Saturday, January 31, 2026

The Epstein Files Drop With A Whimper

As far as I can see, the takeaway frpom the latest tranche of Epstein files is that Trump and Epstein were part of the social scene in both New York and Palm Beach, and as a result, their paths sometimes crossed, especially because Epstein was always a wannabe, while Trump was much more authentic. Epstein made occasional half-hearted efforts to ingratiate himself with Trump, but he always pretty much knew they wouldn't get anywhere.

CNN has a detailed summary, from which we can garner typical examples:

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims told the FBI that his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell once “presented her” to Donald Trump at a party and suggested that she was “available,” according to an internal FBI memo released Friday.

The FBI memo is from mid-2021, a few months before Maxwell was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges. According to the memo, the witness said, ultimately, “nothing happened” between her and Trump, who has never been accused by investigators of involvement in Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.

The victim said Maxwell brought her to a party in New York when she was about 22 years old, though it was unclear what year this took place. Maxwell “seemed very excited that there would be a lot of great men for” the victim “to meet,” according to the interview notes. The victim said that during the party, Maxwell “presented [her] to Trump,” and that the victim “felt that Maxwell presented her” by giving a rundown of her accolades, “similar to a CV.”

The memo said Trump invited the woman to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. She subsequently went on a tour there with the future president, Maxwell, and Epstein — and “by the things that Maxwell said, it was made clear that [she] was available,” the memo said.

Maxwell said things such as, “Oh I think he likes you. Aren’t you lucky,” according to the FBI memo, and also encouraged the victim to wear clothes that she thought Trump would like.

But "nothing happened". Or this:

The Justice Department’s newly released files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday include an FBI form that details a complaint from a woman who accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was 13 years old.

This anonymous accuser previously launched lawsuits against Trump and dropped them, the last one right before the 2016 election.

The FBI document details multiple instances of alleged abuse of Jane Doe by Trump, including rape. It also says Epstein was allegedly “angry that Trump was the one to take Doe’s virginity” and also raped Doe. These descriptions mirror the allegations that Jane Doe made in her 2016 lawsuit.

Trump had previously denied the woman’s allegations, and the Justice Department has said of the documents, “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act.”

Jane Doe was expected to appear at a news conference in Los Angeles in November of 2016, but the event was abruptly canceled. Her lawyer at the time, Lisa Bloom, said her client was too afraid to show up.

Asked by CNN for comment Friday, Bloom said she was no longer the woman’s attorney and declined to comment.

And that seems to be about the worst they have on Trump -- but let's reiterate that the whole reason for the Epstein file dump in the first place was to dig up dirt on Trump. The picture is much worse for other figures like Bill Gates:

Emails from an account that appeared to belong to Jeffrey Epstein claimed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tried to hide a sexually transmitted disease from his wife Melinda after having sex with “Russian girls”.

In one email that Epstein seems to have sent to his own account — one of 3mn pages of files released by the Department of Justice on Friday — the late sex offender also appears to take issue with Gates for ending their relationship.

“TO add insult to injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you with antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” the message says.

The full text is included in the X post at the top here. It includes references to some type of service agreement between Epstein and Gates, for which Epstein was paid, and for which "you have consistently maintained to me that I could not have done a better job, and that I was underpaid compared to my contibution", which, however required some type of confidentiality agreement "for keeping the Gates reputation intact". Epstein was not satisfied with the severance Gates paid him.

Or Larry Summers, whose correspondence with Epstein resurfaces in the new tranche, although last November's release concerning an adulterous tryst did far more damage to Summers's reputation. Via the CNN summary:

Multiple emails released Friday between Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary and Harvard University president, show the two men gossiping about President Donald Trump during his first presidential term.

“How guilty is Donald?” Summers asked in a May 2017 email in which he went on to discuss the idea that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, which Summers deemed “plausible but not certain.” (Trump has long denied any complicity with Russia in that election.)

Epstein replied that “your world does not understand how dumb he really is.”

In an earlier, October 2016 email, Summers asks Epstein, “How plausible is idea [that] trump is real cocaine user?” Epstein replied “zero.”

In July 2017, Summers wrote to Epstein: “I think your friend is mentally ill.” Epstein responded that the person is “not my friend, and i ve told you that before.”

The picture that's beginning to come out from the Epstein files, which mostly cover Trump's middle-age years before his political career, is that he seems to have had an instinctive sense of what boundaries he shouldn't cross, even as a private citizen, although it's worth pointing out that although he wasn't yet in politics, he was very much in the public eye, a position he cultivated and enjoyed -- and in consequence, he was aware that scandals like drug use, rape, or sex with minors would be bad publicity and damage his relationships with creditors and business associates. The trump name itself was a major buiness asset; its association with any sort of low life would turn it into a joke.

Whast intrigues me is that Epstein seems to have understood this in some way. He seems to have made occasional pro forma attempts to corrupt Trump, as he also did with Elon Musk, but at worst, what he had to offer doesn't seem to have been that attractive to either Trump or Musk. And in fact, it looks like Epstein knew a thing or two about Russian hookers, if he set Gates up with some, but somewhere deep down, he seems to have undedrstood Russian hookers just weren't Trump's thing.

Epstein was never more than a wannabe.

posted by test @ January 31, 2026   0 Comments

Friday, January 30, 2026

Trump Is Still Winning

From Tom Homan's presss conference this morning at 12:00 in the video embedded above:

One thing we all agreed on was that US Customs and Border Protrection is a legitimate law enforcement agency and has a duty to support the laws enactged by Congress and keep this community safe. Like I've said many times for the last several years, even before this administration, jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are sanctuaries for criminals. Sanctury cities are sanctuaries for criminals. . . . To be clear, we did not agree with Minnmesota state and local officials that they would be involved in federal immigration enforcement. I didn't ask them to be immigration officers. I'm asking them to be cops working with cops to take criminal sliens off the street. What we did agree upon was not to release public safety risks back into the cummunity when they could be lawfully transferred to ICE.

. . . I'm also pleased to announce that I had a very good meeting with Attorney General Ellison, and he has clarified for me that county jails may notify us of the release dates of criminal public safety risks, so ICE can take custody of them upon their release from the jail.

Homan implies that this goes to one part of the definition of "sanctuary city", in which sanctuary cities refuse to honor ICE detainers -- non-binding requests to hold individuals for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release to allow federal agents to take custody -- unless there is a judicial warrant or the person has committed a serious crime. It sounds as though Homan has got from Minnesota a good part of what he'd wanted all along, simply the ability to arrest criminal illegals as they're released from jails and prisons.

I'm assuming there was some sort of good cop-bad cop or carrot-and-stick approach in Homan's meetings with Gov Walz, Mayor Frey, and Attorney General Ellison, and that's reflected in Trump's reaction to Frey's apparent backtrack on the agreements with Homan:

President Donald Trump asserted that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey "is PLAYING WITH FIRE," issuing the warning in a Truth Social post on Wednesday morning.

"Surprisingly, Mayor Jacob Frey just stated that, ‘Minneapolis does not, and will not, enforce Federal Immigration Laws.’ This is after having had a very good conversation with him," the president said in the post.

"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!" Trump warned.

Strictly speaking, Frey is right; Homan's point is that he isn't asking local police to be immigration cops, but he's asking them to cooperate like law enforcement agencies usually do. Trump's statement suggests that Homan's message must have included some implied threat to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 if there was insufficient cooperation. Meanwhile, in what must surely be the context of these other developments,

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says his time as a political candidate is over.

“I will never run for an elected office again. Never again,” Walz, the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee, said in an interview with MS NOW.

Facing stinging criticism from President Donald Trump, other Republicans, and even some Democrats over a massive fraud scandal rocking Minnesota, Walz earlier this month announced that he was dropping his 2026 bid for an unprecedented third term as governor of the blue-leaning state.

But at the time, he didn’t rule out any future runs for elected office.

Since Walz’s announcement, the state has become the epicenter in the heated battle over Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration, following the fatal shootings by federal agents of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis who instigated federal agents during deportation operations.

I can only take this as an acknowledgement of defeat. But there's more!

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested by federal authorities Thursday night in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church service earlier this month.

Lemon, 59, and three others — Trahern Jeen Crews, Georgia Fort and Jamael Lydell Lundy — were arrested “in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X on Friday.

The ex-CNN anchor's attorney, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he was covering the Grammy Awards.

Lowell left a white-shoe law firm, Winston & Strawn, last year, amid the collapse of his defense of Hunter Biden, which left the firm, but not Lowell, on the hook for Biden's unpaid legal bills. This calls into question Lowell's judgment in taking Biden on as a client, and it actually calls Lemon's judgment into question as well, first in disrupting a church service, which he never needed to to, and second, in hiring an expensive, high-profile attorney with a bad record in the Biden case.

He's be much better off getting a less expensive local attorney -- he'd have to hire a local co-counsel with Lowell anyhow -- who can get him off on a token no-contest plea -- and get on with what's left of his career. He can get the same result for a lot less money, and the drama isn't going to help him. But finally:

The U.S. Senate struck a deal to fund the government on Thursday, averting a partial government shutdown as the mid-term elections loom large.

. . . President Trump celebrated the deal in Truth Social post on Thursday night.

“I am working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government, without delay. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” he wrote.

It continues to be a major error to underestimate Trump.

posted by test @ January 30, 2026   0 Comments

Thursday, January 29, 2026

More On Alex Pretti

The X post embedded above shows video footage of the altercation Alex Pretti had with CBP officers the week before he was shot, which reportedly resulted in him breaking a rib. It shows him kicking out the tail light of the CBP van and struggling with the officers. Several scenes in the video appear to show him carrying a firearm in the small of his back, as he did a week later when he was shot. Additional context has emerged this week that suggests he wasn't just a random bystander; he was deliberately dispatched to both scenes by an organized network purposely to disrupt CBP activities.

In yesterday's post, I also speculated that Pretti must have been part of an organized network of agitators with specific job descriptions and responsibilities. Jennifer Van Laar at RedState has summarized X posts by users like Cam Higby and Data republican that go into detail on precisely this subect:

We're learning a lot more about the people who were in the anti-ICE Signal chat groups that independent journalist Cam Higby infiltrated in Minnesota, the organization of the group, its donors, and the significance of the address at which Alex Pretti was obstructing federal officers.

. . . The groups are highly sophisticated. They're set up geographically; within the City of Minneapolis, they're generally divided by City Council district, but also cover St. Paul, Bloomington, and other suburbs. They start a new chat every day and delete the prior day's chat.

She then links to another RedState piece by Ward Clark that summarizes Higby's posts on the groups' training materials:

These training materials and the setup of this online system indicate that someone with some money is behind all this. These materials mention "patrol training" and mention the use of the Signal chat system.

This is precisely the question I've been starting to ask: this costs money. Let's go back to the Van Laar piece to get an idea of how complicated this is:

They have a set of emojis that each user puts around their name [in the Signal chats] when they're on shift, to indicate what position they're working that shift.

She prints a screen shot from a Higby post listing the various positions they work, including mobile patrol, stationary patrol, foot patrol, dispatch, hyper-local group messenger, license plate checker, medic, and aftercare provider. Van Laar links to another RedState piece that goes into more detail on how these functions are coordinated. It turns out that several local politicians, especially state Rep. Brad Tabke, recruit and coordinate the players. Tabke coordinates the Scott County ICE Watch Signal chat; Scott County is outside Minneapolis. Cam Higby has determined that Alex Pretti was part of one such group and appears to have had a specific role in it:

A Fox News story outlines what appear to have been the specifics of Pretti's dispatch via Signal chat to the scene where he was shot:

At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

"26and 3rd," wrote "Willow," quickly following up with, "Outside Glam Doll."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

After the shootinmg, additional Signal chat posts directed additional protesters to the site. This AP story concedes the existence of secret chat networks but portrays participants simply as public-spirited citizens:

To understand this world, talk to a woman known in the rapid response networks only by her nickname, Sunshine. She asked that her real name not be used, fearing retaliation.

A friendly woman who works in health care, she has spent hundreds of hours in her slightly beat-up Subaru patrolling an immigrant St. Paul enclave of taquerias and Asian grocery stores, watching for signs of federal agents. She can spot an idling SUV from the tiniest hint of exhaust, an out-of-state license plate from a block away, and quickly distinguish an undercover St. Paul police car from an unmarked immigration vehicle.

On the messaging apps, she’s simply Sunshine. She knows the real names of few other people, even after working with some for weeks on end.

She hates what is happening, and feels deeply for people living in fear. She worries the Trump administration wants to push the nation into civil war, and believes she has no choice except to patrol — “commuting” it’s often called, half-jokingly — every day.

So, the story says she "works in health care", but she also patrols every day in her Subaru. This would fit the job description of "mobile patrol" we see above. But someone doing this in a private vehicle would normally be reimbursed for mileage in a regular job. Gas is expensive. The opportunity cost of spending the day on patrol when she might be earning money at a normal job is also significant. And it sounds like many of these people are effectively on call -- this isn't a weekend hobby activity. What's really going on here?

Some of these people are being paid, This looks like serious work, dispatchers, license plate checkers, medics, on call. For instance, it sounds like Pretti was on call and sent to the job site by a dispatcher. it's the only conclusion I can draw. So do they get W-2s, 1099s, or what? Nobody seems to be looking into this.

posted by test @ January 29, 2026   0 Comments

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Questions That Won't Go Away

First Question: Renee Good, the lady who was shot by a federal officer while trying to run him over with her $50,000 Honda SUV, has been characterized in the media as a stay-at-home mom from Kansas City who nevertheless dropped her child off at day care so she could demonstrate against ICE in Minneapolis. Just how did she afford her lifestyle? If she didn't draw an income, what about her partner, Becca? I asked Chrome AI mode, "What did Renée Good's partner do for a living?" It replied,

Becca Good, Renee Good's partner, was a handywoman.

Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the couple moved to Canada for several months before relocating to Minneapolis. During their time in Minneapolis, they were reportedly involved in a local business together, with both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024.

So I asked, "What was the local business in which Renee and Becca Good were both listed as company managers for an entity incorporated in 2024?" It replied,

Renee Nicole Macklin Good and her partner, Rebecca "Becca" Brown Good, were both listed as company managers for B. Good Handywork LLC.

The business, which specialized in household repair, maintenance, and interior/exterior upgrade projects, was officially incorporated in early 2024 according to Missouri Secretary of State records. Before relocating to Minneapolis and then briefly to Canada, the couple operated the business from a residential address in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.

But the handywoman business was in Kansas City, not Minneapolis, and in any case, the accounts that descsribe Renee as a stay-at-home mom suggest she wasn't involved in it. It doesn't appear that either Renee or Becca had a visible means of support when they got to Mineeapolis, nor for that matter in Canada. Exactly why they moved to either place is unclear. According to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune,

What brought Good to this city — now the scene of the largest ongoing ICE surge in the country — requires untangling a web of cross-country moves and name changes since growing up in a Christian household in Colorado Springs and twice becoming a military wife. Nearly two decades later, she was in love with Rebecca Good and seeking refuge in Minneapolis.

“I think she just maybe wanted a fresh start, a more open community,” her former sister-in-law Jessica Fletcher told the Star Tribune.

. . . In her only public statement since the killing, Rebecca Good told Minnesota Public Radio they moved to Minnesota “to make a better life for ourselves.

“[T]here was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other. Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever.”

But none of this answers the basic questions, why did they move to Canada or Minneapolis? How did they afford even to put gas in the Honda Pilot, much less meet the payments and insurance? To make a fresh start just doesn't cut it.

Second Question: From what we know now, Alex Pretti, who was shot by CBP agents while interfering with enforcement activities, was a known figure to CBP prior to the shooting:

Federal immigration officers have been collecting personal information about protesters and agitators in Minneapolis, sources told CNN – and had documented details about Alex Pretti before he was shot to death on Saturday.

It is unclear how Pretti first came to the attention of federal authorities, but sources told CNN that about a week before his death, he suffered a broken rib when a group of federal officers tackled him while he was protesting their attempt to detain other individuals.

. . . A memo sent earlier this month to agents temporarily assigned to the city asked them to “capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” according to correspondence reviewed by CNN.

This actually is standard law enforcement practice. Beat cops are expected to know the "frequent fliers" on their beats and provide information to investigators as needed. This is supplemented by field interview records, which document encounters, including date, time, location, name, address, physical description/tattoos, reason for the contact, and vehicle details, even if no arrest is made. It is a key investigative tool.

The fact that Pretti had at least one previous encounter with CBP, which implies that he'd generated field reports, suggests that he was a regular at protests. How did he have time for this -- wasn't he an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital? The answer is that hospital nurses typically work 3/12 shifts, that is, 12-hour shifts, three days per week, or in other words, four days off per week. He had plenty of time to demonstrate. It could even have been a second gig

The question is, was it? The link continues,

“When our law enforcement encounter a violent agitator who is breaking the law, obstructing law enforcement or assaulting them, our law enforcement make records to advance prosecution. This is not ground breaking, it is standard protocol,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

The earlier incident started when he stopped his car after observing ICE agents chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and blowing his whistle, according to a source who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

. . . Earlier this month, a DHS official in Minneapolis sent a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations officers assigned to the state on temporary duty asking them to use a form to input information on protesters and agitators.

The form — titled “intel collection non-arrests” — allows agents to fill in personal information of agitators and protesters who they encounter. It’s not clear whether other agencies in Minnesota are also using the form.

. . . Pretti’s name was known to federal agents, according to a source – though it’s unclear whether the new intake form was used to share his information.

Every indication points to the possibility that Pretti was part of an organized network of "rapid responders" who were trained to interfere in immigration enforcement activities.

The encrypted Signal messages obtained by Fox News Digital in real time show that anti-ICE "rapid responders" were actively tracking, broadcasting and summoning "backup" around federal agents outside Glam Doll Donuts on Nicollet Avenue, where the shooting happened.

. . . At 9:50 a.m. ET, just before the killing, a user identified as "Willow" shared a 22-second video on an encrypted Signal chat for anti-ICE "rapid responders."

. . . Just three minutes later, at 9:53 a.m. ET, a second Signal user, "Salacious B. Crumb," escalated the alert, summoning additional responders and citing the same vehicle and agents.

"Backup needed at the Black Forest Inn parking lot on Nicollet Ave just south of 26th Street," the message read.

. . . Video of the scene shows that as Pretti stepped into the middle of Nicollet Avenue to direct traffic, fellow agitators could be heard blowing whistles to alert locals that ICE officers were around. Soon after, Pretti ended up in a street confrontation with CBP agents, across the street from Glam Doll Donuts outside a worn storefront marked "NEW AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT CENTER," a nonprofit focused on immigration entry programs for Somalis.

Within minutes, at about 10:05 a.m. ET, at least one CBP agent shot Pretti, killing him.

In both the Renee Good and Alex Pretti cases, evidence points to their membership in a highly organized, specially trained cadre. Are such members paid? How are they recruited? What are their specific responsibilities? How do the organizers make sure they aren't feds?

I ask these sorts of questions for free. There are highly paid people who ought to be asking them, with the resources to follow them up. Why aren't they doing this?

posted by test @ January 28, 2026   0 Comments

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Suddenly, Nothing New Out Of Minnesota

Yesterday, there was basically no news out of Minnesota. As usual, alt media was no better than legacy -- just nothing. Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, flew there to meet with Gov Walz last night, but there's been nothing from that meeting. As of Thursday, Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino was in Minneapois making hard line statements, but following Saturday's shooting, and potentially connected with Homan's visit,

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino is expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday, a White House official and another Trump administration official familiar with the decision told NBC News.

. . . Bovino will be returning to the border in El Centro, California, a senior White House official and an administration official told NBC News. The officials said he is losing his "commander" title and will return to his previous job as Border Patrol sector chief in El Centro. He will not continue overseeing Border Patrol agents making immigration arrests in interior U.S. cities, they said.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X that Bovino "has NOT been relieved of his duties," calling Bovino "a key part of the President's team and a great American."

Whatever the outcome of Homan's meeting with Walz, the result of yesterday's calls with Walz and Frey is a plan:

The plan calls for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democratic leaders to turn over all criminal undocumented immigrants that are currently incarcerated in their prisons and jails to federal authorities. Those with active warrants or known criminal histories would be immediately deported, Leavitt said.

The plan also calls for state and local law enforcement to agree to turn over all undocumented immigrants who are arrested by local police and for local police to assist federal law enforcement in apprehending and detaining undocumented immigrants who are wanted for crimes, especially violent ones, she added.

“If Gov. Walz and Mayor Frey implement these commonsense cooperative measures,” she said, Customs and Border Patrol will not be needed to support ICE agents in Minnesota.

Trump also said Monday that his border "czar," Tom Homan, would travel to Minnesota this week and would take over as the main point of contact on the ground, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

The precise substance of the subsequent meetings among Homan, Walz, and Mayor Frey is unclear, but media across the spectrum are having a hard time figuring this all out. I think Don Surber has a view of the situation that meets my surmise, Tim Walz is Caving in on Trump:

In his negotiations, President Trump always carries a big stick. Sometimes the stick is a squad of B-2s loaded with bunker busters. Other times, it is 150 aircraft and special forces carrying a discombobulator that will send your troops home in oversized shoe boxes.

This time, the presidential stick is the Insurrection Act of 1807, signed into law by Thomas Jefferson, the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

I've repeatedly referred to a business-school analysis of Trump's negotiating style that stresses he prefers to negotiate with opponents who have no options. The Insurrection Act can be triggered when, among other things, domestic violence hinders law enforcement to the point that people are deprived of constitutional rights, and state authorities cannot or will not protect them. Surber goes on,

Presidents have used this power 30 times. According to Grok, no court has ever successfully blocked or enjoined a president’s invocation of the Insurrection Act before or during its use.

. . . Early this morning, Sarah Fields tweeted with video, “Minnesota State Patrol has now been activated. They could have done this the whole time, but it wasn’t until after the call between Walz and Trump, and the discovery of the Signal groups involving Minnesota government officials, that this happened.”

. . . DC Draino tweeted, “I find it very interesting that Tim Walz called President Trump to work with him on ICE less than 24 hours after all the 5,000+ donors to the anti-ICE domestic terror network were indexed and exposed by Data Republican.”

It's worth pointing out that the agents who shot Alex Pretti were with Customs and Border Protection, not ICE. Greg Bovino was the informal head of CBP and had nothing to do with ICE; in any case, he no longer has that position. Surber continues,

Oh and President Trump will pull out Customs and Border Protection agents from supporting ICE on the ground in Minnesota because Tim Walz agreed to cooperate with ICE.

This appears to be the informal agreement that was reached in Walz's call to Trump and Trump's call to Mayor Frey. Of his call with Trump, Frey said,

“I spoke with President Trump today and appreciated the conversation. I expressed how much Minneapolis has benefited from our immigrant communities and was clear that my main ask is that Operation Metro Surge needs to end[.]”

. . . “The president agreed the present situation can’t continue,” he added.

The mayor also wrote that some federal agents will begin leaving the Twin Cities on Tuesday and he “will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.”

In another report,

Frey added that Minneapolis would cooperate with state and federal law enforcement on "real" criminal investigations, but drew the line at what he described as "unconstitutional arrests."

In other words, the outline of the deal appears to be that Minnesota state and municipal law enforcement will turn over illegal migrants with convictions or warrants to ICE. In return for this, it will not be necesssary for CBP to hunt them down, which had been forced on DHS due to Minnesota and Minneapolis sanctuary policies. As a result, CBP will be able to leave Minnesota, but ICE will remain, although their profile will be lower, since they will be collecting the illegals directly from jails, not off the streets.

Homan is there to "coordinate" (read enforce) the deal and report directly to Trump. Surber thinks Walz is afraid of being fingered for organizing the riots, and he may have been given to understand that the FBI won't pursue this as long as the riots end now. But it's also possible that the Insurrection Act of 1807 is enough of an inducement to Keep Walz and Frey with the program; that Walz would activate both the National Guard and the State Patrol is a sign that he doesn't want to surrender control.

Trump gives Walz and Frey the latitude to claim they've gotten rid of CBP in Minnesota and thus "won", but under the deal, they appear to have agreed to turn over illegals directly from jail, so CBP is no longer needed, and nor is Bovino, who had been in charge.

So the bottom line is that Homan gets something he'd wanted since he's been border czar, that sanctuary policies that forced CBP to hunt down criminal illegals after release from jail end in Minnesota, because it sounds like Minnesota will now begin turning them over to ICE directly from jail. Walz and Frey get to claim a win by making CBP leave the state, but this is only because CBP is no longer needed there due to the agreement. Bovino leaves as well, but largely because CBP leaves. Walz and Frey end the riots in return for Trump not invoking the Insurrection Act, and the whole controversy dies down.

Never underestimate Trump. There's the remaining question of the Democrats threatending a shutdown over DHS funding, but with the main pressure point taken out of the picture, there may be a greater possibility to work this through as well.

posted by test @ January 27, 2026   0 Comments

Monday, January 26, 2026

This Is Neither Unique Nor New

Vice President Vance's X post saying the Minneapolis case is unique because it involves far-left agitators working with local authorities isn't really on the mark: local auithorities have been complicit in the migrant fraud business model everywhere. For instance, I linked to this reporter's conclusions about the Springfield, OH Haitians in a September, 2024 post here:

My investigation discovered a long rotten beam extending from the Mayor down to NGOs, pastors, corporations, and local mediocrities looking to make a fast buck. Everyone is on the take. And Springfield is not an outlier. It is a standard example of local partnerships with federal and corporate resettlement programs working together to profit themselves.

In this post, I linked to a story that suggests the Springfield police were complicit in not enforcing traffic laws against unlicensed Haitian drivers:

An Ohio police chief says his access to Springfield’s police radio frequency was cut off after the beleaguered city became a political lightening rod over its Haitian immigrant crisis.

. . . [Tremont City Police Chief Chad] Duncan told the Blaze that the immigrants are often not licensed to operate vehicles, but Springfield appears to be protecting them from facing any real consequences for their reckless driving.

“People that shouldn’t be driving, they’re out there and they’re allowing them to drive,” Duncan remarked.

. . . Duncan told Rosas about a recent traffic stop in Tremont City involving a Haitian national going 44 mph in a 25 mph zone.

“He didn’t even have a license,” he said, adding that it was the second time over a two-week period that he pulled the driver over so he had the individual’s car towed.

Duncan told [reporter Julio] Rosas that he didn’t think Springfield police would have towed the vehicle in that instance, and speculated why he thought that was the case.

“If you get two misdemeanors, you are subject to be deported,” he explained.

Police chiefs are normally civil service positions subject to removal by mayors or other political bodies. In the case of Springfield, the first link above pointed out that the Springfield mayor himself owns slum apartments that are rented to Haitians, so even if the Springfield police chief isn't in on the boodle himself, if he doesn't get with the program, he'll be out of his job. So let's look at the Minneapolis police chief:

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara warned on Face the Nation Sunday that public anger over a string of federal‑involved shootings has reached a breaking point, saying the city is so overwhelmed that even a finding of legal justification in the latest incident “does not matter at this point.”

. . . He noted that his department recovered roughly 900 guns last year without firing a shot, yet now finds itself managing escalating chaos with only 600 officers. “This is not sustainable,” he said, describing the toll on a force he says is stretched “incredibly thin” as the city waits for leaders “on both sides to come together and figure this thing out.

O'Hara has used the term "unsustainable" before:

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS looked at city payroll records and found between 2020 and 2022, the Minneapolis Police Department had 273 officers leave their jobs.

During that same three-year time period, the city hired 117 new officers, which equates to a net loss of 156 officers and an average net loss of 52 officers over the last three years.

If that trend were to continue, MPD would have fewer than 400 sworn officers. As recent as 2019, MPD had about 900 sworn officers on its payroll.

So by Chief O'Hara's own account, his department is down to 600 officers from 900 before the George Floyd riots, a 33% drop. There's been a general observation that Minneapolis officers have been leaving due to the hostile political emvironment, allegedly now also to join ICE. Chief O'Hara on one hand is trying to support the narrative of his superiors in the city, but his remarks also sound like a cry for help. The story continues,

Chief O’Hara stated that the decedent, 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, was legally exercising his First and Second Amendment rights to protest and to be legally armed. The chief left out that Minnesota law requires a person to carry their permit and a photo ID to legally carry a sidearm. Minnesota law also states that a person must be carrying for a lawful purpose. A finding that he was interfering with a federal law enforcement operation could also negate the chief’s claim.

The bottom line is that the Minneapolis Police Department has been, by the chief's own account, in an "unsustainable" position since the George Floyd riots, but now he's trying to shift the blame onto ICE, when it should actually be on the city's political environment. As a practical matter, the Minneapolis Police Department is not in a position to enforce the law, a situation that's been fostered by the political establishment, while the chief seems unwilling to go against it himself. But this is precisely the situation we saw in Springfield, OH. If the chief isn't getting kickbacks himself, he's afraid to buck those who are.

Below, we see that Chief O'Hara "avoids the question" when he's asked if the police have been ordered not to protect ICE, but it appears that there's a shortage of officers to perform even routine duties -- nobody needs to order them to stand down, there aren't enough to do even their normal job.

As of Saturday,

At the recommendation of the Minneapolis Police Chief and out of an abundance of caution, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey formally made a request to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for the Minnesota National Guard to help reinforce local law enforcement resources in Minneapolis. Local law enforcement resources are stretched thin because of the disruption to public safety caused by thousands of federal immigration agents in our neighborhoods.

. . . To be clear, the Minnesota Guard deployment comes at the request of local officials. The federal government has no involvement in their activities. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office has also announced it is requesting the Guard to activate to the B.H. Whipple Federal Building where it needs additional officers to help fill shifts.

However, as of last night, there was no evidence that the Minnesota National Guard had actually been deployed, for instance to protect the local hotels being attacked by rioters. The problem for the political establishment is that the Trump administration's moves are in fact cutting off the money spigot, as they have in Springfield:

Springfield businesses, big and small, are struggling in the aftermath of thousands of Haitians fleeing the town after the Trump administration’s termination of the humanitarian parole program for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, in June. On top of that, the government has ended temporary protected status, affecting the immigration status of more than half a million Haitians, which comes into effect on or before 5 February 2026.

. . . The consequences of these moves are being keenly felt in places such as Springfield.

Since January, when the Trump administration took office, the percentage of manufacturing jobs in Springfield has been falling by double digits as the civilian labor force also declines, something thought to be partly fueled by Haitians leaving the city due to fear of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

At Topre America, an automotive parts manufacturing company north-east of downtown Springfield, dozens of jobs that Haitians had once filled – forklift drivers, supervisors and stackers – have remained unfilled on the company’s employment webpage for months.

That is, they remain unfilled at the rates Topre America was willing to pay Haitians. But agsin, what we're seeing is a business model that works across the board, which involves mayors, city councils, police chiefs, businesses, and local mediocrities, all of them on the take. They have slightly more control in Minneapolis than they did in Springfield due to the ability to mobilize protesters, that's the only difference -- and there are rent-a-rioters in places like Portland, OR as well.

posted by test @ January 26, 2026   0 Comments

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Legacy Media Is Struggling With Minneapolis

Predictably, Real Clear Politics this morning is gengerly tiptoeing through an it's-not-clear-what-happened-both-sides-are-at-fault narrative. From their link to The Wall Street Journal:

Videos of the incident appear to show that before the shooting, Pretti was filming federal agents, something that has become common in Minneapolis as citizen observers document ICE actions. Agents appeared to spray a chemical irritant at him and another person. In the milliseconds before shots were fired, it was less clear what happened during a scuffle in which Pretti was on the ground, surrounded by multiple agents.

Then they dug up an X post from sometime never Trumper Erick Erickson, whom they never ordinarily link:

(5) I think Tim Walz and Jacob Frey have made the situation far worse and destabilized by amping up white progressives and refusing to assist immigration agents.

(6) I think Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino have made the situation far worse by being unrestrained in how they proceed, not prioritizing the criminals, gang members, and more seriously problematic illegals, and not thinking of the public relations fall out should things like what are happening actually happen.

(7) I think Trump supporters who want an unrestrained and unmeasured deportation response are playing into the hands of progressives' PR and alienating normal voters.

The problem is that Erickson and others like Bp Barron who suggest ICE should target only the worst criminal migrants apparently don't recognize that this is precisely what ICE was doing when the victim inferfered:

Immigration officials said Pretti was shot several times shortly after 9 a.m. local time when federal officers were conducting a targeted operation against a different man who was undocumented and wanted for assault.

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse isn't always right, but he does get it right in this post:

In the surface this looks like an immigration and customs enforcement operation; however, just below the surface is a large criminal network operating in coordination with state and municipal leadership. This is why the Mayor and Governor are trying desperately to keep riots on the streets.

And as I surmised yesterday, this in fact looks like a national network operating in many states with a common business model. If ICE were to be defunded tomorrow, Trump's strategies have already had a major effect. Let's not forget that one of Trump's most visible opponents, Gov Walz, has already had to withdraw from his reelection campaign due to Somali scandals, and his troubles aren't over:

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has started raising money for a legal defense fund after the Department of Justice subpoenaed Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and with others for allegedly conspiring to impede law enforcement. This also comes as there has been massive fallout from a fraud scandal that has plagued Minnesota.

In addition, the administration has frozen a wide range of payments connected to allegedly fraudulent programs involving Somalis, as well as limiting the money flow from Somali businesses back to Somalia. This is a Trump strategy that I've been noting over the past year: he recognizes that money is at the root of most problems, and he acts to turn off the money. For instance, the fraudulent programs exist due to kickbacks to power brokers and politicians. If Trump stops the money, it stops the kickbacks.

This is anothwr factor behind the Minnesota unrest, but it's also going to make it harder to pay the protesters -- that money is coming from somewhere. This continuing restriction on the money flow will be a problem for the whole frammis, whether ICE operates or not. But what will be the impact of new attempts in the Senate to limit ICE funding?

A sweeping government funding package is facing new hurdles in the Senate after another person was shot and killed by a federal officer on Saturday in Minnesota, raising the specter of a potential shutdown next Friday at midnight.

The legislation needs 60 votes to secure passage in the chamber, where Republicans control 53 seats. And a number of key Democrats who have voted for recent appropriations measures said they’ll vote against funding the Department of Homeland Security unless restrictions are put on how immigration officers carry out enforcement operations.

What we're beginning to see about Trump is that he's lucky, but the harder he works, the luckier he gets. I strongly suspect he's gamed this through, and the conditions that are buiding up on his side include the fact that the Minnesota opposition is simply unattractive. Senators who oppose ICE will also be supporting figures like Gov Walz, Mayor Frey, and Rep Ilhan Omar. Criminal investigations are continuing on these and others, while the various kickbacks that maintain the Minnesota power structure are running dry.

Add to that last year's shutdown didn't work out for Democrats. They'll again be on the wrong side of an 80-20 issue. I keep saying it's a major mistake to underestimate Trump.

posted by test @ January 25, 2026   0 Comments

Saturday, January 24, 2026

There's A National Business Model. Who's Behind It?

I've noticed a steady trickle of stories about how Somali fraud businesses in Maine seem to be emulating the same overall pattern of those in Minnesota: ICE seems to be belatedly on the case: As ICE Begins Enforcement Raids in Maine, New Allegations of Somali Fraud Emerge:

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

The piece quotes a New York Times story behind a paywall:

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.

. . . 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.

What we began to see piecemeal during the 2024 campaign was a vague picture of a business model -- "faith-based NGOs" identify groups of "refugees" that can be resettled en bloc into small cities in the US interior, with the connivance of slumlords, used car dealers, sweatshop employers, and local politicians. They exploit federal subsidies to maintain these groups as essentially separate economies, while swamping schools and social services, and driving up rents, insurance rates, and crime in the overall communities. This was a picture we began to see in particular with Haitians in places like Springfield, OH and Charleroi, PA in mid-2024.

There's an added factor coming into the picture in the last several months, systematic large-scale fraud. This has been appearing mostly in Somali enclaves, and we've been seeing somewhat far-fetched attempts to explain it by claiming that Somalis are somehow "tribal", which I've been saying is simply meaningless. The ancient Romans were "tribal", too.

I think the actual situation is that fraud is simply one part of the overall mass migration business model, which we're coming to understand only in bits and pieces as individual reporters like Christopher Rufo at City Journal reported on Springfield and Charleroi, and more recently Nick Shirley reported on Somalis in St Cloud, MN and the Twin Cities. Neither had the resources to do comprehensive stories on the overall problem, so that Rufo concentrated on issues like sweatshop employers and slumlords, while Shirley concentrated on fraud.

But the overall patterns of migrant abuse seem to be consistent across the US: a dozen or so "faith-based NGOs" reappear in many cases, no matter where they emerge. There's a consistent pattern of settling particular ethic groups in particular small cities, often in coordination with food industry employers. The overall schemes appear to have been enabled by the Refugee Act of 1980 and the Immigration Act of 1990, and they tend to rely on Temporary Protected Status to place migrant groups in quasi-legal situations.

And so far, at least as it involves Somalis, there's a national pattern of Medicare fraud. Now in Maine,

Federal prosecutors charged three people connected with a Lewiston company in a tax fraud case alleging publicly funded interpreter services were never delivered.

. . . In February, the U.S. attorney’s office charged three people connected to the company for allegedly billing for interpreter services that didn’t happen, court documents show. The case is the first federal prosecution since an investigator authored a 2021 report outlining a suspicious billing pattern for interpreter services, especially among providers working with the state’s Somali community, that indicated widespread fraud within the MaineCare system.

This case has so far gained little attention in part because it is being prosecuted as tax fraud, not health care fraud. But it is similar to fraud schemes alleged in a massive wave of November prosecutions centered on Minnesota’s Somali community. Those cases reignited scrutiny of Gateway among Maine conservatives that dates back to the spring.

Extravagant billing for "interpreter services" is just one of the schemes discovered by Nick Shirley in his Minnesota videos. It's likely that further investigation in Maine and elsewhere will show clones of all the Minnesota fraud schemes operating in other states, and my instinct is that such schemes aren't limited just to Somalis.

So what we're seeing is an overall business model that manifests in multiple states, coordinated by multiple "faith-based NGOs", that appears to exploit similar types of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, almost certainly extending to fraud in other social services, and likely involving similar schemes of money laundering in multiple jurisdictions. This says to me that there's an overall plan in place, and politicians at the state governor level are likely involved, not just in Minnesota, although the Minnesota scheme is likely to be the first one uncovered:

I think we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg so far, and the pattern won't be just Somalis. If cerain masterminds set things up with Gov Walz in Minnesota, what are the chances that the same people talked with Gov DeWine in Ohio? He's been a staunch supporter of the Springfield Haitians, for instance, and there are Somalis in Ohio as well. But how much do the "faith-based NGOs" know about the fraud? Are they getting kickbacks? The US Catholic Bishops really need to get ahead of this.

posted by test @ January 24, 2026   0 Comments

Friday, January 23, 2026

Broken Brains, Exploding Heads?

So, did Trump have a good week or a bad one? Scott Pinsker at PJ Media:

By overwhelming numbers, the American public doesn’t like Trump’s Greenland policy or approach. His polling is in the toilet.

. . . With U.S. opinion polls so dismal, Trump is in a difficult spot. Perhaps there’s a way out — and perhaps a deal can happen. Perhaps we’re just one handshake away from Denmark giving us Greenland.

But despite yesterday’s blockbuster announcement, I doubt it. The Danes won’t just give Greenland away; they’ll almost certainly demand trillions of dollars and an irrevocable war guarantee.

Why is anyone talking about "the polls" at this stage? Back in November, I pointed out that the Real Clear Politics averages for the New Jersey and Virginia governors' races were well outside the margin of error for the individual polls in the average. As best we can tell, "the polls" have a major problem, and unless wwe can get a handle on what's wrong with them, or with the RCP averages, I don't think we can cite them as a reliable indicator. Pinsker goes on,

Prediction: There won’t be a deal. (I suspect the White House knows this and used yesterday’s announcement as an offramp.)

Domestically, Trump’s focus on Greenland is politically costly. It leaves Trump vulnerable to Democratic accusations of caring more about empire-building than the cost of groceries, healthcare, and housing.

His solution is an incoherent mix of demanding NATO countries spend 3% (or whatever) of GDP on defense in return for not invading Greenland, or maybe invading Greenland for the good of the world anyhow, or something like that. The bottom line is that it shorts Trump, which I think is always a bad idea. The Wall Street Journal takes a similar line, mostly behind a paywall, but we get the gist:

A funny thing happened this week that you wouldn’t think possible from reading the common narrative of President Trump as a Frankenstein’s monster unchained to do whatever he wants: He backed down from his demands to own Greenland. And he did so after financial markets, European allies and the U.S. Congress raised objections. The “authoritarian” Trump narrative was wrong again.

This isn’t to dismiss Mr. Trump’s often wild demands and threats. They have consequences in lost trust among allies and doubts about American reliability. These costs are hard to quantify, but they are real and may show up in a future crisis.

On one hand, we know nothing about the specifics of any "framework" Trump announced, so any conclusion that he chickened out in some way is premature. What he wanted was a particular level of access to Greenland, equivalent to territoriality, and he says he's happy with what's being offered. But on the other hand, his overall statements surrounding the World Economic Forum have caused key NATO members to threaten military action against the US, which is simply an acknowledgement that the alliance is shakier than anyone thought, and Trump has been making his views known:

"What we have gotten out of NATO is nothing," Trump said at the World Economic Forum. "We paid for, in my opinion, 100% of NATO because they weren't paying their bills. And all we're asking for is Greenland."

. . . "What I'm asking for is a [oiece] of ice. . . that can play a vital role in world peace and protection," Trump insisted. "The problem with NATO is we'll be there for them 100% but I'm not sure they'll be there for us."

The inevitable consequence, as I 've also discussed earlier this week, has been for NATO members to consider their relative positions vis-a-vis US sttrength:

Canadian military chiefs have wargamed a US invasion and concluded that they would be overpowered in only two days.

. . . Under the plans, which officials stressed were precautionary and hypothetical, forces would use asymmetric tactics whereby a weaker army attempts to counter a dominant force. Canada would rely on drone warfare and would also request assistance from European allies, namely the former imperial powers Britain and France.

. . . Canadian military positions on land and at sea would be overcome in as little as two days, leaving an insurgency‑style campaign including ambushes and “hit‑and‑run tactics” as the only option, the report said.

Canada’s military is dwarfed by the US armed forces, having only 63,500 active duty personnel as of 2024 while the US has 1.3 million.

As far as I can see, Trump at the World Economic Forum was able to portray himself as a dominant figure, the center of discussion, and the center of attention, which for Trump is never a bad thing. He was able to make an entirely new point about NATO, suggesting on one hand that the US is willing to walk away from it as a deal, which is a standard Trump negotiating posture. On the other hand, he was able to raise the issue that the other NATO countries are neither individually nor collectively able to form a force that would be any factor in a global balance of power -- if the US walks away from NATO, it has very little to lose, while NATO loses everything.

This is another standard Trump negotiating posture -- he negotiates with opponents who have no alternatives. And he did this at the WEF, not at a NATO meeting, when those behind the WEF presumably had an entirely different agenda. I have a hard time understanding the position that Trump comes out of the week in any diminished state.

posted by test @ January 23, 2026   0 Comments

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Bad Advice From Archbishop Broglio

Via The Pillar:

The archbishop of the U.S. military services said Sunday that he does not believe military action to take control of Greenland could be justified – and that U.S. troops in good conscience could refuse orders to do so.

Speaking to the BBC on Jan. 18. Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services said he “cannot see any circumstances” in which an American military operation to take control of Greenland or another ally’s territory could fulfill the criteria for a just war.

Asked whether he is concerned about Catholics serving in the military who might be asked to participate in a military operation to take control of Greenland, Broglio responded, “I am obviously worried, because they could be put in a situation where they’re being ordered to do something which is morally questionable.”

In this case, I think Abp Broglio is obscuring the difference between a clearly illegal order and one that a particular individual may feel violates his moral or philosophical principles. I asked Chrome AI mode, which is generally reliable on less controversial issues, "What happens if you refuse to obey a military order you think is illegal?" It answered in part,

In the U.S. military, you have both a legal right and an affirmative duty to disobey orders that are "manifestly illegal". However, doing so is legally perilous because you bear the burden of proof if the order is later determined to be lawful.

If you refuse an order you believe is illegal, you . . . will likely be detained and may face immediate charges of insubordination under Article 90 (willful disobedience of a superior officer) or Article 92 (failure to obey a lawful order) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

A military judge, not a jury, will ultimately determine the lawfulness of the order. If the order is found to be lawful, you face severe penalties including dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and up to two years of confinement (more in wartime).

. . . To be legally refused, an order must be manifestly unlawful, meaning its illegality is obvious to a person of ordinary sense.

A good example of the uncertainty surrounding what orders might be illegal is the case of the 1968 My Lai massacre. Although no soldiers involved refused alleged orders to kill civilian villagers, two officers, Captain Ernest Medina and Lieutenant William Calley, were court martialed for allegedly giving illegal orders. The evidence indicated that none of the orders, given verbally and recalled differently in different accounts, was explicitly illegal.

Medina was acquitted, while Calley, although convicted, appealed his case and eventually had his sentence considerably reduced. This suggests that in even that case, a soldier who refused orders that weren't clearly, unambiguously illegal would be on shaky ground if the matter reached court martial.

But this is a completely different matter from the situation Abp Broglio is outlining, where a Catholic soldier feels that a military seizure of Greenland violates just war doctrine and, for instance, refuses deployment. In this case, his order of deployment would be completely legal; he just finds it morally objectionable. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Could a military member legally refuse an order if he felt it violated just war doctrine?" It replied, in part,

In the U.S. military, a member can legally refuse an order only if it is unlawful. While just war doctrine informs international laws that the U.S. follows, a service member cannot legally refuse an order simply because they believe it violates the philosophical or moral principles of that doctrine.

. . . "Just war" doctrine is divided into two parts, and the law treats them differently:

Jus in bello (Conduct in War): If an order violates the legal rules of conduct (e.g., a war crime), a member must refuse it.

Jus ad bellum (Justice of War): Military members generally do not have the legal right to refuse to participate in a war they believe is unjust or lacks a legitimate cause. Personal, political, or philosophical disagreement with the war itself is not a legal defense for disobeying a lawful order to deploy or fight.

A good historical example is the case of the 1846-48 Mexican War, in which the US gained Texas, California, and the territory in between. This was as controversial at the time as the Viet Nam War was more than a century later. Ulysses S Grant in his autobiography explains how, as a young Army officer, he was personally opposed to the war, but he served and followed orders throughout. This would be the normal ethos in the US military, and any service member who refused orders on philosophical grounds would be justifiably court martialed. CCC 2309 tacitly acknowledges this after outlining the principles of just war doctrine:

The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.

According to Catholic Answers,

But unlike principles of doctrine and morality, the Church has not definitively taught which specific answers the faithful should embrace when it comes to implementing moral principles—like justice or care for the poor—in the public sphere.

In other words, the Church acknowledges that "those who have responsibility for the common good" have a degree of latitude in determining military policy, and it isn't up to individual Catholics to decide whether to refuse lawful orders -- and in this case, an order to deploy to Greenland would be lawful, just as much as then-Lieutenant Grant acknowledged that an order to deploy to Mexico was lawful.

It's unfortunate that Abp Broglio appears to be giving imperfect and unreliable advice to his flock in the military services.

posted by test @ January 22, 2026   0 Comments

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

"This Seems Like The Beginning Of A Joke"

From Don Surber Monday:

The frenemy countries want NATO to stand up to the United States. This is laughable because the USA created NATO after the Eurocide of World War II. NATO was an excuse for America to place troops along the Iron Curtain. The curtain fell but the troops are still there.

Hey, we are not immune to idiocy.

However, Denmark, France and Germany act like they invented idiocy. This weekend’s warrior cosplay by the mousey mites on the ice in Greenland was farcical.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said, “Imagine 15 Italians, 15 French, 15 Germans in Greenland. This seems like the beginning of a joke.”

Just this morning:

European opposition ⁠to President Donald Trump's bid to acquire Greenland and his proposed "Board of Peace" initiative has disrupted plans for an economic support package for postwar Ukraine, the Financial Times reported ‍on Wednesday.

A planned announcement of an $800 billion prosperity ‍plan to be agreed between Ukraine, Europe, and the U.S. at the World Economic Forum ⁠in Davos this week has been delayed, the report said, citing six officials.

From The Guardian this past Sunday:

Trump’s weekend announcement that eight countries that have supported Greenland would face tariffs unless there was a deal to sell the territory to the US was another hammer to the transatlantic alliance, mocking the notion that the US is Europe’s ally. The eight countries include six EU member states, as well as Norway and the UK, the latter unprotected by the much vaunted “special relationship”. It suggests that Europe’s strategy of flattering and appeasing the US president has failed.

From Barron's on Monday:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday he was worried US President Donald Trump's push to take Greenland could be diverting focus away from Russia's invasion, now approaching its four-year mark.

Trump last week threatened European nations with tariffs of up to 25 percent for opposing his plans to acquire Greenland, drawing anger from Brussels and putting the NATO military alliance under unprecedented strain.

. . . "I'm worried about any loss of focus during a full-scale war," Zelensky told reporters.

Yesterday, The Guardian weighed in again:

The strain is already intense for Europe. Trump’s pressure is designed to expose EU fault lines and sow internal division by forcing member states to prioritize different existential threats and divergent interests. Denmark has a near-existential interest in preventing this annexation. France and Germany have an interest in demonstrating EU cohesion, yet risk seeing their vital access to US export markets severed.

. . . In the face of this trauma, the traditional European habit will be to try to weather the storm. There is a deep-seated institutional hope in Brussels and Berlin that this is a temporary aberration – that if Europe simply absorbs the tariffs and waits until 2028, transatlantic relations will return to “normal”.

This reflex must be actively resisted. The wait and see approach is no longer a strategy. It is a recipe for perpetual vassalage. The Greenland crisis is not just bad weather. It is a structural shift. European leaders must use this crisis as the necessary political catalyst to further the continent’s own sovereign defenses.

Well, European leaders have already risen to the threat: they've put 15 Italians, 15 French, and 15 Germans in Greenland, except the Germans have already pulled out. But The Guardian nevertheless realizes how serious things have become:

Producing the financial resources for an independent defense will take years; every month spent debating is a month lost. The choice is no longer between the status quo and integration. It is between a painful European rebirth or a slow descent into a world where the EU collapses internally, its security is in tatters and it becomes a target for expansion in Moscow.

Trump seems to be one of the few people who's come to the recognition that Moscow hasn't been able to make headway in Ukraine in four years. The stalemate between Russia and Ukraine is increasingly pointless; men of military age have fled Ukraine to avoid conscription and the meat grinder; the country is recognized as hopelessly corrupt, yet Zelensky continues in power. But NATO and the EU want to continue that increasingly irrelevant situation, and The Guardian has decided the solution is for Europe to rearm to maintain the status quo.

There's a sudden consensus that Trump's focus on Greenland is breaking NATO and possibly the EU, and it's become the main topic at Davos. This is simply remarkable. Trump seems to be upending the post-1945 consensus, just like that, with Greenland as the fulcrum of the lever.

posted by test @ January 21, 2026   0 Comments

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Don Lemon's Protracted Career Sunset

It's intriguing that two high-profile leaders of the Minnesota ICE riots are has-beens, Tim Walz, who ended his reelection campaign after revelations of Somali fraud, and Don Lemon, who was fired by CNN in 2023:

Don Lemon landed in hot water earlier this year after comments he made about Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, a former UN ambassador and governor of South Carolina.

Ms Haley was not "in her prime", Lemon said in February, a remark widely decried as sexist.

. . . "I'm just saying what the facts are - Google it," he added, in response to objections from his female co-hosts, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins.

Lemon issued a statement on the same day saying he regretted his "inartful and irrelevant" comments. He also apologised to the newsroom and agreed to partake in "mandatory training" to address the incident.

Unmentioned by legacy media as of 2023 but almost certainly much closer to the real reason for his firing was a 2018 episode in a Hamptons bar:

Dustin Hice says in his Suffolk County Supreme Court suit that he was slinging drinks in July 2018 for The Old Stove Pub in Sagaponack when he and his coworkers decided to go out for drinks after work one night.

The group headed to Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor, where Hice told The Post, “I see out of the corner of my eye, it’s Don Lemon’’ there, too.

“I had had two beers, maybe three at the most,’’ Hice recalled. “I said, ‘Hey, Don, let me buy you a drink.’ I turned to Nick the bartender and said, ‘Hey, Nick, let me get two [vodka] Lemon Drops’ and put two fingers in the air.

. . . As alleged in his complaint, Hice, 38, told The Post, “About 5 or 10 minutes later, Don gets up, walks around the bar, comes up right up to me and puts his hands down his board shorts. He rubs himself aggressively, his penis and whatever else down there.”

Lemon then “shoved his index and middle fingers in Plaintiff’s mustache and under Plaintiff’s nose,’’ according to Hice’s suit, which was filed over the weekend.

“And he goes, ‘Do you like p—y or d–k?’ And he kept saying, ‘P or D? P or D?’ He said it three or four times. I’m like, ‘Whoa man, what the hell?’ ” Hice claimed.

Hice eventually dropped the lawsuit in 2022, but accounts suggest that CNN's legal department had had to get involved, and the story likely contributed to a consensus on mahogany row that Lemon was a loose cannon. Since his firing, he's become "independent", with a Don Lemon Show on YouTube, Substack, Facebook, and Instagram.

Despite the growing audience and praise, Lemon acknowledged that it wasn’t always easy to become CEO of his own media company, overseeing operational demands and serving as talent. “It’s been a learning experience. It has been frightening, thrilling, and terrifying all at the same time,” he said. “Every day, even when people doubt you. . . just keep going. Because it doesn’t matter. What people think about you doesn’t really matter.”

The problem at this point is that he doesn't have a major corporation's law department to back him up, and this comes at a time when he already needs to be talking to expensive attorneys: Dhillon, a Sikh, gave an extensive explanation of the federal case against Lemon and others for disrupting a Christian service to Benny Johnson:

United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon, in an interview on "The Benny Show" with Benny Johnson, said the DOJ will pursue charges for the people who stormed a Minneapolis church during service to carry out an anti-ICE protest, including former CNN host Don Lemon.

"Don Lemon himself has come out and said he knew exactly what was going to happen inside that facility," Dhillon said. "He went into the facility, and then he began — quote, unquote — 'committing journalism,' as if that's sort of a shield from being a part, an embedded part, of a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t."

"I don't know what he is now, but journalism is not a badge or a shield that protects you from criminal consequences when you are part of a crime," Dhillon said. "And I think the videos show how close he was to these folks. I think further evidence will show more information about that."

. . . And so, as you know, and as people have said, the prior administration prosecuted people under the FACE Act for peacefully praying outside abortion clinics where unborn children were being killed inside. Now, that's protected by federal law. That's up to Congress.

However, that same law gives us the right at the Department of Justice to prosecute the same kind of conduct vis-a-vis any house of worship. And there's been a lot of talk of the First Amendment thrown around. The First Amendment includes the right to pray without interference.

. . . I'm not going to flag, but the FACE Act has been mentioned as one of the predicates there. In other cases, the Biden DOJ used the Klan Act conspiracy charges tacked on to the FACE Act in the case of protests outside abortion clinics to bring much longer sentences. So, there are a number of tools available to us.

Who funded this? What other crimes may have occurred? Was there a use of the wires or the mails in preparing for this event?

Did anyone cross state lines to do this? All of those are potential predicates for additional federal charges.

Whether or not Lemon is eventually convicted on charges like those Dhillon outlines, his problem right now is that he already needs expensive attorneys to start working on his defense -- and the days when someone like Alan Dershowitz would take his case pro bono are long gone.

The suits at CNN saw this coming years ago. Even CNN didn't have that kind of money. Rush Limbaugh used to call Lemon "the gift that keeps on giving", and it looks like his ability to get into repeated scrapes hasn't stopped. Like Walz, Lemon's career is effectively over.

posted by test @ January 20, 2026   0 Comments