02 U.S. Politics

Blurb:

A coordinated network of far-left activist organizations played a central role in the street confrontation and nationwide unrest that followed Saturday’s fatal shooting of anti-ICE agitator Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, according to a detailed investigation.

The investigation by Fox News Digital found that agitators were already mobilized and actively tracking federal immigration agents minutes before the shooting occurred, using encrypted messaging platforms, live street alerts, and a shared database designed to monitor alleged ICE vehicles.

Blurb:

 

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the DOJ a stay of a lower court’s order that restricted agents in Minnesota, finding the limits were too broad and vague.

Judge Raymond Gruender partially dissented.

The stay will remain in effect until the Eighth Circuit fully reviews the case and issues its final decision. I don’t know when that will happen, but I read that the court expedited the case.

Blurb:

One year into his second term, President Donald Trump is racking up strong support on several of the issues that matter most to voters, even as the country remains politically divided.

Election integrity stands out as a clear winner for Trump one year into his second term. Nearly three-quarters of voters back a nationwide requirement for government-issued photo ID, according to a Quantus Insights national survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted Jan. 20–22, 2026. Support spans Republicans, independents, and a substantial share of Democrats, making it one of the most broadly supported policies measured in the poll.

Blurb:

In my column last week about the situation in Iran (“The Fog of Prewar in Iran”), I wrote:

Many commentators, noting Trump’s oft-proclaimed desire for “peace on earth,” believe he has paused to see if negotiations with Iran might end the slaughter. I doubt it. Trump’s desire for peace is perfectly genuine. But I note that the last time he said he wanted “peace on earth” was when he was asked whether he had any New Year’s resolutions just a couple of weeks ago. That was mere hours before he unleashed hell against the Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro, extracting him and his wife from their heavily fortified compound in Caracas and whisking them to New York in a stunning and perfectly executed special operations raid.

Blurb:

While anti-ICE insurgents stormed into Cities Church in St. Paul on Sunday, there was another anti-Christian disturbance happening outside of a church in Washington, D.C., where leftist agitators screamed obscenities and threatened young Christian families as they left Sunday services.

At roughly the same time on Sunday when the hoard of disrupters — including Don Lemon — burst into a worship service in St. Paul, agitators in D.C. were screaming “F-ck off, Nazi scum” at moms and kids as they left Christ Church on Pennsylvania Avenue. Christ Church in D.C. is an offshoot of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, which is led by Pastor Doug Wilson. The D.C. congregation has routinely garnered the attention of left-wing agitators since its first worship service last year, which was attended by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Blurb:

A mob of protesters smashed and crashed their way into a Minneapolis hotel on Sunday night as the city continued to be roiled by mob violence aimed at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Some at the scene alleged that Minneapolis police were slow in responding.

The hotel’s windows were smashed and anti-ICE graffiti was painted onto windows because protesters believed federal agents were staying at the Home2 Suites by Hilton Hotel, according to the New York Post.

Blurb:

According to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, it does not matter what your nationality is, as the city will be funding universal child care for foreign nationals, despite it being put on the taxpayers’ dime. He added that, despite people breaking federal immigration laws, these families should still be afforded benefits that they likely don’t even get in their native country. It’s unclear when people like him will start putting the American people first, but as of the writing of this, they are dead last. But what else is new?

According to WABC:

The initiative expands on the city’s existing free pre-K and 3-K programs and begins with a pilot offering no-cost childcare for children under age 2 in high-need neighborhoods. City officials say the program is designed to help working families across New York City, with eligibility tied to residency and a child’s age – not a parent’s citizenship.

Under current guidelines, families can apply regardless of income or immigration status, a practice city leaders say aligns with how other universal programs are structured. Supporters argue the approach prevents children from being excluded from early education and allows parents to stay in the workforce.

Blurb:

A chilling new “suicide pod” has been unveiled that seeks to streamline the euthanasia process by gassing two people to death at once, all while being powered by artificial intelligence (AI) automation to eliminate human safeguards.

The disturbing new AI-powered “suicide pod” is being pushed forward by a radical euthanasia activist, accelerating what critics warn is a globalist effort to normalize mechanized death under the guise of “choice.”

The new device is known as the “Double Dutch Sarco.”

Blurb:

Some Democrats realize they have a problem with transgender orthodoxy, but not New York Attorney General Letitia James—she’s doubling down.

Last week, she fired Glenna Goldis, the assistant attorney general at the Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau, apparently for the crime of expressing concern about the mutilation of children.

Goldis announced her departure in a lengthy post on X. She claimed James fired her “for speaking out against pediatric gender medicine.”

Blurb:

In case you aren’t familiar, Canada has a federal program called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Here’s more about it:

Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is a process that allows someone who is found eligible to be able to receive assistance from a medical practitioner in ending their life. The federal Criminal Code of Canada permits this to take place only under very specific circumstances and rules. Anyone requesting this service must meet specific eligibility criteria to receive medical assistance in dying. Any medical practitioner who administers an assisted death to someone must satisfy certain safeguards first.

Only medical practitioners are permitted to conduct assessments and to provide medical assistance in dying. This can be a physician or a nurse practitioner, where provinces and territories allow.

 

Blurb:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has confirmed that he would support articles of impeachment against Democrat-aligned activist federal judges who have repeatedly overstepped their constitutional authority to undermine President Donald Trump.

Johnson signaled that the House may move forward with the effort after months of growing frustration with what conservatives describe as judicial activism.

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Johnson was asked about Senate Republicans urging the House to pursue impeachment proceedings against specific judges.

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The U.S. and Taiwan recently reached a historic trade deal. Taiwanese companies will invest at least $250 billion in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, pledged $100 billion in U.S. investment in 2025. Taipei will provide an additional $250 billion in credit guarantees to Taiwanese companies.

Blurb:

Former special counsel Jack Smith couldn’t answer how much in tax dollars went to confidential sources in his nearly two-year investigation of President Donald Trump.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pushed Smith on the topic during the committee hearing on Thursday. Jordan noted that at least $20,000 went to a single source to review video and photos of the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, as part of Smith’s investigation into the incident.

Smith answered that he couldn’t remember if there were more such expenses.

Blurb:

 

For the past twenty years, For more than twenty years, my colleagues and I have argued for what the world actually needs, not a malevolent,failed United Nations, but a union of headed by the US wth shared values and moral clarity.

From its inception, the United Nations was structurally destined to fail. It has failed the tortured, the oppressed, and the poor on a scale that is impossible to quantify. Graft and corruption are not anomalies at the UN; they are endemic to the institution itself. As Norm Coleman once put it, the UN functions as a “jobs program for many countries,” where nations that contribute little or nothing wield outsized influence over global affairs.

The bureaucracy alone is damning: thousands of mandates and precious little to show for them.

Blurb:

The United States will be able to buy sovereign base areas in Greenland that will become legal U.S. territory “forever” under the terms of a NATO-brokered deal at Davos, reports claim.

A “framework” for a future deal negotiated in meetings at the Davos summit in Switzerland this week will see the United States get a sovereign base area modelled on Britain’s military bases on the Island of Cyprus, it is stated. While those bases are not on the British mainland, the UK owns approximately three per cent of the island in two exclaves, which are legally and internationally recognised as an overseas British territory.

Blurb:

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (Jan 15) announced the formation of a Gaza “board of peace,” a key phase two element of a US-backed plan to end the war in the Palestinian territory.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that THE BOARD OF PEACE has been formed,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, adding that the members of the body will be announced “shortly”.

“I can say with certainty that it is the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, any place,” Trump said.

Blurb:

… The verdict is already in.
Capital is mobile. Ideology is not.
And New York is learning too lat that markets always vote with their feet.

Trump calls NYSE Dallas expansion plans ‘unbelievably bad’ for New York

By Jan 19th, 2026

President Donald Trump blasted plans to expand the New York Stock Exchange to Dallas, calling the move “unbelievably bad” for New York and a failure of city leadership.

“Building a New York Stock Exchange in Dallas is an unbelievably bad thing for New York. I can’t believe they would let this happen,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. He added that the move posed a “big test” for New York’s newly inaugurated mayor, Zohran Mamdani.

Blurb:

President Donald Trump has revealed that the United States is poised to gain “total access” to Greenland under a developing arrangement with NATO allies, a move he framed as a major national security win that would dramatically expand America’s military reach in the Arctic.

Speaking Thursday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that the deal would give Washington sweeping and open-ended access to the strategically vital territory.

“Essentially, it’s total access,” Trump said.

“There’s no end, there’s no time limit.”

Blurb:

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was surprised by Republican Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt’s decision to miss a critical vote Thursday while Republicans work to pass their agenda with a razor-thin majority.

Hunt, who is vying in a brutal three-way Texas Senate primary, was absent while House Republicans advanced a rule teeing up votes on four appropriations bills, including a measure funding the Department of Homeland Security. Though House Republicans did not end up needing Hunt’s vote to advance the funding bills, Republican leadership has voiced irritation about the Senate hopeful’s frequent absences while he campaigns ahead of the March 3 primary.

Blurb:

Democrats have every intention of restarting lawfare against President Donald Trump and his allies the very moment he leaves office, and Republicans need to start taking that threat seriously.

At a Thursday hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, where the sole witness was get-Trump lawfare specialist Jack Smith, the former special counsel who brought bogus charges against Trump twice, Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., said the quiet part out loud in an exchange with Smith.

“Those indictments have been dismissed. Can they be re-brought or resurrected after this, after Trump leaves office?” Johnson asked.

Blurb:

A new poll suggests that the coalition that returned President Donald Trump to the White House after a four-year hiatus may be eroding.

These numbers come as Republicans seek to defend their narrow congressional majorities in November’s midterm elections, when replicating Trump’s 2024 support levels from low-propensity voters was always going to be a challenge.

Trump has lost ground with nonwhite and younger voters, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll released on Thursday. His gains with these voters compared to 2020 helped him win the popular vote and defeat former Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris is considering another run for president in 2028, though Trump is subject to term limits.

Blurb:

Are we shocked about this? If you’re here illegally, you’re going. If you’re here illegally and are committing crimes, you’re definitely being shipped out. Somali-led fraud is a nationwide epidemic. Minnesota is the epicenter due to excellent reporting from Nick Shirley and the shooting of Renee Nicole Good, who was killed after she tried to ram an ICE agent in Minneapolis. But Washington State, Ohio, and Maine also have fraud issues, and now ICE is heading north (via NYT):

The Trump administration has started an immigration enforcement operation in Maine, targeting Somali immigrants in the state, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.

The decision comes weeks after a similar operation in Minnesota incited protests and raised questions about the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thousands of officers and agents from the Department of Homeland Security were deployed there, and ICE’s actions have come under significant scrutiny in the wake of the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis this month by an ICE officer.

A number of asylum seekers from African countries who arrived in the United States during the Biden administration have settled in Maine, joining a Somali population that started arriving there in the early 2000s, when refugees from the country began settling in Lewiston. Yet Maine remains an overwhelmingly white state, with one of the oldest populations in the country. Some employers have begun looking to immigrants to fill labor gaps, as native-born employees have either left the work force or retired.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Maine telegraphed the upcoming operation in a statement on Monday advising people to protest peacefully.

Blurb:

“If you go and storm a church, if you go and assault a federal law enforcement officer, we’re going to try very hard. We’re going to use every resource of the federal government to put you in prison.”

Vice President JD Vance gave a clear warning Thursday as the Trump administration moved to arrest multiple anti-ICE, far left activists who stormed a Christian church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Vance said anyone who assaults federal officers or disrupts worship will face the full force of the federal government.

Blurb:

 

The co-hosts of “The View” were exhilarated by the presence of newly inaugurated New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), but Whoopi Goldberg topped them all with her praise of his policies.

Mamdani was swept into office on the promise of higher rent controls and redistribution of wealth, but he also benefited from opposition that included a scandal-plagued former governor and an unpopular incumbent mayor.

Her comments were met with thunderous applause from the audience.

Blurb:

The Daily Signal’s Virginia Correspondent Joe Thomas is out with a new podcast breaking down Virginia Democrats’ effort to redistrict the commonwealth.

Now that Democrats are fully in control of the commonwealth, they are moving forward with a plan that could add four Democrat seats and ultimately determine the balance of power in Washington after the 2026 midterms.

Thomas called the move, which could change the Virginia congressional delegation from six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and just one Republican, “reactionary.”

Blurb:

Jane Fonda, while wearing a shirt saying “resit,” has appointed herself as the authority figure on right versus wrong. The only problem with that is that she had a lot of feelings, but they were all based on lies.

You may recall the time the Trump Administration deported legal American citizens. And if you don’t recall that, it’s because it never happened. It only happened in Fonda’s imagination, which is where the left often comes up with their “facts.” You may also recall the time ICE kidnapped a bunch of people, and if you don’t, it’s because it only happened in Fonda’s mind.

To her credit, there was a shooting, as she said, “They’re shooting people.” The only problem with that stance is that she failed to say that the shooting happened as a response to someone allegedly committing assault with a deadly weapon. Unclear what she would do if someone tried to run her over, but you do the math.

Blurb:

 

 

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith is not having a good day today. He’s testifying before the House Judiciary Committee to discuss his investigations of President Donald Trump during the Biden administration, and to say it’s not going well for him is an understatement. Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has already systematically dismantled Smith’s credibility by focusing on one of the January 6th Committee’s most explosive and dubious claims.

Blurb:

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has raised eyebrows by openly praising Canada’s growing cooperation with Communist China and declaring that the partnership is helping shape a “new world order.”

Carney made the stunning remarks during a high-profile visit to Beijing this week, marking the first visit by a Canadian prime minister in nearly a decade and celebrating the two countries becoming so-called “strategic partners.”

“Mine is the first visit of a Canadian Prime Minister to China in nearly a decade,” Carney told senior Chinese Communist Party officials, including Xi Jinping.

“The world has changed much since that last visit.

“And I believe the progress that we have made and the partnership sets us up well for the New World Order.

“It’s a partnership with new focus and greater depth and a sense of purpose, and I look forward to realizing its promise and building on it in the years to come,” he added.