The church is holy ground, not a stage for the left’s political rage

What happened several days ago at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, shook me to the core. Regular folks were worshipping Jesus at that godly hour, as Americans all over the country were doing, when anti-ICE protesters burst in and took over the worship — all because one of the pastors, David Easterwood, also serves as the local ICE field office director. These agitators demanded “justice for Renee Good,” and absurdly chanted “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” a long-disproven lie from Ferguson, Missouri. In doing so, they turned the house of God into a battlefield. Is anything holy anymore? Or is everything political? Are there no limits to these protesters who value their feelings above all — even above Jesus?

I have been on my Walk Across America, and was in Alabama when this happened. What makes this disruption of God’s house even worse is the irony. ICE has been transparent about the kind of dangerous criminals it has been targeting in Minnesota through Operation Metro Surge. Just recently, agents arrested the worst of the worst: child rapists, murderers, pedophiles and violent assailants — including a registered sex offender convicted of fondling a child and another charged with rape of a minor.

Yet these protesters aren’t rallying against the predators. They’re calling to abolish ICE, as if protecting our communities from such evils is the real crime. How is this not the work of Satan? I do not say this out of delusion or to be sensational. I say this because it reflects reality. 

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Do you know what it is like to live among people who have chosen the path of evil? We deal with it daily on the South Side of Chicago, where I have seen this kind of evil ruin lives. We suffered the consequences of defund the police, and we will suffer even more with this latest attack on law and order. That is a major reason why I’m walking across America — to raise funds for my community center, which will protect our children, our future, from the very evil that the Minnesota left seeks to protect.

All I know is that when activism crosses the altar, there is no good to be had. The church is not a stage for political intimidation.

That’s why I ask: Isn’t anything holy anymore? Does the safety of our children not matter? Does the safety of any law-abiding citizen not matter?

All I know is that when activism crosses the altar, there is no good to be had. The church is not a stage for political intimidation. Churches have always been places of refuge, repentance and reconciliation — not props for ideological theater. When activists storm a sanctuary, as they did at Cities Church, shouting down worshippers and frightening children, they aren’t defending the vulnerable — they’re violating sacred ground. It’s an assault on the soul of a community gathering to seek God.

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What truly scares me is that we’re witnessing the religion of progressivism in action — and it isn’t God. What we’re seeing in these anti-ICE actions isn’t compassion, but a secular creed with its own sins, saints and heretics. When they chant the lie of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” instead of “Amazing Grace,” they reveal the hollowness of their secularism.

Churches that allow or even sympathize with these kinds of disruptions are replacing the Gospel with grievance. You can’t preach salvation while practicing ideological coercion. Protesters claim they’re fighting for justice, but by invading a worship service, they’re elevating their agenda over the eternal message of Christ. As Scripture reminds us, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2).

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And who turned out to be the face of all of this? Don Lemon. He rushed into that church believing he was about to break the story of the year. He cared nothing for the pastors or their congregation. He claimed to be a Christian, but what Christian puts the pursuit of a manufactured story over worship and prayer? When he saw the reality of what he had done in the following days, he resorted to blaming White supremacy for the backlash. No, Don — the race card expired a while ago, but you keep swiping it because it’s all you’ve got, and sadly, so do others. The backlash was squarely due to you putting the chase for cheap clicks over Jesus. You know what the best cure for fears of irrelevancy is? God.

That’s the tragedy here — not just the disruption, but how quickly the pursuit of relevance through cheap political grandstanding can eclipse reverence. 

Yet in the midst of all this noise, one truth stands unshaken: Jesus is still on the throne, and His church will endure every storm. As I press on with my Walk Across America, I’m more convinced than ever that the answer isn’t more protests or more division. It’s more prayer, more responsibility and more faith in action.

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Scripture tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). That’s the call — not to tear down sacred spaces, but to build them up; not to abolish order, but to restore it with mercy and truth. Our children deserve churches that stand firm, communities that protect the vulnerable and a nation that chooses hope over havoc.

So let’s rise above the chaos. Let’s walk in the light, defend the holy and trust that God’s grace will complete what law and love demand. That’s why I keep walking, why we keep building — and why the Gospel will always outlast every fleeting creed.

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JONATHAN TURLEY: Democrat politicians are risking lives with reckless anti-ICE rhetoric

This year, there has been a race to the bottom as Democratic politicians fuel the rage in our streets against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. That continued when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz again rushed to judgment after a shooting, adding that the public should not treat Border Patrol or ICE officers as real “law enforcement” officers. However, rock bottom was finally reached by Arizona Democrat Attorney General Kris Mayes, who not only said that she does not consider ICE officers to be “real law enforcement,” but raised the possibility of citizens shooting them under state law.

First, the obvious.  Mayes said, “I put [“officers”] in air quotes because I don’t think they are real law enforcement.” These are real law enforcement officers under federal law, enforcing federal law. Period. The effort by Walz, Mayes, and others to question their status or treat them as impostors is clearly designed to inflame citizens and encourage greater confrontations. It is a dangerous form of demagoguery. It is sending citizens into harm’s way, encouraging them to impede federal operations involving the arrest of criminal suspects.

Mayes later stated that she was “mischaracterized” and that “the idea that I would want the life of any member of law enforcement put in danger is wrong, offensive, and an outright lie.” Mayes’ “mischaracterizations” came at a time of growing unrest and the attorney general rushed forward to add to the reckless rhetoric.

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Again, repeating Walz’s talking points, she referred to these officers as “poorly trained.” She obviously has no idea about the training of these officers. The officer involved in the Alex Pretti shooting was an experienced officer with the Border Patrol. The officer involved in the prior Renée Good shooting was also an experienced officer.

While mischaracterizing the officers, figures like Walz are sending demonstrably “untrained” citizens into highly dangerous situations. Walz specifically called out citizens into the streets to record these operations, which is precisely what Pretti was trying to do before his fatal confrontation with officers.

Mayes, however, was not looking for a tie in that race to the bottom. She told citizens that Arizona’s “Stand Your Ground” law might be cited as grounds for the use of lethal force against officers.  She declared:

“You have these masked, federal officers with very little identification — sometimes no identification — wearing plain clothes and masks and we have a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law that says if you reasonably believe your life is in danger, and you’re in your house or in your car or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.”

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She later added, “It’s a fact that we have a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law and, in other states, un-uniformed, masked people who can’t be identified as police officers.”

It was a reckless statement of the law. These laws only protect “reasonable” uses of self-defense. However, they have an express exemption for using force “to resist an arrest that the person knows or should know is being made by a peace officer or by a person acting in a peace officer’s presence and at his direction, whether the arrest is lawful or unlawful, unless the physical force used by the peace officer exceeds that allowed by law.”

It is not uncommon for law enforcement to use officers in plain clothes to make initial arrests or contact with suspects who might flee or resist.

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Mayes’ comments could encourage an already enraged and irrational segment of our population to use lethal force under the false pretense of standing their ground.

Attacks on these officers have increased exponentially with the violent rhetoric of these politicians. Just last week, a rioter bit off the finger of an officer.

Mayes also vowed to prosecute any ICE agent who violates state laws in these operations. She is also mimicking Walz in spreading legal disinformation. While federal officers do not have absolute immunity in all cases, it is extremely unlikely that state officials could successfully prosecute such cases without facing a transfer to federal court and likely dismissal.

Walz made the same misleading claim in saying that Minnesota would investigate the shooting and that the federal government would not be allowed to conduct the investigation. He has no authority to dictate who or how the shooting will be investigated.

While the state can conduct its own investigation, the federal government will investigate a shooting by a federal officer. Walz further pandered to the mob by raising the debunked “bait boy” story and telling citizens that ICE was “shooting them in the face when they come out of donut shops.”

Rage is hard to maintain for months, and the Pretti shooting, as described by one Democratic operative according to Fox’s Chad Pergram, is a “new wild card” in the politics on the Hill over funding.

There remain legitimate questions about this shooting. The videotapes do not appear to show, as suggested in early accounts from the federal government, that Pretti approached the officers brandishing a weapon.

Pretti does not obey the commands of the officers in returning to the middle of the road during their operation. However, he did not appear threatening until after the officer pushed him to the side of the road. At one point, he appears to shove the officer as he tries to assist a woman who was pushed to the ground.

What happens next is hard to determine. There is a video that suggests that an officer may have removed his weapon from its holster just before another officer yells “gun.” It is hard to see Pretti’s hands, and we do not know what happened in that split second. We may get a better idea as new videotapes emerge.

Law enforcement officers do not expect blind deference on shootings. However, they have a right to expect a fair chance for an investigation to hear their side of a shooting — not a governor or a mayor rushing before cameras to effectively accuse them of murder.

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At this point, it may not matter. Only the mob matters. Minneapolis Police Department Chief Brian O’Hara explained: “Even if there is an investigation that ultimately proves that at the time of the shooting it was legally justified, I don’t think that even matters at this point, because there just, there is so much outrage and concern around what is happening in the city.”

Walz has demonstrated politics of the lowest kind, stoking anger as citizens and officers alike are injured. Walz is pledging to go to court to stop further operations — a lawsuit that would be another frivolous filing. Previously, the state, including Attorney General Keith Ellison, filed to prevent the federal government from increasing forces to investigate fraud and immigration violations.

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Walz, Maye and others are following a long line of demagogues who sought to use social unrest to advance their political careers. For Walz, sending people into the streets has the benefit of not having them at home watching and reading about the growing fraud scandal in his state.

It is not a defense of democracy, but “mobocracy” in Minnesota.

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MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: The left is getting people killed

A Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minnesota shot a second person dead on Saturday. Most of the debate since then has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the left is getting people killed. Videos show both victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, impeding law enforcement operations, which progressive nonprofits, Democrats and liberal influencers have been encouraging for months.

Good drove her vehicle perpendicular to block traffic while her partner taunted ICE officers. Pretti intervened at least twice, first by waving traffic through on the street and again as an ICE officer sought to subdue another person interfering in the operation, triggering the agent to use pepper spray against him.

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In saying this, I am not defending the decisions and behaviors of the ICE officers or anyone else. The killings are a tragedy. And there is a worthwhile debate underway over ICE tactics, separate from the specific behaviors of Good and Pretti.

We don’t know what was in the minds of Good and Pretti specifically, but Democrats, progressives, and anti-ICE activists have for years called ICE and the Trump administration fascist and compared them to the Nazis. 

On January 19, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called ICE “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Last year, in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to block ICE from hiding its identities. The Los Angeles mayor called them a “reign of terror.” And a few days ago, the lieutenant governor of Minnesota urged citizens to “put your body on the line” to block ICE protests.

Walz and other Democrats have blocked state and local law enforcement from working with ICE, which has contributed to increasingly risky behavior by anti-ICE activists like Good and Pretti, and thus growing danger to everyone involved. There were no Minneapolis police visible in the videos of the Good and Pretti deaths.

And many of America’s largest progressive cities and states are all openly defiant of federal law, declaring themselves “sanctuaries” that protect illegal migrants from the federal government.

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California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and others are “sanctuary states.” At the same time, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Newark, Jersey City, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Reno, are “sanctuary cities.”

The underlying problem is that for decades, schools, Hollywood, and the media have made clear that we should risk and even sacrifice our own lives to stop fascism and Nazism. And yet neither ICE raids nor Trump are fascist, and it is offensive to compare them to the Nazis.

The Nazis rounded up Jewish citizens and shipped them to death camps. ICE, by contrast, is detaining foreigners who the government believes committed criminal offenses beyond coming to the U.S. illegally. No nation in the world has allowed more people to enter illegally. Nor has any treated them with greater due process than the U.S. is doing.

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The American people elected Trump president, like it or not, and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI establishes that federal law prevails over conflicting state or local laws. It ensures the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land,” binding state courts and governments. The ICE raids may be bad politics, but there is no question that they are constitutional.

While some Democrats and progressives know their language is hyperbolic, half of the individuals surveyed told pollsters last year that Trump is a fascist. Such radical beliefs appear to have partly motivated two assassination attempts against Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

While the radical left has for decades called its political opponents fascists, these views were until recently marginal views, even within the Democratic Party. Moreover, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all spoke out against illegal migration until 2016. So what changed? Why did so many Americans come to view a democratically elected president and law enforcement operations as equivalent to fascism? What radicalized the left?

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Part of the answer is bad information. Many progressives believe ICE is simply sweeping up hard-working and law-abiding immigrants, and do not know that 64 percent of immigrants detained since Trump took office in January 2025 had criminal convictions or pending charges, in addition to having broken the law by entering and working in the country without a visa.

For some, labeling Trump as a fascist was simply a political tactic and not something they believed. But many others believe it, as the polling data shows.

Many people, both liberals and conservatives, believe progressives like Good and Pretti are acting out of empathy and sympathy for migrants. But if they are, it is purely ideologically driven, not from any real-world understanding of migrant communities. Few of the White progressives protesting ICE have ever spoken more than a few words to, much less gotten to know illegal immigrants, even those who work for them as cleaners, cooks and gardeners, much less come to understand their lives.

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Many on the left view all migrants, a priori, as political refugees, without knowing anything of their specific circumstances, since Europeans ostensibly stole Indigenous land. And where White Americans are ostensibly heirs to those European oppressors, Latino migrants are heirs to the oppressed; serving justice requires mass migration.

Trump’s often brash and aggressive language sounds racist to many people on the left, many of whom do not view entering the country illegally as a crime. In that sense, the left’s view of Trump’s criticism and rhetoric around illegal migration as racist stems from a radical left victimhood ideology, which was created not by people fundamentally concerned with improving the lives of the downtrodden, but rather by a string of left-wing intellectuals who were anti-civilization and who characterize history as a story of evil oppressors versus good victims.

Behind this ideology is a story of European settlement of the Americas, and civilization itself, as illegitimate, because it supposedly rests upon violence and genocide.

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The moderate left, or establishment liberals, since World War II, have promoted increasingly open borders and more migration as part of a broader push for what the post-war philosopher Karl Popper called “the open society.” Elites after World War II promoted the open society vision to increase growth, open foreign markets to U.S. firms and products, and establish peace and security.

Over time, but particularly after 2016, the moderate left radicalized, joining the radical left in its view of Trump as fascist. Democrats had been moving to the left well before that, with the media showing clear increases in reference to racism and white supremacy after 2011.

Various causes can explain most, if not all, of the radicalization, making it overdetermined and thus impossible to reduce with much certainty to one or two causes. The news media became increasingly one-sided as it sought to appeal more to its core audience for economic reasons, as its overall audience shrank due to the rise of social media. And social media itself appears to have intensified certainty and intolerance by reinforcing existing views and prejudices.

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And behind all of those factors lies man’s need for meaning and purpose, which fighting fascism, real or fake, offers. There are few ways for anyone to be a hero anymore. Both Good and Pretti were 37 years old when they died, and millennials, more than Gen X before and Gen Z after, are very progressive and are “heroes in their narratives,” researchers find.

The deaths of Good and Pretti are thus the result of a collision of forces that have been building for decades. After World War II, fighting Nazis and fascists became the number one heroic fantasy for Americans and others in the West. And Baby Boomers taught their own revolutionary heroic values to their millennial children, who see fighting Trump and ICE as an opportunity to achieve a form of transcendence.

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For a brief moment after Trump’s 2024 re-election, it appeared that Democrats were rethinking their radicalism across a range of issues. A majority of voters had rejected not just Vice President Kamala Harris but the Democrats’ handling of the economy and immigration, and rejected the Democrats’ agenda on race, trans and climate change.

One year later, that’s all changed. The Democrats have clearly decided to disavow moderation and instead focus on attacking what they view as a major vulnerability and overreach. Sixty-eight percent of voters support closing the southern border, but 63% of voters and 70% of independents disapprove of the ICE raids. Fifty-eight percent of voters say they disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration. Disapproval of Trump on immigration rose from 39% in April to 48% today.

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Trump thus finds himself in a bind. If he continues the ICE raids, his approval ratings could worsen, thereby increasing the likelihood that Democrats will take control of one or more houses of Congress. If he calls them off, he hands Democrats a major political victory and will embolden their radicalization further.

It’s clear what the left wants. “You have the Minnesota National Guard troops,” wrote Keith Olbermann on X to Gov. Walz. “Deploy them. Arrest the ICE agents. Enforce the laws and defend your people against Trump’s Terrorists.”

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What Olbermann is proposing is nothing short of civil war. Like many others on the left, Olbermann views Trump’s supporters as “Nazis” and “fascists.”

We will soon learn much more about Pretti, as we did about Good. But already we know enough to know that they are victims of the left and its radicalization.

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MORNING GLORY: Canada is a small power biting the hand that protects it

Our very nice neighbor and ally to our north, Canada, has 42 million people and a GDP of 2.4 trillion, but doesn’t even spend 2% of that GDP on defense. Its new prime minister, Mark Carney, promises that it will reach that minimum standard for NATO alliance members by 2030. The last consecutive years in which Canada contributed 2% of its GDP to the defense needs of the West occurred around 1989-1990, after which defense expenditures dropped significantly. 

Canada answered the bell after 9/11, and while it’s standing military is quite small — 68,000 – it sent troops to Afghanistan from the beginning of that long war and kept them there until 2014, sacrificing 158 of their soldiers on that faraway battlefield. 

Five hundred sixteen Canadians died during the Korean War, and while Canada did not send its troops to Vietnam, many Canadians volunteered for the U.S. military and as many as 140 died there.

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We remember the events depicted in “Argo.” Many have cheered the musical “Come From Away.” My wonderful daughter-in-law and her parents and siblings came to the U.S. from Canada, and while now proud Americans, they are also proud Canadians. Few are the Americans who don’t genuinely consider our cousins to the north very close friends, if not so strong in the national security department, and also very baffling in their politics.

In the era of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, when the West stood up together and defeated the Soviet Union, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was a friend indeed who, while he could not bring great force to bear on the communist powers, stood side-by-side with Reagan even as later Canadian Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin and Stephen Harper stood shoulder to should with President George W. Bush and all America in the aftermath of the attack on our country. 

Canada has always been an ally of the strongest power in the West — first as part of the British Empire, then as part of the Commonwealth and as a part of NATO through the whole of the Cold War and since then as part of the “Five Eyes” of the intelligence consortium where trust and shared values were assumed. 

Those assumptions have now frayed.

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The long and wearisome tenure of Justin Trudeau marked a turning of Canada away from the shared values of the long Anglo-American history, but as he was always a clownish figure, one that not many Americans really worried about as a true expression of the values of our friends to the north, the idea of Canada as hostile to the U.S. was unthinkable. When Mark Carney — an international banker first and for decades — took over from Trudeau, it was anyone’s guess how he would govern, but few expected the events of this January. 

Now we know. Carney went to Davos last week and delivered a 15-minute masterclass in the national security equivalent of fantasy baseball and an exercise in very real moral equivalence, one that would inevitably insult serious-minded Americans, as Canada’s head of government choose to define the world as divided into one class of two or three “hegemons,” then another of “middle powers” and then everybody else. 

Carney then presumed to speak on behalf of the “middle powers” and did so in a way calculated to insult America by explicitly placing us in the “hegemon” category that includes China (and maybe Russia?), and calling out to the “middle powers” to band together to oppose the hegemons, even as Canada desires robust trade with both China and the United States.

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Make time to search out and listen for yourself to Carney’s speech and the Q-and-A that followed at Davos. The speech is quietly, but quite definitely, anti-American. Thoroughly so, in fact, though cowardly in its avoidance of explicitly naming the U.S. or President Donald Trump except by reference to that word, “hegemons.”

The former banker got a standing ovation from the other bankers assembled at their annual pep rally. Of course he would get one. In their fantasy world, they ought to run everything. They don’t, but they quite certainly believe they should. 

As you listen to Carney, reject fantasy and keep in mind some hard facts, beginning with Canada’s failure for almost 40 years to spend even 2% of their GDP on their and the West’s defenses.

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Carney seems to envision these “middle powers” as a variant of the non-aligned nations of the Cold War. Which is odd since Canada depends almost entirely on America for its national defense and especially for the freedom of the seas that allows it to sell its oil to China. In truth, Canada is far from a “middle power.”

The genuine “middle powers” are the nuclear powers other than the U.S., China and Russia. That small group of actual “middle powers” like India, Israel and Pakistan do not possess genuine “second strike” capability upon which the actual substance of nuclear deterrence between the superpowers depends, but they do have nuclear weapons and should and indeed must be treated differently than small powers. And this group does not include Canada, which is a small power.

Not all small powers carry their relative weight. Some are almost “free riders.”

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By way of contrast with Canada with its 42 million people, $2.4 trillion economy and not yet 2%-of-GDP defense budget, Poland has 39 million people, a GDP of one trillion, but spends 38 billion — 4.7% of its GDP — on defense. 

Finland has only 5.6 million people, a GDP of $300 billion and spends $7.35 billion on defense — 3% of its GDP. Its active duty personnel number 23,000–24,000 (including conscripts and the Border Guard) and it possesses a massive wartime mobilization capacity of roughly 280,000 troops. Supported by a reserve of nearly 900,000, the Finnish Defense Forces focus on territorial defense, with plans to potentially increase reserve strength. 

Poland and Finland are in the first rank of small powers in the West as they carry their weight, and don’t rely almost exclusively on the U.S. for their defense — as Canada does.

Neither Poland nor Finland sent its head of government to curry favor with the Chinese communists this month or to Switzerland thereafter to insult the United States by comparing America to China in terms decidedly ambiguous as to which is the free country with frequent rotation of power among its parties and individual liberties zealously guarded by an independent judiciary. 

Canada is actually a relatively small power even among all small powers when it comes to military strength. It has been a friendly small power to us since the War of 1812, but it is still a very small power. When Carney felt obliged to declare at Davos that Canada stands with Greenland and Denmark, he was striking a very small chest for consumption back home among the “elites” of Canada on whose votes he depends. Again, against whom Canada was standing, Carney didn’t say out loud because, in that uniquely cowardly approach to rhetoric, he doesn’t name President Trump.

Carney, according to the New York Times, “described the end of the era underpinned by United States hegemony, calling the current phase ‘a rupture.’ He never mentioned President Trump by name, but his reference was clear.” If he really wants a rupture, Carney picked the right president to insult, even in his shadow puppet style.

Carney talked about the need for Europe and the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” to come into existence and grow strong to oppose the hegemons. The “Trans-Pacific Partnership” Carney exhorts doesn’t actually exist and never will, as Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and South Korea are not into national security fantasy baseball and don’t want to “rupture” their relations with the hegemon not named China as they count on the unnamed hegemon to keep the peace and deter China’s many ambitions on their turfs. 

Yes, Carney really did equate China and the U.S. — just two hegemons. No differences at all between them. 

In fact, as Carney had just come back from kowtowing to Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, perhaps Canada is actually throwing in with the other hegemon. Carney did, after all, explicitly announce an “alliance” with Xi’s regime, which Canada has apparently forgiven for its genocide against the Uyghurs (despite Carney’s double declaration at Davos about the need for the world to respect “human rights.”) Carny also did not mention that Xi’s regime had crushed Hong Kong’s liberties, that it has jailed Jimmy Lai in solitary confinement for years and threatens Taiwan on a monthly basis. That the Chinese communists flaunt any actual international norms and World Trade Organization rules did not get even an aside, much less a sentence in Carney’s soaring rhetoric.

Carney’s tight with the ChiComs. Or afraid of them. Or both. Either way, Canada will import China’s EVs and China will buy Canada’s oil — an amoral banker’s idea of the perfect world order. 

Canada is — according to Carney — an energy “superpower!” Right. The freedom of the seas upon which tankers carrying Canadian crude depends is American made. That the oceans are safe for trade is made possible by the other hegemon’s navy — ours. 

Canada’s navy has about 8,400 sailors and about 30 ships. (Each of America’s 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers has 5,000 sailors). Canada has 400 aircraft and 15,000 in its air force. The U.S. Air Force is the finest in the world, with more than 5,000 aircraft of all varieties flown and cared for by more than 310,000 men and women. Our Space Force will work to secure Canada from far away too. (The Canadian military, very small but stalwart and staffed by national security professionals not bankers, is integrated into our defense of the North American continent.)

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Canada does not have a land frontier across which Russian troops can march as they did into Ukraine when the “middle powers” of Europe, plus the infirmity of President Joe Biden failed to deter the dictator Putin (just as President Barack Obama failed to deter Putin in the first invasion of Ukraine). But even if Russia grew as covetous of Canada’s land as China is of Taiwan’s, it is the hegemon to Canada’s immediate south that would provide the defense against such a move. 

Carney also didn’t mention the $62 billion trade surplus Canada has with the U.S. In fact, his speech is free of the reality of hard facts. He does mention that Canada has submarines. It does. It has four. The newest was commissioned in 2015. The other three were commissioned in 2003 (2) and 2000 (1). The U.S. has about 70, all of them nuclear-powered: 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines (SSGNs), and over 50 fast-attack submarines (SSNs) (including the Los Angeles, Seawolf and Virginia classes). 

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Unlike Poland and Finland, which are frontline states with Russia, Canada doesn’t actually have any ability to repulse conventional incursions from Russia without the U.S. to quickly back it up. Canada exists blissfully under the umbrella of American hard power and Carney knows — as every Canadian surely does — we would defend Canada in word and deed. But Carney’s sneering tone and banker’s virtue signaling should not fool ordinary Canadians. It is possible to insult your friends to the south by lumping us in with the alliance of tyrants headquartered in Beijing.

Carney’s was a cowardly bit of theater by a banker for bankers, an anti-Trump speech by the fellow who just got back from warmly embracing Xi. Did I mention Carney got a standing ovation from all the other “middle power” wannabe bankers and blue state elites? It’s so easy to pose. 

The truth — the real, hard facts of the world — is that Canada is not a “middle power.” It’s a small power blessed to live under the security umbrella provided for the past 80 years by the U.S., and to earn its excellent standard of living because of American consumers and the freedom of the seas guaranteed by the U.S. When you hear Carney declare Canada to be an “energy superpower,” ask yourself to which countries does it sell its oil and to which countries could its oil be sold should freedom of the seas be contested?

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Justin Trudeau was a clown.  Mark Carney appears to be a vain banker from Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities — a “master of the universe” in an imaginary world.

Whatever the ultimate decision of the United States Supreme Court, President Trump ought to be understood by everyone to have the power to impose tariffs on countries selling oil to the other “hegemons.” Carney may not have consulted the average Canadian on the trade-off that could follow his endorphin rush which come from insulting Trump and America versus any real costs imposed in response to the Maple Leaf’s new love for the dragon. But they will be stuck with the consequences and there won’t be any “middle powers” to sell its goods to if Carney succeeds in angering not just the president, but serious Americans.

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I survived Antifa violence — now Minnesota is repeating dangerous left-wing mistakes

In February 2024, an Antifa radical, consumed with hatred for my conservative policies and Christian faith, detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) outside my attorney general’s office in Montgomery, Ala. The IED was packed with nails and metal shrapnel, projectiles designed to tear through flesh, shatter bone and kill anyone within the blast radius. Had the device been placed just a few feet closer, or had staff been arriving for work at that moment, we would have been planning funerals instead of counting blessings.

Thankfully, no one was injured that day and the perpetrator was caught, but the attack represented something larger and more dangerous that is rapidly becoming normalized: a culture where political violence masquerades as legitimate political speech.

Sadly, civic leaders who are called to emulate a higher societal standard have implicitly condoned this new brand of impassioned activism. In many cases, they’re quite pleased to see it, convinced that the sincerity of their feelings justifies whatever actions their allies take, regardless of lawfulness.

FLASHBACK: ALABAMA ATTORNEY GENERAL SAYS EXPLOSIVE DEVICE DETONATED OUTSIDE OFFICE OVER WEEKEND

Unrestrained by ethical guardrails or even common sense, these political mercenaries soldier on to the next melodrama, eager to throw themselves into the fray to secure media attention for a cause they’re convinced is noble and the public affirmation that scratches their itch for attention. In recent weeks, that means they’re focused squarely on Minneapolis, where federal officials are investigating a widespread network of taxpayer fraud in a scheme conducted primarily by Somali immigrants who obtained millions in government contracts to operate nonexistent childcare centers.

When ICE began enforcement actions related to the investigation, including a raid that resulted in the death of Renee Good when she drove her car into a law enforcement officer, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the f— out of Minneapolis.” And Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., responded to the death of Alex Pretti by proclaiming, “My message is simple: [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is making us not more safe, they’re making us less safe, and they need to get out of our state.”

The combustible rhetoric, which frames law enforcement as the enemy rather than those breaking the law or interfering with its enforcement, clearly inflames an already tense situation.

FORMER ICE AGENT CALLS POLICE NON-COOPERATION ‘FORMULA FOR DISASTER’ AFTER SECOND MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING DEATH

It’s hard to witness Democratic officials like Frey repeat the same mistakes that nearly got me killed. These liberal standard-bearers are establishing permission structures that signal to emotionally immature activists that whatever tantrum they want to throw is acceptable, appropriate and justified. As someone who narrowly escaped deadly political violence, I know the ramifications of such callous disregard for civility and the rule of law, and I’m watching those same corrosive conditions take root in Minneapolis.

As someone who narrowly escaped deadly political violence, I know the ramifications of such callous disregard for civility and the rule of law, and I’m watching those same corrosive conditions take root in Minneapolis.

Recently, an unruly mob stormed Cities Church during worship, forcing parents to shield their wailing children as demonstrators swarmed the sanctuary and belligerently accused the pastor of moonlighting as a field director for ICE. Former CNN anchor Don Lemon joined the chaos, livestreaming the intimidation and lending it legitimacy. These weren’t protesters. By Lemon’s own admission, they were conducting “Operation Pull-Up,” a deliberate tactical operation to confront Christians and interfere with religious practice.

NOEM SAYS ‘ARRESTS COMING’ AFTER ANTI-ICE MOB TARGETED MINNESOTA CHURCH

The response from Democratic officials was predictable. Because the mob claimed moral authority, the illegality of their terror was downplayed or ignored. The media insisted it was just a “peaceful protest” by concerned citizens. But this is precisely what theFACE Actis designed to prosecute: using force to “injure, intimidate or interfere” with people exercising their religious freedom. The Biden administration weaponized this very law to target pro-life advocates peacefully praying outside abortion clinics. What happened in Minneapolis is the textbook scenario this law was actually meant to address.

I’ve seen this pattern before. It started with the demonstrations after George Floyd‘s death — events that honest observers remember for what they became: excuses to riot, loot and intimidate under the guise of progressive moralism and racial justice. When incendiary language from politicians went unchecked in the summer of 2020, entire Minneapolis neighborhoods burned to the ground, causing millions in property damage for innocent people, many of whom were immigrant or minority entrepreneurs, as activists went wild.

ICE SAYS VIOLENT MOB HELPED CRIMINAL ESCAPE AND LEFT ICE AGENT PERMANENTLY MAIMED

We cannot allow this mass chaos again. The effects are too real and too devastating.

President Trump was elected with a mandate to restore immigration sanity, and a key part of keeping his promise is bringing to justice those who abuse our system and exploit our generosity. In the case of the Minneapolis fraud scheme, he’s doing exactly what he said he would do.

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The American people deserve leaders who safeguard their rights, not neglect them when it’s politically expedient. An embrace of radical political tactics benefits no one, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder or those simply wishing to express their views freely.

Having survived an attack by the very forces now mobilizing in Minneapolis, I can say with certainty: there’s no good response to extremist intimidation but unshakeable resolve – to take it seriously, to prosecute it fully when it occurs and to take every measure necessary to protect law-abiding citizens from terror and harassment. 

As my state’s chief law enforcement officer, I know firsthand that violent criminals, including those motivated by political extremism, will only be deterred when they have reason to believe legitimate consequences for lawbreaking could await them.

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It’s incumbent upon all leaders to stand for the rule of law and reject inflammatory language before more offices are bombed, more churches are stormed and more communities are destroyed. The temperature is rising. Those in positions of authority must decide whether they’ll enable the chaos or stand against it.

I know which side I’m on.

LIZ PEEK: Here is the one and only thing that Democrats actually care about

Are Democrats heartless or just plain stupid? Are they so committed to scoring political points that they are willing to hurt ordinary people?

Consider the top leaders in the Empire State. The most recent example? On the cusp of an historic storm and record-breaking cold, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ended his predecessor’s policy of clearing out homeless encampments.

Is it just a coincidence that three people were found dead on the streets of the city on the morning of Saturday, January 24, when the temperature plunged to single digits? Two men and one woman believed to be homeless were discovered dead outside; though the details of their deaths are not yet available, it is likely that no one could survive sleeping on the pavement in near-zero weather. 

‘ZOHRANOMICS’: NYC MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S SOCIALIST MATH DOESN’T ADD UP

Mamdani has said he wants to find permanent housing for people living in temporary settlements, not remove those camps and force them to enter shelters. The mayor will let individuals live on the streets, apparently not wanting to infringe upon their rights. He does not seem as concerned about the rights of New Yorkers who are already complaining about the growing number of homeless in their neighborhoods, offended by refuse piling up on their sidewalks or the unruly behavior of those living in such circumstances. Several communities are up in arms, and who can blame them? According to the government, some 22% of the homeless are seriously mentally ill, while 18% have a substance abuse problem. (There is probably some overlap in those conditions.) Such people do not make for responsible or welcome neighbors.

New York housing options are limited and adding new units to house indigent people, given New York’s endless permitting and approval delays, will take years if not decades. Meanwhile, Mamdani can pretend to care for the downtrodden while the homeless and the communities where they reside are at risk.

Mamdani isn’t alone in embracing harmful policies. Consider New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s unforgivable decision to ban anonymous reports of child abuse, a stance she thinks will endear her to minority voters. Just before the end of the year, Hochul signed a bill Friday night to outlaw, as of next summer, child abuse hotlines accepting anonymous reports of neglect or mistreatment. 

The rationale for this law is that vengeful ex-spouses or other miscreants might lodge anonymous complaints of child abuse out of spite, dragging innocent parents into a nightmarish confrontation with city workers. But the real push for the legislation, one of only two such laws in the nation, came from people saying that such reports disproportionately target Black or Hispanic families.

BISHOP ROBERT BARRON SLAMS ZOHRAN MAMDANI ‘WARMTH OF COLLECTIVISM’ LINE: ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE’

It is true that anonymous reports of child mistreatment are unsubstantiated by subsequent investigations more frequently than those made by people willing to go on the record. In 2023, according to data from Child Protective Services, just 7% of investigations stemming from anonymous calls in New York City were substantiated, compared to 22.5% of all reports. But imagine if those 7% were never reported, and CPS never intervened; lives might have been lost. Surely this is a situation where excessive caution is the right way to go.

It is true that some 88% of children caught up in New York City investigations prompted by anonymous calls are Black or Latino. But that almost certainly reflects the higher number of kids being raised in difficult circumstances, not some broad attack on minority parents.

People living next to a suspected gang member would understandably be fearful of reporting abuse; an anonymous call is a much preferred approach.

MAMDANI SIDES WITH TENANTS AS NEW YORK LANDLORDS GET CRUSHED BY RIGGED HOUSING LAWS

Such policies have real-life consequences. The gruesome discovery of a woman nearly starving to death her two 14-year-old sons, whom she reportedly wanted “to stay babies forever” and to whom she gave only baby cereal and formula, might never have happened were it not for the several anonymous calls received by the Administration for Children’s Services. Prompted by those tips, an official visited the home and found the emaciated boys, one of whom weighed only 51 pounds. 

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They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Some will say that Mamdani’s refusal to force homeless New Yorkers in from the cold comes from a good heart and that Kathy Hochul believes she’s doing the right thing for children. Frankly, I’m skeptical.

Democrats bow to climate zealots, to Black Lives Matter activists and to champions of illegal immigration because they want votes from those populations. The results are New York electricity prices 50% above the national average, legislation like Raise the Age laws that promote crime, and harsher, more partisan, attitudes towards immigration.

These outcomes are not only in New York, but can also be seen across the U.S. where Democrats are in charge. Almost inevitably, their policies end up hurting the very people they pretend to care about.

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Democrats are, above all, performance artists. If they really care about Palestinians dying in Gaza, why aren’t they equally concerned about Iranians being slaughtered by the murderous mullahs? If they are committed to the safety of illegal immigrants, why didn’t they protest the hundreds that drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande while Joe Biden was president? If they want Black Americans to get ahead, how can they tolerate the dismal failure of our public schools?

Democrats only care about one thing: power.

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SEN RUBEN GALLEGO: I won’t fund a rogue ICE that shoots first and calls it law enforcement

On Saturday, I saw the video that millions of Americans have now seen. In Minnesota, federal immigration officers shot and killed another civilian point-blank. From the start, the officers immediately escalated the situation. Before they fired, the man was lying on the ground, unarmed, and posed no threat. The officers shot over 10 times in five seconds.

I was in high-pressure combat situations in Iraq, where I didn’t always know if civilians were a threat or not. But I was trained to de-escalate situations first — not to get drunk on power and shoot first. What the agents in Minnesota did was murder.

Violent officers have no place in our law enforcement agencies. When the people who are supposed to keep us safe are shooting Americans in cold blood, something is deeply wrong.

This isn’t the first killing we’ve seen since Bovino’s forces and other federal agents descended on Minnesota.

FREY, KLOBUCHAR CALL FOR ICE TO LEAVE MINNEAPOLIS FOLLOWING DEADLY CBP SHOOTING IN CITY

On Jan. 7, in Minneapolis, an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three. She was shot point-blank in the face three times. It was a disgusting, pointless killing that has horrified Americans across the country. What’s so disturbing is if this is how ICE treats people when the cameras are on, you can imagine how they behave when no one’s watching.

People should not live in fear of the very people who are supposed to protect them. First and foremost, ICE cannot exist as we know it now.

There is a clear pattern: when government treats whole communities as suspects and measures success by arrest totals, innocent people get caught in the crossfire.

These are not the only cases of abuse. Stephen Miller’s agents are stopping anyone who looks Hispanic or speaks Spanish, including U.S. citizens. In Arizona, ICE picked up a Navajo man, who had identification, just because of the color of his skin. In Minnesota, federal immigration agents forced entry and detained a U.S. citizen at gunpoint, then led him outside in freezing conditions in his underwear. And a Minnesota resident and U.S. passport holder was detained after an agent said it was “because of his accent.”

TRUMP SAYS WALZ WANTS TO ‘WORK TOGETHER’ AS MINNEAPOLIS TENSIONS FLARE AFTER ICU NURSE SHOOTING 

Trump and Stephen Miller have turned ICE into what once was an agency designed to keep Americans safe into his own private army. Instead of protecting us, Trump’s ICE agents are actively harming Americans. By removing guardrails and rewarding aggression, the administration has created a climate where reckless force is more likely and where accountability is treated as an obstacle.

I cannot vote to give this rogue agency a single penny while they continue these abuses.

This is not what people voted for.

When I talked to Arizonans on the campaign trail — Democrats, moderates and Republicans — the message was consistent: secure the border, enforce the law and do it in a way that protects families. They wanted people with criminal records deported. So, when Trump ran on going after “the worst of the worst,” people voted for him. It turns out, that was a lie.

OMAR, MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR ACCUSE TRUMP ADMIN OF UNLEASHING ‘POLITICAL RETRIBUTION,’ ‘INVASION’ WITH ICE ACTIVITY

I supported Trump’s decision to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. I applauded him when border crossings fell. But instead of doing what he said — targeting criminals who pose real threats —he has deployed masked agents into our communities to sweep up any immigrants they can find, including people without criminal records who have been here for decades.

This comes after Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court ruled to effectively green light ICE’s racial profiling in day-to-day enforcement.

FORMER ICE AGENT CALLS POLICE NON-COOPERATION ‘FORMULA FOR DISASTER’ AFTER SECOND MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING DEATH

To make matters worse, the Trump administration’s obsession with meeting arbitrary quotas is making Americans less safe.

Thousands of federal law enforcement agents have been pulled away from their work fighting violent crime, drug trafficking, and child exploitation and reassigned to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants. Every day an agent spends going after our neighbors — students, families and construction workers — is another day when fentanyl traffickers, fraudsters and child predators have more room to operate.

The economic fallout is real, too. When workers vanish from job sites overnight, local businesses lose employees, projects stall and costs rise. When families fear driving to school, showing up to a clinic or reporting a crime, the whole community pays the price. That is not “order.” That is chaos, manufactured by Washington and absorbed by working Americans.

GO BIG, THEN GO SMART: TRUMP, ICE AND THE LAW. HOW TO SKIP THE LEFT’S PR TRAP

People should not live in fear of the very people who are supposed to protect them. First and foremost, ICE cannot exist as we know it now.

What Immigration Enforcement Should Be

We need to refocus ICE’s resources away from Trump’s PR stunts and back toward actually keeping communities safe.

The Homeland Security funding bill heading to the Senate does not go far enough to restrain the agency’s unchecked authority. I will not vote to give ICE more taxpayer money to terrorize our communities.

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Instead, we need reform that makes ICE targeted, professional and focused on actual security threats — not political quotas and news soundbites. That means clear use-of-force standards that prioritize de-escalation, limits on dangerous tactics, mandatory body cameras and meaningful reporting and oversight.

That’s why Senator Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and I introduced the Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act of 2026, which would bring much-needed accountability and restraint to Trump’s ICE. It establishes new accountability, professionalism, and conduct requirements, like use-of-force standards and other common-sense measures. It’s a simple principle: enforce the law, but do it lawfully — and do it in a way that makes America safer, not angrier.

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The truth is, it does not have to be this way. We can secure the border without treating entire communities like suspects. We can enforce immigration laws without terrorizing communities or putting innocent people in danger. Back in May, I laid out a plan to fix our broken immigration system. We can finally modernize a system that has been broken for too long — strengthening border security, speeding up legal processing and building workable, legal pathways that support American businesses and workers.

America’s immigration system is broken. But Trump’s heavy-handed immigration tactics are not the answer. They will only make things worse: less trust, less safety and more chaos. We can do better, and we must.

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American energy dominance gives us the power to fend off enemies and rescue Venezuela

During his remarks at the World Economic Forum, President Donald Trump re-emphasized his commitment to American energy dominance and the role that Venezuela can play. As the founder of one of America’s largest privately held oil and gas companies, my company is ready to play our part, which will mean lower prices and increased security for our citizens and brighter days for the people of Venezuela. Both are worthy and achievable goals.

President Trump set the wheels of this plan in motion when he re-assembled America’s leading oil and gas executives at the White House. The purpose was strengthening American interests in the Western Hemisphere after Nicolás Maduro had been removed from power. Venezuela is home to the world’s largest supply of crude oil reserves.

By toppling Maduro and inviting American energy leaders to the table to discuss the rebuilding of its infrastructure, Trump sent a powerful message to China and other hostile foreign actors: mess around in our backyard at your own peril.

TRUMP ENERGY CHIEF OUTLINES COAL’S ‘CRUCIAL’ ROLE IN AFFORDABILITY AS ADMIN PUSHES TO KEEP PLANTS RUNNING 

Trump not only understands that energy dominance means global dominance but is willing to act on it. At the same time, Venezuela deserves better than the quarter-century of corruption they have endured, and the American energy industry can help lift an impoverished country into a brighter future. 

While Venezuela is blessed with the world’s largest supply of crude oil reserves, its output of 1 million barrels a day is a pittance of what it could be. As U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil can only “become a resource with technology, with capital, with rule of law and a system of governance that encourages the harvesting of those resources to make a better world.” 

My home state of Texas produces 6.3 million barrels of crude on any given day thanks to the hard work of nearly half a million oil and gas workers in our state. Venezuela’s industry has fallen into a state of ruin because of its corrupt and illegitimate political leaders, and its citizens are paying the price. 

TRUMP’S ENERGY DOMINANCE REWRITES THE STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE AFTER BIDEN DRAWDOWNS

Yet countries without our tremendous natural resources have come to rely on Venezuelan oil to power their own countries. China, for example, is home to 1.4 billion people, and produces around 4 million barrels of oil per day. Its demand far exceeds domestic output, forcing a reliance on other forms of energy like coal. China is the world’s largest importer of oil. More than half of Venezuelan oil exports go to China, often under flagless “shadow fleets” to avoid global sanctions.  

Toppling Maduro dealt an immediate blow to China’s energy supply and international standing. 

Finally, let us not lose sight of the people of Venezuela. Under Maduro and former President Hugo Chavez, the nation’s poverty rate has spiked to nearly 90%. Roughly one in four of the 32 million population have been forced from their homes. Food, education, healthcare and necessities are out of the question for many. 

‘LANDMAN’ STAR GETS SEAT AT THE TABLE IN TRUMP-ERA ENERGY PUSH AS HOLLYWOOD MEETS THE OIL PATCH

All this misery in spite of the nation’s abundant natural resources, which have been mismanaged and abused by a corrupt, illegitimate and evil regime. For proof of socialism’s failures, look no further than Caracas.

Trump not only understands that energy dominance means global dominance, but is willing to act on it. 

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The critics casting doubt on the path forward in Venezuela are the same people who thought it was fool’s gold to go to Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope along the coast of the Arctic Ocean. The conditions were too inhospitable to ever make the investment worthwhile, they said. Today, Prudhoe Bay is one of the most significant energy resources in the United States.  

Our country has been fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit – the belief that possibilities are endless through grit, determination and hard work. We defied the odds to earn our independence, we expanded west, we put a man on the moon. We build companies from the ground up that provide good jobs, including nearly 11 million in the oil and gas industry.

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Under the pro-energy leadership of President Trump, Hilcorp Energy, as well as many others, both independent and major, stand at the ready to embark on this next chapter – one that can unlock more potential for America, provide new hope for Venezuela and put China on their heels. It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is. 

Harvard gets schooled by China as America’s universities choose activism over excellence

Harvard isn’t supposed to be chasing. It’s supposed to be leading. 

Yet a new global ranking put out by Holland’s Leiden University — a measure of the number and importance of research publications — has Harvard down to third place worldwide, and both institutions ahead of it are Chinese. It gets worse for America: in the top 20, Harvard and the University of Michigan are the only U.S. universities. China takes 16 of the top 20 slots. 

Unlike many such university lists, this ranking isn’t a reputational beauty contest, but a statistical analysis based on publication data. In other words, it’s one way of measuring what a research university is supposed to do: produce serious scholarship at scale. 

So, if the most famous university in the world is sliding — and if China is dominating the top of the table — we should stop handwaving about “globalization” and start asking what, exactly, has gone wrong in American academia. 

HARVARD STUDENT SAYS POLITICAL BIASES ON CAMPUS ARE ‘SYSTEMATIC’ AFTER ALAN GARBER ADMITS FACULTY ‘WENT WRONG’ BY PUSHING BELIEFS IN THE CLASSROOM

The answer is not that Americans suddenly got dumber. It’s that our universities have become less serious. 

The center of gravity on many campuses has shifted in recent years from truth-seeking, merit and education to DEI, identity and activism. That dynamic shows up everywhere that matters for research production: hiring, teaching and the basic culture of inquiry. 

Hiring increasingly rewards ideological compliance rather than intellectual excellence. Diversity statements and “commitment” litmus tests have become routine. Whole searches are designed to narrow the acceptable range of viewpoints and methodologies. When a university hires activists who happen to hold PhDs instead of scholars who happen to hold opinions, it should not be surprised when scholarship suffers. 

HARVARD PRESIDENT CRITICIZES FACULTY ACTIVISM, CLAIMS UNIVERSITY BRINGING OBJECTIVITY BACK TO CLASSROOM

Teaching has been reduced, in too many places, to therapeutic affirmation and political mobilization. Students get more indoctrination than instruction, producing graduates who aren’t equipped with the writing, numeracy and disciplinary rigor needed to power the next generation of research and innovation. 

Research culture has become timid and conformist. Entire categories of questions are treated as morally impermissible to even ask. But real research requires risk: contesting assumptions, poking sacred cows and following the evidence wherever it leads. A campus that punishes dissent will eventually punish discovery. 

And hovering over all of this is the growth of the diversicratic state: offices, trainings, compliance regimes, “bias response” systems and an endless paper trail that consumes money and time. Universities can call it “inclusion” all they want; functionally, it’s overhead, which is the enemy of productivity. In a previous Fox News piece, I argued that elite American institutions won’t just fix themselves because the incentives inside these places run toward ideology and away from excellence. 

Meanwhile, China has been building research capacity like a state project — because it is one. It funds labs, scales programs, recruits talent and measures success in outputs that translate into technological and geopolitical power.  

HARVARD DEAN REMOVED AFTER ANTI-WHITE, ANTI-POLICE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS RESURFACED

Even 10 years ago, this contrast was stark. In the 2015 Leiden rankings, U.S. institutions dominated the top 20, with MIT, Harvard and Caltech at the top. That’s not ancient history, but within the careers of almost all current university officials. 

At the same time, institutional leaders that lecture Americans about “democracy” have been disturbingly casual about foreign cash, which typically comes with strings. 

The federal government has repeatedly had to investigate universities for failures to disclose foreign gifts and contracts. In 2020, for example, the Department of Education investigated Harvard and Yale over potential failures to report large sums of foreign funding; Department of Education (DoE) records showed billions in foreign gifts from countries including Qatar and China. Last April, an executive order intended to remedy foreign influence noted that DoE investigations led universities to disclose $6.5 billion in previously undisclosed foreign funds.  

And it’s not just money. U.S. law enforcement and congressional investigators have warned for years about programs designed to exploit America’s open research environment. The FBI describes Chinese “talent plans” as often incentivizing one-way transfers of research and intellectual property, sometimes through undisclosed affiliations and contracts. A Senate investigation similarly detailed how China’s talent recruitment programs were designed to extract research and expertise from the United States to advance China’s national goals.  

The bottom line is simple: America’s universities are being outcompeted abroad while being hollowed out at home. If we want to reclaim research leadership, we need to reclaim the university’s purpose by doing at least four things: 

Research culture has become timid and conformist. Entire categories of questions are treated as morally impermissible to even ask. 

• Abolish DEI bureaucracies and end ideological litmus tests in hiring and promotion. No more compelled “statements.” No more identity-based preferences disguised as “equity.” Merit, rigor and accomplishment should be the criteria.
• Restore serious education — not activist programming — as the core mission. Students should be taught how to think, not what to chant.

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• Defend academic freedom and viewpoint diversity as prerequisites for discovery. A university that can’t tolerate disagreement can’t generate breakthroughs.

• Get tough on foreign influence: transparency, enforcement and bright lines. If universities want public money and public trust, they should disclose foreign gifts and contracts fully and police conflicts aggressively.

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Harvard’s slip in the Leiden ranking isn’t a quirky statistic, but a warning light. China is surging because it’s focused on research, development and education. America is slipping because our universities have too often swapped those priorities for DEI bureaucracy, identity politics, and activism. 

We can reverse this. But first we have to admit we have a problem. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ILYA SHAPIRO

LEE CARTER: 45% of Americans calling themselves ‘independent’ aren’t independent at all – they’re just angry

Here’s what we’re not saying out loud: independent voters aren’t independent at all. They’re just angry.

Forty-five percent of Americans now identify as political independents. That’s a record. It beat the 43% we saw in 2023. But here’s the thing — these people aren’t sitting in some enlightened middle ground. They’re out of the fray because both parties have let them down so badly that rejecting the label feels like the only honest option left.

This isn’t about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.

And it’s remaking American politics in real time.

RILEY GAINES: UNITE NOW OR WATCH THE RADICAL LEFT DESTROY EVERYTHING WE BUILT

Look at the actual numbers: Democrats and Republicans both poll in the low 30s for approval. Both of them. That’s not a fight — that’s two teams losing to an empty field.

Seventy-three percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the political system itself. That’s not frustration. That’s people withdrawing consent. That’s a legitimacy crisis.

Here’s what matters: these voters don’t hate politics. They hate how politics is actually done right now. They’re not looking for someone to manage the system better. They’re looking for someone to blow it all up and build something radically different.

RECORD NUMBER OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS POLITICAL INDEPENDENTS, REJECTING 2 MAJOR PARTIES, POLL FINDS

Everybody keeps saying independents are swing voters. Moderates. The tie-breaker in elections.

Wrong.

Most independents hold strong views. They’re not middle-of-the-road people. They’re people. They’re people who gave up on their party because that party gave up on them.

GEN Z IS STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE — AND REPUBLICANS CAN’T AFFORD TO LOOK AWAY

Democrats who couldn’t stomach the Democratic Party anymore. Republicans tired of what the Republican Party became.

They’re not available to be persuaded on incrementalism. They’re available to be inspired by a complete break from the past.

That door is wide open.

WHEN TRUMP MEETS MAMDANI: FIVE CAPITALIST MESSAGES THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST SHOULD HEAR

When people get this angry, they don’t look for a compromise candidate. They look for a movement.

Movements need three things: a message, a messenger and a belief that this person or party will do things entirely differently.

This isn’t about ideology. This is rage dressed up as a polling category.

That combination is devastating to the establishment. Because it doesn’t matter if the message comes from the right or the left.

JAMES CARVILLE SAYS DEMOCRATS MUST REALIZE YOUTH ARE NOT A STATIC VOTING BLOC

A self-described socialist wins in arguably the most capitalist city in the world. A political outsider with no traditional credentials wins as a Republican not just once, but twice. Progressive activists push Democrats further left. Right-wing populists push the GOP further right.

What do these have in common? None of them were supposed to win. None fit the establishment playbook. None promised to work within the system. They all promised to disrupt it.

And the 45% of independents watched and saw something the establishment missed: proof that the rules could be broken. Proof that someone didn’t have to accept the traditional way of doing things. Proof that authenticity and disruption could actually beat polish and procedure.

THE FAR LEFT HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY PLATFORM, AND IT’S TURNING VOTERS OFF

So, they started looking for their own version of it.

Here’s what should terrify both party establishments: the hunger isn’t ideological. It’s structural.

It’s not about whether you’re a socialist or a nationalist. It’s about whether you’re going to operate by the rules of a system that already failed people, or reject the rules entirely.

YOUNG AMERICANS GIVE BIG THUMBS DOWN TO DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, TRUMP: POLL

Independents aren’t looking for Republicans or Democrats to do things slightly better. They’re looking for someone to do things completely differently. To make decisions based on what actually needs to happen, not what the party manual says should happen.

That message works on the left. It works on the right. It works anywhere people feel abandoned by institutions.

The populist wave isn’t about policy. It’s about permission.

IT’S NOT JUST THE ECONOMY — THIS IS HOW DEMOCRATS BEAT THE GOP ACROSS THE COUNTRY

Permission to believe that things don’t have to work the way they’ve always worked. Permission to think that someone outside the system might actually be better than someone inside it. Permission to vote your rage instead of your resignation.

And that permission is contagious.

Seventy-three percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the political system itself. That’s not frustration. That’s people withdrawing consent. That’s a legitimacy crisis.

The moment voters see it work — see an outsider actually win, see someone break the rules and survive — they start looking for it everywhere. They ask: “Who else is willing to blow this up? Who else actually gets how broken this is?”

AFFORDABILITY, DOGE AND THE LANGUAGE THAT CAPTURED AMERICAN POLITICS IN 2025

Establishment politicians offer more of the same with slightly different words.

Populist movements offer the feeling that everything is about to change. Guess which one people are choosing.

Now here’s the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different. They’ve seen it work. They know what disruption actually looks like.

2025 SHOCKERS: THE BIGGEST MOMENTS THAT ROCKED THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

So, they’re not going back to the old rules. They’re waiting for the next authentic messenger. The person who understands that the message isn’t “we’ll manage the system better.” The message is “the system needs to be rebuilt, and I’m genuinely willing to do it differently.” This is why populism keeps winning.

Not because it has better ideas. Because it offers something the establishment can’t: the genuine belief that this person isn’t trapped inside the broken machinery. That they’ll actually make decisions based on what needs to happen, not what the system says is possible.

When you’re part of an institution, you’re limited by that institution. When you’re outside it, you’re not. Voters can feel the difference between someone trying to work within the system and someone actually willing to blow it up.

DAVID MARCUS: DON’T BE SO SURE SOCIALISTS CAN’T WIN IN THE HEARTLAND

Right now, the only people offering to blow it up are the ones winning.

Here’s where the 45% are actually going:

They’re going toward any candidate or movement that can credibly claim they won’t play by the old rules. That’s it. That’s the entire appeal.

MARK PENN: DEMOCRATS WIN THE MOMENT, BUT LEFT-WING TILT THREATENS THEIR FUTURE

It doesn’t matter if that person is a Republican or a Democrat. It doesn’t matter what specific policies they promise. What matters is that they’re not the establishment. That they’re authentically something new. That they’re willing to operate outside the machinery.

The party that produces that person next doesn’t just win an election. They capture a generation of voters who have already decided the old way is dead.

Now here’s the cutting part: the entire political establishment from both parties is equally vulnerable. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have figured out that the 45% have tasted something different. 

The other party becomes the museum of yesterday’s politics.

WHEN WE CALL EVERYTHING AN ‘ISM,’ WE STOP HEARING WHAT VOTERS ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT

The real story of the 45% isn’t about the middle. It’s about the hunger for authenticity and disruption overwhelming the traditional structures that contain politics.

It’s about voters saying: “We’re done. We want something completely different.”

And every establishment politician who offers “more of the same but better” only confirms what those voters already believe: the system is broken, and nobody inside it knows how to fix it.

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That’s the moment we’re living in.

And it’s just getting started.

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Go big, then go smart: Trump, ICE and the law. How to skip the left’s PR trap

The current obstruction and violence against federal agents trying to expel illegal aliens — committed by far-left activists and encouraged by left-wing politicians — is unacceptable.

In June 2025 in Los Angeles, agents carrying out due process against illegal aliens were assaulted. Mayor Karen Bass blamed federal enforcement for her city’s lawless protests, only ordering a curfew when dozens of businesses were looted.

In September, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, arresting many criminal illegal aliens in the face of violent protests with no support from Mayor Brandon Johnson or Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

WHITE HOUSE BLAMES DEMOCRATS FOR ICE VIOLENCE AS MINNEAPOLIS ERUPTS, INSURRECTION ACT THREAT LOOMS

Last October, a brawl occurred outside a Portland, Oregon ICE facility between Antifa and conservative activists. In Portland, officers shot two alleged members of Venezuela’s deadly Tren de Aragua gang who had attempted to run them over.

And we all know what happened in Minneapolis between an ICE agent and slain activist Renee Good on January 18. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz responded with a mix of falsehood and hyperbole. He ignored the fact the ICE agents were there to arrest illegal immigrants — usually highly dangerous recidivist criminals — pursuant to U.S. law.

Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Frey dialed up the rhetoric, encouraged protests, and supplied no effective state and city law enforcement assistance to DHS. The ingredients were there for another senseless death, and a week later, ICE agents shot Alex Pretti in another confused melee between protesters and federal agents.

President Donald Trump has options.

Title 10 of the U.S. Code allows him to deploy federal troops in instances of “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against the U.S. government to protect federal agents and property.

MINNESOTA AGITATORS STALK, PELT BORDER PATROL AGENTS WITH FOOD AND SPIT AT GAS STATIONS, DHS SAYS

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows him to deploy troops to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in a state.

Immigration enforcement is a federal duty. The Constitution’s Supremacy Clause means that federal law overrides state law. No governor or mayor, no matter how left-wing their own policies, can refuse to allow federal agents to do their duty.

Private citizens who impede federal agents (or local police) from doing their jobs are committing a felony. Noncitizens who do so carry the risk not only of criminal charges, but also of deportation resulting from a conviction.

WHAT WOULD TRUMP’S USE OF THE INSURRECTION ACT LOOK LIKE IN MINNESOTA?

The Trump administration must show that they will not be intimidated by mobs, nor threatened by grandstanding local politicians.

But once that point is made, DHS and ICE need to change gears to avoid falling into the obvious PR trap that’s been set for them. For ICE, arresting dangerous felons in tough neighborhoods in cities run by left-wing mayors is a triple threat.

First, agents must worry about the aliens themselves, who may be armed and dangerous. Second, they have to watch out for activist mobs impeding their vehicles, throwing things, assaulting officers and possibly worse. Third, they must travel in large numbers, knowing that local police are forbidden from, unwilling, or incapable of protecting them or coming to their aid.

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That means every operation is expensive, labor-intensive and high-risk. Everything is being filmed, from every angle. Every move by every officer is scrutinized by millions of armchair social-justice warriors, all now suddenly experts on forensics and tactics.

Trump’s base will support tough tactics, while the left will oppose any enforcement. Moderate and swing voters will be turned off by the inevitable injuries and deaths. If they watch or read legacy media, events will always be spun so that law enforcement looks bad, whatever the facts. And though his officials will rally round their agents, they will inevitably – and may already have – make mistakes in the heat of action.

So, what can ICE do differently in 2026?

GREGG JARRETT: TRUMP HAS AUTHORITY TO SEND TROOPS TO MINNEAPOLIS TO STOP ATTACKS ON ICE

More workplace enforcement, and targeted arrests in unpredictable locations and times.

To help them, technology has advanced considerably since Trump’s first term, and AI is a force multiplier for routine investigations. ICE is spending “more than $300 million… for social-media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, license plate readers and services to find where people live and work,” according to Politico.

In using identification and surveillance technology, DHS faces opposition from not only open-border activists, but also conservatives with privacy concerns. But it’s a fight worth having.

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Facial recognition and social media-combing technology can be calibrated to tag only noncitizens in the DHS database.

ICE is also investing millions in so-called “skip tracing” technology, which can more easily identify illegal aliens while leaving American citizens alone.

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U.S. consulates overseas are using AI to screen the social media of visa applicants, and USCIS has announced a “new vetting center [that] will focus on powerful screening resources.” ICE should be able to access all that information, as well as that of other federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and Health and Human Services. Citizens’ data is protected by privacy laws, but noncitizens, particularly those here illegally, have no right to expect that one part of the government will keep information from another.

Trump needs to “go big” to show the likes of Walz and Frey how the Constitution works. Then DHS should go about the business of mass deportation with more deliberation and subtlety — for the long haul. Americans need to see law enforcement normalized once again.

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Mass immigration is economic warfare and few Americans understand why

The State Department’s recent decision to freeze visa processing for nationals from more than 75 countries — including Somalia, Iran and Russia — reflects a growing recognition in Washington: large-scale migration is no longer viewed solely as a humanitarian matter. It has become inseparable from questions of national security, economic stability and state capacity.

In today’s era of hybrid warfare and gray-zone conflicts, population movements can function as instruments of state influence, economic survival and political leverage — even when they are not formally declared or centrally coordinated. These dynamics often operate below the threshold of overt conflict while producing long-term, asymmetric effects on receiving countries.

For some origin states struggling with corruption, weak institutions or limited domestic opportunity, exporting labor has become a de facto economic lifeline. Rather than pursuing difficult internal reforms, these governments often tolerate or quietly incentivize outward migration.

Foreign nationals abroad then become a steady source of income through remittances: predictable, recurring and largely sanction-resistant flows that support both households and governments without requiring transparency or structural change.

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Importantly, no single remittance transfer is hostile. No individual immigrant constitutes an act of aggression. Many immigrants are seeking better lives for themselves and their families, and remittances often provide support to vulnerable communities abroad.

But modern conflict is not defined by individual intent. It is defined by aggregate effects. When mass migration and financial flows reach industrial scale and persist over time, they can impose real strategic pressures on host nations regardless of motivation.

The numbers illustrate the scope. According to World Bank estimates, officially recorded remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached roughly $685 billion in 2024, exceeding foreign direct investment and official development assistance in many cases. The United States is the world’s largest source of outbound remittances, with annual outflows estimated between $80 billion and $90 billion based on World Bank and Federal Reserve analyses of IMF balance-of-payments data.

FEDS LAUNCH OPERATION TARGETING MINNESOTA REFUGEES FOR POTENTIAL DEPORTATION AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION

Mexico alone received more than $64 billion in remittances last year — primarily from the U.S. — making it one of the country’s largest sources of foreign revenue. Independent analyses estimate that the U.S. loses at least $200 billion annually from remittances flowing out of the domestic economy, a figure that has risen significantly since 2019 and likely undercounts the true scale of transfers to the more than 130 countries receiving U.S. remittances.

In several countries, remittances now account for a significant share of national income. They exceed 20% of GDP in places like El Salvador and Haiti and reached approximately 25% of GDP in Somalia in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of State.

At this scale, remittances are no longer incidental household transfers; they become macroeconomic pillars. Governments that rely so heavily on these inflows face reduced incentives to facilitate the return of their citizens, including those unlawfully present in the United States, since large-scale repatriation would disrupt a critical revenue stream while reintroducing unemployment, fiscal strain and political pressure at home.

TRUMP STATE DEPARTMENT ORDERS GLOBAL VISA CRACKDOWN UNDER REVIVED ‘PUBLIC CHARGE’ RULE

As a result, some sending states have delayed travel documents, obstructed deportations or maintained permissive border policies that allow onward migration to continue. These actions may not always reflect deliberate hostility, but they do reinforce a system that prolongs and amplifies migration flows while externalizing domestic challenges.

Inside the United States, immigrant communities contribute in many ways. At the same time, heavy reliance on cheap labor in sectors such as construction, agriculture, food processing and services can suppress wages, distort competition and disadvantage American workers contributing over time to a more stratified labor market.

The same transnational networks of foreign terrorist and criminal organizations that facilitate large-scale migration can also overlap with illicit activity, including narcotics trafficking, money laundering and labor exploitation. Remittance channels and money-service businesses can be exploited to blend legitimate earnings with criminal proceeds, complicating enforcement and oversight.

Over the long term, economic dependence on foreign earnings combined with family ties abroad can create vulnerabilities to coercion or influence by origin governments, criminal organizations or other hostile actors. What begins as economic reliance can evolve into leverage.

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Through the lens of gray-zone conflict, remittances are not neutral financial transfers. They function as an asymmetric economic weapon, weakening U.S. labor markets, eroding the rule of law, and stabilizing regimes that act contrary to American interests. In gray-zone conflict, the rule of law itself becomes contested terrain.

For some origin states struggling with corruption, weak institutions or limited domestic opportunity, exporting labor has become a de facto economic lifeline.

Until weaponized mass migration and remittance dependency are recognized as elements of hybrid warfare, the United States will continue to finance systems that undermine its own sovereignty, economic resilience and social cohesion. Recognizing these aggregate effects as part of broader hybrid pressures does not impugn individual immigrants or ordinary remittances. It does, however, require acknowledging that scale matters.

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Until large-scale migration and remittance dependency are understood not merely as humanitarian or economic issues but as structural sources of economic warfare with strategic consequences, the United States will continue to subsidize dynamics that undermine its own labor standards, enforcement capacity and long-term security.

The contest is no longer confined to the border. It now plays out in labor markets, financial systems and the rule of law itself — domains where inaction carries consequences just as surely as action.

DAVID MARCUS: Anti-ICE agitators adopt Palestinian tactics, including martyrdom

The highly organized groups of agitators in Minneapolis, coordinated online to harass federal immigration agents (or anyone in an SUV it seems), have begun to employ tactics that any Israeli would recognize from decades of terrorism in their country.

The basic idea employed by both the Minnesota leftists and Hamas is to be as menacing as possible to authorities, including through acts of violence, and then, when the authorities strike back, to claim victimhood and martyrdom.

The tragic and needless death of Alex Pretti on Saturday morning was a terrible example of this phenomenon, one that, sadly and unconscionably, is being not only tolerated by Minnesota officials, but shamelessly encouraged.

The video of the shooting is vague, and it will take time and testimony to piece together the chain of events that led to Pretti’s death. But there are a few facts that seem clear, and they all point to an organized effort to antagonize and provoke law enforcement.

TODD BLANCHE WARNS AMERICANS ‘SHOULD BE WORRIED’ ABOUT MINNESOTA PROTESTS AFTER CHURCH DISRUPTION

Pretti left home Friday with a gun and extra ammunition and a plan to impede federal agents, which is exactly what he seemed to be doing when he allegedly intervened in the arrest of a suspect.

It is reasonable to assume that Pretti brought the gun and extra clips in anticipation of a potential confrontation with law enforcement. Can we know that for sure? No. Is it more likely than not? Absolutely.

The key point here is that no matter how much one may cherish the Second Amendment, nobody has a right to carry a gun while committing a felony, because to do so obviously puts everyone involved in harm’s way.

TRUMP URGES DHS, ICE TO PUBLICIZE ARRESTS, SAYS CRACKDOWN IS ‘SAVING MANY INNOCENT LIVES’

Pretti’s defenders are disingenuously arguing that he was merely enjoying his rights as a gun owner while protesting, which would be perfectly fine, except there was no protest. Instead, he was involved in direct, illegal action to interfere with the feds.

This is why reports, from all sides, say that the crowd of hundreds did not gather until the shooting, which is exactly what happened in the case of Renee Good, who was also breaking the law with a deadly weapon, in that case, her SUV.

The tactic here is clear as day: organize hordes of people to harass federal agents all day, then cross the line into breaking the law in order to create a flash point, even if that means people have to die.

NOEM SAYS MINNEAPOLIS SUSPECT COMMITTED ‘DOMESTIC TERRORISM,’ ACCUSES WALZ, FREY OF INCITING VIOLENCE

This is straight out of the Palestinian playbook: cause just enough harm to provoke a reaction, then claim the reaction is disproportionate and evil, as in, “We just sent a suicide bomber, you used missiles, no fair!”

Let’s be clear, if you choose to fight with federal agents while they attempt to arrest a criminal and you bring a gun to that fight, you stand a very, very good chance of getting shot. 

But this was more than just a bad decision by Pretti. These types of actions have been cynically sanctioned by local elected officials such as Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Gov. Tim Walz, and state Attorney General Keith Ellison.

MINNESOTA AGITATORS STALK, PELT BORDER PATROL AGENTS WITH FOOD AND SPIT AT GAS STATIONS, DHS SAYS

To date, none of them has firmly told citizens to stop organizing to impede federal agents. It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the deaths are good politics for them in their one battle after another against President Donald Trump.

Frey, and Walz and Democrats in general, will hide behind the well-worn phrase “peaceful protest” but will never say exactly what peaceful protest includes.

Does peaceful protest include storming churches? Does it include using your car to hinder investigations? Does it include carrying a gun while committing a felony? They won’t address any of this, and the only reason why, not that makes any sense, is that they like the results.

MOB VIOLENCE IN MINNESOTA ISN’T FREE SPEECH — IT’S GROUNDS FOR THE INSURRECTION ACT

After the death of Good, conservatives pleaded with Democrats to tell their followers to stand down from illegally impeding agents. We warned, very specifically, that it would cause more death. But Frey and Walz just didn’t care.

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Sadly, we were right. 

One lesson that Israel has learned in fighting an enemy that wants to or is willing to die, is that the reaction to Israelis defending themselves is widespread moral outrage and condemnation. The other lesson is that they have to do it anyway.

This is the conundrum that the Trump administration finds itself in today. They could throw in the towel and leave the Twin Cities to their own devices, but doing so would be the end of federal law.

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No, the administration must hold firm, in the face of public outrage, in the face of midterm worries, and in the face of the shameless harassment of their agents.

It is up to Minnesotans if they wish to create more martyrs to their cause, and sadly, given the support for lawlessness seen from Frey and Walz, we can expect more, sooner rather than later.

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Trump’s penguin breaks the internet — and sends the left into a frenzy

What does a penguin have to do with the Crusades, Joan of Arc, President Donald Trump, Alexander the Great, masculinity, Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, and the fight for Western Civilization itself? As of this week — quite a lot.

On Friday, the White House posted an AI-generated photo of President Trump walking alongside a penguin holding an American flag, the pair marching toward mountains adorned with the Greenlandic flag. The caption read: “Embrace the penguin.”

Predictably, internet-illiterate leftists leapt to the conclusion that Trump thinks penguins live in Greenland (the only penguins native to the Northern Hemisphere live on the Galápagos Islands). But Trump’s penguin post wasn’t ignorant; it was a deliberate nod to a viral right-wing meme. And because the left can’t meme, they missed the reference entirely.

EVILS OF COLLECTIVISM ARE JUST WARMING UP. ‘RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM’ BETTER BE READY

For days, TikTok and Instagram have been flooded with a clip of a solitary penguin trudging toward distant mountains. The footage comes from Werner Herzog’s 2007 Antarctic documentary “Encounters at the End of the World.” In the film, Herzog shows a lone penguin peeling away from the safety of its colony and heading inland — toward certain death, according to Herzog.

But the online right saw something else. Users (mostly male) saw the penguin as a powerful rebuke of secular modernity. They interpreted the penguin not as lost, but as a free thinker. To them, he was rejecting the colony. In today’s terms, that means rejecting secular postmodern orthodoxy and marching toward a greater purpose.

It’s easy to think life is meaningless, civilization is collapsing and there’s nothing left to save. But that’s the lie of our age — the lie that nothing matters and the good cannot win.

TikTokers paired the penguin footage with an organ remix of the right-wing anthem “L’Amour Toujours (I’ll Fly With You)” and overlaid images of Western heroes: Joan of Arc, Alexander the Great, Aragorn, Jesus Christ, King Baldwin IV and Luke Skywalker. Countless similar penguin edits have garnered millions of views online.

WITHOUT GOD, NEW YORK’S DREAM TURNS HOLLOW. MY WALK ACROSS AMERICA PROVES IT

Although this is all long after his time, celebrated fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien understood the power behind the penguin. In Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” Frodo Baggins leaves the comforts of the Shire on a grueling, back-breaking quest. He faces hunger, fear, harsh weather, betrayal, and danger. Tolkien shows us, through storytelling, that all ordinary people are called to extraordinary courage by leaving comfort behind and facing suffering and sacrifice.

As Christians, we are beckoned to the hobbits’ adventure — to fight evil all our lives. The modern world suppresses that calling, teaching people that thinking with this type of purpose is somehow wrong. The modern world smears Christians, particularly White Christian men, as racist, misogynistic, oppressive and regressive. But the innate human desire to leave the Shire or the colony and seek a higher calling can never be killed.

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

That’s why it’s no mystery that young men on social media are resonating with the penguin. As one user put it: “The penguin spoke to something in all of us men. A desire for more. To push our limits. To see what we’re truly made of.”

TIKTOK ISN’T ENOUGH TO STOP GEN Z FROM DRIFTING TO AOC. TRUMP MUST DO 3 THINGS NEXT

The penguin lore actually predates the memes that sprang up last week. The penguin first became an emblem of masculinity thanks to a previous viral video featuring a drag queen interrogating an elementary-school-age boy about men wearing makeup. The child asserted that boys cannot wear makeup. When the drag queen asked the boy, “Who said?” the boy pointed at a paper penguin on the wall and exclaimed, “The penguin over there!”

His answer was improvised, but the symbolism stuck. “The penguin over there” became a tongue-in-cheek internet defense of manhood and sex differences against the LGBT cult.

HOW FEMINISM HIJACKED THE CONVERSATION ON MASCULINITY

This brings us back to the administration. For Trump, the penguin is an apt symbol for the president’s decade-long fight against the radical left. His road to political power has been one marred by literal persecution — including an FBI raid on his home, impeachment witch hunts, and lawfare against him and all his supporters. It is therefore befitting that he would embrace the penguin on his journey against the regime, or “colony.”

Everything Trump does is opposed by the global power brokers. Even the president’s push to obtain Greenland has been fanatically opposed by hysterical European elites (who couldn’t care less about the invasion of the Third World into their own countries).

Other Trump administration leaders and their departments joined in on the penguin meme. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a “MAHA” video of himself walking with the penguin alongside the caption, “The mainstream made us sick. Choose the healthier path.”

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For RFK Jr., the penguin captures his rebellion against Big Pharma and Big Food — the revolt against the upside-down food pyramid and the corporate gospel of seed oils and processed sludge.

Then the Department of Homeland Security added its own compelling take. In response to the question of why the penguin is walking toward the mountains, DHS wrote, “Americans have always known why.”

STEEL, NOT SNOWFLAKES: REAL GRIT MEANS MASTERING YOUR EMOTIONS

DHS is right. America was built by penguins — and by that I mean rebels, pilgrims, frontier men and women, conquistadors, and cowboys. We are a nation founded by risk-takers who left the colony for the mountains. We are descended from men who suffered and died to carve civilization out of wilderness. It’s our inheritance.

But beneath the idea of rugged individualism lies a deeper religious current. Some users have interpreted the mountains to symbolize Jesus Christ Himself.

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS A GENERATIONAL TALENT JUST LIKE OUR MOST GIFTED ATHLETES

To be a Christian is to follow Jesus, “the way and the truth and the life,” which usually means taking a path opposite of the world. In other words, to be Christian is to leave the penguin colony. It means to walk into suffering. It means to climb Mount Doom. It means to reject modernity’s cheap dopamine for the deeper contentment of a redeemed soul.

One leftist on X sneered that Trump’s penguin post “has all the maturity of the brain rot Reels my kids watch.” Sure, there’s plenty of brain rot online, but the penguin is an exception.

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It’s easy to get “blackpilled” these days. It’s easy to spend our days doom-scrolling and believing the fight is pointless. It’s easy to think life is meaningless, civilization is collapsing and there’s nothing left to save. But that’s the lie of our age — the lie that nothing matters and the good cannot win.

This is why the penguin hits a nerve. He refuses to give up, stay in the colony, or let despair consume him.

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If you “get” the penguin, you’re already ahead. You know life isn’t supposed to be comfortable — but it’s also not supposed to be miserable.

Take comfort in that. 

If you understand the penguin, you understand the truth: We are meant to fight on this earth—with hope, not bitterness. You can even find hope just in knowing that Christ is always working in beautiful, mysterious ways — including through a penguin meme.

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DAN GAINOR: One child, one ICE photo — and a media meltdown built on distortion

A picture is worth a thousand words, as the old saying goes. There’s just no guarantee those words are truthful. In the case of a photo of a 5-year-old boy in Minnesota, the major media embraced shock and “awwww” instead of the truth.

The boy, named Liam Ramos, and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, were approached by ICE agents. The father reportedly ran, leaving the boy alone with authorities. The father was quickly captured, but a photo of an officer with his hand resting lightly on the boy’s backpack sent the media into a predictable nationwide panic.

The press dug deep to find words of alarm — “upsetting,” “firestorm,” “controversy,” “outrage,” “haunting.” Each network tried to outdo the other with one goal in mind, and it wasn’t journalism. The goal was to help Democrats succeed in shaping the illegal immigration narrative, holding on to the millions of potential new voters they let into the country under Biden and keeping ICE from sending them back. No one is more on board with that agenda than so-called neutral journalists.

MEDIA RUNS WILD WITH ‘EGREGIOUS LIE’ ICE TARGETED 5-YEAR-OLD IN MINNESOTA, DHS SAYS CHILD WAS ABANDONED

Here’s what we really know. The father “is an Ecuadorian citizen who was in the United States illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration,” as reported by Fox News. DHS officials say they approached the father and he ran, leaving them with the boy. 

They quickly captured the father, who asked that they not be separated. Police reportedly even bought the boy a meal. Father and son are together in a facility in Dilley, Texas. Hardly the crisis of 2026. But there’s the photo of the boy standing there with a winter hat and wearing a Spider-Man backpack.

Major news outlets ran with the claim that the agents used the child as “bait” to capture his dad.

CBS — the network the left claims is pro-Trump — went with “bait.” So did AP, The Washington Post and PBS. (The Post later added a correction.) All of these are allegedly objective news outlets. They went with “bait,” citing a quote from a school official who clearly opposes ICE.

WHITE HOUSE, DHS PUSH BACK ON CLAIMS ICE TARGETED 5-YEAR-OLD IN MINNESOTA, SAY CHILD WAS ‘ABANDONED’

ABC anchor David Muir called the incident a “growing outrage.” Reporter Matt Rivers followed that up by referring to “the haunting images sparking a firestorm.” “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King focused her hyperbole on the child. “Now to the newest controversy over the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis. It involves a 5-year-old boy. His name is Liam Ramos. Look at his face.” That’s not journalism. That’s activism.

She added while speaking on set, “Nicole, I was watching this story yesterday. It’s very upsetting. Both sides are very, very disturbing.” That could also be said about King, a Democrat donor and supporter who is rumored to be on her way out at CBS.

The other major media were almost as extreme. The New York Times claimed to speak for an entire city with this headline: “Detention of 5-Year-Old by Federal Agents Incenses Minneapolis.” The paper claimed, “The image prompted outrage in the Twin Cities area.” Leftists don’t want immigration enforcement. They are already at 10 billion on the outrage dial. This didn’t upset them — it was just an excuse.

DHS RELEASES IMAGE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF ABANDONING HIS 5-YEAR-OLD SON WHILE FLEEING ICE

The Post was just as bad, if not worse, running this piece: “The Abhorrent Power of the Photograph of a 5-Year-Old Held by ICE.” The paper grasped that this is what journalism does best now — find an iconic photo and use it to push an agenda. The link to the story on X repeats the “bait” claim.

The Post’s art and architecture critic, Philip Kennicott, understood the potential the photo has to aid the left’s agenda. “This is an image of universal moral urgency, akin to a small number of photographs that once upon a time had the power to change our behavior, away from cruelty or indifference and in the direction of basic decency.” He cited the 1972 “Napalm Girl” photo as a comparison — an absurd and offensive stretch.

PBS, which is still around (for now), quoted the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, being honest about the left’s motivation: “We’re looking at our legal options to see if we can free them either through some legal mechanisms or moral pressure.” The left doesn’t care about the law. They want to override it with manufactured moral outrage.

WASHINGTON POST CALLS MN CHURCH PROTEST AN ‘ASSAULT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY,’ DON LEMON AN ‘INTERNET PROVOCATEUR’

If you read the PBS article, it’s interrupted by a begging pop-up ad urging its mostly left-leaning readers to donate: “Your generous monthly contribution — or whatever you can give — will help secure our future.”

Then came the equally ridiculous left-wing outlets like MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and Mother Jones. MS Now went with: “The photo of 5-year-old Liam Ramos being detained by ICE is a shameful look for America.” You can picture the outlet’s fans shouting “Shame! Shame!” like a scene from

Mother Jones went fully off the deep end: “They Want to Tell You a Kid With a Spider-Man Backpack Is Evil.” Literally, no one said that — except Mother Jones.

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The whole controversy makes one wonder if journalists ever watch cop shows. If a parent gets arrested, officers can’t just abandon a child on the street. You think there’s outrage now? Imagine if they had. As Vice President JD Vance said, “Are they supposed to let a 5-year-old child freeze to death?”

Nearly every one of these immigration stories is one-sided, like nearly every major media controversy today. Nowhere do journalists interview former Biden administration officials about their open-border policies that brought these illegal immigrants into the U.S. and resulted in numerous American deaths. Every story is spun to depict Trump officials and ICE as evil for daring to enforce laws that Democrats and the press oppose — the same laws Democrats once enforced themselves.

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White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the press is working “hand in glove with Democrats to spread malicious lies about ICE operations.” You’ve got that right. But as the editor says in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That might as well be the motto of today’s news media.

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TEVI TROY: Shapiro’s revenge once again reveals Kamala Harris’ incompetence

When Kamala Harris wrote in her memoir “107 Days” that Pennsylvania governor – and fellow Democrat – Josh Shapiro insisted on being “in the room for every decision” if he were to become vice president, an angry Shapiro characterized her account as “bullsh–” and “blatant lies.” But Shapiro’s own forthcoming memoir demonstrates that he is not done getting back at Harris. His book includes the explosive and damaging tale that in the Harris team’s hostile vice-presidential vetting process, Shapiro was asked if he had ever been an Israeli agent, bringing to mind the ugly association of Jews and dual loyalty.

The story is harmful to Harris in a number of ways. It reinforces the existing impression that she and her team were clumsy, but also adds the dimension that they may have been antisemitic. Indeed, even Joe Biden’s former envoys on antisemitism have denounced the Harris team’s questioning as “horrifying.” Shapiro’s devastating tale is a reminder of Harris’ failure to understand a basic rule of life in the political big leagues: Don’t dish it out in your memoirs and get caught unawares when your targets respond.

In the modern, staff memoir-writing era, there have been numerous instances of aggrieved officials hitting back hard against memoirs that attacked people ostensibly on the same political team. A great example of this kind of revenge happened in the wake of Arthur Schlesinger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his time in the Kennedy administration, “A Thousand Days.” Some in the Kennedy camp were annoyed with Schlesinger’s account, including former first lady Jackie Kennedy, who told Schlesinger that he had gotten “too personal” with some of his revelations. Even more irked was Kennedy’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk. Schlesinger wrote that Kennedy had been thinking of firing Rusk and that the “Buddha-like” Rusk would say little in White House meetings. Rusk, who was still the secretary of state for Lyndon Johnson when the book came out, let it be known that he was only silent around Schlesinger because Schlesinger was a notorious gossip on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit. 

Sometimes, responses to a book can be less ad hoc and more systematic. Charlie Kolb, a domestic policy aide to President George H.W. Bush, wrote a critical memoir called “White House Daze,” which came out in 1993, after Bush had lost to Bill Clinton. The memoir was particularly harsh on Kolb’s boss, Roger Porter, as well as Bush’s Office of Management and Budget Director Dick Darman, with whom Kolb had clashed in the White House. Bush staffer Tom Scully, who had been an aide to Darman, dismissed the very idea of Kolb having had the access for writing a revealing book, saying, “Charlie was so cut out of everything that for him to be in a position to write a book was a joke.” Scully was not alone in being unhappy with Kolb, as the Bush alumni collectively froze Kolb out. In 1999, years after the administration ended, Scully – who had endorsed Kolb’s hiring to begin with – recounted that “Nobody’s talked to Charlie in seven years that I know of. He’s the most unpopular guy as a result of that book.”

Unlike the Kolb book, George Stephanopoulos’ “All Too Human” came out while President Clinton was still in office. Stephanopoulos’ revealing memoir called out the sitting president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky affair as “stupid, selfish, and self-destructive.” Clinton staffers responded to Stephanopoulos’ best-selling book both on and off the record. Anonymous aides called Stephanopoulos a “backstabber” and an “ingrate.” Clinton ally Mandy Grunwald also sniped that if Clinton hadn’t given him the “opportunity of a lifetime,” he wouldn’t have become a “multimillion-dollar book writer and commentator.”

KAMALA HARRIS DISPARAGES WASHINGTON POST, LA TIMES OVER NON-ENDORSEMENTS IN 2024

Another damaging memoir that came out during an administration was Scott McLellan’s “What Happened.” McLellan made a number of criticisms of President George W. Bush, writing that Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and that he engaged in “self-deception.” McLellan also called the invasion of Iraq a “serious strategic blunder,” and claimed that the Bush White House made “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”

The Bush White House responded with a seemingly organized effort to dismiss McLellan’s book.

After the memoir came out, multiple Bush allies criticized McLellan with similarly crafted talking points. Senior Adviser Karl Rove said, “This doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t. Not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time.”

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These types of pushback are, of course, fair game from those targeted in a negative memoir. John Bolton probably expected President Trump to criticize him and even call him a “liar” following Bolton’s critical memoir of his time in the first Trump administration, “The Room Where It Happened.” He probably did not expect Trump’s second term, in which Bolton is being investigated for misuse of classified information, an investigation that probably would not have happened but for the book.

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Memoir writers do not have to take people on by name, as Harris did to Shapiro. Sometimes memoirists call out anonymous antagonists. Examples of this include John Podhoretz, who created composite characters in his George H.W. Bush book “Hell of a Ride,” and Condoleezza Rice, whose memoir of the George W. Bush years, “No Higher Honor,” is replete with over 20 uses of anonymous characters. This could be a way to spare someone’s feelings, but it could also minimize the odds of someone taking revenge. When someone is criticized by name, as Shapiro was, the odds of blowback are much higher, as Harris has now learned.

Memoirs are part of the game, but Harris should have known that taking on a savvy player like Shapiro was not without cost. If she had paid more attention to history, she might have been aware of the risks she was taking in calling out Shapiro. Her lack of awareness of what other politicos have done in response to poor memoir depictions is just one more sign of her lack of aptitude for politics – and left her vulnerable to Shapiro’s revenge.

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Young men aren’t failing America — America is failing to give them purpose

What could two men from entirely different generations, politics, and backgrounds possibly share in common? A mutual concern for America’s future and the young men growing up in it.

Our shared lived experience — an experience that we’re seeing become less frequent — is driving our concern as we see it move from the norm to the exception. As young men, both of us volunteered. It instilled in us a sense of pride, duty, identity and connection. For Neil, it was a summer with a nonprofit to engage with kids in a small low-income fishing village in Labrador, Canada. For Alex, it was time spent as a Boy Scout learning the power of collective action and shared responsibility to community. 

These service experiences were formative in shaping who we are. However, as volunteering declines and isolation increases, opportunities for connection through service are not top of mind for most young American men. 

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY MAY IMPACT YOUNG ADULTS TWICE AS MUCH AS TEENS, HARVARD SURVEY FINDS

Across classrooms, workplaces and online, we’re seeing what happens when young men become untethered from their communities. The data alone tells a powerful story. Among 18- to 35-year-olds, men are significantly more likely to feel lonely, compared to their female counterparts. Fifteen percent of young men today report having no close friends, compared to 3% in the 1990s. Perhaps most alarmingly, suicide rates among men in 2021 were four times higher than those of women. And the most common last words men use to describe themselves before they take their own lives are “worthless” and “useless.” 

People are taking note, but we need to take action. This year, California launched a statewide initiative to shine a spotlight on this growing emergency and, more importantly, an unexpected solution: .

Volunteering gives men a structured way to build relationships and feel part of something larger than themselves. Research shows that young people who volunteer show significantly better well-being. Youth who volunteer have 25% lower anxiety, are 35% less likely to have behavioral problems, and are 66% more likely to be “flourishing” compared to non-volunteers.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP AMERICA, START SERVING

Yet in 2023, only 34.1%  of young people ages 16 to 17 volunteered in the past year. Consider a recent NBC poll in which Gen Z men ranked making their family or community proud and using their talents to help others among the top five markers of success. Volunteering is one of the few cost-free ways to live out these values and create purpose and connection as a result.

So, what must we do to reconnect young men to community through service? We need to rebuild the civic infrastructure around volunteering so that people understand  and  to get involved. We also need to show young people that volunteering isn’t just good for their communities – it’s profoundly good for them too.

Points of Light found that 44% of people who want to volunteer are unsure how to get involved and where to find opportunities, or say they cannot find opportunities near where they live or work. 

Every young man should have access to opportunities that foster purpose, pride and belonging.

That’s why Points of Light is calling for a collective national response — to elevate the value of volunteering, reduce these barriers by meeting young people where they are, and ultimately double the number of volunteers by 2035.

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Already, the organization — whose mission is to increase volunteerism around the world — engages 4 million volunteers annually. But expanding our volunteer infrastructure through public and private investment is critical to achieving this goal.

Every young man should have access to opportunities that foster purpose, pride and belonging. That could mean corporations putting real dollars and time where it matters, offering paid volunteer hours for workers to mentor and serve alongside young men. It could mean schools–from primary to post-secondary–community centers and youth organizations strengthening the programs that make volunteering accessible: from service-learning in classrooms to after-school and weekend opportunities.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, it raises the question: what kind of nation do we want the next generation to inherit? How can we ensure it’s one that doesn’t leave  behind? 

Governments, institutions and leaders must come together to make service central to American life. In turn, this will build a culture where a generation of young men feels connected to one another, proud of their roles and rooted in the communities they serve.

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No crisis can be solved overnight, but the choices we make right now will determine the future we hand off to young people. We can either continue to watch our young men drift further into isolation, or we can offer them a life raft — an opportunity that we know will work.

Together, we can help the next generation of young men find purpose and belonging — one act of service at a time.

JOSH HAMMER: Case against Israel cheapens the word ‘genocide’

The horrific regime slaughter in Iran and President Trump’s aggressive campaign to acquire Greenland have resulted in the neglect of a major case now underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The ICJ last week began hearings brought by Gambia against Myanmar alleging genocide against the Rohingya people — about 1.4 million of whom live in Myanmar. Several other states have intervened in support of Gambia, which has presented the court with evidence it contends proves that Myanmar’s military forces committed a genocide against the Rohingya population. Myanmar vehemently denies the allegation.

While this case does not concern Israel directly, the ICJ’s determinations may have major ramifications for the case Israel is now defending at the tribunal against South Africa.

This is especially true since one of the judges hand-picked by Gambia to sit on its ICJ panel is South African national Navi Pillay. That would be the same Navi Pillay who recently rushed to publish a report accusing Israel of genocide before retiring as head of the UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry — a panel widely criticized for its flagrant institutional bias against Israel and the anti-Semitic remarks of its members.

‘UNPRECEDENTED’ ANTISEMITISM PANEL TACKLES SURGING NATIONAL ISSUE

In reality, South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel is riddled with flaws. It is also pushing to redefine a term that been held sacrosanct since the end of World War II.

The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor who in 1944 strived for its incorporation into modern international law. That occurred in 1948 via the UN Genocide Convention.

The prohibition on genocide is considered a norm — that is, a non-derogable rule accepted by all of the first-world community with no exceptions. The definition of “genocide” requires no law degree to understand, and it should never, ever be politicized.

WESTERN LEADERS MUST CONFRONT ISLAMIST-INSPIRED ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE BEFORE IT TARGETS EVERYONE

For a genocide to take place under Geneva, there must be acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” The phrase “intent” here is of paramount importance.

South Africa’s pending case before the ICJ alleges Israeli intent to destroy the Palestinian-Arab population of Gaza. Israel, by contrast, (correctly) maintains that its recent actions in Gaza have been a just and proper military response to the war of annihilationist jihad and unspeakable atrocities launched against it by the Hamas terrorist organization on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel’s “intent” is to free Gaza from Hamas, to return hostages abducted and held by Hamas, and to ensure Hamas has no future role in Gaza and cannot undertake another October 7-style massacre. It repeatedly offered to end the war if Hamas laid down its arms and released all hostages.

ANTISEMITIC THREATS ESCALATE NATIONWIDE AS PROTESTERS CALL FOR REPEAT OF OCT 7 MASSACRE

Hamas, on the other hand, has shown a complete disregard for human life and has openly stated that its sacrifice of Gazan civilians is a cynical strategic necessity to turn public opinion against Israel. It has for years embedded military infrastructure within Gazan civilian infrastructure — schools, hospitals, UN facilities, mosques, and children’s bedrooms. Israel has waged a defensive campaign in one of the most complex operational environments of any modern war.

At the same time, it has worked with states and NGOs to allow and facilitate extensive amounts of humanitarian aid, rebuilt water supplies, coordinated the vaccination of young Gazans against polio, and helped coordinate and approve the evacuation of those in need of urgent medical care.

Israel repeatedly provides advanced warnings of impending military strikes and has held off strikes where intelligence of nearby civilians has come to light. For a fighting party to so often relinquish the element of surprise to reduce harm to the local civilian population of its enemy is extraordinary.

MORNING GLORY: 2026 SHOULD BE YEAR ANTISEMITISM BECOMES UNACCEPTABLE IN AMERICA AGAIN

None of this constitutes a “genocide” — and clearly shows the lack of any by Israel to destroy the local Palestinian-Arab population in Gaza.

Nonetheless, since South Africa brought its case before the ICJ, numerous groups and states have leapt at the opportunity to join in on the anti-Israel campaign. This has ranged from tendentious so-called online genocide scholars to anti-Semitic mobs to deeply politicized NGOs. Amnesty International, for instance, shamelessly waited more than two years before publishing a report focusing on Hamas’ crimes on Oct. 7, while straining to remind readers of its slanderous accusation of genocide made against Israel a year prior.

Together, they have all been involved in a campaign to redefine the term “genocide” to suit their narrative — all while ignoring the reality of Hamas’ own Nazi-esque barbarism.

The politically motivated efforts to undermine the concept should be of grave concern to us all. If successful, it will result in the ICJ’s further self-discrediting as an institution of political point scoring, rather than meaningful justice.

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Israel has legitimately responded to genocidal attacks by a terrorist organization that has repeatedly called for its entire annihilation and the murder of all global Jewry — something it broadcast live to the world on Oct. 7, 2023.

The term “genocide” is one too important to be cheapened. Those pushing for its redefinition must be stopped in their tracks.

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America doesn’t need to own Greenland — there’s a better, more peaceful way

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, President Trump backed off his threat to use the military to gain control of Greenland. He said that he doesn’t need to use military force and later announced that the U.S. had reached agreement on the “framework of a future deal” with NATO. Denmark, Greenland and our European allies have rejected any attempt by the U.S. to acquire the island.

Contrary to President Donald Trump’s views, the U.S. does not need to own Greenland to defend it. For decades, our national security has been strengthened by cooperative agreements with Greenland, Denmark and other NATO nations extending back to the Second World War.

During World War II, the Nazis occupied Denmark and had a military outpost in Greenland. The U.S. ousted the Nazis from Greenland and established military bases on the island. In 1951, the U.S. entered into an agreement with the Danish government providing for joint defense, and throughout the Cold War the U.S. maintained military facilities on the island. In 2004, the agreement was updated to give Greenland’s government a greater say in how U.S. military operations impacted its citizens.

TOP NATO OFFICIAL REVEALS DETAILS OF STUNNING MEETING WITH TRUMP THAT PRODUCED GREENLAND DEAL ‘FRAMEWORK’

In recent decades, the U.S., in cooperation with the Danish and Greenland governments, has maintained a limited military presence on the island. Under these agreements, the U.S. has had wide discretion in running military operations in Greenland for national defense. Danish and Greenland citizens now ask the obvious question: If President Trump wants to beef up the U.S. military presence in Greenland, why doesn’t he do it within the framework of existing agreements?

One argument used by President Trump is that the U.S. needs to own Greenland to secure rare earth mineral deposits on the island. The pretext for this claim is the decision by China to impose export controls on their rare earth mineral producers. The fact is that in recent years the U.S. has significantly reduced its dependence on Chinese rare earth minerals. Greenland has substantial reserves of rare earth minerals. However, access to these rare earth minerals is constrained by both technology and limited downstream facilities required to bring rare earth minerals to market. It will take many years to explore and develop Greenland’s rare earth minerals and bring them to market.

Greenland should retain control over its rare earth minerals and develop these resources to benefit its people. The proven way to do this is to rely on markets, not politics. Greenland should grant leases to multinational corporations in a competitive market. These lease agreements could generate royalties and revenue for Greenland based on market conditions. Greenland should place this royalty revenue in a sovereign wealth fund for the benefit of its citizens. The precedent for such a sovereign wealth fund is that created in Norway, the Government Pension Fund of Norway. The creation of a sovereign wealth fund could guarantee that these revenues are used to benefit Greenland’s people rather than elites, special interests, or foreign interests.

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The U.S. should support this approach to the exploration and development of rare earth resources in Greenland because it is in our national interests. In the long run, Greenland could emerge as a major partner in NATO, much like Norway. President Trump should pursue policies to strengthen NATO, not undermine it. Greenland and Denmark remain committed to this cooperative approach.

No marriage. No babies. No future. America’s going from birth to death

A new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows that, absent immigration, America’s population will begin to shrink by 2030. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, this projection underscores a hard truth: the collapse of marriage and family life represents the gravest threat to our great nation’s future.

That is why The Heritage Foundation has released the first in a series of special reports on Saving America by Saving the Family. The central argument is straightforward. Our country cannot afford to continue ignoring our declining marriage and birthrates, as lawmakers on both the Left and Right have done for decades. The discussion ranges from eliminating all marriage penalties embedded in welfare programs, to new tax credits for married families, to offering public honors to couples for every decade they remain married.

These proposals reflect a blend of longstanding conservative priorities and new ideas, all animated by a shared belief: that strong American families were at the heart of the nation in 1776 and remain essential to its future. They are not offered as a final word, but as the beginning of a long-overdue national conversation about how to halt America’s demographic and social collapse.

HERITAGE FOUNDATION WARNS AMERICA ‘DANGEROUSLY CLOSE’ TO FAMILY BREAKDOWN POINT OF NO RETURN

Unfortunately, there are those—on both the radical Left and the libertarian Right—who are rigidly and ideologically opposed to our key ideas for supporting married families.

Critics on the Left argue that opposition to abortion and support for married parents who prefer to provide home child care (usually through the mother) amount to a patriarchal assault on women’s “autonomy” and “reproductive freedom.” Meanwhile, critics on the libertarian Right contend that government has no business trying to incentivize decisions related to family structure.

America is a nation rooted in its people, culture, laws and customs, as well as its ideals—and it cannot be sustained if Americans themselves do not marry, form families, and raise children

Few dispute that marriage rates are falling, that traditional families are weakening, or that the nation stands on a demographic precipice. What is striking is how our critics echo each other in saying the government should not be doing anything proactively about it.

The problem is that if traditional families continue to disappear, we will eventually lose America itself.

AMERICA’S NEXT HEALTH REVOLUTION STARTS IN THE KITCHEN — AND AROUND THE DINNER TABLE

America is a nation rooted in its people, culture, laws and customs, as well as its ideals—and it cannot be sustained if Americans themselves do not marry, form families, and raise children. And yes, we do believe it is legitimate for government to encourage ways of life that allow its people to endure and flourish, and the social science is crystal clear—traditional married families outpace the alternatives in a host of wealth, education, health, and happiness measures.

We make no apology for wanting to persuade more young Americans to marry, own homes, raise the next generation, and find deep fulfillment in family life.

We also do not believe the solution lies in mass immigration when we can’t even assimilate the immigrants that are already here. Nor do we believe that modern technology can substitute for the home, the neighborhood, and the family.

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The quintessential American Dream of a family with a house and a white-picket fence remains as important as ever to the American imagination, and our task is to convert that dream into a reality. We want to make sure young Americans can realistically achieve these goals by, at a minimum, removing obstacles that stand in the way, and by assuring our policies actually privilege, prefer and support married family formation.

That is a winning message conservatives would do well to embrace in 2026. And the good news is that President Trump is already leading the way. He recently announced his intention to tackle the unaffordability of single-family homes and abuses in the credit-card industry, and Heritage looks forward to contributing our thoughts and recommendations into that discussion and those to come.

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More broadly, we will continue to answer those—on the Left and on the libertarian Right—who either see no problem or see no solution. They are wrong on both counts. A society that refuses to defend marriage and child-rearing is not neutral; it is choosing between accelerated or managed decline. And a movement that shrugs its shoulders in the face of that decline offers nothing but surrender.

If our critics have new ideas, they should by all means present them. But we are done watching our kids fall further behind, our families struggle and our societal pillars crumble, and we are calling for action that meets the moment. Heritage will be proud to work on ushering in a new American Golden Age, centered on the family, and the next phase in reaching that goal begins now.

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SEN DEB FISCHER: The EV scam that stuck taxpayers with the bill for elite perks

In 2022, Democrats rammed through what they misleadingly called the Inflation Reduction Act. The name was deceptive then, and the results are undeniable now: it didn’t reduce inflation. What it did accomplish was shovel hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into “Green New Deal” subsidies — chief among them, electric vehicle (EV) tax credits that disproportionately benefited the wealthy.

At the time, I stood on the Senate floor and asked: Why should working Americans struggling with high prices be forced to subsidize luxury car purchases for the rich? Nearly every Senate Democrat voted to keep these handouts alive. Now, more than four years later, the data proves I was right.

The National Bureau of Economic Research found that seven out of 10 EV tax credit recipients would have bought an electric car anyway. In other words, taxpayers were footing the bill for decisions affluent households were already going to make. That’s not an incentive — that’s a windfall.

AMERICANS ARE PUMPING THE BRAKES ON ELECTRIC VEHICLE ADOPTION: ‘AFFORDABILITY IS A BIG ISSUE’

And who reaped that windfall? The wealthiest Americans. A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that before the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the top 5% of earners claimed half of all EV tax credit benefits, while the bottom 60% of earners received less than 3%. Democrats claim they fixed this by adding income caps, but they set the ceiling at $300,000 for joint filers. 

Since when is $300,000 considered middle class? In what world should taxpayers be buying $80,000 SUVs for families earning three times the median household income?

The environmental case isn’t much stronger. Yes, EVs produce fewer emissions than gas-powered cars. But the Congressional Research Service highlights research showing that the credits mostly displaced sales of other efficient vehicles like hybrids. When you account for that substitution, the supposed climate benefits are overstated by nearly 40%. Simply put, these credits aren’t nearly as “green” as Democrats claim.

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Meanwhile, the price tag was massive. That’s why I’m pleased we repealed these wasteful tax credits in July’s reconciliation law. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this will save taxpayers $190 billion over the next decade. Republicans are saving taxpayers from this costly policy that was never going to deliver on Democrats’ own goal of 50% EV sales by 2030.

“In what world should taxpayers be buying $80,000 SUVs for families earning three times the median household income?”

The verdict is clear: EV tax credits are inefficient, inequitable and irresponsible. They don’t meaningfully change consumer behavior, they don’t deliver the promised environmental gains and they drain taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the rich. 

If Democrats were serious about helping working families — instead of virtue-signaling about climate change — they would back policies that deliver a real return on investment.

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A good place to start would be addressing the dwindling Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which is projected to run insolvent by 2028. While drivers of gasoline-powered cars pay into the HTF through the federal gas tax, EVs do not contribute at all despite their heavier batteries putting greater wear and tear on our roads and bridges. That means higher maintenance costs, and, once again, working Americans footing the bill.

That’s why I introduced the Fair SHARE Act, which would require EVs to contribute to this fund. I encourage my Democratic colleagues to cosponsor it and to work with me on including an EV fee in the upcoming Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act. That would be a fairer, smarter policy – one that actually serves working families instead of subsidizing the wealthy.

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DAVID MARCUS: From borders to bombs, 5 times Trump defied experts in Year 1

Donald Trump’s second first year in the presidency will go down in history as one of the most eventful in our nation’s first 250 years, largely because time and again he made experts who doubted his methods look like fools.

For decades, at least since the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have seen presidents as caretakers of our democracy, not as drivers of it, but Trump, seeing the caustic caution of a Congress which couldn’t pass a bill to decide where to have lunch, has acted.

These actions have paid dividends, loath though the legacy media is to admit it, and they are reasons to be excited about what his next three years may hold.

ONE YEAR BACK IN THE OVAL OFFICE, TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SAYS EVERY MAJOR CAMPAIGN PROMISE DELIVERED

I’ll give you five examples where the experts said Trump was out of his mind, but, in reality, it all worked out fine.

1. Closing the Border

Prior to Trump taking office, Democrats had assured the American people that the border could not be closed without congressional action, and the experts gravely agreed.

DAVID MARCUS: TRUMP UNDERSTANDS THAT SAFETY IS FOR EVERY CITIZEN, NOT JUST THE LUCKY FEW

“A president doesn’t have the unilateral authority to shut down the border,” insisted Alberto Benitez, director of the Immigration Clinic at George Washington University Law School, in 2024, for example.

That has simply, and objectively, turned out to be false. According to Customs and Border Protection, there have been seven straight months of zero illegal immigrants being released into the country, not 1,000, not 100, but zero.

The border is shut. It’s actually incredible, but too often when an incredible thing happens we just accept it as the norm, as if it’s always been. No. Trump made that happen.

MORNING GLORY: PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS BECOME THE ‘PUNISHER-IN-CHIEF’

2. Tariffs

On “Liberation Day,” as Trump dubbed it, in the spring of last year, tariffs went through the roof on almost every nation, and the stock market tanked immediately, with pundits predicting the president’s approval ratings would tank just as quickly.

On every TV network and in every serious financial journal we were told that soon stock brokers would be selling apples on the street corner from carts in black-and-white photographs.

DAVID MARCUS: WHY TRUMP’S MAJOR TRIUMPHS WILL OUTLAST HIS POLLING DIP

“This is a disaster, and anyone who says otherwise is lying,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee posted on X, back then.

In fact, Trump’s “yuge” tariffs were an opening position, and about four gazillion trade deals have been accomplished as a result. Like those deals or not, the stock market today is at record highs, and everyone on Wall Street is still in color.

3. Bombing Iran

Critics of Trump, from both the left and the right, warned that if he were to attack Iran, it could unleash unrest in the Middle East and perhaps even World War III!

LIZ PEEK: TRUMP IS PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BY BACKING IRAN INTO A CORNER

Ryan Crocker, a distinguished chair in diplomacy and security at RAND, said prior to the strike, “… it is unlikely that air power alone will eliminate Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons,” adding, “Perhaps the U.S. force would persuade Iran to agree to such restrictions. If not, it will broaden the conflict and deepen Iranian determination to acquire nuclear weapons, whatever the cost.”

Once again, Trump was right, and the experts were wrong.

What actually happened was that the U.S. military, under the direction of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, neutralized that very nuclear program that Barack Obama and his buddies wanted to contain through appeasement.

Now, Iran’s murderous regime is on the brink of destruction because Trump refused to listen to the experts.

4. Crime in Washington, D.C.

The murder rate in Washington, D.C., dropped 40% last year, second only to Denver at 41%. For almost half of that year, President Trump had the National Guard deployed to protect the city and its citizens.

But what did the experts say at the time about the use of the National Guard?

DAVID MARCUS: SECURE BORDER BRINGS PLUMMETING OVERDOSE DEATHS, BUT DON’T EXPECT TRUMP TO GET CREDIT

David Kennedy, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, had this to say: “When communities don’t feel they’re being policed properly, they stop helping. It’s very common for what’s seen as illegitimate policing to result in spikes of violence. And I’m very concerned about that in this instance.”

The experts insisted that the Guard wasn’t even in the areas where most crime occurred, but Trump, who witnessed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s miraculous anti-crime transformation of Gotham in the 1990s, knew better.

According to The Trace, improvement was immediate, “From August 11 to October 11 — the first two months of Trump’s takeover — 41 people were shot in Washington, 10 of them fatally. That’s a 62 percent drop in the number of shootings over the same period last year.”

The Trump administration’s broken-windows policing is working. And everybody knows it.

DAVID MARCUS: HOW MANY AMERICAN LIVES HAS TRUMP’S BORDER MIRACLE ALREADY SAVED?

5. The Cabinet

Whether it was Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sean Duffy or Pam Bondi, almost all of Trump’s cabinet picks, save maybe Marco Rubio, because everyone likes Rubio, were viewed by critics on the left as sycophantic wannabes who had no business in their roles.

Jonathan Hanson, a political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, said a year ago, “We’re in untested waters,” going on to say, “It’s true that people’s standards have shifted, but the question is, when does it really cross a line?”

REBECCA GRANT: TRUMP’S 8 BIGGEST NATIONAL SECURITY WINS OF 2025

In practice, Trump’s Cabinet has been one of the most effective and cohesive cabinets in modern history and has delivered on several successes for the president, as listed above. Not only that, but televised, hours-long, cabinet meetings have kept Americans quite informed about what they are actually doing.

The expert class demanded that their own apparatchiks fill these coveted slots and basically make sure that nothing changes very much, even if they use big words to pretend it will.

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That’s not how Trump rolls, at least not in his second term.

The American people must hope that the Trump administration continues to confound the expert class, and the Davos conglomerates of too-skinny billionaires.

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The experts are on tap for Trump, as they should be, but they are not on top. Instead, on top are the interests of America, and time and again, on that score, he always seems to prove the experts wrong.

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Jeremy Piven hopes ‘Rush Hour 4’ won’t ‘operate out of fear’ and stays true to franchise

EXCLUSIVE – Fans of the movie franchise are likely to always remember actor Jeremy Piven’s wild cameo in “Rush Hour 2.” And it turns out he had just as much fun acting it as audiences did watching.

In the sequel, Piven plays a flamboyant Versace store clerk in Las Vegas who helps Carter and Lee, played by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, with their suit shopping. In the Brett Ratner-directed films, Chan stars as a top Hong Kong inspector and Tucker as a Los Angeles police officer who team up to solve international crimes. Piven’s brief scene had audiences praising him for pulling off “one of the greatest cameos of all time” with his flashy, comedic timing as he confuses Carter and Lee as a gay couple and promises to turn them into “the belle of the ball.”

“You know, when I played that scene, it was just before I had done ‘Entourage,'” Piven told Fox News Digital. “I was still in my kind of journeyman actor phase. I think I still am in that phase, fortunately or unfortunately. You know, about 40 movies before ‘Entourage’ and that was one of them. And I had one line, you know, ‘May I help you?’ And I improvised and had fun with it and, yeah, it would be great to explore that character again.” 

‘ENTOURAGE’ STAR JEREMY PIVEN SAYS PEOPLE ARE TOO EASILY TRIGGERED AND NEED TO HEAR EACH OTHER OUT

Fans were thrilled by the news that nearly two decades since the last movie, “Rush Hour 4” was in the works, yet some may be concerned about whether the latest film in the franchise would suffer in today’s more sensitized environment. The first three films are known for their politically incorrect humor as much as for their action sequences.

“I would like whatever sequel comes out, for it to be true to its nature with ‘Rush Hour,'” Piven said. “And yeah, it’d be fun to see where my character is now.”

Piven also addressed his famous scene in a recent interview with New Yorkers Live, saying he was glad viewers didn’t think he was “demeaning the gay community” with his portrayal. In the same interview, Piven said that once people stop being so “easily triggered” by comedy in general, they’re “going to have a better life.” 

PARAMOUNT REVIVES ‘RUSH HOUR’ FRANCHISE REPORTEDLY AFTER TRUMP’S REQUEST

Piven suggested that as long as the movie stays true to what made the franchise funny in the first place, fans will show up. The “Rush Hour” movies earned big laughs out of the culture clash of Lee and Carter when out of their element — one particularly memorable scene in the first movie shows Chan’s character accidentally using a racial slur that he thinks is endearing him to a bartender; in the second movie, Carter nearly gets himself killed by gangsters at a Hong Kong club when he starts talking too much.

“I think if they try to second-guess the humor and play it safe or operate out of fear, no good can come creatively when you operate out of fear,” Piven told Fox News Digital. “So, I think if they’re true to the spirit of the rest of those movies. . . . You know, Chris has evolved since then as a person and as a performer. And so has Jackie. Jackie is an absolute legend. And so it’d be really fun to see where they are now. And it would be fun to be a part of that again. I love those guys.” 

Fox News Digital has reached out to Paramount for comment.

JACKIE CHAN REVEALS HE IS IN TALKS FOR ‘RUSH HOUR 4’ DURING FILM FESTIVAL APPEARANCE: REPORT

Piven, best-known for his Emmy-winning turn as Hollywood agent Ari Gold in HBO’s “Entourage,” is currently on a comedy tour throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia. The show, according to the official website, “highlights Piven’s successful transition into stand-up comedy, a comedic muscle he’s been flexing to showcase his dynamic personality.”

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“What’s so fun about doing stand-up is, no matter what the room is, no matter the temperature is, it’s our job to navigate it and to kind of be the best version of ourselves in that moment,” Piven told Fox News Digital. “Whether, no matter what you’re facing. So, I mean, that’s one of the great challenges, I believe.”

THE PROSECUTORS: Arkansas father caught in legal nightmare for saving daughter from monster

A travesty of justice is unfolding in Arkansas, but it isn’t too late to stop it.

At 1:12 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 8, 2024, Aaron Spencer and his wife awoke to find their 13-year-old daughter missing from her bed. Spencer’s wife called 911, while Spencer jumped into his vehicle and sped off into the night, desperate to find any trace of his missing child. He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the truck of Michael Fosler, with his daughter inside.

Fosler was no stranger to the Spencers. In July of that year, Fosler allegedly raped Spencer’s daughter, resulting in his indictment for 43 separate counts including sexual assault of a minor, internet stalking of a child and possession of child pornography. The Lonoke County prosecutors handled the case, with it landing on the desk of Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore. It’s a little unclear who dropped the ball — Lonoke County, Judge Elmore, or some combination of both — but what we know for sure is that this dangerous abuser of children was released from custody on a $5,000 bond, with a no contact order in place to prevent further abuse of Spencer’s daughter. Then Oct. 8 came, and neither the bond nor the no contact order was worth the paper it was printed on.

Spencer’s actions in that moment were nothing short of heroic. He ran Fosler’s truck off the road, and firearm in hand, ordered him to release his daughter. Instead, Fosler fought back, and the struggle ended with Spencer emptying his firearm into Fosler. Spencer then rescued his daughter from the truck and called 911.

ARMY VET DAD RUNS FOR SHERIFF WHILE CHARGED WITH GUNNING DOWN DAUGHTER’S ALLEGED SEXUAL PREDATOR

Spencer never should have been in this situation. He shouldn’t have had to save his daughter from a monster. But because local elected prosecutors and judges failed him, that was the position he was put in. Astonishingly, the prosecuting attorney not only failed to take any responsibility for what had transpired; he charged Aaron Spencer with second-degree murder. And wouldn’t you know it, the judge on the case was none other than Circuit Judge Barbara Elmore.

Judge Elmore immediately took action to hide this affair from the public eye, dropping a gag order on everyone in any way connected with the case, preventing them, on penalty of contempt of court, from speaking with the press or the public about the case. Gag orders are not that unusual, but this one was so expansive and so obtrusive that the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in and declared it unconstitutional, finding that it “was on its face a plain, manifest, clear, and gross abuse of discretion and in excess of its authority.”

Judge Elmore was undeterred. Despite the constitutional right every defendant has to a public trial, she essentially closed the trial to the public, greatly limiting the seats available to the public, media, and even Spencer’s own defense team. Elmore did this without providing any alternative means of viewing the trial, and without any evidentiary hearing or judicial findings justifying it. For the people of Arkansas, it seemed like the fix was in. The judge who had once failed Aaron Spencer’s daughter was now committed to ensuring that his trial would happen in as close to secrecy as she could muster.

Fortunately, the Arkansas Supreme Court stepped in, again, vacating the judge’s order. But they didn’t stop there. The high court took the extraordinary step of removing Judge Elmore from the case. The unusual remedy showed just how egregious her behavior had become.

This is the first step toward justice, but it shouldn’t be the last. The prosecuting attorney should drop this case altogether.

Not that the prosecution’s behavior up to this point has been indicative of good judgment. Statements from the prosecutors in this case are not only embarrassing; they should trouble the people of Arkansas. Prosecutors suggested that Spencer’s angry comments from July—when he discovered that his daughter had been raped by Fosler—were somehow evidence of his intent in October. Never mind that such anger would be the natural reaction of any father. And never mind that Spencer didn’t hunt down Fosler and murder him in the weeks or even months that followed; he shot him while rescuing his daughter from another kidnapping by Fosler.

Prosecutors also suggested that Spencer should have just called 911 when he saw his daughter in the truck with Fosler. That a father should give up the pursuit of his daughter’s kidnapper and rapist in the hopes that the police could arrive in time to save her is so astonishingly absurd it boggles the mind that any prosecutor charged with protecting and defending citizens and victims of crimes would countenance it.

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But the removal of Judge Elmore and the attendant delay in Spencer’s trial provide an opportunity to end this farce. The local prosecutors should drop this case. The state attorney general should refuse to defend any conviction, in the unlikely event a jury returns one. And the governor should promise to do everything in her power to pardon Spencer, if she must. To do otherwise is to turn justice on its head and to leave every person in Arkansas at the mercy of the predators who would victimize them and their children.

BROADCAST BIAS: Networks side with church invaders, call attack mostly ‘peaceful’

When the radical left feels the urgent need to protest, and to make it saucy enough to go viral, it doesn’t want to observe any rules, or even laws. On Sunday, Jan. 18, a “racial justice” contingent invaded the evangelical Cities Church in Minnesota. Organizer Nekima Levy Armstrong brought at least 20 other people who interrupted the sermon, yelling things like “Justice for Renee Good” and “Hands up, don’t shoot.” The church emptied, and the activists closed down their operation about 45 minutes later, once police arrived.

The broadcast networks didn’t want to acknowledge this story, perceiving that it might be a little too extreme for the average American. This was a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act — and everyone can guess how energetically ABC, CBS and NBC would respond with outrage to protesters marching into an abortion clinic and interrupting anyone’s “right to choose.” We could guess the same for Trump supporters walking into a mosque during their weekly worship. 

But through mid-week, through early Wednesday morning, these networks could only muster two minutes and 43 seconds among them on their morning and evening newscasts. Most of that was NBC, because reporter Maggie Vespa offered Armstrong a platform to proclaim, “They need to be investigating Jonathan Ross for the killing of Renee Good, not trying to weaponize their power against nonviolent, peaceful demonstrators.” Armstrong wasn’t asked how disrupting (and basically ending) a church service is “peaceful.”

ABC gave this invasive protest 51 seconds overall in those first three news cycles, and CBS News – the supposedly Trump-friendly network under new boss Bari Weiss – gave it only 14 seconds to that point.

ANTI-ICE PROTESTER WILLIAM KELLY DARES PAM BONDI TO ARREST HIM AFTER MINNESOTA CHURCH DISRUPTION

Overall, the church protest, when it had to be mentioned, was merged into the constant template of “growing protests” and “rising tensions” — in other words, we’re going to play this story as long as we can. The deadly riots after George Floyd’s death were grist for the networks to tout a “racial reckoning” — as if the violent deaths would lead to a positive outcome for the “right side of history.”

ABC’s Matt Rivers squeezed the church protest into a narrative of outrage at Trump, “as tensions rise in Minneapolis, as anti-ICE protesters disrupted this Sunday service demonstrating against one of the pastors who is also the director of an ICE field office, though it’s unclear if he was even there.”

The “public” broadcasters didn’t love this story. “PBS News Hour” offered 14 seconds in passing on Monday and nothing on Tuesday, while they did offer an eight-minute segment with the online headline, “Migrant families allege children held by ICE face unsafe and unsanitary conditions.” On Wednesday, Jan. 21, PBS anchor Geoff Bennett did ask St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her if the protest was appropriate in a “sacred space.” She said no, but rhetorically added schools and hospitals into the “sacred space” category.

ICE REJECTS ‘FALSE NARRATIVE’ ABOUT FAMILY SEPARATION, ASSERTS MINNESOTA CHURCH RIOTERS WERE NOT PEACEFUL

You couldn’t find a story on the church protest (other than one AP dispatch) in multiple searches of NPR’s website. But on Thursday morning, NPR did broadcast three and a half minutes pushing a focus group: “Some voters who backed Trump say ICE is going ‘too far.'”

The Justice Department’s indictment of Armstrong on Thursday offered an exhibit in how much the networks cared about violating the FACE Act. ABC skipped it, pushing instead some fake news about a 5-year-old boy who was “detained by ICE” because his father was an illegal alien. CBS gave it 20 seconds in passing.

NBC’s 27 seconds were mostly Vespa offering the defense lawyer for Armstrong: “Well, now the DOJ announcing arrests of three protesters with charges, including conspiracy to deprive rights. A lawyer for one of them telling NBC News they were arrested doing a peaceful, non-violent protest in a church.” 

It’s not “peaceful” to force an end to a church service with incessant yelling.

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Overall, the church protest, when it had to be mentioned, was merged into the constant template of “growing protests” and “rising tensions” — in other words, we’re going to play this story as long as we can. 

ABC and CBS also skipped it on Friday morning. Vespa’s outrage in her two Friday morning reports came from the left, after Team Trump digitally altered a photo of Armstrong’s arrest to make it look like she was crying after her arrest. In a brief burst at the end of each report, Vespa quoted a White House X account run by Kaelan Dorr announcing, “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”

None of the fragments of stories this church invasion received mentioned the on-scene cheerleading of former CNN host Don Lemon, who came along for the radical ride. Lemon later embarrassed himself by getting into a debate with people on the street, where he insisted misdemeanors weren’t “criminal acts.” The media elites know that Lemon isn’t anyone’s best representative of the leftist viewpoint.

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At this late date, the click-baiters like Lemon aren’t practicing journalism now, even if they protest that they are. What they’re doing is making anti-Trump content for clicks, and if that means egging on a church invasion, then they are proud to be part of “the struggle.”

The media elites think objections to the church invasion are a “Republicans Pounce” story, a right-wing narrative, and that’s exactly why they are prone to avoid spending any serious time on it.  

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