produce real, lasting change. That is why I’ve been deeply dismayed by leaders back home in Chicago and across the nation who seem far more eager to defend Nicolás Maduro, a brutal dictator whose regime has tortured, starved, and crushed its own people — rather than confront the rampant violence, poverty, and failing schools devastating far too many American communities.

After President Donald Trump’s decisive action to remove Maduro, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson chose not to stand for justice or human rights. Instead, he condemned the move as an “illegal regime change abroad” and claimed it was “solely about oil and power.” He even linked it to the “dehumanization of migrants from Venezuela” by the “far right.” He has since doubled down through multiple posts on X — as if defending a tyrant who has driven millions to flee their homeland is somehow compassionate.

As I press on with this walk, my faith reminds me that God calls us to justice and truth, not to prop up tyrants or play politics with people’s lives.

Why would a city mayor, with no international authority, insert himself into global affairs like this? I understand that local governance may not feel revolutionary enough. But supporting Maduro’s government — with its documented record of torture and extrajudicial killings — isn’t solidarity. It’s siding with evil.

WALKING ACROSS AMERICA SHOWED ME WHY FAITH AND FREE THOUGHT CAN STILL WIN

Johnson isn’t the only one. Leftist mayors like New York’s Zohran Mamdani and Los Angeles’ Karen Bass reflect a troubling pattern, aligning with anti-American narratives that prioritize ideological posturing over real suffering and crises within their own cities.

These mayors were elected to fix potholes, improve schools, and reduce crime — yet they spend invaluable time and energy condemning Trump while effectively giving dictators carte blanche. Do they not care about the people in their own backyards? Or are they advancing some international agenda that undermines the American Dream right here at home?

This distraction is painfully evident in Chicago, where our streets are plagued with violence and our children are trapped in underperforming schools. Yet, the Chicago Teachers Union jumped into the fray. On X, they promoted an “emergency protest” against what it called “U.S. aggression against Venezuela,” calling to “STOP THE BOMBINGS” and framing the situation as imperialist war.

Their X post urged people to join them at Chicago’s Federal Plaza. The post was co-sponsored by groups like the Anti-War Committee and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Why is a teachers’ union, which should be focused on raising literacy rates and preparing kids for success, rallying for a regime that has crushed its own people’s freedoms? And why are taxpayers footing the bill?

It gets worse. I recently saw a Freedom Foundation post stating that the CTU took a trip to Venezuela to “visit with government officials and teachers and tour communes.” I don’t even know what “tour communes” are, but what is the CTU doing in Venezuela and, again, why on the taxpayer’s dime?

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This is not about peace. This is about ideology. When politics becomes a false religion, it breeds rage and division, and it pulls us away from the faith and merit that build strong communities.

My walk is about reclaiming that foundation. Everywhere I go, I talk to Americans who believe in earning success through hard work, not handouts or excuses. Restoring merit means teaching trades, fostering entrepreneurship, and instilling values that lift people out of poverty — like the work being done at Project H.O.O.D. back in Chicago’s South Side. Restoring merit means believing in America.

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At this point, we must be brutally honest. These mayors are not here to help us. Where’s their progress? It isn’t there. They don’t believe in America. They don’t believe in us, the Americans. The reality is that “We the People” have to lead. It’s on us. We have to be the change. We have to step outside our doors and talk to our neighbors and take steps to help, however small they may be.

As I press on with this walk, my faith reminds me that God calls us to justice and truth, not to prop up tyrants or play politics with people’s lives. The American Dream isn’t about siding with dictators. It’s about creating opportunity for all, earned through merit and perseverance. It’s about believing in America.

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JONATHAN TURLEY: ‘Say Her Name’ becomes radical rallying cry for Democrats’ mob rule

“Say her name.” From Portland to Philadelphia, the mantra is being used by politicians to fuel anger over the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. While many of us have noted that the shooting appears to fall within Supreme Court guidelines for the justified use of lethal force, there is an effort to make Good the personification of a so-called “resistance movement.”

Across the country, Democrats are holding “I am Spartacus” moments, resembling a low-budget casting call for B-grade actors — chest-pounding calls for everything from defunding ICE to the arrest of law enforcement officers. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) was widely ridiculed for his own such moment years ago. Yet he discovered that while most people found his self-aggrandizement cringeworthy, others longed for such displays.

From Portland to Philadelphia, Democratic leaders are engaging in performative press conferences, attempting to outdo one another by declaring the shooting of Renee Good “murder” or announcing a “war” with the federal government over the enforcement of immigration policies.

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The tone was set almost immediately after the shooting by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who not only declared the officer a murderer but dismissed claims of self-defense as “bulls—” and told ICE to “get the f— out” of the city.

When many of us denounced his conduct, Frey mocked critics, apologizing if his profanity had “offended their Disney princess ears.”

Frey appeared to trigger a race to the bottom. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and others rushed to the nearest camera to condemn the officer and fuel the rage. Democratic politicians seemed to compete over who could escalate rhetoric fastest, adding profanity or threats. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), facing a serious primary challenge from a Mamdani-endorsed socialist, has fought to out-rage the competition.

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Goldman not only called for the arrest of the officer, but also moved to strip all ICE officers of immunity. Goldman, of course, enjoys immunity as a member of Congress and, as an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, can afford any litigation. Yet he wants to strip protections from law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line every day. Apparently, no price is too high to help Goldman secure a third term.

In Portland, Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek expressed outrage over ICE being in the city after a shooting. It did not seem to matter that those wounded were two suspected Tren de Aragua gang associates, allegedly shot after trying to run over ICE officers.

Portland Police Chief Bob Day later confirmed that Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras are Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens with ties to TdA. He admitted the Portland Police Department hesitated to disclose the suspected gang connection because it feared accusations of the “historic injustice of victim blaming” by law enforcement.

JONATHAN TURLEY SLAMS MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR’S ‘RECKLESS’ RESPONSE TO ICE SHOOTING

He then became emotional, saying, “It saddens me that we even have to qualify these remarks because I understand — or at least have attempted to understand — your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”

In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal took the performative press conference to a new — and absurd — level.

Krasner, who has been known for sensational but unfulfilled pledges, told ICE to stay out of the city and portrayed its conduct as criminal, adding, “You will be arrested. You will stand trial. You will be convicted.”

DAVID MARCUS: IMPEDING FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT IS NOT PROTEST, IT’S JUST CRIME

Sheriff Bilal then went full Spartacus, delivering an embarrassing performance more befitting an Antifa activist than a law enforcement official. She called ICE officers “fake, wannabe” law enforcement and claimed they were violating both “legal law” and “moral law.”

Bilal pandered to the mob, warning the federal government that “you don’t want this smoke, because we will bring it to you.” She added that “the criminal in the White House would not be able to keep” ICE agents from going to jail.

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These are leaders openly playing to the mob. In my forthcoming book, “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution,” I examine how elected officials often enlist mobs to advance political agendas — only to be consumed by the unrest they unleash. This surrender to a “mobocracy” was among the dangers the Framers sought to prevent through safeguards against majoritarian tyranny.

The problem with these “I am Spartacus” moments is that they require an actual Spartacus. Instead, we get violence without a cause.

We also get the same political actors who have trafficked in rage for generations.

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In Minneapolis, a Black Lives Matter leader appeared to advocate violence as a tool for change, suggesting that the prosecution of officers in the George Floyd case occurred only because protesters burned part of the city in 2020. She urged demonstrators to ignore pleas to “not set [the city] on fire.”

In the movie, Caesar is asked whether he, too, had “left us for … the mob.” Caesar replies, “I’ve left no one, least of all Rome. This much I’ve learned … Rome is the mob.”

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These politicians are attempting to harness mob power and direct it at their political opponents. One Antifa activist urged people to “show up with guns and end this,” adding that “this is what the Founding Fathers gave us the Second Amendment for.”

What we are witnessing is not the American Revolution but a march toward the French Revolution. If history is any guide, these “new Jacobins” will discover they are no more immune to rage than their opponents, as today’s revolutionaries become tomorrow’s reactionaries.

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Trump has three strike options that would aid the protesters and devastate Iran

No one is better than President Donald Trump at putting maximum pressure on Iran. As protests against the repressive, murderous regime continue, Trump is talking about military options as another means of adding to the dilemmas for Iran’s government. “Locked and loaded,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Jan. 2, as the protests by the Iranian people ramped up.  

The U.S. military always has a list of target options when it comes to Iran. Operation Midnight Hammer took out just a specific set of nuclear enrichment and weapons design facilities in order to obliterate Iran’s ability to race to a bomb. But the B-2 strike of June 22, 2025, did not go after Iran’s underground sites hiding missiles, launchers and fuel production.  

One act by Iran would bring on strikes for sure: Trump on Sunday said he would “hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before” if American forces are targeted. This is an important red line. Remember Iran struck out at U.S. forces at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, back on June 23, 2025 and previously hit U.S. forces at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on Jan. 8, 2020. 

Here are three potential options that may be considered by President Trump.

IRAN’S NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES CRUSHED, BUT REGIME’S DESIRE FOR THE BOMB MAY PERSIST

1. Missile production 

Iran is still building ballistic missiles and importing solid rocket fuel precursors such as sodium perchlorate from China. The CIA’s map shows more than two dozen above- and below-ground sites across Iran linked to testing, development, production and storage of missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu let it be known in late December that Iran was trying to rebuild its missile stocks and air defenses. He probably shared more details during his visit with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Dec. 30. Iran expended hundreds of missiles in strikes on Israel in 2024-25 and wants to get back the ability to target Israel with big salvos. That would be bad.  

2. Space launch facilities

IRAN NUCLEAR PROGRAM SET BACK 2 YEARS AFTER US STRIKES: PENTAGON

Iran has over 30 satellites in orbit and Russia just launched three more for them in December. That’s the last thing we need; rogue Iranian satellites. Worse, Iran’s space launch rockets are easy to repurpose as attack missiles. Iran popped an undeclared ballistic missile out of their Iman Khomenei spaceport back in September. That’s in violation of U.N. sanctions, by the way. It wouldn’t surprise me if their new launch facility under construction at Chabahar is also on the watch list.  

3. Drone factories 

Iran’s infamous drones used to hit Ukraine are made by Shahed Aviation Industries, run in part by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Don’t forget that the IRGC is also a big business operation. The IRGC funds terrorism, so their drone business is a legitimate military target. Too bad the drone factory Iran set up in Russia won’t be on this list.  

Any options briefed to the president will come with extensive evaluation of ways to prevent collateral damage or inadvertent civilian deaths. The aim, after all, is pressure on the regime.

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All this is easy work for Central Command. U.S. F-15E fighters led strikes on ISIS targets in Syria on Saturday, and additional Air Force F-35s, F-16s and B-2 and B-1 bombers could augment the packages alongside U.S. Navy destroyers and submarines with Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAMs).  

What about world reaction? France, Germany and Great Britain are already on record condemning Iran’s dubious space launch activities. Missiles from Iran can reach Southern Europe. Hence, the activation in 2023 of the Aegis Ashore radar system in Poland and Romania designed to track missiles launched out of Iran.

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As a corollary to the White House Briefing, the president will be informed of the defensive posture of U.S. forces in the Middle East. Tipped by U.S. Space Forces, U.S. Navy destroyers used the Standard Missile SM-3 to kill several Iranian missiles in 2024 and will be ready to do so again.  

No doubt most Americans would love to see the end of Ayatollah Khamenei’s tyranny. Until that day comes, Trump’s prudent course may be to make sure Iran’s military capabilities are broken into a million pieces.  

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MORNING GLORY: Trump is on the cusp of greatness. Khamenei is on the edge of the abyss

The difference between the illusion of power and its reality is the difference between Ayatollah Khamenei and President Donald Trump. Trump is on the cusp of joining the very small number of American presidents who reorder the world. Khamenei is on the cusp of history’s abyss reserved for murderous fanatics. If Trump tips Khamenei over that edge, the president’s place in history will be secure. He will have returned freedom to the great Persian people. 

The belief in the unlimited power of a totalitarian government to maintain itself and protect its rulers is a dangerous conceit, as Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Venezuela’s Nicholas Maduro have both discovered. It may be that Ayatollah Khamenei is in the process of discovering the same hard reality: No government, no matter how ruthless, can endure for centuries or even decades in the face of a resentful population. 

Not even the rulers of Rome at the height of the Caesars or the Severan dynasty were guaranteed an endless run of power. The Soviet Union, which possessed both nuclear weapons and an omnipresent security service, survived only from 1922 to 1991.  

IRAN FLIPS ‘KILL SWITCH’ TO HIDE ALLEGED CRIMES AS DEATH TOLL RISES AMID PROTESTS

The Assad family took power in 1971 when Hafez Al-Assad consolidated control in Syria and kept it until December 2024, when his son and other family members were obliged to flee to Russia.

“Papa Doc” Duvalier took power in Haiti in 1957 and held it to his death in 1971. He was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed “Baby Doc,” who was forced to flee in February 1986.  

Hugo Chavez first tried to gain power via a coup in Venezuela in 1992, failed, and then won power in 1999, which he never relinquished until his death, when Nicholas Maduro took over the police state until this month, when the American military assisted American law enforcement on the orders of President Trump to remove Maduro to a New York Jail cell. 

The American government endures because it rests upon the consent of the governed. Any political entity that doesn’t, enjoys, at best, an uneasy control punctuated by attempted uprisings of a people desiring freedom and prosperity.

We are watching in real time the third effort of the people of Iran to throw off the shackles of the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” imposed on them by the fanatic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, which has oppressed the Iranian people for decades years. Khomeini ousted the Shah of Iran in 1979 and now the Shah’s son may return as a constitutional monarch to replace Khomeini’s hand-picked successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This ayatollah is as ruthless as the first and hundreds are being mowed down by his thugs in a desperate attempt to hang on to control of their kleptocracy, but the people of Iran have seen their life savings wiped out, their drinking water polluted and their electricity subject to repeated outages. The country is on the ropes and, humbled by Israeli and American air and missile power last summer, the people have begun their third week of massive protests. If either the U.S. or the Jewish state provide the final push, the great people of Persia — older than Christianity by 500 years — will re-emerge and regain their place among the great civilizations on the planet. 

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Even as the mullahs and their shock troops in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shudder and fire wildly into crowds of hundreds of thousands, so too does the dictatorship of Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, successor to Fidel, and then Raul Castro look shaky. As with Venezuela, and Syria and the Soviets before them, the Cuban regime depends upon the illusion of permanence. But, their people cannot eat illusions or drink fantasies. 

Three times before, the tyrants of Iran faced serious challenges to their power, but each time — in the late 1990s, during the 2009 Green Movement and in 2022 with the Iranian women’s movement which is widely known as the “Woman, Life, Freedom,” — the power of the ayatollahs was challenged, but those challenges were not supported with even encouraging words by the American presidents of that era. Ayatollah Khomeini took power when Jimmy Carter was in office, and Khamenei kept power during the aborted revolutions that happened under Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

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In this present convulsion of Iran, President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of the Iranian people seeking freedom. Just as he did with Maduro, President Trump has issued many warnings to Khamenei. Just as Maduro ignored them, so too has Khamenei responded with mockery of the president of the United States. The ayatollah has also cut off his nation’s internet and cellular services and ordered his thugs to open fire. 

Will it work again? Nobody knows. All we know is that a repressed people cannot forever be held down. And that the presidents who help free them earn history’s applause and respect. 

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We were college athletes. Supreme Court must listen to our case and save women’s sports

Imagine if the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether the law of gravity still applies, even in these early years of the 21st century. 

After all, some people are uncomfortable with their size. They feel sluggish and weighed down by that pull from the Earth. Why shouldn’t they just be able to ignore gravity and float along as easily as they please? Why should any law of nature be allowed to constrain how light and thin someone feels inside? 

If that sounds ridiculous to you, imagine how female athletes have felt in recent years, having to compete against males just because they’ve been told that feeling like a woman can make them so. 

Their make-believe is our hard reality. And some of us have empty spaces on our trophy shelves to prove it.

JUSTICE URGES ‘STAND UP FOR OUR GIRLS’ AS SUPREME COURT WEIGHS FATE OF HIS ‘SAVE WOMEN’S SPORTS ACT’

Each of us spent a lot of our growing-up years training our minds, straining our bodies and gaining the skills to compete against other girls and women on the athletic field. We worked hard — forfeited a lot of fun and family time — and steadily disciplined ourselves to become better, faster and stronger to win those trophies, stand on winners’ platforms and earn scholarships that could pay for our higher education. 

Then something happened that we had no way to predict or prepare for. American sports culture went off the deep end. 

Seemingly overnight, our country’s athletic leaders decided that men could be women, that men had every right to compete in women’s sports, and that physical differences were irrelevant, DNA was unimportant and anyone could be anything they wanted to be. Throw natural law to the wind.

ATTORNEY GENERAL LEADING THE SUPREME COURT TRANS ATHLETE CASE DEFENSE SPEAKS OUT

Here’s a little glimpse of what that’s looked like: 

• In West Virginia, a single male athlete competing on a state girls’ track team beat out over 400 girls in high school and middle school athletic competitions. While doing that, he was given free access to women’s locker rooms, where he made vulgar sexual comments to his female teammates to the point that one opted to wear her uniform all day rather than change clothes in front of him. When the school was told, nothing changed.
• During his first three years at the University of Pennsylvania, Lia Thomas competed on the men’s swim team, where he ranked 554th in the 200 freestyle, 65th in the 500 freestyle, and 32nd in the 1650 freestyle. During his final year, competing as a woman, he suddenly ranked fifth, first and eighth in those respective events, broke six records at the Ivy League Women’s Championships, took home four women’s Ivy League championships and won a women’s NCAA championship in the 500-yard freestyle, beating two former Olympic champions.
• A recent United Nations study found that “over 600 female athletes in more than 400 women’s division events across 29 different sports were defeated by transgender-identifying men. Male athletes have taken over 890 medals from female athletes.”

SUPER BOWL CHAMPION COACH, OLYMPIANS SIGN AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTING PROTECTION OF FEMALE ATHLETES IN SCOTUS CASE

As two former track-and-field athletes at Idaho State University, we’ve seen the injustices faced by women forced to compete against physically stronger men. That’s why, with the help of our attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, we joined the lawsuit Little v. Hecox, led by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, which is being argued at the U.S. Supreme Court today alongside another case, State of West Virginia v. B.P.J., led by West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey. The Supreme Court will hear both cases on Jan. 13. 

Seemingly overnight, our country’s athletic leaders decided that men could be women, that men had every right to compete in women’s sports, and that physical differences were irrelevant, DNA was unimportant and anyone could be anything they wanted to be. Throw natural law to the wind.

More than 50 friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed in these combined cases — by women’s rights groups, female athletes, scientists, dozens of other advocacy groups, 27 states and the U.S. government — all asking the justices to allow enforcement of state laws that protect women’s sports. 

That support comes out of recognition that the damage this insanity has done to the spirit of women athletes, to the bodies of women competing against men and even to the landmark legal protections of Title IX is multiplied many times over by the brutal domino effect this denial of reality is having on families coast to coast. 

Parents intimidated into pushing their children into dangerous drugs and life-altering surgeries. Women trapped in prisons with violent male criminals. Women-only shelters forced to admit men, who sleep next to women still suffering the effects of abuse and human trafficking.    

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Students roomed with the opposite sex on overnight school field trips. Teachers losing their jobs for not promoting the idea that gender is self-determined. Counselors forced to help their clients ignore the reality of their sexual identity. Schools keeping parents in the dark as educators secretly “socially transition” their children.

Those in places of power and with social agendas justify all of these nightmares by denying the essential reality that boys are boys and girls are girls — a fact that no amount of pretense or politicking can change. Yet government officials have moved aggressively in recent years to silence anyone who speaks up for that reality. 

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Now, the Supreme Court will finally be able to clarify what the law already recognizes — and so protect the rights not only of female athletes but of all Americans who embrace biological reality and the simple truths of nature.

There are only two sexes. And no one should be punished for believing that. 

LIZ PEEK: Trump is putting America first by backing Iran into a corner

As Iran teeters on the brink of revolution, the possible dethroning of the globe’s most malignant sponsor of terror would be another massive shake-up in the world order – one that would benefit the United States and her allies and for which President Donald Trump can take much credit.  

If Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is forced to flee Tehran, and a new government ultimately takes his place, the people of Iran will thank Trump. Already they are renaming streets in his honor, and rightly so; his persistent pressure on the theocratic regime over many years has weakened them and their proxies.  

Trump has threatened to retaliate if the mullahs shoot protesters and over the weekend said the United States “stands ready to help;” without a doubt they take his threats seriously. By successfully bombing their nuclear facilities in August, he showed yet again that he is unafraid of using American power. He also demonstrated the extraordinary capability of the U.S. military, a lethal competence also recently displayed in extracting Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. 

Last June, during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, Trump said, “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.” He added, “He is an easy target, but is safe there. We are not going to take him out [kill], at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”

TRUMP SAYS US WILL INTERVENE IF IRAN STARTS KILLING PROTESTERS: ‘LOCKED AND LOADED’

From the sound of it, the president’s patience is wearing thin again. Though the authorities have shut down most communications and the internet, word has leaked out that some 500 protesters have been killed and more than 10,000 imprisoned. Some claim the numbers are even higher. 

It was not the first time Trump has battled the theocracy. In 2020, he ordered the assassination by drone of Major General Qassem Soleimani, head of the powerful Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Soleimani was responsible, as The New York Times reported at the time, for “nearly every significant operation by Iranian intelligence and military forces over the past two decades, and his death was a staggering blow for Iran at a time of sweeping geopolitical conflict.”  

Soleimani, who devised lethal IED warfare against U.S. GIs in the Middle East and elsewhere, had the blood of countless Americans on his hands. Khamenei vowed vengeance and the region prepared for retaliation, but little came. The mullahs feared confronting Trump.

TRUMP’S IRAN STRIKES WERE MASTERFUL. NOW, HIS DEALMAKING SKILLS ARE CRITICAL TO STOP ANOTHER MIDDLE EAST WAR

Trump has also steadfastly supported Israel, in particular, backing their aggressive confrontation with Iran’s proxy Hamas in retaliation for the terror group’s brutal Oct. 7 attacks. While his predecessor, President Joe Biden, pledged “unwavering” support for Israel, waver he did under withering attacks from pro-Palestinian Democrats.  

During his 2024 State of the Union Address, Biden denounced Israel’s pursuit of Hamas in Gaza. He also levied sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank and weighed sanctioning IDF units for suspected human rights violations. In addition, he refused to give Israel the 2,000-pound bombs they wanted to destroy tunnels and facilities used by Hamas. Finally, during his last year in office, Biden explicitly stated he would not support an IDF strike on Iranian nuclear sites even as Tehran carried out a missile attack on Israel, ceding U.S. authority to a coordinated G7 response instead. 

In June 2025, Israel launched what Trump called the 12-day war, bombing Iranian military and nuclear sites. Trump supported the engagement; partnering with Jordan, the U.S. helped defend Israel from Iranian retaliation.

MIKE POMPEO: THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC IS ON THE ROPES. TIME FOR TRUMP, IRANIANS TO FINISH THE JOB

Hamas was not the only Iranian proxy hammered by Trump. Early in his second term, Trump ordered stepped-up airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, in response to their attacks on commercial and naval shipping in the Red Sea. Incredibly, Biden had removed the “terrorist” designation that Trump had given the Houthis; Trump put it back.

Hezbollah, too, has come under attack from Trump, which may intensify in coming days. The Lebanese terror group is reportedly on the ground in Iran helping to suppress protests, which puts them in the crosshairs.  

After meeting with Trump at the White House in December, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told officials in his government that the U.S. president gave him a “green light” to launch an attack in Lebanon, according to Israeli reporting. Trump evidently agreed that dismantling the terror group was important, but reportedly asked Netanyahu to wait until U.S. negotiations with Lebanon were concluded.

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In coming days, the fate of the Iranian government will become clear. If the mullahs decamp and a pro-western administration emerges, the entire world, and especially Western nations, Israel and the Gulf Arab states, will be better off. From his first years in office, President Trump helped facilitate this chain of events, initially by leveling severe sanctions on Tehran’s oil industry that caused its exports and revenues to shrink. 

During Trump’s first term, Iran’s foreign currency reserves plummeted from a high of $122 billion to $18 billion; Joe Biden took his foot off the brake, allowing Tehran to rebuild its oil exports (from less than half a million barrels per day to more than 1.5 million b/d) and its reserves. Biden also approved the transfer of $6 billion to Tehran, in exchange for a prisoner swap, giving the mullahs even more money to fund their terror allies.

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Joe Biden’s coddling of Iran was one of the worst foreign policy disasters of the past four years, confirming former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates’ pronouncement that Biden had been wrong on every foreign policy and national security issue of the past 40 years.  

Thankfully, Trump is clear-eyed about America’s interests in the Middle East. In 2023, Biden famously said, in a rare Oval Office address, “American leadership is what holds the world together.” Yes, it does, and under President Trump we have seen an extraordinary wielding of U.S. power in defense of our allies, while always, without exception, putting America first. 

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WILLIAM BARR: Supreme Court needs to stop Louisiana grift against energy firms

The U.S. Supreme Court, by now all too familiar with lawfare, will consider a startling case on Monday, Jan. 12, chock-full of hard politicking and even the appearance of corruption. 

Small bayou towns and parishes in Louisiana, in partnership with plaintiffs’ firms, have filed dozens of lawsuits blaming American energy companies for coastal erosion stemming from energy production during World War II. The first of those cases reached trial this spring, with a jury in Plaquemines Parish returning a $750 million judgment against Chevron. 

The conduct of these cases recalls an old problem with a clear solution. States and localities have for decades weaponized their courts to derail lawful and legitimate federal objectives. 

Here, a parochial political machine is bending Louisiana law to profiteer off of the federal government’s wartime energy practices. The answer is to remove these cases from Louisiana’s courts and adjudicate them in a fairer forum, namely federal court.

EXPERTS WARN OF BIGGEST ‘SCANDAL IN LITIGATION SYSTEM’ IF SCOTUS DOESN’T NIX LANDMARK ENERGY POLLUTION CASE

Lawfare is an old problem in the history of the republic. During the War of 1812, pro-British commercial interests in New England inundated federal customs collectors with state law claims, an attempt to derail the hated trade embargo with the United Kingdom. 

In response, Congress passed the first iteration of the federal officer removal statute.

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In so doing, Congress established the principle that federal agents doing federal work ought to be shielded from local prejudice and provincial peculiarities. Here, we can think of the defendant energy companies as “federal agents” because they were fulfilling federal defense contracts under close federal supervision. 

Louisiana vindicates the wisdom of this judgment, pairing interference in federal energy policy with the appearance of corruption for which the state, unfortunately, is so widely known.

SUPREME COURT MUST FREEZE THE CLIMATE EXTORTION OF OUR ENERGY INDUSTRY

As I explained in an amicus brief with Judge Michael Mukasey, the land loss lawsuits are shot through with abrupt, unexplained reversals that take on a dark aspect. For example, Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) consistently maintained that energy production predating 1980 could not form the basis of a coastal erosion claim under a state environmental statute. 

There are ample letters and public statements from the DNR to that effect. But in 2018, the DNR recanted its oft-stated position and endorsed land loss lawsuits, the state environmental statute notwithstanding. 

Louisiana’s governor supervises the DNR. The governor in 2018 was Jon Bell Edwards, a former trial lawyer who collected millions in campaign contributions from counsel for the plaintiffs.

TOP ENERGY GROUP CALLS FOR PROBE INTO SECRETIVE ‘NATIONAL LAWFARE CAMPAIGN’ TO INFLUENCE JUDGES ON CLIMATE

Edwards’s successor, Jeff Landry, was a critic of land loss claims until he wasn’t. As state attorney general, Landry sued the Army Corp of Engineers over coastal erosion, consistent with the findings of researchers who maintain that leveeing the Mississippi River is the principal culprit of land loss in Louisiana. 

The conduct of these cases recalls an old problem with a clear solution. States and localities have for decades weaponized their courts to derail lawful and legitimate federal objectives. 

Landry then reversed course and signed a formal agreement with the private law firms driving the land loss cases. Those same firms contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Landry when he ran for governor in 2023. 

Consider also the flip-flops of the trial judge, Judge Michael Clement. The judge initially and correctly recognized that the plain language of the state environmental statute forbade pre-1980 claims.

SCALISE LEADS GOP FIGHT AT SCOTUS TO STOP ‘RADICAL’ LEFT’S ‘WAR ON AMERICAN ENERGY’

As such, he dismissed many claims related to pre-1980 activities. One month later, he changed his mind, ignoring the clear command of the statute and our popular sense of fair play. 

As with Edwards and Landry, counsel for the land loss plaintiffs contributed thousands of dollars to Judge Clement’s most recent re-election campaign (this in a parish with just 20,000 residents). Land loss lawyers play heavily in Louisiana judicial elections. 

An in-state watchdog found that trial lawyers involved with coastal erosion lawsuits have run $3 million into Louisiana’s judicial elections. These donations have infected every level of the judiciary, from small town courthouses to the state supreme court in New Orleans.

EXPERTS WARN OF BIGGEST ‘SCANDAL IN LITIGATION SYSTEM’ IF SCOTUS DOESN’T NIX LANDMARK ENERGY POLLUTION CASE

This systems-level crisis of integrity indicates why removal is necessary here and wise as a general matter. Louisiana’s state courts are purporting to second-guess wartime energy production policies fully 80 years after the fact. 

It appears they are doing so owing to improper local political alliances. This is a prime example of the concerns animating the federal officer removal statute. 

Unfortunately for the good people of Louisiana, these events are of a piece with the judicial environment in their state. Louisiana courts returned 15 so-called “nuclear verdicts” totaling $10 billion between 2009 and 2023. 

Small bayou towns and parishes in Louisiana, in partnership with plaintiffs’ firms, have filed dozens of lawsuits blaming American energy companies for coastal erosion stemming from energy production during World War II. 

These outcomes create a permission structure for lawyers of the “Better Call Saul” variety. During my tenure as attorney general, federal law enforcement began investigating a gang of Louisiana lawyers and their henchmen for allegedly staging car crashes with 18-wheelers and filing bogus lawsuits against unsuspecting trucking companies.

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Prosecutors ultimately charged the alleged conspirators, but not before a witness was killed.  

The justices will consider these matters in greater detail at oral argument. Let us hope for a decision that rights the ship, and sends these cases back to federal court where they belong. 

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Left seeks martyrs to fuel anti-Trump uprising as ICE enforcement operations ramp up nationwide

As the Trump administration ramps up enforcement against illegal immigration and cracks down on welfare fraud, the radical left is escalating its tactics in a calculated bid to create martyrs.  

We’ve seen this before, but today’s ideological fervor, backed by deep-pocketed donors and foreign influences, makes it far more dangerous. From blocking ICE operations to shielding massive fraud schemes in states like Minnesota, Illinois, California and New York, the left isn’t just resisting — they’re spoiling for a fight with the intent of sparking widespread unrest.  

The signs are everywhere. In recent days, we’ve witnessed nullificationist governors and mayors openly defying federal authority, stoking violent rhetoric in the wake of the shooting death of Rachel Good in Minneapolis after she allegedly attempted to run down a federal law enforcement agent. This incitement by elected officials inevitably increases the threat of violence against ICE agents. This is a calculated strategy.  

As the New York Post reported, Good was a so-called “ICE Watch” activist, whom a friend called a “warrior.” Meaning, Good was at the federal law enforcement operation to disrupt it and — with luck — get filmed while doing so.

WAVE OF CAR ATTACKS ON ICE AGENTS FOLLOWS INCENDIARY RHETORIC FROM TARGET-CITY LEADERS

But Trump and federal law enforcement shouldn’t back down; they should outsmart the professional agitators with agile tactics. 

Elected officials on the left are whipping up hysteria not just to fundraise and fend off primary challenges from their even more extreme flanks, but to provoke confrontations that could produce martyrs. Martyrs, as history shows, are powerful accelerants for political violence, as the death of George Floyd in 2020 in Minneapolis showed. They rally the base and demonize opponents — with the two main strategic objectives being to pressure administrations to retreat while costing Republicans in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential contest.  

Take the ongoing battle over welfare fraud. In Minnesota, the Feeding Our Future scandal exposed a staggering $250 million in stolen federal funds meant for child nutrition during the pandemic. Somali immigrants, some with ties to questionable nonprofits, funneled money overseas, including, it appears, to potential terrorist groups. Yet when federal investigators dig deeper, left-wing activists and politicians cry foul, framing it as racial persecution. This isn’t isolated.

SOCIALIST GROUPS CHANT ‘KILLER KRISTI’ WHILE ESCALATING NATIONWIDE ANTI-ICE PROTESTS

In Illinois, audits reveal billions in improper Medicaid payments, often linked to unchecked immigration. California’s Medi-Cal program is a black hole of fraud, with estimates topping $20 billion annually, exacerbated by sanctuary policies that shield illegal immigrants. New York’s welfare system fares no better, with rampant overpayments and little oversight.  

The left wants these inquiries halted — not because they’re baseless, but because exposing the rot undermines their narrative of open borders and endless entitlements. 

But why the drive for martyrs? It stems from a deep understanding of revolutionary psychology. Today’s agitators aren’t the opportunistic looters of past riots; they’re ideologically driven, often professional organizers funded by left-wing billionaires and overseas sources, including China. Beijing has a vested interest in sowing chaos here — weakening America from within while advancing its global ambitions. These groups know additional high-profile deaths in clashes with ICE could spark nationwide outrage, amplified by sympathetic media.

MORNING GLORY: MINNESOTA’S FRAUD SCHEME IS EXPOSED. NOW TRUMP HAS GOLDEN MOMENT TO STRIKE

This brings me to a personal reflection from my time in uniform. In 1992, as a young Army intelligence officer, I was deployed with the California National Guard to quell the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict. For days, gangs and criminals grew bolder, night after night. False rumors spread like wildfire: that we Guardsmen had no ammo or were prohibited from using our weapons. It emboldened the criminal gangs. Leftist agitators were there too, distributing flyers and organizing, trying to spark a full-blown revolution. But their raw material was thin — mostly opportunistic criminals uninterested in dying for a cause. 

Then came an inflection point. One night, a man attempted to run down a Guard checkpoint. In self-defense, soldiers opened fire, killing him. The next day, the streets transformed. Gangs and criminals were suddenly on their best behavior. The rumors were proven false.  

Contrast that with today. In 1992, the agitators failed because the rioters weren’t ideological zealots willing to become martyrs. Now, the motivation is different.  

Protests against President Donald Trump and ICE are orchestrated by groups like Antifa and pro-Palestinian networks, steeped in Marxist ideology and funded lavishly. They crave a martyr to fuel their narrative of “fascist” oppression.

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Just look at historical precedents. During the secession crisis of 1860-61, after Virginia seceded, federal troops occupied Alexandria. U.S. Army Col. Elmer Ellsworth, a friend of President Abraham Lincoln, was shot dead while removing a Confederate flag from a hotel. The hotel owner, James Jackson, was killed in response seconds later. Overnight, the Union and Confederacy had their first martyrs, propelling a conflict that claimed more than 620,000 lives over four years of bloody conflict. 

We can’t let history repeat. The left’s strategy relies on predictable enforcement allowing time for agitators to mobilize, film confrontations and escalate. Trump and ICE must adapt to try to prevent additional shootings. They can do this by shifting operations rapidly, using intelligence to preempt gatherings and employing non-lethal tools where possible. They must surge resources into fraud hot spots like Minnesota’s Somali communities or California’s sanctuary cities, but do it unpredictably. They must coordinate with willing state officials to bypass nullificationists. And they must expose the funding trails — trace the money from billionaire foundations and Chinese-linked entities fueling the unrest.

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Backing down would hand the left a victory, emboldening further defiance and eroding the rule of law. Instead, smart enforcement will drain the swamp of fraud, secure our borders and deny radicals their prized martyrs. America has faced down worse threats. Resolve wins the day.  

Trump must press forward — decisively, but wisely — for the sake of America’s future. 

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Refugee flood isn’t smart policy, it’s the gift that keeps on taking

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

Reports of fraud in childcare 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.

COMER VOWS MINNESOTA FRAUD PROBE WILL EXPAND TO OTHER STATES AMID MOUNTING SCRUTINY

Back in 2016, George Borjas of Harvard wrote that, “the higher cost of all the services provided to immigrants and the lower taxes they pay (because they have lower earnings) inevitably implies that on a year-to-year basis immigration creates a fiscal hole of at least $50 billion.” 

Because most Somali immigrants came to the U.S. as refugees or on family reunification visas thereafter, they are an interesting subset to examine. At a press conference, Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar said of her Somali constituents that “we have … become nurses and doctors and engineers.” 

Some, but not many. From 2019 to 2023, the median Somali household in Minnesota had an income of $43,600, compared to a national median of $78,538. That means that they will qualify for many federal benefits available to citizens and some immigrants.

FEDERAL OFFICIALS TO HALT MORE THAN $10B IN FUNDING TO 5 STATES OVER NON-CITIZEN BENEFIT CONCERNS: REPORT

In a 2024 report, Daniel Di Martino of the Manhattan Institute looked at the net lifetime fiscal impact of immigrants. Immigrants without a college education are a net fiscal burden of up to $400,000, DiMartino estimates, while “each immigrant under the age of 35 with a graduate degree reduces the budget deficit by over $1 million in net present value during his lifetime.” 

Somali refugees fall more into the former category. According to a recent Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report, 58% of them do not speak English well, and 39% have no high school diploma. That translates into a heavy use of welfare programs. 

Of Somali immigrant households with children, CIS reports, 89% use some kind of welfare — 86% of such families are on Medicaid, compared to only 28% of Minnesota households headed by a native-born citizen. More than one in five Somali men of working age are unemployed. More than half of children in Somali-immigrant households are below the poverty line, compared with only 7.6% of those in native-headed homes.

JAMES COMER TO ACCUSE TIM WALZ OF BEING ‘ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL’ AT FRAUD HEARING

Studies in Europe have shown that, on average, immigrants from certain countries are net takers from the fiscal pot over their lifetime, while others are net givers. 

In Denmark, the net fiscal contribution of the average native Dane over a lifetime is positive. In their working years, native Danes pay into the system more than they take. That’s the only way the fiscal equation can balance. But their average immigrant from the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Pakistan never pays more to the government than they take in benefits. 

From 2019 to 2023, the median Somali household in Minnesota had an income of $43,600, compared to a national median of $78,538. That means that they will qualify for many federal benefits available to citizens and some immigrants.

A Finnish study had similar results. On average, people from Somalia and many other places were net lifetime losses.

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Mass migration was sold to Europeans as a solution to their plummeting fertility rate. To pay for wraparound socialist benefits, the thinking went, they needed to import millions of younger workers. Unfortunately, they weren’t getting the kinds of migrants who are net contributors. 

The countries that produce the most economically desirable immigrants have low fertility and don’t export people. Meanwhile, emigrants from the countries whose populations are burgeoning and are on average a lifetime fiscal drain are the ones that do export people. 

Liberals love to quote a line from Emma Lazarus’ poem on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” This is a sentimental expression from a 19th century context very different from today. Notice she doesn’t say yearning to eat free, sleep free, educate your kids free and get free healthcare, legal aid and a raft of other benefits unavailable in 1890.

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The Trump administration has lowered refugee numbers for fiscal year 2026 to 7,500. But a future president might choose to ramp up refugees and also open the spigots with other Biden-era tools to facilitate mass migration. 

American voters need to understand that accepting refugees and low-skilled migrants means taxpayers write a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to support them for life.

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Their children? Some will succeed and help balance the budget. Others will not. It will take generations to find out the long-term results of America’s mass migration binge. 

But in the short-term, our fiscal hole will get much deeper, and the politics of refilling it will be impossible. Accepting the fiction that all migrants are the same, and that mass migration is always a net benefit to the receiving population, will leave us with a staggering bill we may never be able to pay. 

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I was told I was a boy. Supreme Court must destroy lies that harm women like me

Normally, the Supreme Court hears cases that deal with matters of law. 

But on Tuesday, Jan. 13, the justices will also be dealing with basic science. Not only that, they’ll be debating fundamental truth, as I can personally testify. 

The stakes couldn’t be higher in the case, West Virginia v. B.P.J. The specific question facing the court is simple: Should transgender boys be allowed to compete on girls’ sports teams? But you can’t really answer this question without asking a more important one: Can a young boy or a girl actually change genders? 

I asked this question myself, starting at age 12. I gave the wrong answer.

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I was a classic tomboy — a girl who didn’t act and dress the way other girls did. I never felt like I fit in. But instead of realizing that I was in a normal phase of life, I got sucked into the world of social media and video games. That’s where I met people who told me that no, I wasn’t actually a girl. They told me I was a boy. That I should change my body to reflect who I “really was inside.” 

I believed them. I went to doctors who gave me puberty blockers, blocking my normal development. Soon after, they started me on cross-sex hormones, so that I’d start to look more like a boy. Then, at age 15, the doctors gave me a double mastectomy. I figured that without a girl’s chest, I’d finally be happy. As a boy, why would I want to keep my breasts? 

By age 16, I realized how wrong I was. But I couldn’t go back. The puberty blockers and hormones changed my body, to the point that I no longer recognized myself in the mirror. And the chest surgery — how do you undo that? I’m now in my early 20s, and to this day, I have bandages where my breasts used to be. 

I know the truth now: I’m a girl. I always have been. I always will be. I can’t change that — because it’s scientifically and biologically impossible. No matter how many drugs or surgeries they get, kids who think they’re transgender really aren’t. They’re just confused. And in their confusion, doctors and activists are pushing them down a road of even more confusion. It’s also a road of unspeakable grief, worse than anything I ever experienced when I was 12 and felt like I didn’t fit in.

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These deeply confused kids are at the center of the case before the Supreme Court. We’re talking about boys who are competing against girls, which is deeply and obviously unfair. Even a boy who’s taken puberty blockers and hormones is going to have an advantage over girls. It’s basic science, written into their biology. No medical treatment can change who they are. Sex-change treatments just cover up the truth under a veneer of self-deception and socially acceptable lies. 

The justices must see through it all. No doubt, the lawyers on the transgender side will try to trick them with arguments about equal treatment and human rights. But this isn’t about rights — it’s about the deep and profound wrong that is child transgenderism.

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The only rights that are being violated are girls’ rights to compete fairly, without being forced to go up against boys. And states have a right — and a duty — to protect girls. For that matter, states have a duty to protect all children from transgender treatments of any kind. The Supreme Court has already given states the green light to keep kids safe from radical activism masquerading as medicine. Now the justices should extend that logic by protecting girls’ sports. 

Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just about law. It’s about science and truth. And that’s why the Supreme Court must reject the transgender lie. 

Iran’s collapse or survival hinges on one choice inside the Revolutionary Guard

Iran is not merely experiencing another wave of street protests. It is facing a crisis that strikes at the core of the Islamic Republic—and, for the first time in years, places the regime’s survival in real doubt.

Across Iran, demonstrations sparked by economic collapse and corruption have rapidly transformed into direct challenges to clerical rule. Security forces have responded with live fire, mass arrests, and communications blackouts. International reporting cites hundreds of people killed and thousands detained. Internet shutdowns point to a regime determined to suppress not only dissent, but proof of it.

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Iran has behaved this way before. What has changed is the strategic environment—and the growing sense among Iranians that the system itself is failing.

Still, one must be clear-eyed: Iran’s leaders will not go quietly. They do not see themselves as ordinary autocrats clinging to power. In their own theology, they see themselves as executing Allah’s will.

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A Regime That Sees Repression as Divine Duty

Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has framed its authority through velayat-e faqih—the rule of the Islamic jurist. Under this doctrine, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not simply a political figure. He is the guardian of an Islamic revolution believed to be divinely sanctioned.

That theological worldview directly shapes how the regime responds to dissent. When Iranian security forces fire into crowds, the regime does not see itself as suppressing political opposition; it sees itself as crushing heresy, sedition, and rebellion against God’s order. Protesters are routinely labeled “corrupt on earth,” a Quranic phrase historically used to justify severe punishment.

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Public condemnation and moral appeals alone will not move Tehran. Its rulers believe endurance, sacrifice, and violence are virtues—especially when used to preserve the revolution.

Even regimes driven by religious certainty can collapse once their power structures fracture.

Why this moment differs from 2009—or 2022

Iran has seen mass protests before. In 2009, the Green Movement threatened the regime after a disputed election. In 2022, nationwide protests erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in morality-police custody after being detained for allegedly violating Iran’s hijab rules. Each time, the regime survived.

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Several factors suggest this moment is different.

First, the economy is far worse. Iran faces sustained currency devaluation, unemployment, and inflation that has crushed the middle class and hollowed out state legitimacy. That pressure is compounded by a deepening water crisis that has crippled agriculture, strained urban life, and fueled unrest in multiple provinces. Economic despair is no longer peripheral; it now sits at the center.

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Beyond economics, Iran’s external deterrence has eroded. The war with Israel in 2025 inflicted real damage. Senior Iranian commanders were killed. Air defenses were penetrated. Missile and drone infrastructure was disrupted. Iran’s aura of invulnerability—carefully cultivated over decades—was badly shaken.

At the same time, Iran’s proxy network is under strain. Hamas has been devastated. Hezbollah has suffered significant losses and now faces domestic pressure in Lebanon. The Houthis remain disruptive but isolated. Tehran’s so-called “axis of resistance” looks less like an unstoppable force and more like a series of costly liabilities.

Most importantly, the regime’s coercive apparatus is under stress. And this is where the future of Iran will be decided.

IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER BLAMES TRUMP FOR INCREASINGLY INTENSE DEMONSTRATIONS

Watch the IRGC and the Basij—the outcome may hinge on their choices

No institutions matter more right now than the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its paramilitary arm, the Basij.

Often described as the regime’s “eyes and ears,” the Basij are not a conventional military force but a nationwide population-control and internal surveillance network. Embedded in neighborhoods, universities, factories, and mosques, they monitor dissent, identify protest organizers, and move quickly to intimidate or detain them—often before demonstrations can spread. 

During past unrest, including the 2009 Green Movement and the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, Basij units played a central role in suppressing resistance through beatings, arrests, and close coordination with IRGC security forces. Their value to the regime lies not in battlefield strength, but in omnipresence and ideological loyalty.

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Their mission is to control dissent at the local level—before it becomes national. As long as the Basij remain loyal and effective in towns, neighborhoods, and campuses, the regime can contain unrest. If they hesitate, defect, or stand aside, Tehran’s grip weakens rapidly.

The Basij are the real instrument of population control. If the regime is forced to deploy the IRGC widely for internal order, it signals that local control has failed—and that the system is under far greater strain.

The Trump administration should be careful not to hand Tehran the propaganda victory it wants. Loud declarations about regime change from Washington risk delegitimizing Iranian voices. Support the people. Isolate the killers. Let the regime own its crimes.

The IRGC, by contrast, controls the military and functions as an economic empire. Beyond internal security, the IRGC also shapes Iran’s foreign policy—overseeing missile forces, regional proxies, and external operations. It exists to defend the revolution abroad, while the Basij exists to control society at home.

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Over the past three decades, the IRGC has embedded itself in Iran’s most important industries—energy, construction, telecommunications, transportation, ports, and black-market finance. Entire sectors of the Iranian economy now depend on IRGC-controlled firms and foundations.

This creates a decisive tension. On one hand, the IRGC has every reason to defend the regime that enriched it. On the other, prolonged instability, sanctions, and economic collapse threaten the very assets the Guards control. At some point, self-preservation may begin to compete with ideological loyalty.

That is why Iran’s future may depend less on what protesters do in the streets—and more on whom the IRGC ultimately chooses to back.

WHO WOULD RULE IRAN IF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC FALLS?

Three outcomes appear plausible.

The first is repression. The Basij could maintain local control while the IRGC backs the Supreme Leader, allowing the regime to crush dissent, and impose order through overwhelming force. This would preserve the Islamic Republic, but at the cost of deeper isolation and long-term decay.

The second is continuity without clerical dominance. A “soft coup” could sideline aging clerics in favor of a military-nationalist leadership that preserves core power structures while shedding the regime’s most unpopular religious figures. The system would remain authoritarian—but altered.

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The third is fracture. If parts of the Basij splinter or stand aside—and the IRGC hesitates to intervene broadly—the regime’s internal control could unravel quickly. This is the least likely outcome, but the most transformative—and the one most favorable to long-term regional stability.

Revolutions tend to succeed not because crowds grow larger, but because security forces eventually stop obeying orders.

America’s strategic objective: clarity without ownership

The United States must be disciplined about its goal.

America should not seek to “run Iran,” redraw its culture, or impose a leader. That approach has failed elsewhere. But neither should Washington pretend neutrality between an abusive theocracy and a population demanding dignity.

Our strategy is clear:

EXILED IRANIAN CROWN PRINCE URGES TRUMP TO HELP AS PROTESTS AGAINST ISLAMIC REGIME INTENSIFY: ‘MAN OF PEACE’

Prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

End Iran’s export of terrorism and proxy war.

Push Iran toward regional stability rather than disruption.

IRANIAN MILITARY LEADER THREATENS PREEMPTIVE ATTACK AFTER TRUMP COMMENTS

Encourage a government that derives legitimacy from its people, not coercion.

Achieving that outcome requires pressure without provocation.

What the Trump administration and allies should do now

TRUMP HAS HISTORIC CHANCE TO HELP TOPPLE IRAN’S AMERICA-HATING REGIME

First, expose repression relentlessly. Iran’s internet blackouts are a weapon. The U.S. and allies should support every lawful means of keeping Iranians connected and atrocities visible.

Second, target the regime’s enforcers—not the public. Sanctions should focus on specific IRGC units, Basij commanders, judges, and security officials responsible for killings and mass arrests. Collective punishment only strengthens regime propaganda.

Third, signal consequences—and off-ramps. Those ordering violence must know they will be held accountable. Those who refuse unlawful orders should know the world is watching—and remembering.

IRAN REGIME SAID TO UNLEASH HEZBOLLAH AND IRAQI MILITIAS AS UPRISING SPREADS

Fourth, deter external escalation. Tehran may try to unify the nation through confrontation abroad. Strong regional missile defense, maritime security, and allied coordination reduce the regime’s ability to change the subject with war.

Finally, do not hand Tehran the propaganda victory it wants. Loud declarations about regime change from Washington risk delegitimizing Iranian voices. Support the people. Isolate the killers. Let the regime own its crimes.

The bottom line

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Iran’s rulers believe they are carrying out divine will. That makes them dangerous—and stubborn. But it does not make them immortal.

Every revolutionary regime eventually faces a moment when fear stops working, money runs out, and loyalty fractures. Iran may be approaching that moment now.

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The outcome will not be decided by speeches in Washington, but by choices in Tehran—especially inside the IRGC.

If the Guards conclude their future lies with the people rather than the clerics, Iran could finally turn a page. If they do not, repression will prevail—for a time.

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America’s task is not to force history, but to shape the conditions under which it unfolds—with care, strategy, and moral clarity.

Because when the Islamic Republic finally faces its reckoning, the world must be ready—not to occupy Iran, but to ensure that what replaces the tyranny is not simply the same regime in a different uniform.

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DAVID MARCUS: Impeding federal law enforcement is not protest, it’s just crime

There seems to be a bit of confusion in our society of late about what “civil disobedience” is and what it isn’t. Last week, this very confusion got 37-year-old Renee Good killed.

Political protest in the form of civil disobedience has a long and very proud tradition, from Mahatma Gandhi nonviolently defying the British in India, to our own Martin Luther King Jr. penning his eloquence from a Birmingham jail cell.

There is a stoic dignity to this practice, which in and of itself grants the words of its practitioners a gravity and profound humility.

What we are seeing across the country as organized gangs of wine moms use Antifa tactics to harass and impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is not civil disobedience. It isn’t even protest. It’s just crime.

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The word “civil” in civil disobedience refers to the fact that the protester is allowing themselves to be arrested in order to emphasize just how important their cause is to them. It is also generally done in a context that threatens minimal harm to police and bystanders.

Today, across the country, but especially in bastions of democratic socialism like Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle, we see something entirely different: bands of people following, harassing, doxxing and sometimes engaging in direct assault against ICE agents.

What these ICE Watch groups across the country, of which Good was reportedly a trained member, do is entirely different. They are trying to impede federal agents from carrying out democratically enacted laws, not sending a message, and importantly, they are trying to evade capture.

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Sorry, that is crime, not protest.

Further, we need to ask ourselves, quite seriously, if groups of people training and then executing missions that put law enforcement and the public in harm’s way may, in fact, be criminal conspiracies.

If one’s job is to be a neighborhood lookout for a street drug dealing operation, that is a crime. It’s not entirely clear why doing the same thing to protect illegal immigrants, including many of whom are vicious criminals, isn’t a similar activity.

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According to a recent poll, only 24% of Americans believe that it is acceptable to go beyond peaceful protest in response to ICE enforcement. But among White women 18-44, that number leaps to an astounding 61%.

Maybe they are listening to too many true crime podcasts, but we have to ask ourselves, how on Earth did this become acceptable behavior in our society?

The short answer is that for most of this century, our law enforcement agencies and courts have just let it happen. They have decided that some criminal activity is just fine so long as your cause is just.

ICE OFFICER WHO SHOT MINNESOTA WOMAN WAS DRAGGED BY CAR OF ILLEGAL ALIEN SEX OFFENDER MONTHS EARLIER

This often begins with infractions of the law that border on silly, such as throwing a Subway sandwich at a cop, but then the sandwich becomes a snowball, then a lock, and the next thing you know people are striking federal agents with SUVs.

The video of Good and her partner heckling and, let’s be honest, goading ICE officers with an obnoxious smugness that makes most people’s skin crawl, is just one of many. 

We see these self-important White women doing it in video after video after video, taunting cops, insulting journalists or even bystanders, often with a weird and disturbing glee.

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Let’s be clear, this is happening because we let it happen. Where I live in West Virginia, if I saw a state trooper had pulled over a friend of mine and decided to start throwing things at the cop, I would rightfully be arrested. So why are the rules different when opposing ICE?

The responsible thing for every Democrat in politics and in the media to do today, right now, is to tell their audiences that it is never OK to assault a cop, it is never OK to impede a federal investigation, and they need to knock it off.

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Instead, Friday saw Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., riling up a Minnesota crowd from the back of a pickup truck saying, “You all have insisted that this resistance is not one that can be intimidated.” If she was referring to using automobiles to thwart federal agents, as she seemed to be, that is simply a call for insurrection.

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In fact, there is good reason to believe that anyone who would say that should not be in Congress.

Sadly, Democrats will not do the responsible thing, even though it would protect their own supporters such as Good, who should still be alive today.

No, there is only one answer here; enforcing the law.

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And here is my warning: If we do not enforce the law, if we simply allow these cosplaying would-be revolutionaries to do whatever they want, including hitting cops with cars, Renee Good will not be the last to needlessly die.

This madness needs to end, and it needs to end right now.

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Americans can’t close our eyes to the murder of Christians in Nigeria

On Christmas Day, U.S. forces unleashed targeted missile and drone strikes in Nigeria against Islamist terrorists who had been killing Christians and other civilians with impunity. 

It propelled Nigeria into the headlines and caught many Americans unaware of the growing conflict in Africa between Christians, radical Islam and others that is spreading across the sub-Saharan Sahel region. 

But I had just been on a fact-finding mission to Nigeria a week earlier and, although U.S. Africa Command’s kinetic action was a surprise, it was not entirely unexpected. In November, President Donald Trump had made clear to Nigeria’s leaders that they had to do more to combat terrorism. This strike resulted from close cooperation between Nigerian and American military planners. 

In the nation’s capital, Abuja, I knelt in the Christian Reformed Church of Nigeria the weekend before Christmas and prayed with Christians who live, work and worship in a capital that — at least for now — still feels normal. Kids fidgeted in the pews. Families sang. It wasn’t that different than my parish at home in Spokane, Washington.

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Yet, at the same time, in the middle belt of Nigeria, Christian farmers went to sleep wondering if armed men would come in the night — if their village would be raided, their church burned, their pastor threatened, their daughters taken, their sons killed, their farms looted.  

That contrast — peace in the capital, fear in the countryside — is why our congressional delegation came to meet with government officials.  

We met with faith leaders, Christians and others, who described what it means to live under threat. The scale is staggering. Estimates in the congressional record say more than 7,000 Christians were killed in 2025 and over 19,000 churches have been attacked or destroyed; and Vatican News reports more than 52,000 Christians have been killed since 2009.

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Islamic terrorism is not a problem we can wish away and Nigeria is far more vital to American security than most people realize. 

Nigeria is Africa’s largest country, and before 2050 it is projected to grow to a population of 400 million, to the third most populous, overtaking the United States. It is home to vast oil and mineral resources, including rare earths, but the unstable political situation keeps one of the world’s most significant democracies in the slow lane.  

As we start a new year, Americans will move on from the Christmas headlines. Nigeria can’t. And neither should we.

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Nigeria is plagued with multiple violent groups, from criminal gangs to an Islamic extremist dimension: Boko Haram and ISIS-linked terrorists in the northeast, and — far closer to Nigeria’s heartland — Fulani jihadi militias that have terrorized rural communities, driven families off their land and made ordinary life impossible. 

The Nigerian government faces real challenges. The Fulani jihadi militias in parts of the Middle Belt are a solvable test of political will: disarm the militias, arrest and prosecute ringleaders, and provide basic protection so Christian farmers can stay on their land. The Boko Haram/ISIS-linked insurgency will require harder, longer effort — it is an entrenched network with transnational ties that recruits, holds territory and grows. 

Islamic terrorism is not a problem we can wish away and Nigeria is far more vital to American security than most people realize. 

We met with Nigerian officials to hear how they assess the threat and where they need help. The best conversations were frank: Nigeria’s security services are stretched; the country is trying to keep core areas secure while violence persists in the periphery; and the fight is not only military — it’s about governance, accountability and public trust. 

America cannot — and should not — try to be the world’s policeman. But “not policing the world” does not mean closing our eyes to real terrorist threats.

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America does not have to commit boots on the ground and drift into the forever wars of the past two decades to make a difference: supplying weapons, as we have done in Ukraine, and targeted strikes, like those that brought the Houthis and Iranian mullahs to heel, can have a decisive impact. 

U.S. engagement is key: improving intelligence cooperation, targeting the financing networks that profit from kidnapping, and backing reforms that make security forces more professional and more trusted.

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At the same time, we could learn from the Israelis who have made it clear that killing Israeli Jews will be met with fierce retribution, no matter where it happens. We should have the backbone to say the same about Christian communities, with our words — and with our Tomahawk missiles. 

In Abuja, I prayed in peace. Not far away, families prayed just to survive the night. The Christmas strike on ISIS was a reminder that jihadist terror is still expanding — and Nigeria is on the front line. Religious freedom is worth defending. And America cannot pretend this threat doesn’t matter. Nigeria’s leaders need to act now by protecting communities, ending impunity, and proving the state can govern. 

DR MARC SIEGEL: Medical miracle or modern science? Both can be signs of God at work

Is what you are experiencing really a medical miracle, or is it simply medical technology advancing at just the right speed to swoop in and save your life, or the life of someone who really matters to you?

Or does it really matter which of these it is? For me, medicine and advancing technologies are the “hands of God,” and so the coincidence of a miracle recovery occurring just as a technology emerging is God’s presence.

I remember when my cousin Howard, a retired physician, was in the hospital for a raging lymphoma back in 2002, and he responded well to a standard chemotherapy regimen called CHOP that had been used to effectively treat many lymphomas since the 1960s. 

DR MARC SIEGEL: 5 INCREDIBLE MIRACLES FROM 2025 THAT GIVE ME HOPE FOR 2026

At the end, his hematologist said to me, and to Howard, that though he was now in remission, he felt the chances of recurrence over the next 15 years were close to 100%. But, then he said there was a new drug we could try that was just emerging, a targeted monoclonal antibody that was showing increasing promise against lymphoma. 

Howard received it and has never had a recurrence, and the combination therapy, known as RCHOP, is now standard.

In 1995, Melvin Mann, was a 37-year-old Army major when he was diagnosed with a deadly blood cancer, chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). He lost weight, became severely fatigued and was in a downhill spiral when, three years later, he was among the first to receive a new tyrosine kinase inhibitor in a clinical trial (CML patients make too much of the enzyme tyrosine kinase, which leads to an overproduction of white blood cells). Soon his energy returned, and he put on weight and less than a year later, he ran a marathon.

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This is not to say that all new and emerging medical treatments are automatically miracle cures. We need to be very wary of snake oil salesmen. As Dr. Scott Rodeo, head team physician for the New York Giants, pointed out recently, “regenerative medicine isn’t there yet. The science is promising, but the marketing is sprinting too far ahead.” 

For me, medicine and advancing technologies are the “hands of God,” and so the coincidence of a miracle recovery occurring just as a technology emerging is God’s presence.

He wrote that stem cell treatments promoted in offshore clinics in Panama, Colombia and other countries are unproven and unregulated, “which makes it impossible for me, or any physician, to give objective medical advice about them.” 

Rodeo also warned about devastating potential complications including blindness, tumor formation and severe infection. And that the effectiveness is “symptom-modifying at best.”

Speaking of snake oil salesmen who promote hype that preys on people’s thirst for medical miracles, in Kenya there are literally miracle workers who profess to cure deadly diseases with magical waves of hands. These are preachers, prophets and magicians who claim they can provide cures by casting spells. And there are even medical professionals in Africa who claim that magic spells work. The problem has gotten so pervasive that the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council has raised concerns about public health safety and professional ethics surrounding these claims.

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Medical miracles are real, we experience them every day, as I wrote in my book, “The Miracles Among Us.” These miracles have many definitions and are unexpected and frequently overlooked. They are uplifting and provide us with hope in the New Year. 

At the same time, we need to be wary of those who offer us free miracles to make a buck or otherwise control us.

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I lead a university. Higher education is failing students — Congress is right to act

Something is broken in American higher education, and this year Washington may finally do something about it.

This week, congressional leaders announced their 2026 policy priorities, and for the first time in years, higher education is near the top of the list. From student loan reform to an accreditation overhaul, lawmakers are signaling that the days of blank checks and political protection for bloated institutions may finally be over.

They’re right to act. For decades, many colleges and universities have enjoyed massive taxpayer support with little accountability. Tuition has skyrocketed, administrative costs have ballooned, and too many graduates leave with crushing debt but no clear path forward.

As the president of Southeastern University, I believe it is time to align higher education with what students actually need. That means affordable, purpose-driven programs that prepare them for real life, not just lectures. It means rethinking accreditation systems that protect entrenched interests. And it means supporting schools that offer practical learning, character development, and real returns for students and taxpayers alike.

FIVE HOPEFUL SIGNS COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE SEEKING TRUTH ONCE MORE

The traditional model is no longer working. The average cost of a four-year degree has more than doubled in the last generation. Student loan debt now tops $1.7 trillion. And many employers still say graduates lack essential workplace skills, including communication, critical thinking, and basic reliability.

At the same time, accreditation bodies have created a system that favors conformity over innovation. They block emerging and faith-based institutions from competing, while shielding legacy schools from reform. The result is less competition, more ideological groupthink, and fewer options for families looking for something different. The system has been built to serve institutions, not students. That must change. Encouragingly, some accreditors, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), under its new leadership, are beginning to push against this norm and promote innovation that truly serves students.

Accountability doesn’t mean more federal red tape. It means asking basic, common-sense questions: Are students graduating on time? Are they finding meaningful work or service opportunities? Are they growing in responsibility, purpose and leadership?

UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS ADMIT COLLEGES ‘LOST THEIR MISSION’ AS TRUMP PUSHES EDUCATION OVERHAUL

We need to reward schools that deliver high-quality, low-cost education. We should open the door for trade schools, Christian universities, and nontraditional programs to thrive without being penalized by outdated standards.

At Southeastern University, we have built a model that combines vocational clarity, experiential learning, and a foundation of Christian leadership. We partner with employers, ministries, and community leaders so students gain real-world experience before they ever cross the graduation stage. We do this while keeping our tuition among the lowest in our category.

This isn’t theory — it’s working. And we’re not alone. Across the country, mission-driven colleges are proving that it is possible to educate the whole person without burdening students with excessive debt or ideological pressure.

This is a rare window for change. Students are demanding more. Families are losing trust. And now Congress is finally asking the right questions.

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But it will take courage to follow through. The same institutions that helped create this crisis will be the loudest defenders of the status quo. They will argue that reform is dangerous, that oversight is political, and that any challenge to the current system is an attack on higher education itself.

It isn’t. It’s a defense of what higher education was always meant to be: a path to truth, service, and opportunity.

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The future of American higher education won’t be saved by doubling down on debt and bureaucracy. It will be saved by bold leadership that believes in affordability, accountability, and the dignity of every student’s calling.

Congress is right to act. Now they must finish the job and put students first.

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JONATHAN TURLEY: Even the Washington Post admits Jack Smith was wrong on free speech

For years, some of us have argued that President Donald Trump‘s January 6th speech was protected under the First Amendment and that any prosecution would collapse under governing precedent, including .  I was regularly attacked as an apologist for my criticism of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “war on free speech.” I wrote about his history of ignoring such constitutional protections in his efforts to prosecute targets at any cost. I also wrote about how Smith’s second indictment (which the Post supported) was a direct assault on the First Amendment. Now, years later, the Washington Post has acknowledged that Trump’s speech was protected and that Smith “would have blown a hole in the First Amendment.”

In this appearance before Congress, Smith’s contempt for the First Amendment was on full display. During his testimony, he was asked by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) whether Trump was entitled to First Amendment protections for his speech.

Smith replied: “Absolutely not. If they are made to target a lawful government function and they are made with knowing falsity, no, they are not. That was my point about fraud not being protected by the First Amendment.”

The comment is entirely and shockingly wrong. Smith shows a complete lack of understanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court precedent.

JACK SMITH DENIES POLITICS PLAYED ANY ROLE IN TRUMP PROSECUTIONS AT HOUSE HEARING

First, the Supreme Court has held that knowingly false statements are protected under the First Amendment.

BILL MAHER URGES AMERICANS TO UNCONDITIONALLY SUPPORT FREE SPEECH, AVOID BECOMING LIKE BRITAIN

The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act. In , the Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies — in that case involving “stolen valor” claims. Likewise, spewing hate-filled lies is protected. In Snyder v. Phelps, also in 2011, the Court said the hateful protests of Westboro Baptist Church were protected.

Second, calling such claims “fraud” does not convert protected speech into criminal speech. Trump was speaking at a rally about his belief that the election was stolen and should not be certified. Many citizens supported that view. It was clearly protected political speech.

As I discuss in Smith’s prosecution was on a collision course with controlling Supreme Court precedent.

JONATHAN TURLEY: THE NEW BLASPHEMY? DARING TO LAUGH AT THE WRONG PEOPLE

In Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that even calling for violence is protected under the First Amendment unless there is a threat of “imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Smith would have lost, but he has a history of ignoring such constitutional protections. That was the case when his conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell was unanimously reversed as overextending another law.

Trump was never charged with inciting the riot despite pledges of Democratic D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to investigate Trump for that crime.

The reason is simple. It was not criminal incitement and Trump’s speech was protected under the First Amendment.

Nevertheless, the Post and other papers ran the same experts, who assured the public that no such protections existed. For example, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe has made a litany of such claims, including his declaration that President Donald Trump could be charged (“without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt”)  with the attempted murder of former Vice President Michael Pence.

The Post has now recognized that Trump does indeed enjoy First Amendment protections and that Smith was a constitutional menace. The change reflects a commendable shift in the Post’s editorial staff under owner Jeff Bezos and his new team at the paper.

The Post wrote: “Political speech — including speech about elections, no matter how odious — is strongly protected by the First Amendment. It’s not unusual for politicians to take factual liberties. The main check on such misdirection is public scrutiny, not criminal prosecution.”

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Of course, fraud is a crime. But that almost always involves dissembling for money, not political advantage. Smith’s attempt to distinguish speech that targets ‘a lawful government function’ doesn’t work. Most political speech is aimed at influencing government functions.

Smith might think his First Amendment exception applies only to brazen and destructive falsehoods like the ones Trump told after losing the 2020 election. But once an exception is created to the First Amendment, it will inevitably be exploited by prosecutors with different priorities. Imagine what kind of oppositional speech the Trump Justice Department would claim belongs in Smith’s unprotected category.

SENATE LAWMAKERS CLASH OVER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S APPROACH TO SPEECH, CENSORSHIP

Smith also said he makes ‘no apologies’ for the gag order he tried to impose on Trump during the prosecution. The decision to criminally charge a leading presidential candidate meant the charges would feature in the 2024 campaign. Yet Smith fought to broadly limit Trump’s ability to criticize him or the prosecution in general, claiming such statements would interfere with the legal process.

Bravo.

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This is precisely the argument that some of us have been making for years, while being relentlessly pursued by the media.

This is not meant as a criticism of the Post. At least the Post is now making a serious attempt to restore objectivity and accuracy to its coverage and editorials. As for Smith, his testimony confirms the worst assessments of his view of free speech. The only thing more chilling than his lack of knowledge of constitutional doctrine is his contempt for constitutional values.

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MIKE PENCE: Venezuela has a chance for freedom, thanks to Trump and our armed forces

For years, the people of Venezuela have endured a nightmare imposed by socialist tyranny. Under President Nicolás Maduro, a once-prosperous nation was reduced to deprivation, violence and despair. Families went hungry. Hospitals ran out of medicine. Millions fled their homes. Venezuela became a case study in how socialism destroys everything it touches. 

That dark chapter has come to an end. 

I have always believed that Maduro must go, and will always be proud of the Trump-Pence administration’s work on Venezuela. Together, we led the charge against Maduro, building an unprecedented coalition of over 60 nations and forging bipartisan consensus in Congress to recognize the illegitimacy of the dictator’s power.  

We froze regime assets so they could not use the funds to empower their human rights abuses, while providing nearly $1 billion in aid for the Venezuelan people. For the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, we invoked the Western Hemisphere’s version of a mutual defense pact to show our commitment to Venezuelan security and freedom.

HE FLED THE ‘HUNGER GAMES’ OF CUBA ONLY TO WATCH FREE AMERICANS CHEER COMMUNISM

While we ultimately fell short of our goal to free the people of Venezuela, I was heartened when the president ordered the military raid that captured Maduro and brought him to face justice in the United States. 

Thanks to the leadership of President Donald Trump and the professionalism of the United States armed forces, Maduro is gone. His grip on Venezuela has been broken, and a long-suffering people now have a historic opportunity to reclaim their freedom and rebuild their nation. 

For years, the United States rightly recognized that Maduro was a dictator with no legitimate claim to rule. He stole elections, jailed political opponents, silenced the free press and turned the machinery of government into a criminal enterprise. Trump deserves the gratitude of all who cherish freedom for taking bold and historic action to end this socialist catastrophe.

JAMES CARVILLE SAYS US WOULD BE ‘RIPE FOR INVASION’ IF TARGETING ‘CORRUPT’ REGIMES WAS LEGITIMATE

No free people knowingly trades prosperity for poverty. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, forced that decision on Venezuela — replacing free markets with centralized control, seizing the oil industry, commandeering electricity and telecommunications, and crushing private enterprise. The results were as predictable as they were devastating: food shortages, rolling blackouts, massive inflation and the collapse of civil society. 

I witnessed the toll of this tyranny firsthand during a visit to the Venezuelan border in 2019. I met displaced families who had fled with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Their heartbreaking stories left no doubt that Maduro’s regime was not merely incompetent, but profoundly cruel. 

That cruelty spilled across Venezuela’s borders and spread misery throughout the Western Hemisphere. Millions fled the country, triggering one of the largest refugee crises in modern history. Many eventually made their way to the United States, some illegally and others by exploiting a broken asylum system.

MADURO ARREST SENDS ‘CLEAR MESSAGE’ TO DRUG CARTELS, ALLIES AND US RIVALS, RETIRED ADMIRAL SAYS

At the same time, Maduro’s regime became deeply entangled in international drug trafficking, flooding American communities with poison and destroying countless lives. Even the Biden administration acknowledged the criminal nature of Maduro’s rule, placing a multimillion-dollar bounty on his capture for narco-terrorism and corruption. 

Maduro also invited America’s adversaries into our own hemisphere. Russia, Iran, Cuba and communist China expanded their influence under his protection, turning Venezuela into a platform for hostile powers operating dangerously close to our shores — a clear and present national security threat to the United States.

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Trump deserves the gratitude of all who cherish freedom for taking bold and historic action to end this socialist catastrophe.

The progressive left and some on the populist right have criticized Trump’s decision to move forward with absolute resolve in bringing Maduro to justice. The Constitution, however, vests the president with broad authority as commander-in-chief to take limited but decisive action to protect our nation, and he has an obligation to faithfully execute our nation’s laws, including the criminal laws that Maduro stands accused of breaking. Presidents of both parties have exercised these authorities for generations. To deny them now would dangerously weaken future presidents and place America at greater risk. 

Nicolás Maduro must answer for his crimes. He must answer for the corruption that hollowed out a nation, for the violence that muzzled dissent, and for the drug trade that took the lives of countless American citizens. Justice long delayed will finally be served.

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The Venezuelan people now stand at the threshold of a remarkable opportunity. They deserve a rebirth of freedom — a new Venezuela governed by Venezuelans, rooted in the recognition of God-given liberties, committed to free markets and sustained by free and fair elections. They deserve a future defined not by fear but by hope. 

Today, thanks to President Trump and the brave men and women of our armed forces, that future is within reach. Libertad can finally be restored. And as freedom takes root again in Venezuela, it will strengthen security and prosperity across our entire hemisphere — just as America has always stood ready to do. 

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GREGG JARRETT: If Walz is charged in Minnesota fraud scandal, his best defense is incompetence

“I hereby plead incompetence and stupidity.”

That’s probably the best defense that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz can offer if he is criminally charged in the shocking multi-billion-dollar taxpayer ripoffs that grow larger by the day.

Given his earned reputation, his excuse of incompetence would be credible.

Nearly every social service program receiving federal dollars was fleeced by fraudsters right under Walz’s nose, including child nutrition, daycare, healthcare, housing, and autism aid. Most of the perpetrators were Somalians who form a powerful voting block that the governor treasures like gold.

EMMER WARNS WALZ COULD END UP ‘IN CUFFS’ AMID MINNESOTA FRAUD CLAIMS

Walz was repeatedly warned of the swindles as far back as 2019 when he first took office. Instead of stopping the scams and prosecuting the grifters, he indulged them by establishing a culture of permissible fraud.

The scandal has already claimed Walz’s political career, forcing him to abandon his bid for re-election. But if he reckoned that quitting would somehow shield him from legal culpability, he is mistaken. There is mounting evidence that Walz was willfully complicit, deliberately refusing to expose or pursue the monumental thefts and, instead, launching aggressive measures to scuttle any legal scrutiny and criminal consequence.  

The governor’s own state workers at the Department of Human Services issued a blistering statement blaming him as 100% responsible. Witnesses say he retaliated against whistleblowers and schemed to discredit the well-documented fraud reports.

WALZ’S LONG-RUNNING FRAUD SCANDAL PUTS HARRIS CAMPAIGN JUDGMENT UNDER SCRUTINY

If true, Walz’s aberrant actions run dangerously close to criminal behavior involving cover-ups and obstruction.  

Nine federal agencies, including the FBI, are now working to unravel the full breadth and depth of the colossal cons.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sent scores of investigators and lawyers to Minnesota to prosecute the web of fraud and deceit.

They will inevitably weigh whether Walz should face criminal charges himself.

MINNESOTA AG BLASTS HOUSE HEARING ON FRAUD SCANDAL IN HIS STATE : ‘A LOT OF BULLS— FROM REPUBLICANS’

Possible Federal Charges

There are several federal statutes to consider. For example, 18 USC 371 makes it a crime to conspire with others to defraud the government. At present, there is no known evidence that Walz directly participated in the scams themselves or accepted money.

However, if he plotted to cover up the fraud by impairing, obstructing or defeating efforts to bring the fraudsters to justice, the conspiracy statute is applicable. So, too, are the various obstruction of justice laws.

JASON CHAFFETZ: DEMOCRATS TURNED OUR TREASURY INTO A ‘PIGGY BANK FOR FRAUDSTERS’

There is also 18 USC 2, the aiding and abetting statute where accomplices are treated the same as the main perpetrators. That law gave rise to the “willful blindness doctrine” recognized by our courts.

An example is a businessman who intentionally ignores or turns a blind eye to his partner’s money laundering, resulting in charges against both. Similarly, a public official such as Walz can be indicted for deliberate inaction where he has a clear duty to act.

Finally, 18 USC 3 is relevant whenever concealment occurs. Whoever knows that a crime has been committed but “hinders apprehension, trial or punishment,” is guilty of being an accessory after the fact. That bears a striking resemblance to what Walz is accused of doing.

FROM CONGRESS, TO VP NOMINEE TO DISGRACED FORMER GOVERNOR: A LOOK AT THE RISE AND FALL OF TIM WALZ

All of this invites the question of the governor’s motive. If not money, how did he stand to benefit by suppressing the avalanche of fraud? That’s the easy part. Votes.

Walz, together with liberal elites and their media handmaidens, have long dismissed the rumors and reports of Somali-engineered fraud as “racist.” Apparently, in Minnesota it is politically incorrect to enforce the law against immigrants from that particular East African country. It’s just not fashionable.

God forbid that putting criminals behind bars might lose electoral support. It’s chic to turn the other cheek.

REP TOM EMMER: WALZ OVERSAW BILLIONS IN STOLEN TAXPAYER MONEY — NOW COMES ACCOUNTABILITY

So, the Somalian fraudsters were gifted a “get-out-of-jail” free card, courtesy of the governor and his cronies. Walz, in turn, secured their votes. It was a nifty quid pro quo, but with an alternate currency — votes. As protection rackets go, it was slick.   

That cozy arrangement is manifested in a recently uncovered audio recording of a 2021 conversation between Walz’s Attorney General Keith Ellison and Somali hustlers who were soon after convicted of scamming millions of dollars. They were heard leaning hard on the AG to “protect” them in exchange for support and campaign donations.  

Ellison eagerly capitulated but now denies any wrongdoing. He returned the cash.           

Walz’s Incompetence Defense

It is too early to know whether a criminal case will be filed against Minnesota’s beleaguered governor. The U.S. attorney and DOJ lawyers are still digging through the mountains of evidence.

However, as noted above, the only tenable defense Walz may be able to conjure up is incompetence and stupidity. It is something that jurors might readily accept.

SCATHING AUDIT REVEALS MORE FRAUD CONCERNS INSIDE TOP MINNESOTA AGENCY WITH FABRICATED DOCUMENTS, ‘MISCONDUCT’

After all, ineptitude became the governor’s calling card. He infamously conceded his own buffoonery in the 2024 Vice Presidential debate when he called himself a “knucklehead.” He was such a gaffe factory that the Kamala Harris campaign squirreled him away from the media.     

Walz achieved the impossible. He made his running mate look like a genius. His bizarre on-stage antics were constant fodder for mockery. Baffling verbal goofs, such as boasting that he had “become friends with school shooters,” left voters scratching their heads or snickering.  

A series of demonstrable lies about his military service and his peculiar treks to China only compounded the impression of a man who is either a serial fabricator or not right in the head. Maybe both are true.  

And who can forget his epic bungling of the George Floyd riots in 2020? He radicalized the tragic death, thereby ginning up the ensuing violence. As Minneapolis burned, Walz dithered. Afterwards, he blamed the looting and the torched buildings on systemic racism.

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So, it’s not a stretch to imagine that an indictment alleging Walz was wittingly complicit in his state’s massive welfare fraud scandal might be met with a defense of “misfeasance” (careless or incompetent execution of a lawful duty) to combat the incriminating evidence of “malfeasance” (a deliberate, unlawful act).   

It’s a distinction that can mean the difference between conviction and acquittal.

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Should Walz find himself in the dock sometime soon … don’t be surprised if he portrays himself as a blockhead who was intellectually incapable of grasping the obvious.

Minnesota jurors who know the governor would understand completely.

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One year after the LA fires, California still hasn’t learned its lesson

One year ago this week, the Palisades Fire erupted in the hills above Los Angeles, killing a dozen people and destroying nearly 7,000 homes and businesses. It became L.A.’s worst urban wildfire catastrophe. Governor Gavin Newsom blamed climate change. But, evidence now emerging from lawsuits filed on behalf of victims tells a different story — one in which California’s own environmental policies helped transform a tiny, containable brush fire into an inferno. Federal investigators have determined that the Palisades Fire was a “holdover fire” — a rekindling of a small brush fire on New Year’s Eve that firefighters quickly contained. For six days, the fire smoldered underground in root systems on state parkland, waiting for the Santa Ana winds to arrive. When they did, the results were catastrophic.

Why wasn’t the fire fully extinguished? And why did no one monitor the burn scar as the National Weather Service issued its most extreme fire-danger warnings? The answer lies in California State Parks’ own policies — policies that, according to court filings, “put plants over people.” Documents obtained through public records requests reveal that just weeks before the fire, California State Parks completed a Wildfire Management Plan for Topanga State Park that designated large zones as “avoidance areas” to protect endangered plant species and Native American archaeological sites.

Within these areas, normal firefighting tactics are restricted. No heavy equipment. No retardant. No standard mop-up operations to extinguish smoldering hotspots “without the presence of an archeologist” or resource specialist. The plan’s stated preference: “let Topanga State Park burn in a wildfire event.” Text messages between State Parks employees during the initial fire show them coordinating to limit firefighting impacts to protect endangered plants. “There is an endangered plant population and a cultural site in the immediate area,” one official texted. “Can you make sure no suppression impacts at skull rock please,” another later replied, referring to a site near the fire’s point of origin.

AFTER THE ASHES: A PALISADES RESIDENT’S LIFE IN DECIMATED LA ENCLAVE ONE YEAR AFTER DEADLY WILDFIRES

When a State Parks employee asked a fire department heavy equipment supervisor about deploying bulldozers, he replied: “Heck no that area is full of endangered plants. I would be a real idiot to ever put a dozer in that area.”

He was right to be cautious. Damaging endangered plants, even while doing fire-safety work, could come along with severe consequences. In 2020, Los Angeles paid $1.9 million in fines for damaging the same species of plant — Braunton’s milkvetch — while replacing power poles to improve fire safety.

This is California’s environmental bureaucracy in action: a system so tangled in procedural requirements that firefighters must navigate botanical checklists while homes burn. Evidence produced in the lawsuit even suggests that a State Parks employee instructed firefighters to cover portions of their containment line with brush after the blaze was declared contained — effectively undoing the firebreaks meant to stop its spread. 

But, the dysfunction doesn’t end at firefighting restrictions. California has also failed to address the underlying fuel loads that make these fires so catastrophic in the first place. In 2021, following the state’s worst fire year on record, Governor Newsom announced a plan to treat one million acres annually by 2025 — clearing brush, thinning forests and conducting prescribed burns to reduce dangerous fuel buildups. After decades of inadequate land management, California’s landscapes had become dangerously overgrown, packed with vegetation that easily ignites into megafires. Five years later, the state’s own data show it falling far short. According to California’s Interagency Treatment Dashboard, roughly 730,000 acres were treated in 2024 — well below the million-acre target. Prescribed fire reached only about 189,000 acres against a 400,000-acre goal.

Meanwhile, wildfires continue to outpace treatment by a wide margin. Over the past decade, California has averaged more than 1.3 million acres burned annually. In the catastrophic 2020 and 2021 fire seasons alone, some 6.8 million acres burned — roughly ten times what was treated over the same period. Southern California, where the Palisades Fire ignited, has been particularly neglected.

What’s holding California back? The same regulatory morass that hamstrings firefighting. Air quality rules restrict when prescribed burns can occur. Liability concerns deter private landowners from clearing brush. Environmental reviews delay projects for years. The very laws designed to protect California’s environment make it harder to protect Californians from environmental catastrophe.

Californians deserve better. They deserve a state that clears fuels before they become infernos, that lets firefighters fight fires without first consulting bureaucrats and that values human lives and homes at least as much as endangered plants.

Until then, the next catastrophe is not a matter of if, but when. 

SEN JEAN SHAHEEN: Maduro is gone, but the same power structures remain in Venezuela

Earlier this week, Nicolás Maduro’s vice president was sworn in as Venezuela’s president in a ceremony attended by the same officials who have led the regime for years. The country’s senior military commanders were present, along with the interior minister who oversees much of the state’s repressive security apparatus. Also on hand to congratulate her were the most powerful ambassadors in Caracas, from Russia to China to Iran.

Despite the successful operation by our military and intelligence community that took Nicolás Maduro into federal custody, control of the Venezuelan state has not meaningfully shifted. The same individuals continue to command the institutions that matter.

That continuity has consequences. The networks tied to drug trafficking and official corruption remain entrenched in the government, as do the conditions that have driven more than seven million people to flee the country, many of them to the United States or to neighboring countries like Colombia and Peru. The American adversaries most invested in preserving this system remain actively engaged.

AFTER MADURO, VENEZUELA POWER VACUUM EXPOSES BRUTAL INSIDERS AND ENFORCERS

Changing that reality is far more complex than the removal of a single leader. It would mean reforming Venezuela’s security forces, dismantling criminal enterprises embedded in the state, stabilizing a collapsed economy and supporting a credible path to democratic elections. Those efforts would require significant American resources and carry real risks, with no guarantee of success.

At this early stage, the United States has committed major military forces and personnel to the region. Roughly fifteen thousand U.S. personnel and about 20% of U.S. Navy assets were positioned in the region during the buildup, supported by air assets. That scale illustrates how quickly a limited operation can become a lasting obligation.

Any expectation that Venezuela could quickly finance its own recovery, or offset the costs of U.S. involvement, is unrealistic. Restoring Venezuela’s oil production is a long-term undertaking. Years of mismanagement have degraded infrastructure and driven out skilled workers. Bringing production back online at scale would require lengthy technical work and substantial private investment, under security and governance conditions that do not currently exist. Further, U.S. refineries already have their hands full — they cannot drop their work to refine domestic crude oil to prioritize Venezuela’s oil. That’s why President Trump even recently acknowledged that U.S. taxpayers may be called upon to reimburse oil companies who want to set up shop in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the administration has dismantled U.S. economic and democracy assistance, including cost-effective and targeted tools that would be essential to stabilizing Venezuela and supporting a transition away from corruption and criminal control.

China, by contrast, has consistently used infrastructure, financing, and humanitarian support to expand its influence in Venezuela and across the region. Undermining U.S. economic engagement while signaling interest in extracting resources risks strengthening Beijing’s position, not weakening it — and this would be a message sent around the entire world: the U.S. takes while China invests.

Taken together, tackling these challenges would amount to a multi-year commitment of resources, attention, and political capital, with uncertain outcomes and competing demands elsewhere. That commitment could grow, with the President indicating interest in ever-expanding interventions in the hemisphere.

These tradeoffs are not abstract. Long-term involvement abroad competes with pressing domestic priorities, including lowering household costs, protecting access to health care, and maintaining investments at home in affordability and economic growth.

More than anything, I hear from my constituents in New Hampshire that they want their elected leaders to focus on their pocketbook economic concerns, on making their lives more affordable and lowering the cost of key expenses like housing, health care, energy as well as everyday essentials. They recognize the importance of America playing a constructive and muscular role in the world, but don’t want their elected leaders to ignore their very real economic priorities.

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President Trump acknowledged those concerns when he campaigned for office, but his agenda since — from blanket tariffs to health care cuts — have had the opposite effect. Americans increasingly feel squeezed by the high cost of living. The president also campaigned on a restrained foreign policy that avoided the sort of open-ended nation-building commitments we’ve seen in the past, but when it comes to Venezuela and the Western Hemisphere, we see him pursuing a very different approach. Threats and actions to seize or run sovereign territory are not only unpopular among the American people; they are among the costliest and strain partnerships and alliances, creating even more space for U.S. adversaries like Russia and China to take advantage.

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Americans know that our country — and the world — is stronger, safer and more prosperous when we are engaged in and shape what happens beyond our border. But they’re deeply mindful of the real trade-offs that exist when our leaders draw us into costly commitments overseas without a clear end-game or strategy.

Right now, the president has drawn the United States into a potentially protracted involvement in Venezuela and beyond. Thus far, we have not heard a consistent rationale for our involvement, much less a plausible long-term strategy for how we stabilize and transition Venezuela to a thriving democracy — long the shared objective of Republicans and Democrats. It is critical that the administration be transparent with the American people and Congress about the costs that involvement will incur and the real tradeoffs it entails. And in the process, it is vital that the administration not preserve the very autocratic systems and institutions they once saw as a U.S. national security threat.