02a U.S. Politics – Conservative

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Happy Tuesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. (In preparation for a whirlwind book tour, the Sine Qua Non Sequitur is spending a few weeks sniffing turmeric.)

So many unsavory characters in the Democratic Party to mock, so little time.

Despite being very well-traveled in the United States thanks to stand-up, I have only been to Minnesota once. That trip was just for a weekend and happened almost 15 years ago. I can think of one person I’ve known personally who was born there. The state isn’t really putting itself out there to earn my trust.

What I do know about Minnesota is that it’s cold and full of people who do things that I don’t like. Almost five years ago, I wrote that the United States should look into getting rid of Minnesota. I think we can all agree that my advice should have been heeded.

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President Donald Trump is finally planning to turn off the taxpayer money spigot for cities and states that refuse to comply with federal immigration law.

There are very few incentives that convince Democrats to stop illegal behavior, but money is probably one of them. They feel safe and smug breaking our immigration laws, so long as they can continue to fund all of their socialist programs and government employees. If that money is reduced enough, though, they might actually be willing to see reason. That, no doubt, is Trump‘s aim in holding back money from areas with sanctuary policies.

 

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Republicans in so many ways have wasted their majorities in Congress over the past year. But the GOP has an opportunity to amp up its lackluster tenure with a second reconciliation package that its sponsors say will lower costs and cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion.

Of course, the devil is always in the details.

On Tuesday, Republican Study Committee members unveiled the Reconciliation 2.0 Framework, a proposal the lawmakers bill as a “comprehensive conservative roadmap” for the next reconciliation bill. The framework, its sponsors say, is aimed at affordability and codifying much of President Donald’s Trump’s America First agenda.

“There’s three major things that I think are threatening the American dream right now: housing costs, health care costs and energy costs,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas, at a press conference Tuesday.

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President Donald Trump announced Monday, January 12, that Iran’s primary trading partners will be met with 25 percent tariffs on most goods. The announcement comes amid several days of sustained unrest across the country, which has left dozens of anti-regime protesters dead, according to figures from several human rights organizations.

The measure targets nations such as China, India, Turkey, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates, which are among Iran’s primary trading partners. The White House stated that this policy applies to any goods imported into the United States from those countries, potentially increasing costs for American businesses and consumers.

“Effective immediately, any Country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a Tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America. This Order is final and conclusive,” the president posted on Truth Social.

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FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican House candidates in purple districts who support changing the childhood vaccine schedule could pay the price in midterms, according to new data from President Donald Trump’s go-to pollster, Fabrizio Ward.

“In the districts that will decide the control of the House of Representatives next year, Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the elections,” says a Nov. 3 memo obtained by The Daily Signal.

Fabrizio Ward, a polling firm led by Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward, surveyed 1,000 voters in the 35 most competitive congressional districts on their attitudes toward recommended vaccines.

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Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon slammed and shot down reports that numerous DOJ officials quit because she refused to investigate the ICE officer who shot and killed Renee Good.

“This is fake news,” Dhillon told The Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan. “No division employee quit.”

MS NOW reported that three people claimed these officials from the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division.

The media ate it up. I saw the articles, but decided to wait.

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A storm is brewing in North Carolina with national implications. Educators in Chapel Hill-Carrboro City schools (home to the University of North Carolina) were called to a hearing by state legislators for persisting in indoctrinating children on gender and sexuality, in defiance of established state law. How does the left accomplish such a feat on a local level?

A trail of clues is emerging that uncovers the path educators took to circumvent legislation overwhelmingly supported by a majority of North Carolina voters. The Parents’ Bill of Rights (SB-49) was passed in 2023 over then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. It established that schools must notify parents if a child changes his name or pronouns, the beginning acts of social transition for gender change. Furthermore, it prohibits teaching gender and sexuality material to children in grades K-4.

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Minneapolis is once again at the center of a storm over law enforcement use of force after a fatal shooting by an ICE agent last week.

Radical Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has shifted her stance on the incident involving the death of 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good.

Good was killed by ICE agent Jonathan “Jon” Ross during a protest against the planned detention of Somali migrants.

The anti-ICE activist used her SUV to block federal immigration operations before using her vehicle to ram an agent, forcing him to open fire in self-defense.

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The Left is going to try and make the ICE shooting in Minnesota something more than it is, and they’re going to fail miserably at it. It’s not just that they’re liberal and that liberals are usually wrong about everything, but the facts simply take an axe to this narrative. Guest Julie Roginsky decided to toss the first pitch, and it was a bit outside.

The former Fox News liberal opted to claim that the American people might see this as a breaking point in so far as they view the incident involving Renee Nicole Good as someone who could be them. Good was shot and killed on January 7 after she accelerated her vehicle toward an ICE officer.

The local Democrats were off to the races with the ‘she was murdered’ narrative that imploded when the ICE officer’s cellphone footage was released. Good was a professional activist who had participated in previous activities to disrupt ICE raids. She trained others in that regard. She was not afraid, not was she just driving home. So, no, this is very avoidable, Ms. Roginsky. It was preventable—it’s called not driving your call into federal officers. Also, nothing has been adjuctated yet in court as Noah Rothman pointed out:

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A recent TD Bank survey found that Gen X was the most likely to overspend during the holidays. However, The New York Times noted, “Many retailers and marketers are looking past them and to millennials and Gen Z, especially as malls continue to empty out and more shopping moves online.”

Gen Xers are used to being ignored, but it just might be our superpower.

It’s 2026, and the first wave of Gen Xers are turning 60. Our movie heroes, like the anti-woke Indiana Jones, are beating the latest self-congratulatory and woke Golden Globes in the viewership, according to Variety. Our toys are our highest value assets. And best yet, Gen X — led by Greg Gutfeld, Taylor Sheridan, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk — is at the top of media and pop culture. We are in our Golden Age of success and change.

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ExxonMobil may see itself shut out of Venezuela.

President Trump hinted that ExxonMobil may find itself blocked from making investments in Venezuela after the CEO claimed the country was “inevitable.”

On Friday, the CEO of ExxonMobil, while at the White House, expressed doubts about whether investing in Venezuela will yield good returns for his company due to the current laws in the country.

In response to the CEO’s comments, Trump said Exxon Mobil is “playing cute.”

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The ongoing scandal regarding Minnesota’s welfare-industrial complex demonstrates the extent to which government-created graft has “hidden” in front of the nation’s noses for not just years but decades. Another report released just before Christmas illustrates the depths of those fraudulent payments.

Last summer, I wrote here about a report by Louisiana’s legislative auditor highlighting nearly $10 million in Medicaid payments that state made on behalf of deceased beneficiaries between February 2019 and last March. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most recent report shows that this type of government waste and abuse — or, depending on one’s perspective, fraud by insurance companies, who receive payments for “covering” dead people — occurs with regularity nationwide.

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Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets demanding an end to the Islamic Republic’s authoritarian rule. The Iranian government has responded with brutal force, killing dozens of protestors and arresting hundreds more. Authorities have shut down power grids and blocked Internet access to prevent information from flowing in and out of the country.Thanks to technology, videos have been leaked outside Iran despite these efforts. The world is watching as ordinary Iranian citizens risk their lives chanting, “Death to the dictator.”

President Donald Trump stated on Truth Social: “The people of Iran want freedom. They deserve it. The world is watching.”

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Mark Ruffalo, Wanda Sykes, and Jean Smart were among the Hollywood figures who made a deliberate anti ICE statement at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards Sunday.

The stars made their political statement by wearing small pins on the red carpet and on stage as part of a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions. The pins featured the words “BE GOOD,” a symbolic slogans tied to a broader protest campaign known as the #BeGood campaign, following Wednesday’s fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good.

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Of course, it was an anti-Trump FBI agent. If the Russian collusion hoax, Crossfire Hurricane, and, on a lesser note, the creepy visits to those who posted anti-Biden memes weren’t evidence enough, that’s how the Arctic Frost probe began. It was an agent on a reported vendetta that spurred a mass surveillance operation that eventually covered the entire conservative movement.

The late Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA were targeted, along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). It was a fishing expedition with no smoking gun. The basis of the investigation stemmed from the shenanigans from the 2020 election. Oh, and did I forget to mention that Trump’s phone was seized during this operation (via JustTheNews):

An FBI supervisor who openly opposed Donald Trump on social media played a crucial role in igniting the controversial Arctic Frost probe, pressing to add the former president as a formal subject of the investigation and circulating articles from liberal activists and leftwing news sources to make his case, according to evidence recently turned over to Congress and obtained by Just the News.

Special Agent Timothy Thibault, who left his role as the assistant agent in charge of its Washington field office in August 2022 after his anti-Trump social posts became public, organized the initial electronic communication that authorized the start of the Arctic Frost probe.

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“The bill recklessly endangers the lives of members of our law enforcement community and their family members.”

A proposal by Washington state Democrats to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing face-concealing masks during public operations is drawing sharp criticism from federal officials, who warn the measure could endanger officers at a time when violence and threats against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are rising dramatically nationwide.

If enacted, Senate Bill 5855 would prohibit local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, including ICE agents, from wearing masks that obscure their identities during public interactions, with limited exceptions for undercover assignments and certain tactical operations. The bill received its first hearing on Tuesday before the Washington Senate Law & Justice Committee.

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There’s a deeper, darker truth lurking beneath the Somali-dominated, multi-billion-dollar Minnesota welfare fraud schemes that have commanded the attention of federal authorities and stoked nationwide outrage.

And it may explain in part why for weeks, Democrats and regime media have been gaslighting the country, casting critics as bigots, and shooting the messengers who sent the long-neglected story viral — and why, now, state and local leaders are trying to turn Minneapolis into a powder keg.

These dodges and diversions distract from the fact that the fraud is a feature of what we might call The Blue Model of government. Fueled by the welfare state and increasingly open borders, it is at core about political patronage, profiteering, and plunder. Democrats’ survival depends upon a political-business model of vote-buying via legal and illicit wealth redistribution. Suppressing the Minnesota story is critical.

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Federal agents forcibly removed a woman from her car Tuesday after she allegedly blocked an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, just days after another standoff ended with the fatal shooting of a mother of three who drove her vehicle at an ICE agent.

Video from the scene shows the unidentified driver stopping her black sedan across multiple lanes of traffic as anti-ICE agitators flooded the street, effectively trapping federal vehicles in place. Agents moved in to clear the roadway while protesters screamed and blew whistles in an effort to disrupt the operation.

One officer reached into the car and appeared to unlock the door before another agent opened it and pulled the woman out. Officers had already smashed the passenger-side window as bystanders shouted, “Go, go, go, go.”

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The Danish government has reportedly deployed military “reinforcements” to Greenland ahead of a high-stakes White House meeting to discuss the future of the territory on Wednesday.

According to a report from public broadcaster Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), the Kingdom of Denmark is sending military equipment and advance troops to Greenland in preparation for a larger deployment of Danish forces to the island.

However, the broadcaster questioned how large a deployment Copenhagen will be able to manage in Greenland, given that many of its forces, particularly soldiers in the Danish Army, have already been committed to other theatres, such as in the Baltic. No hard numbers have been placed on the redeployment yet.

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“Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state.”

In a stunning reversal, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz praised US Attorney Joseph Thompson as a “principled public servant” following his resignation, just weeks after suggesting Thompson should be fired for his comments on the widespread fraud he uncovered in state programs. Thompson resigned along with five other federal prosecutors on Tuesday. It’s unclear why he resigned, but it comes amid reports that Trump’s Department of Justice was pressuring the US Attorney’s Office to investigate Becca Good, the widow of Renee Good, who was fatally shot last week by an ICE agent after accelerating her vehicle at him while impeding immigration enforcement operations.

“Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state,” Walz wrote in a post on X. “It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants.”

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President Trump isn’t playing around when it comes to the United States taking control of Greenland, and he just sent a warning shot to the island’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, that Nielsen’s continued resistance is “going to be a big problem for him.”

The president made the remark Tuesday after being questioned about Nielsen’s loud proclamation this week that he chooses Denmark over the U.S. Here’s Trump’s full response to that: “Well, that’s their problem. That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

Prime Minister Nielsen has been doing a lot of jawing this week, ahead of Wednesday’s meeting at the White House between Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and delegations from Denmark and Greenland. (Greenland is an an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.)

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President Donald Trump wants Greenland, stressing again that Greenland is a national security issue.

The president wrote on Truth Social:

The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it. IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term, and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent – Not even close! They know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES.
Anything less than that is unacceptable. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT

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These are the best liberal media stories. The ones where the publication unintentionally exposes the opposite of what they’re trying to argue. Of course, The New York Times wanted to drum up some narrative about the Trump administration’s struggles with the courts. The funny part is a) Trump knew this beforehand, which is why his legal team is prepared to appeal all the things, and b) it showed that the lower courts are stacked with illiberal radicals, some of whom think they are the executive.

Twitchy had it first yesterday, and, well, have a laugh:

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CBS’s host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel lamented that the Justice Department is “investigating the victims” of the Minneapolis shooting involving Renee Good and ICE agent Jonathan Ross. However, neither host provided their audience with the key detail that Good’s wife, Rebecca, told her to “drive, baby, drive” after Good herself was told to get out of the car.

Colbert certainly wasn’t interested in narratively inconvenient facts when he huffed, “Now, it’s not just a surge of goons. In order to justify the unjustifiable gunning down of an American citizen in her car, the Trump administration is trying to smear Renee Good’s family now. Reportedly, senior Justice Department officials have pressed for a criminal investigation into Good’s widow, which today prompted both six federal prosecutors in Minnesota to resign and the resignation of five senior prosecutors in the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.”

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On January 8, following the death of Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer after she struck him with her vehicle, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) strongly hinted that civil war was in the cards.

“When things looked really bleak, it was Minnesota’s 1st that held that line for the nation on that July 3, 1863, and I think now we may be in that moment, that the nation’s looking to us to hold the line on democracy, to hold the line on decency, to hold the line on accountability, and more than that, to rise up as neighbors and simply say, ‘We can look out for one another,’” he said during a press conference addressing Good’s death.

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President Trump has made lowering prescription drug prices a clear priority, repeatedly arguing that Americans should not be forced to pay more for medicine than patients in other developed countries. Drugmakers have publicly welcomed that message. But their actions tell a more complicated story.

First reported by Reuters this week, pharmaceutical companies are raising list prices on more than 350 drugs for 2026. Many of the increases were small, but others were not, including sharp hikes on certain hospital-administered and specialty medicines that patients and providers rely on every day.

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“When we say ICE is arresting the ‘worst of the worst,’ this is exactly what we mean,” said ICE Director Todd Lyons.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a 39-year-old Afghan national who was previously convicted of attempting to murder his teenage sister in what was described as an “honor” attack. Waheed Allah Mohammad was taken into custody on January 1 in Rochester, New York. According to ICE, the incident occurred in 2008 when Mohammed stabbed his then-19-year-old sister multiple times during a heated argument.

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Chicago public school students deserve better than this. And when teaching officials can’t even spell “governor,” you understand why they provide abysmal results.

The Chicago Teachers Union released an ad campaign where they urged residents to send letters to the “Governer” to “make the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share and fully fund our schools.” They have since deleted the campaign post because of how embarrassing it was.

Now, besides the comical misspelling of “Governor,” there are still several things wrong with what they did.

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If you’re a red-blooded American, a few days ago you may have been watching the Sunday Night Football game between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Chargers.

If not, you might’ve been watching one of Hollywood’s countless self-congratulating award shows, the Golden Globes.

And if you did tune into the Golden Globes — and even if you didn’t — you might have heard about the swathes of far-left celebrities who were wearing “Be Good” pins to commemorate Renee Good, the woman who lost her life after she tried to ram an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis with her car last week.

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President Donald Trump spoke more about Iran during an interview with Tony Dokoupil on CBS Evening News, spanning from promises of help to the endgame.

Trump reiterated his promise to Iranians that help is on the way as they battle the brutal regime:

DOKOUPIL: Americans woke up this morning and they saw that you said, Help is on the way. What do you mean by that?

TRUMP: Well, there’s a lot of help on the way, and in different forms, including economic help from our standpoint, and not going to help Iran very much. And you know, we put Iran out of business with their nuclear capacity. And now, depending on what’s actually happening, nobody has been able to give us accurate numbers about how many people they’ve killed. Well, on that point, looks like it could be a pretty substantial number, and that’s going to be a lot of problems, a lot of problems