DAVID MARCUS: Spurning Trump means Mayor Jacob Frey owns Minneapolis mess

After protest, agitation and chaos rocked Minneapolis over the weekend, President Donald Trump has offered leaders there an olive branch, and placed the political ball squarely in their court.

Trump’s offer to Mayor Jacob Frey and Gov. Tim Walz began with a very real concession, by replacing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and gung-ho Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino with the arguably more moderate Border Czar Tom Homan on the ground. The move angered many border hawks in his own party.

There are some who legitimately fear that if the hardcore agitators, who have been harassing and impeding federal agents, see this as a win, it could spread like wildfire across blue cities.

But Trump didn’t only offer carrots to the hapless leadership in the Gopher State, he also included some sticks. They came in the form of very basic demands to hand over illegal immigrants in Minnesota’s criminal justice system.

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

Here are Trump’s four demands:

• Turn over illegals in local jails or subject to arrest warrants to the feds.
• Have state and local law enforcement commit to turning illegal immigrants over to the feds.
• Make local police help the feds track down and detain illegal immigrants wanted for crimes.
• Partner with the feds to “protect American Citizens in the rapid removal of all Criminal Illegal Aliens in our Country.”

For Trump’s part, if these demands are met, he promises to reduce the federal footprint in Minnesota, because, frankly, many agents wouldn’t be needed anymore with cooperation from local police.

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Before we get to Frey’s deeply irresponsible reply to this offer, we should be clear that all four of these points should already be in practice, given the Constitution’s supremacy clause, as they are in most American locales.

So, the offer is basically, turn over your criminals like the law says you must, and suddenly no one is getting raided in the wild, and no “law-abiding” illegals are getting swept up in the process.

Within hours of discussing Trump’s offer with Homan, Frey took to X saying he made clear to the administration that “Minneapolis does not and will not enforce immigration law, and that we will remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe.”

AGITATORS SWARM TIM WALZ’S OFFICE IN MINNESOTA CAPITOL TO DEMAND IMMIGRATION JUSTICE

In other words, “Shove it, Mr. President.”

On Wednesday, Trump fired back.

“Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws. Could somebody in his inner sanctum please explain that this statement is a very serious violation of the Law, and that he is PLAYING WITH FIRE!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

BORDER PATROL COMMANDER GREGORY BOVINO TO LEAVE MINNESOTA, AS TOM HOMAN TAKES OVER

My only quibble is that Trump claims he was surprised.

For his part, Walz has thus far taken a different approach. After a meeting on Tuesday with Homan, his office offered rather pleasantly, “The Governor and Homan agreed on the need for an ongoing dialogue and will continue working toward those goals, which the President also agreed to yesterday.”

The key difference here may well be that while Walz represents the entire state, while Frey represents only loony Minneapolis where many if not most of his constituents do not want any cooperation with Trump.

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In fact, on Tuesday the capitol in neighboring and equally lefty St Paul was stormed by protesters chanting ‘ICE out now,” and “Do your job,” presumably a message to their own governor.

Walz is starting to sound like he wants an offramp from the chaos, but Frey, of George Floyd era kneeling and weeping fame, isn’t ready to let go of his role as leader of the Trump resistance, yet.

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What Frey’s obstinance in the face of a common sense solution tells Minnesota and the nation is that, for inexplicable reasons, he values protecting criminal illegal aliens over peace on his own streets.

Leadership is more than just riding waves of popular sentiment, as Trump showed by disappointing immigration hardliners with his dressing down of Noem and Bovino. Sometimes, a leader must tell his own people of the need for compromise.

Hopefully, Frey understands that Trump’s offer is the best chance he has to quell the chaos and violence that has rocked his city, assuming that is what he wants, and assuming he doesn’t want even more clashes with the feds.

If Frey refuses, then Trump’s only options will be to continue operations or allow a two-bit Minneapolis mayor to single-handedly nullify federal law, something that must not happen.

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Nobody knows what Trump is actually threatening when he says Frey is “playing with fire,” but if the mayor decides to stand not only in defiance of, but arguably in rebellion to, the federal government, then Trump will no doubt have every option to end that defiance on the table.

Mayor Frey, the choice is yours.

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Moulton says ICE comparisons to Nazi Germany are not extreme in CNN interview

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said Tuesday that it is not extreme to compare U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with Nazi Germany. 

“I don’t think that the comparisons with Nazi Germany are extreme,” Moulton said in an interview with CNN.

“Because that’s what happened too. That’s why ordinary German citizens began to accept the idea that certain members of their community would be singled out — I mean, they have ICE tip lines — would be directly targeted in violation of the laws of the land, and it would be done by agents of the state. But, that’s what’s happening today in Minneapolis.”

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He added Massachusetts residents that he represents feel they could be next. Neither Moulton nor ICE immediately responded to requests for comment.

The representative is not the first to compare ICE with Nazis.

Most notably, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz compared ICE to the Gestapo, the notorious secret police of Nazi Germany.

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“Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets,” Walz said at the University of Minnesota Law School’s graduation ceremony.

In light of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, several celebrities spoke out against ICE. 

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Good was shot and killed during an encounter with the ICE officer earlier this month, after she allegedly swerved her car toward him. Since then, protests have erupted in Minneapolis and across the U.S., and Democrats are demanding reforms and even the abolition of ICE in response.

Protests have continued to grow since a Border Patrol shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday. Pretti was armed at the beginning of the encounter but had his weapon taken away from him before he was fatally shot, according to video of the incident. 

Author Stephen King compared ICE to the Gestapo as well. While performing a show in New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen expressed a similar sentiment, calling for ICE to “get the f— out” of Minneapolis. 

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MIKE DAVIS: Why surrender is not an option for ICE’s Minnesota mission

Under the United States Constitution, We The People have the most crucial sovereign power: to control our border and populace. Through our elected members of Congress, we decide who gets to come to America – and who must go. We set our national immigration policy decades ago through our elections and our subsequent federal immigration laws. In this last election, we gave President Donald Trump a broad electoral mandate – including a congressional majority – reaffirming his constitutional and statutory duties to mass-expel illegals from America – starting with the most dangerous criminals among them.

For many months after Trump’s inauguration day, Democratic politicians, plaintiffs, attorneys, judges and other activists have conspired to thwart the will of American voters through Democratic judicial sabotage. After a series of legal losses at the Supreme Court, these desperate Democratic operatives are now turning to violence. Indeed, Democrats are openly encouraging their agitators to obstruct – and even attack – federal agents in the line of duty. This is particularly true in Minnesota, after brave independent journalist Nick Shirley uncovered billions in alleged fraud by the Minneapolis Somali community, a key political constituency of Minnesota Democratic politicians. What’s a great way to distract from the biggest scandal in Minnesota history? Riots, of course, driven by the same Minnesota Democratic politicians who benefit from the billions in the Somali fraud schemes.

After days of Democratic-spurred riots, President Trump and Minnesota Gov Tim W.alz had a phone call on Monday. Trump described it as “very good,” and Walz expressed a desire to “work together.” This detente may be short-lived, as leftist agitators have now turned on Walz and directed their protests to his office. Regardless, ICE’s withdrawal from Minneapolis would be a disaster and cannot occur.

Empowered by seditious rhetoric from insurrectionists like Walz, who has described his state as “at war” with the federal government, leftists have decided that they have the freedom to confront and assault ICE officers with no repercussions – including, this past weekend, biting the finger off a federal agent. Some leftists have died in the resulting fray, the latest being Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old anti-ICE agitator who was shot while resisting officers’ attempts to take his pistol.

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Leftists have impotently tried and failed to legally stop President Trump from fulfilling his campaign promises of a secure border and mass deportations. Now, out of options, they’ve resorted to violence. The last time Democratic-run states took up arms en masse to resist the supremacy clause of the Constitution, nearly 400,000 red-blooded Americans were killed restoring order. But even after the Civil War, America has faced state insubordination many times.

In 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower had to commandeer the Arkansas National Guard after segregationist Democratic Gov. Orval Faubus mobilized state forces to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School. In the 1960s, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson both invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell violent anti-civil rights rioting.

Immigration is squarely under the federal domain. Indeed, over a decade ago, the Obama Justice Department successfully sued Arizona for attempting to independently enforce federal immigration law. Now, ICE is in Minneapolis pursuant to this core power. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson did not cave to threats and violence from segregationist states angry about the federal government enforcing federal law. They stood strong, even deploying the military and federalizing the National Guard when necessary to restore order and preserve the rule of law.

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President Trump faces similar insurrectionist challenges. Just this past weekend, Walz referenced Anne Frank when denigrating ICE. He and other leftists have made the disgusting claim that ICE “kidnapped” a 5-year-old child, after officers took the child to safety when his father abandoned him while fleeing arrest. (Curiously, Walz was silent when the inept Biden administration lost 300,000 children, many to sex slavery, who were brought illegally to the United States.)

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ICE is not the problem in Minneapolis. Leftist violence is. Florida and Texas each have far more people and illegals than does Minnesota. We do not hear about tumult in those states for one reason: stellar state leadership. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis respect the Constitution, including ICE’s law enforcement authority. These governors do not use Holocaust references, and they do not tell the good men and women of federal law enforcement to get out of their cities – in sharp contrast to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Abbott and DeSantis do not defend the storming of churches by anti-ICE maniacs – in sharp contrast to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. These governors are cooperating with the federal government to fix the existential crisis that dementia-addled Joe Biden caused when he allowed millions of illegals to pour into our country.

Our nation has an immigration crisis thanks to leftist open-borders policies. Minneapolis has a violence crisis thanks to demented and insurrectionist rhetoric from pathetic state and local leaders. Caving to the demands of these seditious conspiracists will not abate the crisis; it will exacerbate it. Spoiled children often think they can get whatever they want if they throw a loud enough tantrum. President Trump, in keeping with one of his favorite 2016 campaign songs, must remind these rioters that “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

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President Trump must follow the courageous lead of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. We will soon find out whether Walz’s sudden cooperativeness is a sincere attempt to de-escalate – or if Walz resumes his role as a modern-day Confederate governor. If Republicans cave to this insurrectionist and seditionist behavior, they will send an unequivocal message to every purple-haired SSRI addict in the country: domestic terrorism works. Caving will incentivize more radical leftist violence across the country. If leftists learn that they can use violence to make ICE withdraw in Minneapolis, they will employ the same strategy across America.

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I’ve worked thousands of money laundering cases — fraud is a national security threat

Nearly three-quarters of a million fraud-related suspicious activity indicators were reported by financial institutions in Minnesota in 2024. Concentrated largely in Hennepin, Ramsey and surrounding counties, these reports frequently cited transactions with no apparent lawful purpose, coordinated activity involving multiple individuals, misuse of checks and government payments, and patterns consistent with organized fraud rather than isolated misconduct.

Those numbers matter. Not because they are abstract statistics, but because they reveal how deeply fraud has embedded itself into our financial system and why it should be viewed not merely as a regulatory or financial issue, but as a national security concern.

The recent fraud headlines out of Minnesota involving daycare centers, medical providers and other sham businesses are not just local scandals. They are warnings.

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Fraud is often treated as a cost of doing business or a compliance failure. In reality, it is one of the most efficient entry points for illicit money to move through the U.S. financial system. And when illicit money moves freely, it does not remain benign. It fuels organized crime, corruption and networks that undermine public trust and stability.

That is why America’s financial institutions sit at the tip of the spear.

Fraud is the intentional use of deception to obtain money, goods or services unlawfully. Money laundering is the process of disguising the proceeds of that fraud, so the funds appear legitimate. It typically occurs in three stages: placement of illicit funds into the financial system, layering transactions to obscure their origin, and integration, where the money re-enters the economy appearing clean, such as being paid out as payroll, rent or vendor expenses from what looks like a legitimate business.

Fraud creates dirty money. Money laundering keeps it alive.

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In the Minnesota cases, the opportunity to detect this activity existed long before indictments or headlines. It existed the moment these businesses opened bank accounts.

Every U.S. financial institution is required to conduct Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence. This process is designed to understand who a customer is, what they do, where they operate and whether their activity makes sense. For businesses, that includes verifying ownership, stated purpose, expected transaction activity and physical address.

A daycare should look like a daycare. A medical provider should look like a medical provider. When the story does not match the facts, that discrepancy matters.

MINNESOTA FRAUD WHISTLEBLOWER SAYS ‘LACK OF GUARDRAILS WAS PRETTY SHOCKING’

I have worked thousands of suspected money laundering and fraud cases for some of the largest financial institutions in the country. I have seen firsthand how illicit money flows through ordinary accounts, how it hides in routine transactions, and how it is detected through inconsistencies, patterns and human judgment long before a case becomes public.

KYC is not a one-time event. Financial institutions are required to reassess customers over time, especially when transaction behavior changes. This is where transaction monitoring plays a critical role.

Banks use Transaction Monitoring Systems to flag unusual or suspicious activity. These systems are often misunderstood as purely technological. They are not. Humans design them. Compliance professionals determine which behaviors are risky, what thresholds trigger alerts and why certain patterns warrant review.

MINNESOTA FRAUD CASE IS ‘CANARY IN THE COAL MINE’ FOR GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS — INCLUDING ELECTIONS, LAWYER WARS

Equally important is OSINT, also known as open-source intelligence. Basic internet searches are performed by compliance officers in financial institutions and help verify whether a business address exists, whether it aligns with the claimed operation and whether public records raise concerns. If a business claims to be a childcare center, but operates out of a residential apartment or empty storefront, that is a red flag.

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When financial institutions identify potentially suspicious activity, they are required to file a Suspicious Activity Report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, under the U.S. Treasury. These reports feed the nation’s Financial Intelligence Unit and support law enforcement and national security efforts.

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Once a financial institution files a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR), visibility largely ends. Institutions are not told whether a SAR is flagged or shared, and the sheer volume filed every day nationwide makes it extraordinarily difficult for government agencies to identify, prioritize, and act on every report in real time. The result is an inherent gap between what financial institutions report and what the public ever sees in terms of outcomes.

The Minnesota SAR data is not just a snapshot of fraud. It is a reminder that recognizing fraud as a national security issue is not optional; it is the price of protecting public funds, public trust, and the financial system that underpins them both.

I’m an American farmer — empty USDA offices means fewer family farms

Believe it or not, it’s possible for federal agricultural policy to not just fail in Washington. It can also fail when there’s no one left in a local U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) office to help farmers put programs into practice. I’ve seen that reality up close, after spending more than three decades serving producers as a district conservationist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

My job wasn’t to sit behind a desk. It was to sit across the table from farmers, visit their fields, help design conservation plans that fit their operations and make sure funding approved by Congress actually reached farmland. Those local offices and the people who staff them are the backbone of USDA’s conservation work.

I saw this firsthand early in my career. When I moved to a local NRCS office in the early 1990s, one of the first producers I worked with was an older rancher who was deeply skeptical of the federal government. We sat down together, walked his land and put together a grazing plan that included a deep well, miles of pipeline and cross-fencing. The results spoke for themselves. His stocking rate increased, his operation improved, and his skepticism disappeared — a pattern I would see repeat itself over the years.

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Before long, he was telling other producers about his experience. Demand grew so quickly that our office went from being a quiet outpost to one that needed additional staff for the first time in years.

Today, that backbone is under real strain. A recent report by USDA’s Office of the Inspector General examining staffing levels at the Department from January to June 2025 revealed that NRCS lost 22% of its staff — 2,673 employees — in just the first half of 2025, one of the largest staffing reductions across the Department. Farmers across the heartland are already fearing the worst.

I share those concerns, not only as a former district conservationist, but as a farmer myself. Alongside my son, I run a 200-head cow-calf operation in South Dakota, paired with corn and soybean crops. Like other farmers across the country, I’m juggling high input costs, volatile markets and increasingly destructive weather. These challenges are only the tip of the iceberg of what family farms like ours are up against.

Even the best run farms can’t go it alone under these conditions. That’s why voluntary, locally led conservation programs operated by USDA are so important. Thanks to these programs, farmers have access to practical tools that help manage risk, improve productivity and build long-term resilience.

AGRICULTURE IS THE ANSWER TO AMERICA’S JUNK FOOD CRISIS

On my own operation, Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) contracts have helped me install a deep well with miles of pipeline, water tanks and cross-fencing. Our planned grazing system increased our stocking rate by 15 to 20% on the same acreage, producing more beef from the same land base.

With outcomes like these, it’s easy to see why these conservation programs are so popular with farmers. Polling consistently shows broad farmer support for conservation funding, yet demand continues to far outpace available resources. Even with additional funding Congress provided in 2022, USDA was unable to fund nearly 64% of applications for EQIP, CSP and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program in fiscal year 2024.

Republican leaders in Congress recognize the importance of these programs. As a result of the efforts of House and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairmen G.T. Thompson and John Boozman, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act strengthened long-term conservation funding. More recently, under the leadership of President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, USDA recently announced a $700 million Regenerative Pilot Program — a clear recognition that conservation strengthens producers’ productivity and profitability, Americans’ health, and our food and fiber supply.

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These are important victories. But conservation funding doesn’t help if there’s no one left to deliver it.

As a proud conservative, I applaud President Donald Trump and Secretary Rollins for their efforts to make USDA a Farmers First agency. But reform must not come at the expense of the department’s most important priority: serving farmers.

Such significant staffing losses have real consequences for farmers. Each lost staffer means longer waits for applications to be reviewed, contracts to be finalized and payments to be processed. Farmers are forced to carry more costs upfront, take on additional debt, or miss narrow windows to make improvements that protect their land and their livelihoods. When margins are already tight, those delays can be the difference between staying in business and closing the doors of the barn once and for all.

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Efficiency means delivering results, not hollowing out the very workforce that is crucial to the work of our producers. Simply put: without sufficient staff, even the strongest, most pro-farmer agenda cannot succeed.

Like countless farmers, I hope to pass our family operation on to the next generation. Access to conservation programs — and the people who deliver them — is essential to making that possible. As policymakers continue Farm Bill and appropriations negotiations, and as the Trump administration works to improve USDA’s effectiveness, they must listen to farmers. Protect these programs. Ensure USDA is staffed, equipped and funded to serve those who feed us all.

A therapist’s warning: Trump didn’t break America — permanent outrage did

After my Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “Is ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ Real?” was published, the response was immediate and intense. Some readers thanked me. Many were furious. I was accused of excusing Donald Trump, minimizing harm and betraying my profession. Some messages were hostile. A few crossed into threats.

What struck me wasn’t the disagreement itself, but how quickly disagreement turned into fury. Simply questioning the idea was enough to set people off. That reaction stayed with me, because it reflected something I had already been seeing in my clinical work.

Over the past decade, one psychological pattern has quietly become dominant in American life. It cuts across education, geography and socioeconomic status. I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our political era: a state of chronic political anxiety in which outrage becomes habitual and threat becomes the default lens.

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In my therapy practices in Manhattan and Washington, D.C., the emotional response surrounding Donald Trump has not cooled with time. It has only hardened. Politics no longer feels like something people debate. It has become part of peoples’ identity, something carried internally long after the news cycle ends.

When I wrote in the Journal that “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS, is not a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis, some assumed I was taking sides. I wasn’t. I was making a clinical distinction. The anxiety, obsessive thinking, disrupted sleep, strained relationships and constant mental preoccupation that many people experience are real, concerning to me and deserving of care. People aren’t pretending. They’re suffering. What I was pushing back on was the idea that attaching a political label explains those symptoms or helps people recover from them.

Our culture now rewards emotional intensity over restraint. Outrage is amplified, while reflection is suspect.

In practice, the pattern is familiar. People describe thoughts they can’t shut off. They check the news compulsively. They lie awake scrolling late into the night even when they know it only makes them more anxious. Some talk about feeling physically agitated, unable to relax. Many admit they can’t stop thinking about Donald Trump, even when they want to.

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Over time, this preoccupation begins to shape daily life. People describe organizing their routines around politics: who they feel comfortable dating, where they socialize, which family gatherings they avoid, even where they choose to vacation. Friendships narrow. Conversations shrink. Politics moves from belief into behavior.

This is not a political position so much as a psychological pattern. I’ve come to think of it as obsessive political preoccupation — not a formal diagnosis, but a description of what happens when a political figure becomes the constant focal point for intrusive thoughts and emotional arousal. The mind stays on alert, scanning for danger even when the threat is abstract or distant.

Part of what sustains this pattern is the need for a villain. A villain offers clarity in a confusing world. It assigns blame. It simplifies complexity. It provides moral certainty without requiring much introspection. When personal life feels uncertain or unsatisfying, political outrage can step in to supply meaning and direction.

Trump did not create this dynamic, but he became its most effective vessel. Long after individual controversies pass, the emotional structure remains intact. The identity holds. The outrage becomes self-sustaining.

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Our culture now rewards emotional intensity over restraint. Outrage is amplified, while reflection is suspect. Calm can look like complacency, and stepping back is often treated as moral failure. In that climate, anxiety doesn’t just persist. It’s encouraged.

The result is a society that struggles to disengage. Politics no longer simply informs opinions. It governs relationships, workplaces and everyday decisions. Many describe exhaustion from feeling permanently braced for the next outrage.

This is not healthy civic engagement. It is emotional overdrive. A functioning democracy cannot function in a constant state of alarm. When everything feels existential, perspective collapses. People lose the ability to distinguish between genuine danger and emotional habit.

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None of this requires abandoning convictions or disengaging from politics altogether. It requires remembering that emotional regulation is not political surrender. Donald Trump will continue to dominate headlines. That much is certain.

The more important question is whether Americans will continue allowing politics to dominate their inner lives. At some point, a society has to decide whether permanent outrage is a way to live.

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I worked for Justice Alito. What I saw up close shatters the media smear

Critics of Supreme Court justices frequently resort to unfair caricatures of those justices that, the critics hope, will generate clicks and likes. If you happened to see a recent hit piece on Justice Samuel Alito, for example, you would read that he is “unhappy,” “aggrieved” and “wronged.” And he, like the others, is expected to endure these attacks in silence. For, if the justices speak up, their critics then castigate them as thin-skinned and — conveniently — unhappy, aggrieved and wronged.

This vicious game is nothing new — but, when it comes to Justice Alito, it is personal for me.

I was born in Louisiana and grew up in the South, where I attended Baylor University for undergrad and Louisiana State University for law school. Today, I serve as the solicitor general of Louisiana, which requires me to argue before the Supreme Court. That is the experience of a lifetime — an experience sometimes described as a Super Bowl for lawyers, or, as one Yelp review of the Supreme Court building put it, Washington’s version of a gladiator match.

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History and statistics would say that my story is unlikely. I did not grow up among East Coast and West Coast elites. I do not hold an Ivy League degree. And my unpronounceable last name is not famous. Yet here I am — by God’s grace and because of an army of people (including my current boss, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill) who have believed in me.

Some jurists are reputed to be harsh taskmasters. Not Justice Alito. Not only did he lighten our loads at all costs, but he also never raised his voice or directed displeasure toward us.

Justice Alito is one of those people. When I mailed a clerkship application around a decade ago, I was under no illusions about winning the race against hundreds of other applications from top attorneys for one of four positions with the justice. And when I interviewed, I was sure I had torpedoed my chances: When I arrived, I declined coffee when the justice’s assistant offered it (I could not risk spilling it on my white shirt) — but when I went into the justice’s office and he offered coffee, I panicked and accepted (it would be rude to say no), only for him to ask the same assistant to bring me coffee. My face was bright red as she handed me a cup. Yet they both apparently forgave me, and they became dear friends after I began my clerkship.

The clerkship with Justice Alito was surreal in many expected ways. For example, the justice is incredibly smart. That is readily apparent from any opinion he writes or oral argument in which he grills counsel. So, too, behind the scenes: On more than one occasion, email chatter from him would go quiet, and then a flood of perfectly cited draft opinions would come streaming in. He did not need us.

But unexpected were the myriad examples of Justice Alito’s decent character that we witnessed. Take this example: A law clerk works long hours performing legal research, drafting memos and completing other necessary tasks. The “Alitos” during my year were no exception. But the justice is notoriously sensitive to imposing on his law clerks. He refused to email us on weekends if he could help it. And any time he wanted us to complete some research, he would ask in a sheepish, almost apologetic, tone. My co-clerks and I would laugh: Why was he worried about asking clerks to do the very things that clerks do? That is his decency.

Obsessive depictions of Justice Alito as “aggrieved” and “unhappy” in the media are personal to me.

Some jurists are reputed to be harsh taskmasters. Not Justice Alito. Not only did he lighten our loads at all costs, but he also never raised his voice or directed displeasure toward us. That is not because we were perfect — one time I had to apologize for turning in a memo a day late, but he did not bat an eye. To the contrary, the justice took every opportunity he could to encourage us. I remember one particularly long memo battle that we fought and won. He could have walked off with the victory. But instead, he took time to give me a thoughtful thank you note for my assistance.

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One of the memorable parts of any clerkship is the chance to eat lunch with your judge or justice and discuss anything but work. Some jurists prefer a fancy lunch out on the town. Not Justice Alito. My fondest memories are those lunches we had around a chambers table — the clerks with box lunches or maybe a to-go plate from the cafeteria, and the justice with a bowl of Campbell’s soup that he had just warmed in a microwave. The justice is famously introverted, and so, it was not uncommon for the clerks to run away with the conversation as the justice’s spoon clinked against his bowl of soup. The justice was not disengaged; he was waiting for the right moment to strike with the driest humor known to Washington. He did not need to spend precious time with us at lunch — he had more important things to do. And yet he sacrificed anyway.

Before argument one day, my family had a chance to stop by chambers and meet the justice. I was excited to introduce him. But, when they came in, he was beaming like a new father showing off a newborn: He told my family all about my work and how grateful he was to have me in chambers. Of course, as noted earlier, he could do his job just as well (probably better) without clerks. But he made me — and them — feel like a million bucks by expressing his sincere appreciation. In that moment, I remembered how improbable my story was. And nearly a decade later, I often reflect on that moment and the immense gratitude that I will always express to the justice who dramatically impacted my life.

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All this is why obsessive depictions of Justice Alito as “aggrieved” and “unhappy” in the media are personal to me. He is nothing like the caricature erected by those pining for clicks and likes at his expense. And it is a disservice to the justice and to the Supreme Court as an institution to perpetuate a false “aggrievement” narrative that, at this point, is exhausted from being copied and pasted too many times.

The Justice Alito I know is kind, humble, thoughtful and selfless. I know because he believed in me — and I am a better man because of his example.

Hollywood’s selective silence on Iran exposes the lie of celebrity activism

In the glittering ballroom of the Golden Globes, the air is usually thick with self-congratulatory speeches about the power of art to change the world.

But this year, as the Iranian regime escalated its brutal crackdown on a generation of freedom fighters, that same room was defined by a haunting, comfortable silence. Many of the night’s most visible moral arbiters, including Mark Ruffalo, Wanda Sykes, Ariana Grande, Jean Smart, Natasha Lyonne and Bella Ramsey, proudly wore pins against ICE after Renee Good was shot. They signaled their concern for one cause while saying and doing nothing for Iran, where people are being beaten, imprisoned and killed for demanding basic freedom.

We are told that “silence is violence” when it suits a domestic political narrative, yet when a tyrannical theocracy hangs young men from cranes and blinds women for the crime of showing their hair, the cameras stop rolling.

A ‘TEAR DOWN THE WALL’ MOMENT IN IRAN WILL DAMAGE BOTH THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC — AND CHINA

The truth is as simple as it is ugly: Hollywood’s celebrated culture of activism has been hollowed out by a selective outrage that stops exactly where the Iranian regime’s interests begin.

Just days after reports surfaced of a total internet blackout in Iran, a digital shroud used to hide a bloody surge in state-sanctioned executions, the world’s most influential cultural voices chose to look away. When the West’s loudest moralizers go quiet, it sends a clear message to the Iranian people: you are on your own.

This silence is not accidental. It is a bizarre, unholy marriage of convenience between the Western far left and Islamic fundamentalists. Despite standing for everything the progressive left claims to loathe, the oppression of women, the execution of LGBT individuals and the total erasure of religious freedom, the Iranian regime is given a pass because it positions itself as an anti-Western force.

We must stop treating the threat of the Islamic Republic as a distant regional dispute. Its reach hits the West in ways we can no longer ignore. Whether it is through the funding of terrorist groups, supporting proxies that destabilize our trade routes, or the ideological subversion of our university campuses, the regime is not interested in coexistence.

TRUMP ENVOY REPORTEDLY MEETS WITH EXILED IRANIAN PRINCE AS REGIME FACES PROTESTS

These efforts have reached a decade-high peak, yet our cultural gatekeepers remain paralyzed by a fear of being labeled Islamophobic for criticizing a murderous state.

Inside Iran, the people are not waiting for our permission to be free. From the streets of Tehran to the corners of Mashhad, the chants are no longer about reform; they are about the total rejection of a system that has hijacked their culture and stolen their future. When Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi speaks of a secular democratic transition, he is echoing a population that has outgrown its captors. They have found their courage; it is we in the West who have lost ours.

The era of talks and deals is over because you cannot negotiate with a regime whose fundamental identity is built on your disappearance. It is time for Hollywood and our political leaders to stop waiting for a safe moment to speak. We do not need more performative hashtags or empty gestures that disappear with the next news cycle. We need a sustained, unapologetic commitment to the total dismantling of the Iranian regime’s influence.

If we continue to choose silence over solidarity, our society is not just failing the people of Iran; it proves that the majority is actually choosing a side. It is time to stop being the regime’s silent partners and start being freedom’s loudest advocates.

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The most recent incident at a Beverly Hills theater, which banned Israeli comedian Guy Hochman, was political intimidation and anti-Jewish discrimination. An Israeli comedian was pressured to renounce his identity to perform. That is not activism. It is authoritarianism. Radical left and pro-Palestinian activists are using coercion and moral blackmail to silence Jews, Israelis and Zionists. Free speech dies when mobs enforce ideological conformity. In a free society, no artist should have to denounce Israel to speak. Targeting Jews while claiming human rights is hypocrisy, and America should reject it outright.

The American government must immediately move beyond targeted sanctions and implement a policy of maximum support for the Iranian people’s internal resistance. Simultaneously, the American public must demand that cultural and corporate institutions that claim to value human rights stop allowing intimidation and ideological pressure to silence moral clarity.

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Iranians around the world need to be heard in their plight fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Stop waiting for a convenient headline to support a secular, democratic Iran; the time to choose the side of freedom is now.

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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. 

ST PAUL PASTOR DENOUNCES ANTI-ICE AGITATORS WHO DISRUPTED CHURCH SERVICE, SAYS ‘WE’RE HERE TO WORSHIP JESUS’

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.

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

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.”

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

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.

THE FAR-LEFT NETWORK THAT HELPED PUT ALEX PRETTI IN HARM’S WAY, THEN MADE HIM A MARTYR

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.

BARACK AND MICHELLE OBAMA SLAM ICE AFTER MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING, URGE ACCOUNTABILITY

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.

THE FAR-LEFT NETWORK THAT HELPED PUT ALEX PRETTI IN HARM’S WAY, THEN MADE HIM A MARTYR

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.

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

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.

TIM WALZ COMPARES MINNESOTA ICE ACTIONS TO HOLOCAUST AND ANNE FRANK: ‘HIDING IN THEIR HOUSES’

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.

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

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.

JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP ADMIN FROM ‘DESTROYING OR ALTERING’ EVIDENCE IN DEADLY MINNEAPOLIS SHOOTING

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.

AMERICA’S ALLIES ARE FINALLY PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE FOR DEFENSE. NOW THEY MUST PAY THEIR BILLS

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.

NATO CHIEF PRAISES TRUMP AT DAVOS, SAYS HE FORCED EUROPE TO ‘STEP UP’ ON DEFENSE

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.)

CANADIAN COLUMNIST MUSES HOW CANADA CAN ‘EXTRICATE OURSELVES’ FROM US AMID TRUMP PRESIDENCY

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. 

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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.

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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.