Chief Justice Roberts said Trump was wrong to secure this revenue for the United States.

Alas for Chief Justice Roberts, he is the one in the wrong. He is wrong in his opinion, he is wrong on the facts, and he is wrong on the law.

The internal contradictions and loops of illogic within Roberts’ majority opinion are more than sufficient to establish that the ruling is erroneous, that it is therefore repugnant to the Constitution, and thus it must be deemed null and void.

There is another aspect of this case that warrants our consideration, which I only touched on previously: the willingness of Supreme Court Justices to ignore and dismiss not just the letter of the law but also prior case law. The jurisprudential reality of this case is that the key facets of the case have been adjudicated before and found to sustain the Trump Administration’s position.

The disquieting response of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch can be summarized as “we don’t care.” Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett simply ignored the precedents altogether.

How can any judge or justice adjudicate any matter according to the requirements of the rule of law when they feel free to cherry-pick the legal principles they will apply to a case?

How can any court remain credible when justice is meted out in such an arbitrary and capricious fashion?

Judges and justices cannot conform to the rule of law when they cherry-pick their legal principles. Courts cannot remain credible when they are arbitrary and capricious. There is neither dispute nor debate to be had on this point.

And so we must visit Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump1 a second time, to understand how badly the six justices in the majority failed to apply the law as it stands.

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Not Without Precedent

We begin with an important piece of Presidential history.

On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon issued Presidential Proclamation 4074, in which he unilaterally imposed a 10 percent tariff on virtually all imported goods coming into the United States, suspending or partially suspending any and all Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations necessary to impose the tariffs without conflict:

B. (1) I hereby terminate in part for such period as may be necessary and modify prior Presidential Proclamations which carry out trade agreements insofar as such proclamations are inconsistent with, or proclaim duties different from, those made effective pursuant to the terms of this Proclamation.

(2) Such proclamations are suspended only insofar as is required to assess a surcharge in the form of a supplemental duty amounting to 10 percent ad valorem. Such supplemental duty shall be imposed on all dutiable articles imported into the customs territory of the United States from outside thereof, which are entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption after 12:01 a.m., August 16, 1971, provided, however, that if the imposition of an additional duty of 10 percent ad valorem would cause the total duty or charge payable to exceed the total duty or charge payable at the rate prescribed in column 2 of the Tariff Schedules of the United States, then the column 2 rate shall apply.

Nixon did not get specific approval from Congress to impose these tariffs. There was no intervening act of Congress. President Nixon decided he need to apply a 10% tariff on all imported goods, and so he applied a 10% tariff on all imported goods.

We should also note that Nixon’s tariffs were open ended, and were to remain in force until rescinded (emphasis mine).

2. Additional duties imposed—The duties provided for in this subpart are cumulative duties which apply in addition to the duties otherwise imposed on the articles involved. The provisions for these duties are effective with respect to articles entered on and after 12: 01 a.m., August 16, 1971, and shall continue in effect until modified or terminated by the President or by the Secretary of the Treasury (hereinafter referred to as the Secretary) in accordance with headnote 4 of this subpart.

Structurally, Nixon’s 1971 tariffs, unilaterally imposed without intervening act of Congress, are almost identical to the Liberation Day tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, also without intervening act of Congress.

More importantly, Nixon’s 1971 tariffs were challenged in court2—and upheld. Neither Roberts, nor Gorsuch, nor Barrett attempt to deny that the courts validated President Nixon’s tariffs.

Yet they do not consider Nixon’s tariffs as worthy precedent. Roberts and Gorsuch discuss them only to dismiss them, while Barrett does not discuss them at all.

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United States v. Yoshida Intern., Inc.

President Nixon’s unilateral imposition of a 10% ad valorem tariff in 1971 was, to say the least, controversial. It is unsurprising that the tariff was quickly challenged in court. It will be somewhat surprising to some that the courts ultimately ruled in favor of the Nixon Administration and sustained the tariffs.

When Yoshida International first brought suit to overrule the Administration and rescind the tariffs, the Customs Court—the court with original jurisdiction in the case—ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the tariffs cancelled. However, the appellate court for customs cases, the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, held to a different view of the applicable laws.

As even a cursory reading of Nixon’s proclamation shows, he cited numerous trade authorities as the basis for the tariffs. The Customs Court reviewed them all and found the two principal ones wanting.

We conclude that the authority granted by statute to “terminate, in whole or in part, any proclamation” does not include the power to determine and fix unilaterally a rate of duty which has not been previously legally established. On the contrary, the “termination” authority, as statutorily granted, merely provides the President with a mechanical procedure of supplanting or replacing existing rates with rates which have been established by prior proclamations or by statute.

The final authority on which the Nixon Administration relied when defending the Proclamation was the Trading With The Enemy Act (TWEA).

We must pause and note that the TWEA is a direct precursor to the IEEPA, which was passed after much debate in the House of Representatives on an overhaul of the TWEA legislation.

SUMMARY AND PURPOSE OF THE LEGISLATION

The purpose of the legislation is to redefine the power of the President to regulate international economic transactions in future times of war or national emergency. These powers are currently provided and defined in section 5(b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act. 1 The proposed bill, H.R. 7738, would separate war and nonwar authorities and procedures, preserving existing Presidential powers in time of war declared by Congress, and providing somewhat narrower powers subject to congressional review in times of “national emergency” short of war.

That the IEEPA is a lineal descendant of the TWEA is significant to a proper understanding of Learning Resources as it provides a basis for applying rulings involving the TWEA on cases involving the IEEPA. This was a major point in Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent3 in Learning Resources.

The plaintiffs argue and the Court concludes that the President lacks authority under IEEPA to impose tariffs. I disagree. In accord with Judge Taranto’s careful and persuasive opinion in the Federal Circuit, I would conclude that the President’s power under IEEPA to “regulate . . . importation” encompasses tariffs. As a matter of ordinary meaning, including dictionary definitions and historical usage, the broad power to “regulate . . . importation” includes the traditional and common means to do so—in particular, quotas, embargoes, and tariffs.

History and precedent confirm that conclusion. In 1971, President Nixon imposed 10 percent tariffs on almost all foreign imports. He levied the tariffs under IEEPA’s predecessor statute, the Trading with the Enemy Act, which similarly authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation.” The Nixon tariffs were upheld in court.

Nixon’s tariffs ultimately hinged on whether the TWEA delegates a unilateral tariff authority to the Executive Branch within the rubric of “regulate….importation” of property.

The Customs Court ruled that the TWEA does not, in fact, provide such a delegation of tariff authority. As recounted by the appeals court:

The President’s emergency power, as expressed in the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), section 5(b), to “regulate * * * importation * * * of * * * any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest,” said the Customs Court,

* * * conveys to the President an authority consisting only of a specific mode of regulation, as distinguished from the full and all-inclusive power to regulate foreign commerce. The delegation of the specific regulatory authority, “by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise,” manifestly is restrictive in scope and is but one branch of many attached to the trunk of the tree in which is lodged the all-inclusive substantive power to regulate foreign commerce, vested solely in the Congress.

We, therefore, conclude that section 5(b)(1) of the Act contains such restrictive standards and guidelines as to meet the test of constitutionality, but which, in turn, precludes the President from laying the supplemental duties provided by Presidential Proclamation 4074.

It was this part of the Customs Court ruling that the appeals court ultimately reversed.

The pertinent section of the TWEA has been amended several times since the Act’s initial passage in 1917, with the crucial amendment having taken place during World War 24

Sec . 301. The first sentence of subdivision (b) of section 5 of the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 411), as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows:

(1) During the time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or otherwise, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—

(A) investigate, regulate, or prohibit, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit or payments between, by, through, or to any banking institution, and the importing, exporting, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion, currency or securities, and

(B) investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States; and any property or interest of any foreign country or national thereof shall vest, when, as, and upon the terms, directed by the President, in such agency or person as may be designated from time to time by the President, and upon such terms and conditions as the President may prescribe such interest or property shall be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold, or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States, and such designated agency or person may perform any and all acts incident to the accomplishment or furtherance of these purposes; and the President shall, in the manner hereinabove provided, require any person to keep a full record of, and to furnish under oath, in the form of reports or otherwise, complete information relative to any act or transaction referred to in this subdivision either before, during, or after the completion thereof, or relative to any interest in foreign property, or relative to any property in which any foreign country or any national thereof has or has had any interest, or as may be otherwise necessary to enforce the provisions of this subdivision, and in any case in which a report could be required, the President may, in the manner hereinabove provided, require the production, or if necessary to the national security or defense, the seizure, of any books of account, records, contracts, letters, memoranda, or other papers, in the custody or control of such person; and the President may, in the manner hereinabove provided, take other and further measures not inconsistent herewith for the enforcement of this subdivision.

Note especially that the amended language has the same two words used in the same fashion as the IEEPA which Roberts viewed as the crux of the Trump Administration’s argument: “regulate…importation.”

The structural similarity did not go unnoticed in Kavanaugh’s dissent.

The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals structured its ruling very tightly around the validity and constitutionality of the various trade authorities upon which President Nixon based his claim of power to impose tariffs.

The sole issue before us is whether the Customs Court erred, as a matter of law, in holding that Proclamation 4074 was an ultra vires Presidential act. Resolution of the issue requires determination of whether the surcharge imposed by Presidential Proclamation 4074 was within the delegated authority to be found in either (1) the termination provisions of § 350(a)(6) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (Tariff Act) (19 U.S.C. § 1351(a)(6)) and § 255(b) of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (TEA) (19 U.S.C. § 1885(b)), or (2) the emergency powers granted by § 5(b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act (TWEA), as amended (50 U.S.C. App. § 5(b)), and if so, whether such a delegation of authority was constitutional.

In an argument very similar to Roberts’ views in Learning Resources, the Customs Court held that “regulation” did not include imposing tariffs:

The words "instructions, licenses, or otherwise" contained in section 5(b)(1) define the nature and mode of the regulatory authority intended to be delegated to the President. These words conform to the phraseology used through the history of the Act in the establishment of a system of licenses and permits for the control of property during a time of war and crisis and which have come to be recognized as the hallmark and distinguishing feature of the Act. (Emphasis added.)

It was this reasoning that the Court of Appeals rejected.

Recognizing that to impose duties can be to "regulate," the Customs Court nonetheless interpreted the words "the President may * * * regulate * * * importation" as though they read, in effect, "the President may * * * license * * * importation." We cannot agree.

Where the Customs Court applied a narrow view of the TWEA language, the Court of Appeals held that a more expansive view of that same language was correct.

If the phrase “by means of instructions, licenses or otherwise” defines “the nature and mode of the regulatory authority intended to be delegated to the President,” it does so very broadly indeed. The phrase appears to us to be expansive, not restrictive. The words “or otherwise,” if they mean anything, must mean that Congress authorized the use of means which, though not identified, were different from, and additional to, “instructions” and “licenses.” Congress, by its use of “or otherwise,” signaled its intent not to bind the President into “instructions” or “licenses,” or into any other pre-specified means which might preclude his dealing with a national emergency and defeat the purpose of the legislation.

Demonstrably careful and extensive research into the history of § 5(b) led the author of the concurring opinion below to give weight to the lack of an indication that Congress “intended — or even considered — this section as a vehicle for delegating any of its tariff-making authority.” However, we do not find it surprising that Congress did not specify that the President could use a surcharge in a national emergency. Having left the battlefield, it would hardly do to dictate all the weapons to be used in the fight. Nor do we find anything in the inconclusive and hurried legislative history of § 5(b) which indicates an intent to prohibit action such as that reflected in Proclamation 4074.

Thus the Court of Appeals concluded that the TWEA language does extend an authority to unilaterally impose tariffs.

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Does Yoshida Count?

While Roberts necessarily acknowledged Yoshida in his majority opinion for Learning Resources, he did so only to dismiss it out of hand.

This argument cannot bear the weight the Government places on it. While this Court sometimes assumes that Congress incorporates judicial definitions into legislation, we do so “only when [the] term’s meaning was ‘well-settled’ ” before the adoption. Kemp v. United States, 596 U.S. 528, 539 (2022) (quoting Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 22 (1999)); see also United States v. Kwai Fun Wong, 575 U.S. 402, 412–415 (2015). A single, expressly limited opinion from a specialized intermediate appellate court does not clear that hurdle. See BP p.l.c. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 593 U.S. 230, 244 (2021). The tariff authority asserted by President Nixon, moreover, was “far removed” from TWEA’s “original purposes” of sanctioning foreign belligerents. Cohen, Fundamentals of U. S. Foreign Trade Policy, at 178–179. We are therefore skeptical that Congress enacted IEEPA with an eye toward granting that novel power.

The inference Roberts makes is that Yoshida does not count because the Supreme Court did not rule on the case.

While Yoshida was not appealed to the Supreme Court, it nevertheless presents a valid precedent, albeit one from a lower court. The Court of Customs and Patent Appeals is indeed an “intermediate appellate court”, but it is a duly constituted tribunal inferior to the Supreme Court which Congress is explicitly authorized to create in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. As such, the rulings of that court cannot be dismissed with a simple wave of a judicial hand.

The Supreme Court is at liberty to disagree with a ruling of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, just as it is with any other appellate tribunal. The Supreme Court is not at liberty to be disingenuous in its disagreement. The precedent Roberts cites5 as a basis for rejecting Yoshida is as facetious as it is irrelevant. In the BP p.l.c. ruling, Justice Gorsuch very explicitly tailored the ruling to a single narrow question of procedure.

The only question before us is one of civil procedure: Does 28 U. S. C. §1447(d) permit a court of appeals to review any issue in a district court order remanding a case to state court where the defendant premised removal in part on the federal officer removal statute, §1442, or the civil rights removal statute, §1443?

Yoshida was indisputably far broader and far more substantive in scope than BP p.l.c.

Moreover, the exploration performed by the court in Yoshida was whether or not Nixon’s “far removed” application of TWEA authority was nevertheless valid, and the court held that it was.

Roberts’ reasoning is nothing more than saying the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals does not matter. Coming from the Chief Justice of the United States that is itself a startling denial of legitimacy to an indisputably legitimate tribunal.

Roberts could have explored how Yoshida was wrongly decided. He did not do so.

Gorsuch’ concurrence6 is likewise a failure of judicial reasoning. Setting aside the first part of his opinion where he chides his concurring colleagues for their hypocrisy in ruling differently with respect to the Trump Administration than the Biden Administration, he then delves into an independent rationalization of why their hypocritical ruling is somehow the correct ruling. Unsurprisingly, he engages in a key piece of hypocrisy himself over President Trump’s “novel” application of the IEEPA.

First, is the President seeking to exercise an “unheralded” or “newfound” power based on a “long-extant” statute? Post, at 39 (internal quotation marks omitted). The dissent insists that is not the case here because President Nixon imposed a 10 percent tariff on most imports in 1971, and then defended that action in lower courts under a predecessor to IEEPA, the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Ibid. But the words “regulate . . . importation” were added to TWEA in 1941. §301(1)(B), 55Stat. 839. Congress used the same language in IEEPA in 1977. §203(a)(1)(B), 91Stat. 1626. And in the 85 years of TWEA’s existence with that language (and the 49 years of IEEPA’s), that is the only time either statute has been invoked to impose tariffs. Ante, at 10–11, 17–18. A single time, and one never tested in this Court. Nor are these statutes seldom used. “Each year since 1990, Presidents have issued roughly 4.5 executive orders . . . and declared 1.5 new national emergencies citing IEEPA.” Congressional Research Service, The International Emergency Economics Powers Act: Origins, Evolution, and Use 20 (Sept. 1, 2025). That is pretty strong evidence the President here seeks to “deploy an old statute” in a novel way. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at 747 (Gorsuch, J., concurring).

As discussed above regarding Roberts’ majority opinion, that Yoshida was not taken up by the Supreme Court is not relevant. What is relevant is that Yoshida is a precedent. If it is not a fitting precedent then it is on the Court—that is to say, Gorsuch—to articulate why it is not a fitting precedent. As with Roberts, Gorsuch is making the claim that Yoshida does not count, yet, as with Roberts, Gorsuch defends that claim solely by saying that the Supreme Court never ruled on it.

What Yoshida indisputably proves is that President Trump is not deploying “an old statute” in a novel way. The TWEA is the lineal ancestor to the IEEPA, and uses structurally similar language. Yoshida held that language sufficed to conclude tariff authority was included in the delegated authority to “regulate….importation” of foreign goods. As Yoshida has already laid down that precedent. it is factually false to claim that President Trump’s reliance on that same delegated authority is somehow “novel.” President Trump used an authority the courts have already conceded exists.

Gorsuch could have argued that Yoshida erred. He did not. Instead, he dismissed the ruling with less thought than Roberts applied.

However, by not arguing that Yoshida was wrongly decided Gorsuch is left with the same awkward reality as Roberts: A legitimate court has issued a legitimate ruling that the language of the TWEA is a legitimate delegation of regulatory authority over the importation of foreign goods which includes the authority to impose tariffs. With the IEEPA using structurally similar language, and with the IEEPA being explicitly crafted to provide a statutory basis for non-wartime Presidential exercise of the emergency powers delegated in the TWEA, the “novel” reasoning is that the language of the IEEPA should be construed differently than it was in the TWEA when both the statute and its legislative history are silent on that question. The IEEPA is explicitly crafted as the “peacetime” variant of the TWEA, and therefore the natural construction of the IEEPA is that it should follow that of the TWEA.

For her part, Justice Amy Coney Barrett apparently objects to that legislative and jurisprudential reality, so much so that she wrote a concurrence7 which begins by rejecting reality before wandering off into a thicket of judicial hand waving and irrelevance.

As the principal opinion demonstrates, the most natural reading of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not encompass the power to impose tariffs. I write only to address Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence regarding the major questions doctrine.

This introductory paragraph is simply not true. Roberts’ majority opinion makes no such demonstration. The convolutions and contradictions Roberts utilizes argue that his is a most unnatural reading of the IEEPA. The legislative history of the statute and the logic of Yoshida bear that out. Having thus rejected reality, her entire exploration of the Supreme Court's “major questions” doctrine is completely non sequitur and warrants no further examination.

The fatal flaw of Roberts’ majority opinion as well as Barrett's and Gorsuch's concurrences is simply this: if Yoshida is not wrong then President Trump’s assertion of tariff authority under the IEEPA cannot be wrong. At that point all other rationalizations and pontifications regarding “major questions” lose any claim of relevance. If Yoshida is not wrong all “major questions” have already been decided in this matter. If Yoshida is not wrong then all questions about what authorities Congress did and did not delegate have already been decided in this matter.

Neither Roberts nor Gorsuch nor Barrett argue that Yoshida is wrong. They simply “opt out” of considering its significance.

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All Precedents Matter

Perversely, the one point on which all the opinions the Court issued in Learning Resources agree is that Yoshida is an existing precedent.

Justice Kavanaugh’s dissent makes the fairly straightforward argument that, as Yoshida has already covered this terrain, and as the Court declined to declare Yoshida wrongly decided, it enjoys status as a controlling precedent by default. This is a “common sense” application of the principle of stare decisis.

Under that principle, the Court should generally apply the law to similar facts in similar fashion. If the Court wishes to veer in a dissimilar direction, it carries the burden of explaining why precedent should not apply. Neither Roberts nor Gorsuch nor Barrett even pretend to do so. They simply dismiss precedent as inconsequential and proceed to construct entirely new judicial logic for matters substantively already adjudicated.

That cannot ever be considered sound jurisprudence. If the Court wishes to stray from the pathways established by precedent it must provide clear explication of its reasons for so doing. Derogation of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals as somehow lacking in judicial relevance is not a clear explication of anything except the judicial hubris of Roberts and Gorsuch.

Was Yoshida fairly and correctly decided? We must presume that it was because no one on the Court is willing to argue that it was not.

Is Yoshida relevant? It absolutely must be, because the statutory language and context surrounding Nixon’s tariffs and Trump’s tariffs are so similar as to be nearly identical. Yoshida matters because it explores all the issues and questions raised by Learning Resources.

Because Yoshida is relevant, and because no one on the Court deigns to argue that Yoshida is wrong, it must be acknowledged as a controlling precedent. While it is not unreasonable to be troubled by a controlling precedent emerging from an inferior tribunal, the solution is to address the probity of that precedent. The Supreme Court had a perfect opportunity to address Yoshida directly, and declined to do so.

Precedents matter. Precedents are what give jurisprudence a measure of predictability and regularity. Precedents allow Presidents an private citizens alike to navigate the law with confidence. Precedents are what give form and substance to the concept of “the rule of law”, which has been a cornerstone of Constitutional governance since the founding of the Republic.

Precedents matter. Yoshida matters. Yoshida establishes beyond any an all doubt that President Trump has the authorities he claims under the IEEPA.

Because the six concurring justices in Learning Resources opted to ignore precedent, they opted to ignore the law. As their ruling ignores the law, the proper response is to ignore their ruling.

As their ruling ignores the law, it is repugnant to the Constitution and therefore null and void.

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Speaker Johnson certainly has facts on his side: tariff revenue has soared into the stratosphere under President Trump.

Having facts on his side is quite a bit more than can be said for Roberts’ sketchy and contorted majority opinion. As dissenting Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito elucidate, Roberts’ opinion is nothing but hogwash and horse hockey.

Chief Justice Roberts said Trump was wrong to secure this revenue for the United States.

Alas for Chief Justice Roberts, he is the one in the wrong. He is wrong in his opinion, he is wrong on the facts, and he is wrong on the law.

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Is Roberts’ Opinion Even The Majority Opinion?

Assessing the Court’s 6-3 decision in the tariff case Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump1 is challenging, because in addition to Roberts’ “majority” opinion there were concurring opinions produced by Justices Kagan, Jackson, Gorsuch, and Barrett, with dissenting opinions produced by Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh.

There was a 6-3 vote on the case, but is there an actual majority opinion upon which future case law may be reliably built? The evidence strongly suggests there is not.

Indeed, the quality of the ruling itself is called into question rather ironically by Neil Gorsuch, one of the six justices voting to void President Trump’s tariffs. Intriguingly, Gorsuch’s concurrence2 suggests there may not even be a majority opinion on this case:

Not everyone sees it this way. Past critics of the major questions doctrine do not object to its application in this case, and they even join much of today’s principal opinion. But, they insist, they can reach the same result by employing only routine tools of statutory interpretation. Post, at 1 (Kagan, J., joined by Sotomayor and Jackson, JJ., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Meanwhile, one colleague who joins the principal opinion in full suggests the major questions doctrine is nothing more than routine statutory interpretation. Post, at 1 (Barrett, J., concurring). Still others who have joined major questions decisions in the past dissent from today’s application of the doctrine. Post, at 1 (Kavanaugh, J., joined by Thomas and Alito, JJ., dissenting). Finally, seeking to sidestep the major questions doctrine altogether, one colleague submits that Congress may hand over to the President most of its powers, including the tariff power, without limit. Post, at 1–2 (Thomas, J., dissenting). It is an interesting turn of events. Each camp warrants a visit.

If Gorsuch’s assessment is accurate, then the six justices in the majority agree only partially with each other, and disagree partially with each other.

The concurrences authored by Kagan, Jackson, and Barrett certainly support that argument.

Perhaps more crucially, Gorsuch levels a significant and even lethal accusation against his concurring colleagues: bias.

Unpack that last claim first. My concurring colleagues contend that, as a matter of “straight-up statutory construction,” IEEPA does not grant the President the power to impose tariffs. Post, at 7. In doing so, they make thoughtful points about the statute’s text and context. But their approach today is difficult to square with how they have interpreted other statutes. Dissenting in past major questions cases, they have argued that broad statutory language granting powers to executive officials should be read for all it is worth. Yet, now, when it comes to IEEPA’s similarly broad language granting powers to the President, they take a more constrained approach.

Those last two sentences deserve particular emphasis and especial consideration. Gorsuch is saying plainly that the the Supreme Court is applying the law and case precedent differently in this case against President Trump than in previous cases.

That is not how the judicial doctrine of stare decisis3 operates. Stare decisis—Latin for “let the decision stand”—is a judicial principle dating back to medieval English Common Law which presumes that similar cases should be adjudicated similarly.

Under stare decisis, once a court has answered a question, the same question in other cases must elicit the same response from the same court or lower courts in that jurisdiction.

Per Justice Gorsuch, the Supreme Court has set that principle aside to adjudicate this case, and done so for the worst of all possible reasons: because Trump.

This is the point where Gorsuch’s concurrence leaves the United States: The Supreme Court reads the Constitution of the United States differently for President Trump than it did for President Biden.

Even corporate media has been obliged to acknowledge Gorsuch’s claims and the clear consequence that the Court issued the ruling it did because Trump.

A Supreme Court ruling made under the influence of Trump Derangement Syndrome is a ruling repugnant to the Constitution, to every premise and principle of the rule of law, and of simple common sense. On that basis alone this ruling is inoperable, null, and void.

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Roberts’ Pretzel Logic Is Not Logical

The irony of Chief Justice Roberts’ rebuke of President Trump’s claims of sweeping and extravagant authority under the IEEPA is that he makes equally sweeping and extravagant claims to reject Trump’s authority.

Roberts begins his contorted reasoning by a simple but entirely unsupported statement reducing the Trump Administration’s arguments to exactly two words.

Based on two words separated by 16 others in Section 1702(a)(1)(B) of IEEPA—“regulate” and “importation”—the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight.

This is the crux of Roberts’ ruling, that two words from the IEEPA do not mean what Donald Trump asserts them to mean.

Does Roberts’ claim stand up under scrutiny?

We begin by examining the text of the statute in question:

(a) In general

(1) At the times and to the extent specified in section 1701 of this title, the President may, under such regulations as he may prescribe, by means of instructions, licenses, or otherwise—

(B) investigate, block during the pendency of an investigation, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit, any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States;

According to Chief Justice Roberts, this is the sum total of the Administration argument.

But is it?

The Administration’s argument as elucidated in its formal responses is indeed grounded on a premise of authority to “regulate importation”.

Text, context, and history confirm that IEEPA’s phrase “regulate importation” includes tariffs, which have been recognized since the Founding as a traditional, well-established method to regulate imports. Plaintiffs concede that IEEPA authorizes a host of more aggressive actions not specifically enumerated in its text—including quotas, quality restrictions, and quarantines, VOS Br. 15; States Br. 23-24; Learning Br. 23, 35—but struggle to explain why tariffs alone should be excluded.

However, the Administration explicitly rejects a key component of Roberts’ core argument: It affirms Congressional oversight authority, which precludes the possibility of Presidential powers under the IEEPA ever being even notionally “independent.”

Plaintiffs invoke the major-questions doctrine, but it does not apply here. IEEPA addresses the most major of questions—international emergencies—by explicitly conferring major powers. A “practical understanding of legislative intent,” West Virginia v. EPA, 597 U.S. 697, 723 (2022), shows that Congress made a deliberate, “eyes-open” decision, 25-250 Pet. App. 66a, 112a, 123a (Taranto, J., dissenting), to equip the President in advance with the full range of tools he might need to address foreign emergencies. Recognizing that “it is impossible to foresee * * * the extent and variety of national exigencies” or the “variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them,” Loving v. United States, 517 U.S. 748, 767 (1996) (quoting The Federalist No. 23 (Hamilton)), Congress retained robust political oversight over the President’s exercise of those emergency powers.

However, even if we overlook Roberts’ clear factual error in his foundational reasoning, his reasoning extends further by differentiating between “regulation” and the imposition of tariffs, which he (correctly) points out is a part of the taxing authority of Congress.

The power to impose tariffs is “very clear[ly] . . . a branch of the taxing power.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 201 (1824). “A tariff,” after all, “is a tax levied on imported goods and services.” Congressional Research Service (CRS), C. Casey, U. S. Tariff Policy: Overview 1 (2025). And tariffs “raise[ ] revenue,” West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U.S. 186, 193 (1994)—the defining feature of a tax, United States v. Kahriger, 345 U.S. 22, 28, and n. 4 (1953); Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U.S. 506, 514 (1937). Indeed, the Framers expected that the Government would for “a long time depend . . . chiefly on” tariffs for revenue. The Federalist No. 12, at 93 (A. Hamilton). Little wonder, then, that the First Congress’s first exercise of its taxing power (and its second enacted law, right after the one providing for the new officials to take an oath) was a tariff law. See Act of July 4, 1789, ch. 2, 1Stat. 24.

We will concede the obvious point, that Roberts cited the Constitution correctly on this point. Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1 of the Constitution explicitly mentions “Duties, Imposts, and Excises” alongside “Taxes” as a power of Congress.

However, even Roberts concedes the Trump Administration is not contesting the power of Congress to impose (and therefore rescind) tariffs, rendering Roberts’ reasoning on this point wholly non sequitur.

The Government thus concedes, as it must, that the President enjoys no inherent authority to impose tariffs during peacetime. Tr. of Oral Arg. 70–71. And it does not defend the challenged tariffs as an exercise of the President’s warmaking powers. The United States, after all, is not at war with every nation in the world. The Government instead relies exclusively on IEEPA. It reads the words “regulate” and “importation” to effect a sweeping delegation of Congress’s power to set tariff policy—authorizing the President to impose tariffs of unlimited amount and duration, on any product from any country. 50 U. S. C. §1702(a)(1)(B).

Roberts is not restrained by this admission of the obvious, however, and then sets the stage for a Clintonian level of word parsing by deriding the IEEPA language as “ambiguous.”

We have long expressed “reluctan[ce] to read into ambiguous statutory text” extraordinary delegations of Congress’s powers.

Is the IEEPA text truly “ambiguous”? It might be if there were not prior statutory language already accepted by the Court, the Congress, and the country affirming substantially the same authorities being claimed by the Trump Administration.

Indeed, this is where Roberts’ rationale runs into severe problems, because the Liberation Day tariffs are not the first unilateral imposition of tariffs by a President. Most notably, and recalling Gorsuch’s claim of juridical bias in this case, we should ponder another President who quite recently asserted authority to regulate the importation of goods by means of tariffs: Joe Biden.

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Why Was It Okay For Joe Biden To Unilaterally Raise Tariffs?

On May 14, 2024, Joe Biden promulgated a memorandum to the US Trade Representative directing that certain tariffs against China be increased.

Section1. Tariffs. (a) The Trade Representative shall maintain, as appropriate and consistent with this memorandum, the ad valorem rates of duty and lists of products subject to the two actions, taken under the section 301 investigation. To further encourage China to eliminate the acts, policies, and practices at issue, and to counteract the burden or restriction of these acts, policies, and practices, the Trade Representative shall modify the two actions to increase section 301 ad valorem rates of duty for the following products from China:

We should take note that Biden grounded this memorandum in authorities granted under the Trade Act of 19744. However, the text of the memorandum opinion is clear: Joe Biden (or at least Joe Biden’s Autopen) unilaterally raised tariffs on Chinese goods. There was no intervening act of Congress. Joe Biden apparently had authority to regulate importation of Chinese goods by means of tariffs, but Donald Trump does not have authority to regulate importation of goods by means of tariffs.

Going back further into the Biden era, we must also note Biden’s Proclamation 10403 on steel imports into the US.

This Proclamation is significant not just because it is an exmplar of Joe Biden unilaterally revamping tariffs. Perversely, it is predicated on an earlier Presidential Proclamation issued by none other than….wait for it….Donald Trump.

2. In Proclamation 9705 of March 8, 2018 (Adjusting Imports of Steel Into the United States), the President concurred in the Secretary’s finding that steel articles, as defined in clause 1 of Proclamation 9705, as amended by clause 8 of Proclamation 9711 of March 22, 2018 (Adjusting Imports of Steel Into the United States), are being imported into the United States in such quantities and under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security of the United States, and decided to adjust the imports of those steel articles by imposing a 25 percent ad valorem tariff on such articles imported from all countries except Canada and Mexico. The proclamation further stated that any country with which we have a security relationship is welcome to discuss with the United States alternative ways to address the threatened impairment of the national security caused by imports from that country, and noted that, should the United States and any such country arrive at a satisfactory alternative means to address the threat to the national security such that the President determines that imports from that country no longer threaten to impair the national security, the President may remove or modify the restriction on steel articles imports from that country and, if necessary, adjust the tariff as it applies to other countries, as the national security interests of the United States require.

Moreover, Joe Biden functionally affirmed Donald Trump’s earlier unilateral imposition of tariffs by amending rather than revoking or rescinding the Trump Proclamation:

Now, Therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended, section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, do hereby proclaim as follows:

(1) Clause 2 of Proclamation 9705, as amended, is revised to read as follows:

“(2)(a) In order to establish certain modifications to the duty rate on imports of steel articles, subchapter III of chapter 99 of the HTSUS is modified as provided in the Annex to this proclamation and any subsequent proclamations regarding such steel articles.

In issuing Proclamation 10403, Joe Biden suspended steel tariffs on imports from a number of countries, including Mexico and Ukraine. While this is the reverse of imposing a tariff, setting a tariff to zero is the same exercise of tariff authority as imposing a tariff. Again, this is a unilateral wielding of tariff authority by Joe Biden, without any intervening legislation by Congress.

Biden unilaterally wielded tariff authority several times, including a further amendment of the Trump-era Proclamation 9705 with Proclamation 10771 on May 31, 2024, extending tariff suspensions in many cases into 2025.

Presidents may not have inherent tariff authority, but Joe Biden indisputably exercised tariff authority and that discomfited no-one, not even Chief Justice John Roberts.

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Legal Precedent For IEEPA Tariff Authority?

Notably, Biden’s Proclamations 10771 and 10403, and Trump’s Proclamation 9705, reference the same law, section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 19625.

Consider the statutory language6 of the cited section:

(c) Adjustment of imports; determination by President; report to Congress; additional actions; publication in Federal Register

(1)(A) Within 90 days after receiving a report submitted under subsection (b)(3)(A) in which the Secretary finds that an article is being imported into the United States in such quantities or under such circumstances as to threaten to impair the national security, the President shall—

(i) determine whether the President concurs with the finding of the Secretary, and

(ii) if the President concurs, determine the nature and duration of the action that, in the judgment of the President, must be taken to adjust the imports of the article and its derivatives so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security.

(B) If the President determines under subparagraph (A) to take action to adjust imports of an article and its derivatives, the President shall implement that action by no later than the date that is 15 days after the day on which the President determines to take action under subparagraph (A).

(2) By no later than the date that is 30 days after the date on which the President makes any determinations under paragraph (1), the President shall submit to the Congress a written statement of the reasons why the President has decided to take action, or refused to take action, under paragraph (1). Such statement shall be included in the report published under subsection (e).

(3) (A) If—

(i) the action taken by the President under paragraph (1) is the negotiation of an agreement which limits or restricts the importation into, or the exportation to, the United States of the article that threatens to impair national security, and

(ii) either—

(I) no such agreement is entered into before the date that is 180 days after the date on which the President makes the determination under paragraph (1)(A) to take such action, or

(II) such an agreement that has been entered into is not being carried out or is ineffective in eliminating the threat to the national security posed by imports of such article,

the President shall take such other actions as the President deems necessary to adjust the imports of such article so that such imports will not threaten to impair the national security. The President shall publish in the Federal Register notice of any additional actions being taken under this section by reason of this subparagraph.

(B) If—

(i) clauses (i) and (ii) of subparagraph (A) apply, and

(ii) the President determines not to take any additional actions under this subsection,

the President shall publish in the Federal Register such determination and the reasons on which such determination is based.

Note the word that is not present in this section: “duties” (governmentspeak for “tariffs”).

Indeed, the singular and plural forms of “duty” appear only once in the statutory language, and that is in subsection (a), which prohibits their elimination if so doing is deemed injurious to national security.

(a) Prohibition on decrease or elimination of duties or other import restrictions if such reduction or elimination would threaten to impair national security

No action shall be taken pursuant to section 1821(a) of this title or pursuant to section 1351 of this title to decrease or eliminate the duty or other import restrictions on any article if the President determines that such reduction or elimination would threaten to impair the national security.

Nowhere does this section of the US Code, which is cited in multiple Presidential proclamations by both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, say that the import regulation authority includes authority to levy tariffs. Yet this “ambiguous” text is not troubling to Roberts at all.

Turning to this Court’s precedents, the Government first relies on Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., 426 U.S. 548 (1976). There, we held that Section 232(b) of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the President to “adjust the imports” of particular goods to protect national security, includes the power to impose “license fees.” Id., at 561. But that holding bears little on the meaning of IEEPA. As a textual matter, Section 232(b) authorizes the President not only to “adjust . . . imports,” but (as the Government emphasized in Algonquin) to “take such action . . . as he deems necessary” to adjust the imports of a good. Brief for Petitioners 26 (emphasis in original) and Tr. of Oral Arg. 6–7, in Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG, Inc., O. T. 1975, No. 75–382. IEEPA does not contain such sweeping, discretion-conferring language. As for context, Section 232(a) states that “[n]o action shall be taken” to “decrease or eliminate” an existing “duty or other import restriction” if doing so would threaten national security. 19 U. S. C. §1862(a) (1970 ed.). This explicit reference to duties preceding Section 232(b) renders it natural for Section 232(b) itself to authorize duties. Thus, we decline to extend Algonquin’s expressly “limited” holding any further. 426 U. S., at 571.

I will invite readers to review the statutory language of the IEEPA mentioned above, and decide for themselves how “sweeping” and “discretion-conferring” that language is.

I will note that Roberts offers no elucidation of how the text of the IEEPA differs in substantive scope from the text of the Trade Expansion Act. He merely says “but that’s different.” Rational persons understand that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but Roberts offers no evidence to support this extraordinary claim. As a matter of simple logic, that is a major flaw in the reasoning his opinion constructs.

Despite Roberts demonstrably flawed logic, the reality cannot be avoided. President Trump during his first Administration wielded unilateral tariff authority, and Joe Biden when he was in office not only ratified Trump’s wielding of unilateral tariff authority but proceeded to wield it himself multiple times.

As Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 is permissible as a citation of tariff authority, despite not mentioning tariffs (actually “duties”) other than to restrict their diminution when there are national security implications, how is the IEEPA impermissible as a citation of tariff authority? On a strictly textual basis, the two statutes are similar in scope and function:

• The IEEPA operates under declaration of national emergency, while Section 232 operates under conditions of national security.

• Neither statute is limited to specific countries or global regions. The language in both is inherently global in nature.

• Neither statute time delimits the imposition of any import regulation or restriction. The IEEPA authority endures so long as a declared national emergency endures, while Section 232 prevails so long as national security concerns are otherwise unmet.

If anything, a textual comparison of the statutes indicates they are both equally broad and equally “ambiguous”.

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Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito Call BS On John Roberts

While Justice Clarence Thomas’ dissenting opinion7 is worth reading in full, to appreciate how badly flawed Roberts majority opinion is we need only note Thomas’ first paragraph, where he flatly rejects Roberts’ opinion as factually false.

I join Justice Kavanaugh’s principal dissent in full. As he explains, the Court’s decision today cannot be justified as a matter of statutory interpretation. Congress authorized the President to “regulate . . . importation.” 50 U. S. C. §1702(a)(1)(B). Throughout American history, the authority to “regulate importation” has been understood to include the authority to impose duties on imports. Post, at 9–13, 22–29 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). The meaning of that phrase was beyond doubt by the time that Congress enacted this statute, shortly after President Nixon’s highly publicized duties on imports were upheld based on identical language. Post, at 14–22. The statute that the President relied on therefore authorized him to impose the duties on imports at issue in these cases. Justice Kavanaugh makes clear that the Court errs in concluding otherwise.

Even the usually reserved Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing his own dissent8 (and joined by Justice Samuel Alito), was nonplussed by Roberts’ false and misleading presentation of US history and US law.

Since early in U. S. history, Congress has regularly authorized the President to impose tariffs on imports of foreign goods. Presidents have often used that authority to obtain leverage with foreign nations, help American manufacturers and workers compete on a more level playing field, and generate revenue for the United States. Numerous laws such as the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and the Trade Act of 1974 continue to authorize the President to place tariffs on foreign imports in a variety of circumstances, and Presidents have often done so. In recent years, Presidents George W. Bush, Obama, and Biden have all imposed tariffs on foreign imports under those statutory authorities.

As the Biden-era Proclamations I have quoted here demonstrate, the wielding of unilateral tariff authority by a President is neither unprecedented nor, prior to the Liberation Day tariffs, particularly controversial. Roberts’ claims in this regard are simply not true.

Even worse, Roberts’ dismissal of the IEEPA text as “ambiguous” while defending the equally “ambiguous” text of the Trade Act of 1962 is disingenuous to the point of dishonest. The argument lacks credibility because it lacks factual foundation. Both the IEEPA and the Trade Act of 1962 are textually similar and grounded in similar situations, national emergency vs national security threat.

The reality of legislation such as the Trade Act of 1962 is that these statutes obviate the need for particular language within the IEEPA to establish tariff authority for the President. As the President already enjoys broad tariff authority because of similar legislation, for the purposes of the IEEPA tariff authority must be presumed, not rejected.

Yes, the Constitution delineates taxation and regulation of foreign commerce as separate powers of Congress, but the realities of both exercising and delegating these powers inextricably link them together. Where the one goes the other quickly follows.

Those realities collapse Roberts’ reasoning entirely, and leave his majority opinion in a decidedly awkward place for a Supreme Court opinion: repugnant to the Constitution.

As a matter of law and Supreme Court precedent, we should regard the Roberts ruling as void, and with no legal effect. Roberts got the law wrong, and that disqualifies his opinion from enjoying either credibility or legal validity.

The Liberation Day tariffs remain legal. The Liberation Day tariffs remain Constitutional. Roberts rambling nonsense cannot and should not be understood to change that reality.

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These basic facts are not in dispute, nor can they be disputed, as there is ample video evidence of the event.

On Thursday, January 29, Don Lemon, who has previously masqueraded as a journalist at CNN, was arrested for his role in the church invasion, and consequent violations of the worshipers’ First Amendment rights to worship God in peace.

A source briefed on the investigation said Lemon faces charges of conspiracy to deprive others of their civil rights and violation of the FACE Act by allegedly interfering by force with the exercise of others’ First Amendment rights.

Almost on cue, numerous voices from within corporate media and across the progressive left howled in carefully styled outrage at the government’s “violation” of Don Lemon’s First Amendment rights as a journalist. Don Lemon was immediately characterized as a victim of a government war on press freedom.

That narrative has one fatal flaw: by participating in the church invasion, Don Lemon abandoned any journalistic role and became a participant in what can only be described as an act of domestic terrorism.

As Don Lemon was a terrorist on January 18, and not a journalist, there should be no outrage, no cries of “freedom of the press”, no accusations of censorship or anything similar.

As Don Lemon was a terrorist on January 18, the only fitting response to his actions that day is disgust and disdain.

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Free Speech Is A Moral Imperative

We must begin with the most important point of all: Free Speech is a Moral Imperative. I have argued this many times with my Free Speech Matters section, and the premise is foundational to my work with All Facts Matter.

I like to believe that this precept is a hill on which I am prepared to die (and I thank God daily I have yet to be called to make good on that!).

The First Amendment prohibition on government regulation of the press is an inevitable adjunct to the imperative of Free Speech. Whenever a person endeavors to relay details of events going on in the world around us, that person is engaged in journalism and must be accorded the space to report what they see free from coercion, intimidation, or restraint.

Yet because Free Speech is a Moral Imperative, it is equally imperative that we be moral about our speech. We have a duty to speak honestly and forthrightly. We also have a duty to be honest about when our presumed “speech” crosses over into action. We have a duty to be honest about when those claiming to “report” the news cross over into becoming the news.

No matter how long Don Lemon was employed at CNN, no matter the quality of his work there or since he was fired from The Most Busted Name in Fake News, when he elected to accompany this group on their church invasion, he elected to become a part of the story, which precludes him from reporting on the story.

Did Don Lemon elect to become part of the story? Yes. He was not merely reporting on a singular incident, he was accompanying that group for the entire day, providing his YouTube followers with a seven-hour livestream of that entire day. Ironically, he provides the evidence that his was an act of participation and not journalism.

As a reporter, Don Lemon has an unfettered right to document both the ICE enforcement actions in Minneapolis and the insurrection that has erupted around those enforcement actions. The First Amendment makes that abundantly clear.

Don Lemon’s problem is that day he was not a reporter. On January 18, Don Lemon chose to participate in an act of domestic terrorism. All protections we should give reporters were immediately forfeited when he made that choice.

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Church Invasion Was An Act Of Domestic Terrorism

As the video footage of the event makes clear, the people involved in the assault on Cities Church were indisputably engaged in an act of domestic terrorism.

In federal law1, “domestic terrorism” is defined thus:

(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States;

Were their actions “dangerous to human life”? Invading any private property is presumptively dangerous. When the act invites escalation, that danger is further magnified. Indeed, we are fortunate that events did not escalate, as the invasion could have easily degenerated into a brawl.

Moreover, the act itself was a clear violation of the federal FACE Act2, which prohibits any disruption of a person’s right to worship.

The immediate inference from the chant “Renee Good” is that they intended to intimidate the churchgoers and the pastor into not working with or supporting ICE in their immigration enforcement actions (the pastor, David Easterwood, has been reported as also being an official with ICE).

While the Department of Justice has declined to prosecute either Don Lemon or the other church invaders as domestic terrorists, their conduct at Cities Church invites calling them domestic terrorists. With or without prosecution, their conduct falls within the scope of what the law considers domestic terrorism.

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Yes, Don Lemon Participated

While Don Lemon will insisted loudly to anyone who will listen that he was there strictly as a journalist, the evidence of his own livestream is damning.

Don Lemon quite literally was with this group for an entire day, both before and after their assault on the Cities Church. We know this to be indisputable fact because he livestreamed his entire day with them.

How can we know that Don Lemon participated in this event and was not merely reporting on it? Again, we can look to his own livestream for the evidence.

The very first indicator that Don Lemon was more than “just” a reporter comes in his initial interview with one of the organizers of the church invasion, Nakima Levy Armstrong.

Don Lemon: There we go everybody’s ready to go let’s go okay thank you guys for being thanks for allowing me to be here thank you guys okay how are you good to see you we’re we’re on we’re not saying what it is what’s going on but thank you tell us why are you doing this so this is Nekima Levy Armstrong she’s on the show on friday Armstrong civil rights attorney long-time activist here in the community

Nekima Levy Armstrong: And, you know, we protest and do activism in all kinds of ways. This is Operation Pull-Up, more of a clandestine operation. We show up somewhere that is a key location. They don’t expect us to come there. And then we disrupt business as usual. So that’s what we’re about to go do right now. We’ve had a lot of success with the times we have done Operation Pull-Up.

After George Floyd was killed, we went to the… Police Federation heads home and stage a demonstration there. We also went to the head of the U.S. Marshals from Minnesota after Winston Smith was killed by the U.S. Marshals. We went there after Daunte Wright was killed when A.G. Keith Ellison refused to take the case. And we forced the prosecutor who lived in Stillwater to take the case by showing up there four times.

So this is our next action to call for justice for Renee Good and ICE out of Minnesota.

Don Lemon: But you get results.

Nekima Levy Armstrong: Yes, we get results.

Don Lemon: And with Deontay Wright, you got results.

Nekima Levy Armstrong: We got results because the AG’s office was forced to take the case, and they successfully prosecuted the cop who killed Daunte Wright. The U.S. marshal got uprooted from her position for Minnesota. And then this was the start of weakening the leadership of the head of the police federation, Bob Crow, who later we filed a lawsuit against, and he cannot, we settled, he cannot be a law enforcement agency in Hennepin County, Anoco, or Ramsey for 10 years. So we’ve had success every single time.

Don Lemon: How long do you think before this operation, before it takes place?

Nekima Levy Armstrong: We got to go now and get there.

Don Lemon: Let’s go.

Nekima Levy Armstrong: All right. Thank you.

Don Lemon: We’ll see you there. Thank you.

There are several small details here that show Lemon is already blurring the lines between reporter and participant.

First there is the Freudian slip he has where he expresses support for what is about to happen. When he catches himself saying “thank you guys for being” and adjusts to “thanks for allowing me to be here”, he is making his support for the event plain.

Nekima Levy Armstrong herself creates further problems for Lemon’s “reporter” posture when she describes the action as “clandestine”. It is also plain from the prior actions she describes that “Operation Pop-Up” involves criminal trespass. Those prior actions targeted individuals’ homes, and did so repeatedly.

Without the actual specifics of the events in question, I would be speculating on what laws might have been broken by those prior actions, but trespass and harassment are broadly understood as criminal behaviors in both Minnesota and Federal law.

What is not speculation is Levy Armstrong’s frank admission that their goal is intimidation and coercion.

Recall the definition of “domestic terrorism” within federal law. Levy Armstrong’s group is without a doubt flirting with that definition with apparently every action they take.

When Don Lemon gets in his vehicle with his cameraman, we can see that the lines are blurred even further.

Don Lemon: As Nekima said, this is clandestine, a clandestine operation. And then we can tell you what’s going to happen afterward. But I got to say, I’ve been really heartened by... You want me to pull up? Yeah. You want to switch sides? Let me grab this. All right, so look, we’re live here. This is live, raw. Mike doesn’t have a cup holder back there. Unless, oh, you do, it’s probably in there. Here, I have one. Here, can you help him just grab that stuff? Put it on the other side. Are you good, Mike?

“Mike”: Yeah, just one of my hands is like frozen.

Don Lemon: Oh, yeah.

“Mike”: Yeah, I got a hand with one.

Don Lemon: Yeah, it is, what’s the temperature here?

Driver: It’s about two to four degrees right now. Yeah, two to four degrees, and it’s snowing.

Don Lemon: You gotta, go ahead, you just take care of that. Do you have hand warmers, Mike? Mike, I’m gonna put this in the door. Do you want your coffee? All right, gotta look out for my homie here. All right. Can we show everyone? Let me show everybody this. We went to the Starbucks here. You know where we’re going, right? We went to the Starbucks here. The guy’s like, does anybody tell you that you look just like Don Lemon? And I said, yeah, do you see my hat? And he goes, I know, I know. I’m sorry. What do you say? I’m embarrassed. I’m hiding right now. And then he wrote this on our cup. He said, thank you for your work. Crush ICE. Yeah. Seatbelts, everybody.

While the conversation is by itself fairly banal chatter, there are three statements by Don which indicate he is not merely reporting on the event, but is very much supportive of it.

The first is his confirmation that his driver knows where to go. Lemon and his crew had advance knowledge of what was about to take place. Given the obvious criminality involved with storming into a church, he was given advance warning that Nekima Levy Armstrong’s group was about to commit a criminal act.

The second is his admission that he is “heartened” by what is about to take place. Don Lemon is, in an unguarded moment, confirming that he approves of what is about to take place. It is an odd sort of objectivity for a reporter to be “heartened” by a planned act of criminality which flirts with domestic terrorism—and if Don Lemon is not being objective then he is not being a reporter.

The third is the anecdote about Starbucks. While Don Lemon was clearly enjoying being a celebrity, the message the barista wrote on his Starbucks cup—”thank you for your work. Crush ICE”—demonstrates that the barista perceived Don Lemon to be a supporter of Levy Armstrong’s group and of the Democrat Insurrection in general. Don Lemon was clearly flattered by that perception. Not only did he not deny it, he chose to brag about it.

Levy Armstrong’s group did not perceive Don Lemon as a reporter, but as a fellow activist. He was not there to report the news, but to chronicle the group’s activities.

That’s not journalism. That’s public relations.

Lemon tipped his hand even further when he actively facilitated another group member’s participation after that individual became stuck in a snowbank.

While as a rule helping someone who is stuck in a snowbank is a generous act, we must remember that, in this instance, said generous act also had the effect of facilitating that person’s future participation in the church invasion. Don Lemon left the line between reporting on the event and participating in it when he got out of the car to help the other vehicle get unstuck.

As the video makes clear, there were plenty of other people who were helping (and who were far more helpful than Don Lemon ultimately was). This was not a case of rendering life-saving aid to a person in distress. Don Lemon was actively helping another person participate in a clearly criminal act.

That’s not reporting. That’s not journalism. The essential quality of good journalism is not becoming part of the story.

As Abe Rosenthal, former managing editor of the New York Times back in the 1980s, is believed to have said:

“OK, the rule is, you can f*** an elephant if you want to, but if you do you can’t cover the circus.”

Reporters must not ever become part of the stories on which they want to report.

From the very beginning of his livestream, Don Lemon failed to respect that boundary. He crossed it casually and carelessly. As he did not care about journalistic boundaries then, he has no claim on journalistic protections now.

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Small Details Matter Even For Don Lemon

Many will perhaps say I am niggling and nit-picking with these seemingly small details.

These are “small” details within the overall narrative of Don Lemon’s livestream, but they are important details.

They are details which show that Don Lemon went to this church invasion with foreknowledge

They are details which show he knew laws were going to be broken

They are details which show he supported both the group and what was about to happen, and he actively engaged in facilitating the criminal event itself.

From the very beginning of his livestream, Don Lemon made plain by his own actions that he was not there to report, but to advocate. Don Lemon’s role in the church invasion was to bring the theater. He made sure the group would be seen by a wide audience.

That’s not journalism, that’s public relations.

We know he was doing public relations because while at the church, while the chapel was still invaded and worshipers were still being terrorized, he was defending the group’s activities and even calling for more such incidents.

I’m sure they probably call the local authorities right now and they’ll show up in a bit. But so far, no one has been hurt. People are just really angry and upset. Members of the church are trying to get them to calm down.

But this is the beginning of what’s going to happen here. When you violate people’s due process, when you pull people off the street and you start dragging them and hurting them and not abiding by the Constitution, when you start doing all of that, people get upset and angry.

And if you remember what the civil rights movement was about, The civil rights movement was about these very kinds of protests. And for some reason, in our modern era, people think that in order to have protests, you gotta be cordoned off to a certain area. and you know what time you can protest there’s nothing in the constitution that tells you what time you can protest you can protest at any time that’s the whole point of it is to disrupt to make uncomfortable and that’s what they’re doing and that’s what I believe when I say everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something you have to make people uncomfortable in these times if you see how uncomfortable people uncomfortably and how harsh people are being treated on the streets. You have to be willing to go into places and disrupt and make people uncomfortable. That is what this country is about.

What Don Lemon conveniently omits, of course, is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. entered churches to pray and to preach. What Don Lemon conveniently omits is that the Civil Rights Movement was built on churches. What Don Lemon conveniently omits is that the Civil Rights Movement did not attack churches.

That particular infamy belonged to those who fought against civil rights.

Don Lemon is explicitly and proudly defending the tactics of the KKK. He is calling for more such attacks on places such as churches, all in the name of making people “uncomfortable.”

Don Lemon forgets that the First Amendment also guarantees people the freedom to worship God in peace. That, too, is an inalienable right of man. That is a right Don Lemon and Nekima Levy Armstrong desecrated with their church invasion.

Those details matter. Those details matter because those details prove that Don Lemon is wrong about what this country is about. Terrorism and intimidation are not what the Constitution lifts up. Terrorism and intimidation were not what the Civil Rights Movement sought to achieve. Terrorism and intimidation are not Free Speech and never were.

Don Lemon is not merely wrong—he is deceitfully and delusionally wrong. Being deceitful as well as delusional, he is indisputably not a journalist.

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Don Lemon was not a reporter on January 18. He was a promoter. He was proudly and explicitly promoting an act of domestic terrorism. He was proudly and explicitly encouraging more such acts. He was proudly and explicitly calling for more attacks against people’s right to worship God in peace.

Don Lemon participated in a church invasion. Don Lemon promoted and publicized a church invasion. Don Lemon advocated church invasions to terrorize and intimidate people.

On January 18, Don Lemon stood with domestic terrorists.

On January 18, Don Lemon chose to be a domestic terrorist.

We know this is true because Don Lemon made sure we know, with his own livestream and his own words.

Don Lemon was not a journalist that day. He has no claim to any First Amendment protections as a journalist.

Those who claim that Don Lemon’s arrest was an attack on press freedom and on Free Speech are wrong.

Don Lemon’s arrest was a defense of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of worship. It was a hope that consequences will come for domestic terrorists who think it okay to violate the House of God.

Don Lemon’s arrest was a message to Don Lemon especially that, no, violating the House of God, terrorizing people while at worship, and denying them their right to worship in peace are not “protest”. They are not ever okay.

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Yet words fail me now. How does one properly describe one’s own country self-destructing?

That is exactly what is happening in Minnesota.

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I have already described how the Democrats are demonstrably guilty of insurrection.

The legalities have not changed, except for the counts of each offense have multiplied exponentially.

Additionally, we have seen proof that this is an organized seditious conspiracy. Independent journalist Cam Higby penetrated a Signal chat group and documented much of the sophistication of that organization.

The private messaging group, called “MN ICE Watch,” has allegedly been used to coordinate protests, issue marching orders, and even dox federal ICE agents during the ongoing protests and riots in Minneapolis.

Cam was even able to get part of their “training” documentation, which detailed certain “high risk” activities, each of which involved interfering with federal law enforcement.

For those interested, here is the full training manual.

Antiice Patrolling Manual

3.11MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

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We are also witnessing local businesses be vandalized and destroyed, with no effort by Minneapolis Police even to intervene (i.e., no attempt by MPD to do their job).

Nor should we be under any illusions that these videos lack “context”, as there are multiple videos from multiple angles detailing the same offense.

Meanwhile, Tim Walz has deployed the Minnesota National Guard to…hand out hot chocolate and donuts.

Seriously.

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What the everlasting f*** is going on?

Only we know what is going on. An insurrection is going on.

Those who hail from America’s Special Operations communities describe it in terms of an insurgency, such as what occurred in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a former Special Forces Warrant Officer with multiple rotations running counterinsurgency ops—both hunting insurgents and trying to separate them from sympathetic populations—I’ve seen organized resistance up close. From Anbar to Helmand, the pattern is familiar: spotters, cutouts, dead drops (or modern equivalents), disciplined comms, role specialization, and a willingness to absorb casualties while bleeding the stronger force slowly.

What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t “protest.” It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook.

Signal groups at 1,000-member cap per zone. Dedicated roles: mobile chasers, plate checkers logging vehicle data into shared databases, 24/7 dispatch nodes vectoring assets, SALUTE-style reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) on suspected federal vehicles. Daily chat rotations and timed deletions to frustrate forensic recovery. Vetting processes for new joiners. Mutual aid from sympathetic locals (teachers providing cover, possible PD tip-offs on license plate lookups). Home-base coordination points. Rapid escalation from observation to physical obstruction—or worse.

This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace “ICE agents” with “occupying coalition forces” and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s.

The most sobering part? It’s domestic. Funded, trained (somewhere), and directed by people who live in the same country they’re trying to paralyze law enforcement in. When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers—complete with doxxing, vehicle pursuits, and harassment that’s already turned lethal—you’re no longer dealing with civil disobedience. You’re facing a distributed resistance that’s learned the lessons of successful insurgencies: stay below the kinetic threshold most of the time, force over-reaction when possible, maintain popular support through narrative, and never present a single center of gravity.

I spent years training partner forces to dismantle exactly this kind of apparatus. Now pieces of it are standing up in American cities, enabled by elements of local government and civil society. That should keep every thinking American awake at night.

Not because I want escalation. But because history shows these things don’t de-escalate on their own once the infrastructure exists and the cadre believe they’re winning the information war.

We either recognize what we’re actually looking at—or we pretend it’s still just “activism” until the structures harden and spread.

Your call, America. But from where I sit, this isn’t January 2026 politics anymore.

It’s phase one of something we’ve spent decades trying to keep off our own soil.

I will leave readers to judge Eric Schwalm’s credentials and analysis for themselves. Suffice it to say I can find no fault with anything he has said here.

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Yet most disturbing of all are the reports which come from independent journalist James O’Keefe, who has detailed open hostility towards journalists the insurgents/insurrectionists do not like.

From late Saturday night.

My team and I are in downtown Minneapolis right now. We still have undercover reporters inside the mob. I was at the scene of the shooting this morning and barely made it out alive.

Hundreds surrounded us. They were throwing ice bottles, ripping off my bulletproof vest. They even followed us all the way back to our hotel.

As all of this was happening, we received death threats via text.

Pray for our team out in the field. We are reaching a boiling point in this country.

His updated comments a day later were even more disturbing.

URGENT UPDATE: I’ve never experienced anything quite like today in my life. I’ve interacted with the Cartel and have witnessed some crazy things in the desert in ‘24. But what strikes me is how organized these agitators in Minneapolis are. They have spotters everywhere in the city and suburbs, on street corners, even 30 minutes away from downtown. They have people at hotels that work with them and signal to them which made it making it difficult for us to lose our tail once my cover was blown. Usually I lose a tail. Not this time. We switched locations THREE times. I recorded and posted this while leaving Wayzata, while they were STILL surveilling. We all agreed we must make the threats public ASAP, even if we had people still in the field with the hidden cams.

Earlier around noon, while @camhigby released his report on the Signal threads, I was inside what appeared to be a fully autonomous Zone. No police presence. The police were told to leave. I identified myself as Press and they said they will kill Press and will not let me leave. My skin was fully covered because it was so cold. But because they couldn’t verify who I was, they screamed and started throwing ice bottles at us. One hit, @SKRUCHTENMMA, a marine who was with me. They patted him down like THEY were the authorities, attempting to confiscate any weapons. They were set to destroy our vehicle before we even got to it. I will have a full video report shortly.

But the bigger picture here is more important. I am angry. But not at the agitators. I find myself already angry at the people who don’t understand what we’re dealing with and will do nothing about it. When I got to the suburbs I felt like I was in a simulation.

I believe the American people need to wake up. This moment is a warning about where we’re headed. Fear pushes people to care only about their money and their families—I get it. But when fear turns inward, when self-preservation and greed replace moral courage, evil goes unchallenged. And history shows that what we ignore today will come for all of us tomorrow.

Ironically and incredibly, I see that these Communists do not fear death in the same way most good people seem to. The only thing the Communists fear is exposure itself. And that’s good news because it may be our only option.

I’m dead serious about investigating the prosecutors themselves if they don’t hold these Minnesota fraudsters and violent mobsters accountable for what they’re doing. Stay tuned for the videos.

These are not just disturbing reports. These are horrifying reports. These are reports of a community, a city, a state, and possibly even a nation literally tearing itself apart.

Over what? Over people being opposed to how ICE is enforcing the nation’s immigration laws?

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I repeat a sentiment I posted earlier:

The streets are not the place to fight for your civil or Constitutional rights.

Fight those battles in the courts, so that people get to keep their rights and their lives.

If you oppose what ICE is doing in Minnesota, that is your right. If you want to protest and speak out against what ICE is doing in Minnesota, that is your right. I not only support your right to speak out I applaud you for actually doing it.

HOWEVER

Violence is not speech, and riots are not protests. They have not been on college campuses and they are not on the streets of Minneapolis.

Yes, speak out. Yes, protest.

No, do not assault or attack anyone. No, do not destroy property. No, do not throw rocks or anything else. No, do not interfere with law enforcement.

People have rights. People also have brains. If people want to keep the former they need to do a lot better about using the latter.

Violence is not speech, and has never been speech.

Our Constitutional rights, and in particular those enshrined in the First Amendment, give everyone the method and the motive to speak their mind, either in opposition or in support of government policy.

We are not only “allowed” to do this, many would argue—I do argue—that we are obligated to do that.

We are also obligated to refrain from violence when we speak out.

We are obligated to respect the rights and the voices of others.

We are obligated to hear all sides of an issue, and to work democratically to find workable solutions acceptable to us all.

That is not happening in Minnesota. The Democrats are not letting it happen.

And we know that is the Democrats and their minions who are not letting this happen, because it is the Democrats who are shouting down those who would speak against them, and not just in Minneapolis, as this shameful incident at a meeting of the San Antonio City Council demonstrates.

That is not how people respect each other’s civil and Constitutional rights. That is how people violate other’s civil and Constitutional rights.

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This is what insurrection looks like. According to those with far more expertise in the particulars than I, this is what insurgency looks like.

This apparently is what civil war looks like, or at least the opening phases of it.

Is this what Democrats desire? American fighting American? Literally brother against brother to a degree not experienced even during the American Civil War of 1861-1865? (How sad that we must now clarify “which” American Civil War we are discussing)

That is not what I desire. I want all people to find ways to live in peace and harmony. That is what I desire.

But I will not bow down to terrorists, insurgents, insurrectionists, or just plain run of the mill “f***ing a**holes”. I will listen to those with opposing views, but the price is those with opposing views will listen to me.

If they will not listen, then we have a fight.

Apparently, we have a fight. Apparently, we have a genuine civil war forming.

God help us all.

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Any quaint notion that these would be “peaceful” protests ended on January 7, when Renee Good decided to point her vehicle at an ICE agent and stomp on the accelerator. The ICE agent naturally responded by drawing his weapon and firing, killing Ms. Good.

Corporate media wants to pretend that use of force by ICE agents is somehow improper, even as it concedes that those “protesting” ICE activities are escalating to violence (emphasis mine).

As news of the shooting spread in Minneapolis on Wednesday, protesters gathered at the scene, yelling at immigration agents and throwing snowballs, according to live stream footage. The footage showed ICE agents responding with tear gas. Bovino was also at the scene, according to news reports.

“Throwing snowballs” at ICE agents is an attack upon those ICE agents. It is an assault, and potentially a dangerous one: body heat from one’s hands can turn a packed snowball into a much more solid block of ice, capable of causing injury.

Assaulting federal law enforcement agents—which includes ICE—is a federal crime1.

When law enforcement agents are attacked, they are going to respond with various levels of force, which can include the use of tear gas and other means of riot control.

When people attack ICE agents, even with snowballs, they are not protesting. They are rioting. When they continue to riot it becomes an uprising, an insurrection.

That is where we are now—in an insurrection. It is where we have been since last summer. Minneapolis is merely an extension of what erupted in Los Angeles last year.

The insurrection is spreading, steadily becoming a new Civil War in this country.

Now, as then, this is the demonstrable handiwork of Democrats. With words and with violence they are seeking to prevent ICE agents from doing their jobs.

Now, as then, this is a Democrat-led insurrection.

Now, as then, it must be stopped.

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ICE Agents Are Being Targeted

The violence in Minneapolis is part of an ongoing pattern of escalating violence directed specifically against ICE agents, not just in Minnesota, but across the country.

Last September, illegal alien Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot and killed when he attempted to run over ICE agents in Chicago. Sadly but not surprisingly, corporate media downplayed the injuries to the ICE agents, as if being struck by a car was of little or no consequence.

But videos collected from nearby businesses and bystanders show both officers engaged in tactics that experts in policing said put them at unnecessary risk. Video also shows the hurt officer was fully mobile after the shooting and described his injuries as “nothing major.” And while DHS has said it is targeting the “worst of the worst,” records from Chicago’s Cook County show Villegas-Gonzalez had no record of violence. Since illegally crossing the border nearly two decades ago, he had been charged only with traffic violations in the city where he settled.

Perversely, even corporate media has had to acknowledge some awkward facts which dismantle their “ICE is bad” narrative:

• An ICE agent was hurt.

• Villegas-Gonzalez did strike the ICE agent with his vehicle.

• Villegas-Gonzalez did enter the US illegally, meaning he was an illegal alien.

Similarly, when Renee Good and her partner decided to escalate matters with ICE agents in Minneapolis, the agent’s body cam video footage shows that Ms. Good was using her car to block traffic and impede an ICE operation, that Ms. Good’s partner verbally taunted a number of ICE agents who stepped out to confront the pair, then egged on Renee Good to disobey an ICE agent who ordered her out of the car, who then attempted to drive away by pointing her car at an ICE agent and stomping on the gas.

We do not need to ponder what actually happened. We have video evidence documenting what happened.

The POV footage shows Good’s romantic partner talking trash to the ICE agent as he approached her wife’s SUV.

“You wanna come at us?” Good’s partner said taunting the ICE agent. “I say go get yourself some lunch big boy.”

“Get out of the f*cking car!” an ICE agent said as he tried to open Good’s door.

Good accelerates her vehicle as her partner shouted, “Drive, baby! Drive!”

When Good accelerated, the officer fired multiple times, killing Renee Good.

I will digress to highlight an important point: Renee Good threatened an ICE agent with her vehicle, and the ICE agent responded with his firearm. There is no debate that accelerating a car towards a person on foot—which is what Renee Good indisputably did—represents lethal force. We only have to look at the statistics to see that cars are considerably more lethal in this country than firearms:

• For all of 2025, there were an estimated 32,220 vehicular deaths in the United States, and in 2024 there were an estimated 39,345 vehicular deaths.

• In 2025, there were an estimated 14,651 gun-related deaths not counting suicides. In 2024 there were an estimated 16,888 gun-related deaths.

When Renee Good accelerated her car towards an ICE agent, she was threatening his life. Any presentation of what happened which denies that is either dishonest or delusional.

By the same token, when Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez drove at and struck ICE agents, he was threatening their lives. Any presentation of what happened which denies that is either dishonest or delusional.

These individuals targeted ICE agents with lethal force, and we must presume with deadly intent. There may not have been premeditation, but the moment they stepped on the gas intent was demonstrated.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with how ICE conducts its immigration enforcement actions, or even that ICE is conducting immigration enforcement actions, there neither legal nor moral justification for targeting them with lethal force. Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was wrong to do so. Renee Good was wrong to do so.

Period.

End of Sentence.

End of Discussion.

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Officials Are Lying—Again

We should not be surprised that the execrable and thoroughly repugnant Ilhan Omar took to X in the wake of Renee Good’s death to construct her usual maliciously false narrative about events, accusing ICE of “terrorizing” Minneapolis.

There was nothing “legal” about Renee Good obstructing traffic to frustrate ICE activities. That’s not “observation”, that’s "interference”—which for a civilian to do when law enforcement is doing its job is a criminal act.

Again, 18 USC §115 makes it a crime to assault or threaten to assault a law enforcement officer. The video footage is unequivocal on this point: Renee Good assaulted an ICE agent. Renee Good threatened an ICE agent with deadly force. To assert otherwise is either dishonest or delusional—or, in the case of Ilhan Omar, both.

She is not alone in her deceit, however. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also lashed out in public, fatuously dismissing any notion that the ICE agents acted either with justification or in self-defense.

Frey disputed those claims at the press conference, saying videos show the woman driving away from federal agents, not toward them.

“They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense,” Frey said. “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bull----.”

The bodycam footage, of course, makes it abundantly clear that Jacob Frey is the one peddling hogwash and horse hockey. He’s simply lying when he says the ICE agent did not act in self defense.

Disgraced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz also added his deceitful two cents, claiming quite falsely, that DHS claims of justification and self-defense were “verifiably inaccurate.”

Walz publicly demanded that the state be allowed to take part, repeatedly emphasizing that it would be “very, very difficult for Minnesotans” to accept that an investigation that excludes the state could be fair.

Noem, he said, was “judge, jury and basically executioner” during her public comments defending the officer’s actions.

“People in positions of power have already passed judgment, from the president to the vice president to Kristi Noem — have stood and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate,” said Walz, who repeated his calls for protesters to remain calm.

However, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s official statement on January 7 comports entirely with the facts presented in the video footage.

While the conclusion of DHS that Renee Good’s actions amounted to an act of domestic terrorism is a legal conclusion, and may therefore be subject to some debate, there can be no debate that Renee Good intentionally impeded ICE agents in the performance of their duty—which is a crime—and intentionally drove her vehicle at an ICE agent—which is also a crime. When someone accelerates their vehicle at another human being, the intent to kill or cause bodily harm is naturally assumed, in large measure because of the number of times cars are involved in human deaths each year.

All of these Minnesota public officials are simply lying when they make Renee Good to be a victim of ICE excess or ICE brutality.

If Renee Good did not choose to commit criminal acts, she would be alive today. There is no serious debate to be had on this point. Anyone pretending that Renee Good is a victim of anything other than her own very bad choices is not being honest about this event.

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Democrats Are Encouraging The Violence

One person making bad choices is an unfortunate tragedy. However, Renee Good is not merely one person making bad choices. She was a person doing what Democrat elected officials have praised and openly encouraged for going on one year.

We must remember that last January, as Donald Trump was taking office, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries publicly called for people to fight the Administration “in the streets”.

Renee Good and her partner Rebecca were indisputably doing just that on January 7. That much is evident from Rebecca Good’s recorded comments at the time, and from her own later admission that she encouraged Renee to come to Minneapolis to participate in “protests”.

Rebecca was then seen distraught and apparently crying that she’d been the one who asked her wife to go out and protest the ICE operations.

“I made her come down here; it’s my fault,” Rebecca said, her face covered in blood after having attempted to help Renee. “They just shot my wife.”

“They shot her in the head. I have a 6-year-old in school,” Rebecca said.

Unfortunately for Renee Good, taunting ICE agents in the middle of doing their jobs, as Rebecca indisputably did, is not “protesting”, it’s interfering.

Blocking the road, as Renee Good indisputably did, is not “protesting”, it’s interfering.

Accelerating at an ICE agent, as Renee Good indisputably did, is not “protesting”, it’s attempted vehicular manslaughter.

Were they answering calls like that of Hakeem Jeffries to “fight in the streets”?

Last May, during a commencement address at the University of Minnesota, Tim Walz referred to ICE as “Trump’s modern-day Gestapo”.

Last July, Democrat Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said it was “inspiring” to see people obstructing ICE immigration enforcement.

“Some of the most inspiring things have been when people encircle courtrooms and refuse to allow ICE agents in,” Jayapal said during a conversation with Joy Reid on Friday’s episode of “The Joy Reid Show.”

She may find it inspiring, but she surely is aware that such actions are also illegal, and for her publicly praise criminality is indisputably tantamount to sedition, especially when coupled with rhetoric calling ICE a “terrorist force”.

It is not hard to draw a correlation between such rhetoric and the 700% increase in assaults on ICE agents during the first six months of last year. When Congresswoman Jayapal claims such assaults are “inspiring”, the linkage is an easy inference to make.

Such inferences are made even easier when we read about attacks on ICE facilities around the country, such as happened last July in Alvarado, Texas, McAllen, Texas, and Portland, Oregon.

Such inferences were virtually proven last June when, in the wake of the insurrection in California, Democrat affiliates sought to organize and spread the insurrection beyond California, with the participation of Democrat officials like Congresswoman Prayapal.

Not for nothing did I say at the time that this was a Democrat insurrection.

It was and it is a Democrat insurrection.

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This Absolutely Is Insurrection

Nor is there any more question that what is taking place in Minneapolis is an insurrection just as it was in California. The law2 is quite clear on this point:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

For an entire year, Democrats have been inciting and participating in violent opposition to the authority of the United States.

The legal context for Minnesota is no different than it was in California.

This is going to come as a shock to the rebels without a clue in California, but if you aren’t “authorized” you shouldn’t be here. The Constitution says as much, as it tasks Congress with regulating both foreign commerce and the process of naturalization.

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

In other words, the Constitution explicitly removes any notion that any non-citizen has an inalienable right to enter into this country. There is no debate to be had on the point.

Consequently, if you are not “authorized”—if you are in this country illegally—it is the duty of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to apprehend you and deport you. This is exactly what ICE has been doing. This is exactly what people turned out ostensibly to “protest” but really to violently obstruct.

Even corporate media concedes that detaining illegal aliens is what ICE has been doing, having apprehended some 75,000 persons by the beginning of December 2025.

When ICE is detaining illegal aliens, it is enforcing federal immigration law.

Nor is there any doubt that, while states do retain certain interests surrounding immigration, the federal government bears primary responsibility for enforcing immigration law. That was made clear in 2012’s immigration enforcement case Arizona v. United States3. In that ruling, the Supreme Court overturned part of an Arizona statute which sought to expand on federal immigration laws, an expansion the Court found to be an unconstitutional violation of the federalism doctrine of preemption.

State law must also give way to federal law in at least two other circumstances. First, the States are precluded from regulating conduct in a field that Congress, acting within its proper authority, has determined must be regulated by its exclusive governance. See Gade v. National Solid Wastes Management Assn., 505 U.S. 88, 115 (1992). The intent to displace state law altogether can be inferred from a framework of regulation “so pervasive . . . that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it” or where there is a “federal interest . . . so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.” Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U.S. 218, 230 (1947); see English v. General Elec. Co., 496 U.S. 72, 79 (1990).

Second, state laws are preempted when they conflict with federal law. Crosby, supra, at 372. This includes cases where “compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility,” Florida Lime & Avocado Growers, Inc. v. Paul, 373 U.S. 132, 142–143 (1963), and those instances where the challenged state law “stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress,” Hines, 312 U. S., at 67; see also Crosby, supra, at 373 (“What is a sufficient obstacle is a matter of judgment, to be informed by examining the federal statute as a whole and identifying its purpose and intended effects”). In preemption analysis, courts should assume that “the historic police powers of the States” are not superseded “unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Rice, supra, at 230; see Wyeth v. Levine, 555 U.S. 555, 565 (2009).

The Court held that immigration regulation was wholly a matter of federal jurisdiction, and that while states may have ancillary interests in minimizing crime and other issues, the core regulatory interest itself remains entirely within the purview of the federal government.

There is perverse irony that the Arizona statute at the center of that case was one passed largely because of perceived federal inaction on immigration, and the ruling itself achieved new prominence in 2024 when the Court vacated an injunction sought by the federal government blocking Texas Governor Greg Abbott from taking independent steps to secure Texas’ border with Mexico.

However, the Court’s stance in both cases was unambiguous: the federal government has primary responsibility on immigration enforcement.

Democrats are pretending that the federal government has no authority on immigration, a stance which is not only Constitutionally absurd but which is a blatant defiance of unequivocal Supreme Court precedent.

Democrats are denying the explicit letter of the Law. Democrats are denying the reality of the law.

Even if some Democrats are not explicitly advocating violence, their rhetoric is unambiguously aimed at thwarting and de-legitimizing federal immigration enforcement. If by some magic certain Democrats are not guilty of insurrection, it is only because they are instead guilty of seditious conspiracy4, a related but slightly different federal crime.

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

At a minimum, Democrats are attempting to delay indefinitely the execution of immigration laws in the United States.

Democrats, in both rhetoric and action, are in open defiance of the federal government—and the technical term for that is either “insurrection” or “seditious conspiracy”, both of which are indisputably federal crimes.

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Does Welfare Fraud Factor Into This?

In Minnesota, the impetus to detain and deport illegal aliens has the additional incentive of confronting that state’s metastasizing welfare fraud scandal, which is centered around the state’s large Somali population. The day before Renee Good’s death, DHS announced that it had initiated “the largest DHS operation ever”, which was ongoing when Renee Good was killed.

So egregious is the Minnesota fraud scandal that independent journalist Nick Shirley took only a single day last month to uncover over $100 million in potential and alleged welfare fraud just going around and knocking on doors of Minneapolis Somali-run daycare centers.

Do Minnesota officials have reason to fear the DHS enforcement operation because of possible involvement in the billion-dollar fraud scandal?

That is at least a possibility, as allegations were raised on social media last month that officials from Tim Walz on down are culpable

Writing on X, an account claiming to represent 480 staff at the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) said the governor, who served as former vice president Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, “has failed Minnesota.” In another post, they added: “Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota.”

Last week, the Justice Department announced new charges against the 78th defendant in a scheme called Feeding Our Future. Prosecutors said the scheme involved more than $250 million in stolen funds from a child nutrition program and has led to over 50 convictions. According to a New York Times report, some of these schemes were linked to parts of Minnesota’s Somali community.

While the evidences of the 480 presumed Minnesota DHS whistleblowers remains undisclosed, the size and scope of Somali-related welfare fraud has been steadily expanding.

We cannot immediately conclude that Tim Walz or Jacob Frey’s opposition to DHS is due to involvement in the fraud scandal, but if either of them are involved, they have a demonstrable self-interest in frustrating the DHS operation, and DHS investigations into the immigration status of Minnesota’s Somalis in general.

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Violence Is Not Free Speech. Insurrection Is Not Protest

It is, at this juncture, almost tautologous to say that America is divided on the topic of immigration. There are differing views about how aggressive the federal government should be in enforcing immigration law.

To a degree, those differing view are a sign of a healthy democracy. We should have different opinions about things and we should embrace that we have different opinions about things.

Yet there are certain realities about which there is simply no room for alternative opinions.

There can be no dispute that the Constitution explicitly reserves to the Congress the authority to enact immigration legislation. Whether we agree or disagree with the substance of the laws Congress has enacted, that the Constitution delegates that power to the Congress is unambiguous fact. There is no right reserved to the states where immigration itself is concerned.

There can be no dispute that the Supreme Court has ruled more than once on this point, each time affirming that immigration regulation lies with the federal government in its entirety.

There can be no dispute that the Executive Branch, of which ICE is but a part, is the sole branch charged with enforcing immigration legislation.

There can be no dispute that actively working to impede or frustrate federal law enforcement, is when pursued on a broad scale, insurrection.

There can be no dispute that speaking or making comments on social media specifically calibrated to incite a resurrection is the epitome of seditious conspiracy.

There is not room for debate over what Democrats are actually doing. They are not having a debate over immigration. They are not attempting to engage in a debate over immigration. They are attempting to demonize and polarize the federal government into belated compliance with their ideological talking points.

However, 77 million people last fall rejected Democratic ideological talking points about immigration. They voted for mass deportations. They voted for securing the border and stopping the flow of illegal aliens into this country.

Whether those policies are in the actual interest of the United States is the stuff of which political platforms are made.

If all Democrats were doing was protesting peacefully, we would not have a problem.

If all Democrats were doing was observing ICE raids, recording them—not “doxxing” the participants, just recording—and genuinely being “legal observers”, we would not have a problem.

However, we do have a problem.

Democrats are not protesting peacefully.

Democrats are encouraging violence.

Democrats are inciting violence.

Democrats are spreading violence.

Democrats are guilty of insurrection in Minnesota.

This insurrection must be stopped, and stopped now. Failure to do so only ensures that the new Civil War will continue to spread. That will cost Americans their safety, and will cost some people their lives.

The Democrat Insurrection must be put down.

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There is not one part of the DC Swamp that has not been shocked and outraged at the temerity of US Attorney Jeanine Pirro serving the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas last Friday. The news was so triggering inside the Beltway one might have thought Pirro guilty of some unforgivable crime against humanity, such as wearing a Yankees cap at Fenway Park.

Instead, her offense was something far more mundane: conducting an actual investigation. She hasn’t even indicted anyone from the Federal Reserve (yet). All she’s done is issue subpoeanas so her office can ask a few questions of Jay Powell and a few of his colleagues.

Apparently, that was enough to cause multiple serial public meltdowns by just about everyone in official Washington.

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Investigate What?

I will state up front that we have no confirmation that a crime has even occurred.

If there might not even have been a crime, then why was Pirro’s office investigating the Federal Reserve? Simply put, they were asked to investigate.

As I mentioned previously, last July Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna sent a criminal referral to the US Attorney General requesting that Jay Powell be investigated for possible perjury arising out of congressional testimony regarding renovations of the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building. As detailed in her referral letter, Congresswoman Luna outlined how several of Powell’s statements were false. Congresswoman Luna concludes her letter by pointing out that making false statements in sworn testimony to Congress may amount to perjury.

If Chairman Powell knowingly misrepresented these facts—whether in testimony before Congress or in formal correspondence to senior executive officials—such actions may constitute perjury or materially false statements under federal law.

While perjury is rarely prosecuted, it is still a federal crime1, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Additionally, there is the not-small matter of the renovation project’s budget ballooning from $1.9 Billion to $2.5 Billion—an increase of roughly 31.5%. According to Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the project cost per square foot is double normal renovation costs for historic federal buildings.

While the Federal Reserve is self-funded, and does not depend on taxpayer dollars, for a renovation project to overshoot its budget by nearly a third should raise questions. Cost overruns of that magnitude could easily involve theft or fraud by one or more contractors on the project.

Because of such concerns, Congresswoman Luna asked the Department of Justice to investigate, which it did.

That’s where things get strange. According to Jeanine Pirro’s post on X, the US Attorney’s office contacted the Federal Reserve multiple times with questions and was ignored.

Since officials at the Fed refused to cooperate with her office, Pirro opted to issue subpoenas.

That is where this matter stands. We do not know that a crime was committed. We do not even know if Powell committed perjury in his congressional testimony last summer about the building renovations. Powell has not been indicted, nor has anyone working at the Federal Reserve.

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Partisan Powell

To date, there has been no reporting of Powell or others at the Federal Reserve seeking to quash the subpoenas. Federal regulations outline how one challenges a subpoena2, but we have no indication the Federal Reserve has made such a challenge.

Instead, Jerome Powell released a video statement Sunday evening claiming the subpoenas were an intimidation tactic by the Trump Administration because the FOMC would not bend to President Trump’s will on interest rates.

The video itself is remarkable if only for its timing. If we inspect the webpage properties from the link on the Federal Reserve website, we see that the page was modified on Sunday, January 11, 2026, at 6:30PM Central Time.

That is roughly one hour before the Shanghai stock exchange opens. Powell released the video at just the right time to ensure it had maximum impact on stock markets around the world.

With no motion to quash being reported, it is difficult to believe the timing of the video’s release was coincidental, something which John Carney of Breitbart has also noted.

We must note also that, according to the Federal Reserve’s website, one of the primary functions of the Federal Reserve is that it “promotes the stability of the financial system….” Acting specifically to disrupt financial markets is something the Federal Reserve very explicitly should not be doing—and yet that is exactly what Powell did.

Regardless of any partisan animus or agenda which might have occasioned the Department of Justice investigating the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell acted in a nakedly partisan fashion. That is not supposed to happen, ever.

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The Swamp Erupts In Panic

If Jerome Powell was seeking a partisan response for his video, he got it, and from every direction imaginable.

One of the earliest responses came from Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who made the sweeping accusation that the Trump Administration was pushing to end the Federal Reserve’s “independence.”

If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.

Huh? The Department of Justice is doing something untoward by acting on a criminal referral from Congress?

Bear in mind that no one has been indicted, and according to Jeanine Pirro indictments were not even mentioned. We don’t know if Pirro intends to indict anyone or not. What we do know is that subpoenas were issued, and Pirro claims they were issued because the Federal Reserve ignored her office’ outreach efforts regarding Congresswoman Luna’s criminal referral letter.

Bear in mind also that the Department of Justice following up on criminal referrals from Congress is part and parcel of how Congressional oversight is supposed to work. Pirro’s office looking into Congresswoman Luna’s perjury accusation against Powell is what is supposed to happen.

The Democrats, of course, were not about to let the Republicans outdo them in rank hypocrisy, as evidenced by Congressman Dan Goldman’s response to MS NOW’s Nicole Wallace questioning on the matter:

I was encouraged by Lisa Murkowski’s comments where she said, if the Department of Justice is investigating the fed, then the Congress needs to investigate the Department of Justice, which is, of course, exactly right. And so there are a couple senators, which can make a difference. But once again, there are crickets from House Republicans. And the notion of using the criminal justice system as a political cudgel, is now being normalized by these Republicans. But the impact and the damage is now escalating tremendously. It’s now not just political enemies like Lisa James or Adam Schiff or James Comey. It is actual government officials, current government officials. Lisa Cook is one now Jerome Powell. And the impact, I think, is really reflected in that statement, from the former board chairs and members, where they emphasize the importance of the rule of law. Now, I’ve spoken to you many times about the rule of law. It is a somewhat vague concept to a lot of people, but when they say that the rule of law is the foundation for the economic success of this country, what they are meaning is that the notion that our laws are followed, are independent and are, neutrally arbitrary by judges is the basis for our economic system. It is the reason why the dollar is so strong. And if you are now going to have monetary policy driven by political considerations, all of that faith in the dollar just goes completely down and it will tank our economy.

Follow the “logic” here (and I am using that term extremely loosely):

• Because the Department of Justice responded to a Congressional criminal referral and began what by all accounts was a routine investigation into Jay Powell’s congressional testimony, the Department of Justice itself must now be investigated?

• Because the Department of Justice responded to a Congressional criminal referral and began what by all accounts was a routine investigation into Jay Powell’s congressional testimony, the Department is being used as a “political cudgel”?

• Because the Department of Justice responded to a Congressional criminal referral and began what appears to be a routine investigation into Jay Powell’s congressional testimony, the dollar is going to go down and the economy is going to tank?

Is the Department of Justice supposed to simply ignore criminal referrals from Congress? How does that further Congress’ oversight role?

Of course, no Swamp melodrama would be complete without the ritual pontifications from a cadre of “experts”, which we get in the form of a hastily assembled statement slamming the Department of Justice for even investigating the Federal Reserve (emphasis mine):

The Federal Reserve’s independence and the public’s perception of that independence are critical for economic performance, including achieving the goals Congress has set for the Federal Reserve of stable prices, maximum employment, and moderate long-term interest rates. The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence. This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.

On what basis is this claim made? Remember, as I have outlined previously, Powell himself has provided no basis for his claim that this investigation is merely a partisan effort to punish him for not agreeing with President Trump on interest rates.

We should pause here to consider a question: Does Powell believe that if the Federal Open Market Committee would cut the federal funds rate by a full percentage point the investigation would go away? Was a quid pro quo like that offered?

Nothing Jerome Powell said in his video suggested that such a bargain was even hinted at.

That matters, because if such a quid pro quo had been offered, or even implied in the most roundabout way, that would be clear corruption on the part of the Department of Justice. That would be something for Congress to investigate.

However, Powell has not made that accusation. Powell has not even hinted at that accusation.

Then there’s Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow’s surreal defense of Powell, where he explicitly acknowledges there is corruption within the Federal Reserve (again, emphasis mine):

A whole bunch of his Fed cronies face accusations of insider trading, or breaches of ethics, or mortgage fraud, but he never did anything about it. He jumped on the socialist bandwagon of climate change, woke, DEI, no loans to fossil fuel companies, everything wrong.

According to Kudlow, insider trading, mortgage fraud, and sundry other “ethical breaches” (on Main Street we call them “crimes”) are rampant inside the Federal Reserve, and Jerome Powell did absolutely nothing about any of it.

Yet Kudlow does not want Powell investigated, because politics:

He probably did testify wrongly about the Fed’s rebuilding plans before Congress, but Mr. Trump will not be able to get his new chairman through the Senate until he withdraws Mr. Powell’s criminal indictment. It’s not going to happen.

Again, we should clarify the language: “testify wrongly” is what is known elsewhere as “perjury”. Kudlow is saying that Powell is guilty of the very thing for which Congresswoman Luna sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, but nothing should be done about it because the Senate won’t like it.

We should also note that Kudlow gets an important fact wrong here: there is no criminal indictment. Powell is not under indictment. According to Jeanine Pirro no one in her office is even talking about indictments (yet). There is no indictment to withdraw.

Kudlow does correct himself later on, but still doubles down on “don’t investigate because politics.”

Here’s the thing, much more importantly: Republican banking committee senators like Thom Tillis and others won’t confirm a new Fed chairman until the subpoenas are quashed. So it’s an exercise in futility.

In other words, no one can even ask awkward questions of the Federal Reserve.

If Jerome Powell were found to have accepted bribes to manipulate interest rates, the Department of Justice should not act because that’s an exercise in futility.

If Federal Reserve Governors engage in mortgage fraud (*cough* Lisa Cook *cough*), the Department of Justice should not act because that’s an exercise in futility.

If the Federal Reserve manipulated systems like FedNOW to arbitrarily deny businesses access to financial services, the Department of Justice should not act because to do so would “tank the economy.”

This is the logic the Swamp is offering in response to the Department of Justice issuing subpoenas because Jerome Powell decided to stonewall the US Attorney’s office.

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The Rule Of Law

One phrase has crept up time and again in everything the Swamp rats have had to say on this topic: “the rule of law.”

Time and again the Swamp rats have reminded us how important “the rule of law” is to the American systems of politics and governance.

Let me remind the Swamp rats what the US courts define as “the rule of law”:

Rule of law is a principle under which all persons, institutions, and entities are accountable to laws that are:

• Publicly promulgated

• Equally enforced

• Independently adjudicated

• And consistent with international human rights principles.

Where is the equal enforcement when partisan political figures are demanding that no investigation of the Federal Reserve ever be mounted, even for corruption that is common knowledge?

Where is the independent adjudication when a US Attorney cannot issue a subpoena to the Federal Reserve Chairman without the blessing of those same partisan political figures?

Did Jerome Powell perjure himself before Congress? Anna Paulina Luna thinks he may have. Larry Kudlow is convinced Powell perjured himself.

Will the US Attorney’s office indict Powell for perjury? At this point, nobody knows.

What we do know is that the Department of Justice is not acting independently if it has to get the blessing of various and sundry political partisans before starting an investigation.

What we do know is that the Department of Justice is not acting independently if it is required to turn a blind eye to potential Fed corruption because acting on that corruption would “tank the economy.”

What we do know is that the Federal Reserve itself is not acting independently if it expects various and sundry political partisans to shield it from scrutiny.

What we do know is that the Federal Reserve itself is not acting independently if it is held to a different legal standard than the rest of us.

What we also know is that neither Republicans in Congress nor Democrats want either an independent Department of Justice or an independent Federal Reserve.

What we also know is that neither Republicans in Congress nor Democrats want the rule of law.

As both Republicans and Democrats have made abundantly clear with their tortured illogical efforts to defend Jay Powell, they want a Department of Justice that walks on eggshells. They want a Federal Reserve that manipulates interest rates, caters to Wall Street, and floods the economy with free money. They want the ability to redefine the “rule of law” to satisfy whatever political expedient has captured their attention at the moment.

What do you want?

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Update AM 12 January 2026

One important data point to consider when evaluating the DoJ subpoenas.

Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna submitted a criminal referral to the Department of Justice last July accusing Jerome “Too Late” Powell of perjury.

The referral cites Powell’s sworn testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on June 25, 2025, in which he denied the inclusion of luxury features— such as a VIP dining room, premium marble, water features, and a roof terrace garden— in the controversial $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building. However, official project documents submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission directly contradict his statements.

Powell also falsely claimed that the Eccles Building “never had” a serious renovation, despite a major overhaul between 1999 and 2003. Additionally, correspondence between Powell and former OMB Director Russell Vought mischaracterized the nature and scale of the project changes that ballooned the renovation budget by $600 million.

“These are not minor misstatements,” said Rep. Luna. “Chairman Powell knowingly misled both Congress and executive branch officials about the true nature of a taxpayer-funded project. Lying under oath is a serious offense— especially from someone tasked with overseeing our monetary system and public trust.”

The Department of Justice did not simply pull Powell’s name out of a hat. They were asked to investigate him by Congress.

That’s how “Congressional oversight” works. That’s what is supposed to happen.

Apparently, the Department of Justice investigated, and they decided they had some more pointed questions of the sort that tend to begin with “You have the right to remain silent….”

That matters when looking at the narrative. Congress asked for this. Congress got this. Just like the Constitution says.

Starting Point

Given the unprecedented nature of the action, we should not be surprised that Chairman Jerome Powell made the equally unprecedented move of releasing a video statement Sunday night about the subpoenas.

On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June. That testimony concerned in part a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.

The renovation project has been the topic of White House criticism since President Trump toured the renovation site with Powell last summer.

Top White House officials have accused Powell of mismanagement of a previously planned renovation of the Federal Reserve building. Over the summer, they suggested he misled Congress about the renovation of the central bank’s headquarters.

Last August President Trump called Powell “grossly incompetent” on Truth Social over the renovation projects rising costs.

For his part, Powell seems convinced that the subpoenas have nothing to do with the construction project (because why would a grand jury subpoena be actually about the subject matter detailed in the subpoena?) but are instead a pressure tactic to coerce the Fed to bend to Trump’s will on interest rates.

This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings. It is not about Congress's oversight role; the Fed through testimony and other public disclosures made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project. Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.

Powell fails to offer up any evidence to substantiate this, however. In his statement he also ignores an obvious aspect to his claim: for it to be true, there has to be nothing untoward or improper in the renovation project or its expenditures.

Powell is asking people to believe that everything is fine on a billion-dollar project that is way over-budget, with the costs still rising.

How does a $1.9 billion renovation project grow to over $2.5 billion? While Powell's defenders point to the “challenges” of building on swampy Tidal Basin land, any construction contractor bidding on the project knew the conditions of the Tidal Basin when preparing their estimates. Given the age of the buildings, that there would be asbestos remediation and lead plumbing involved should also have been known ahead of time. Contractors are supposed to account for such exigencies in their initial bids. The Fed's contractors apparently did not.

Why wouldn’t the Department of Justice investigate a construction project which is that badly managed?

With the levels of fraud being revealed elsewhere within government, why should we expect the Federal Reserve to be above suspicion? Are we supposed to pretend that the allegations of mortgage fraud leveled against Fed Governor Lisa Cook last summer were an isolated case?

Unsurprisingly, President Trump denied any knowledge or involvement with the subpoenas in an interview on Sunday.

Trump told NBC News on Sunday that the Justice Department subpoenas have nothing to do with interest rates.

“No. I wouldn’t even think of doing it that way. What should pressure him is the fact that rates are far too high. That’s the only pressure he’s got,” Trump said.

“He’s hurt a lot of people,” he added. “I think the public is pressuring him.”

Could Trump still be maliciously targeting the Federal Reserve for political reasons? Of course he could. Donald Trump does not pull punches and is not afraid to use every weapon at his disposal. Whether that speaks well or ill of the man people will have to decide for themselves.

However, Powell is mistaken to suggest that there is nothing but political animus behind the DoJ investigation. He is mistaken to ignore the reality that the DoJ has over 600 million reasons to investigate the renovation project. He is mistaken to ignore the reality that cost overruns are not okay, especially $600 million and counting of cost overruns.

The Trump Administration is gunning for Jerome Powell. Powell had better pray he has not made himself a target for Trump to shoot.

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Brutally, bluntly, but quite effectively, Donald Trump looked at the corrupt and thuggish Nicolas Maduro and said, quite simply, “you’re fired!”

By so doing, Donald Trump has demonstrated yet again that the way to expand American power is to wield American power.

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Initially, US government sources said little more to the media other than that the US was carrying out an operation in Venezuela. However, video footage quickly emerged on X and other social media platforms indicating that the operation was not just an aerial assault but involved putting forces on the ground.

Shortly after, President Trump released his post on Truth Social announcing that Nicolas Maduro was in custody.

Unsurprisingly, many Latin American leaders were not pleased with this sudden turn of events. Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro took to X to call for United Nations intervention.

Chile’s Gabriel Boric Font called for the crisis in Venezuela to be resolved “through dialogue.”

Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the American raid and seizure of Maduro “cross an unacceptable line.”

Meanwhile, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum denounced the attack in no uncertain terms.

The Government of Mexico strongly condemns and rejects unilaterally executed military actions in recent hours by armed forces of the United States of America against targets on the territory of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in clear violation of article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations (UN).

Based on its foreign policy principles and pacifist vocation, Mexico urgently calls for respect for international law, as well as the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, and to cease any act of aggression against the Venezuelan government and people.

Similarly, Russia was equally nonplussed by the raid, with Kremlin Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev decrying the “double standards” at play.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used the occasion to yet again promise to bring the United States to its knees.

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On the other side of the pond, the reaction was far more muted and circumspect, noting that Nicolas Maduro was not considered a legitimate political leader by many nations. Kaja Kallas, the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs, merely called for restraint and the safety of EU citizens.

Spanish President Pedro Sanchez called for “de-escalation and responsibility.”

In its official communique, Spain also noted that it had not recognized Venezuela’s last election.

Britain’s Nigel Farage had perhaps the most realistic appraisal of the American action:

“The American actions in Venezuela overnight are unorthodox and contrary to international law — but if they make China and Russia think twice, it may be a good thing. I hope the Venezuelan people can now turn a new leaf without Maduro.”

In other words, Maduro was a bad dude, what the Americans did was a violation of all our comforting illusions about “international law,” but they took down a bad dude and gave other bad dudes reason to worry—so deal with it.

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Such rhetoric by world leaders recalls reactions to President Trump’s equally sudden targeted killing of Iran’s Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Solemani five years ago almost to the day.

Leaders all over assessed President Trump wrong then and they are assessing him wrong now.

First, we should not presume that Trump’s animus towards Maduro is of recent vintage. As Jonthan Turley points out, Maduro was indicted by the first Trump Administration back in 2020. The narrative that Maduro is in bed with Venezuela’s narcoterrorists—that Maduro is himself a narcoterrorist—is not at all new, and has not been disputed on either side of the political aisle.

Further, we should also note that in August, 2025—well before President Trump ordered the first attack on the first go-fast boat running drugs into the US—the US Department of State posted a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture.

Nicolas Maduro was not merely the de facto head of Venezuela, he was also a fugitive from American justice. That matters, because in 1989 the United States military invaded Panama in Operation Just Cause to capture and bring back to the US Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega.

By the time this raid took place and Maduro was captured, there was both a legal precedent for his capture and a legal foundation for doing so.

Does this make the raid itself a wise move? Not at all. As noted in ZeroHedge, this strike on Venezuela could easily backfire on President Trump politically.

If Trump stumbles on this, Democrats will seize on every opportunity label him a warmonger. They will assert that Trump is empire-building, trying to steal oil, and that Venezuela is “just the beginning.” Keep in mind, these are the same people who tried to rally Americans to support WWIII against Russia over Ukraine, but that fact will be glossed over in favor of the narrative that the Dems will “bring peace and stability.”

Already, leading Democrat mouthpieces such as the newly elected Communist Democrat Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, condemned Trump’s actions.

At the same time, there is no denying that President Trump has once again charted his own course regarding international diplomacy—and has been charting that course for quite some time.

We must not forget that it was all the way back in September when Secretary of State Marco Rubio body-slammed the United Nations specifically in regard to Maduro and drug trafficking from Venezuela.

With the country’s top diplomat willing to say that publicly in a press conference, we should not be surprised that President Trump has few qualms about executing a raid to capture Nicolas Maduro himself.

This has been the hallmark of the Trump Administration from Day 1, however. Whether we look at his muscular use of Executive Orders, his controversial cabinet appointments, or his embrace of tariffs both as a revenue measure and a geopolitical weapon, Donald Trump has not been a conventional President. That alone assures he will be a consequential President, although only time will tell if that will be to his credit or his shame.

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Donald Trump is, politically speaking, a wrecking ball. At every turn, and in every aspect of the modern Presidency, he is dismantling the status quo, sometimes with savage glee.

He is taking risks recent Presidents have been quite reluctant to even consider, such as directly bombing Iran’s nuclear weapons production facilities.

Yet as events after the bombing run on Iran have proved, President Trump is not merely taking risks—he’s getting away with taking risks.

Whether domestically or internationally, President Trump is reminding the world that the way to increase power and influence is to wield power and influence. While the EU wanted to dither and engage in endless rounds of diplomacy over Maduro’s illegitimate and thuggish regime in Venezuela, Donald Trump settled the matter in the space of a few hours, capping what had been weeks of steadily escalation pressure.

For all of Mexico’s discomfiture, for all of Democrat indignation, there is little that any country is willing or even able to do about Maduro’s seizure.

Rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, Donald Trump not only demonstrated that the UN does not know what it is talking about with respect to Nicolas Maduro, he demonstrated that the world does not hinge on UN resolutions or EU calls for “diplomacy.”

Rightly or wrongly, with this raid into Venezuela, Donald Trump is proving once again how toothless and irrelevant the bastions of the globalist “rules based order” truly are. While the supranational institutions of diplomacy sit around and talk, Donald Trump acted. Donald Trump acted on tariffs, he acted on Iran, and now he’s acted on Venezuela. Barring a sudden outpouring of revulsion by leading nations such as the other G7 nations—a display that so far has not happened—Trump will emerge from this latest exercise of US power as unscathed as prior uses.

Is this raid truly “America First”? That depends on who you ask, and what their particular agenda is.

Those who view any American action taking place outside the borders of the United States as a corrupt “neocon” conspiracy are not likely to view this action favorably.

Those who view unilateral American action as repugnant to international law are already sounding suitably horrified by Trump’s latest outrage. Of course, that they are unable to actually do anything but sound horrified suggests that “international law” might be more wishful thinking than a reality of international relations or national governance.

Those who are “all in” on Donald Trump’s MAGA personality cult are likely busy crafting new memes built around the theme “FAFO”.

Is this raid going to greatly reduce the efforts by drug cartels to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States? It may disrupt some smuggling routes for a time, but there are still plenty of cartel actors willing to move into the void left by Maduro and the Venezuelan gangs. The void left by the Medellin Cartel of Colombia after the death of Pablo Escobar was soon filled by others, and this void will also not be empty long. That is the reality of international drug smuggling.

Will other corrupt national leaders with ties to drug smuggling have cause to worry? Some might. Gustavo Petro of Colombia has already been tagged by the State Department as running a government that is in bed with narcoterrororists. In his February 1 Executive Order imposing punitive tariffs on Mexico because of the drug flows across the US southern border, President Trump stated explicitly the cartels have an “intolerable alliance” with the Mexican government.

Unsurprisingly, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum clapped back against the accusation.

Will Petro or Sheinbaum find themselves also indicted by the Department of Justice? Will they then be subject to a sudden midnight raid and forced rendition back to the United States?

At present, nobody knows—and perhaps that should be the cautionary here. Yesterday, everyone would have scoffed at the idea of the US sending forces to Mexico City to arrest President Sheinbaum. Is that idea really so outlandish today?

Whether that is or is not President Trump’s next policy objective is less important than the reality that Petro and Sheinbaum are grappling with an awkward “I do not know” when asking themselves and their staffs if they’re next on Donald Trump’s hit list. Everything these national leaders must now do and say regarding Donald Trump must invariably be calibrated with that thought in mind. There is no way for them to avoid that.

Whatever else comes from Maduro’s capture and forced rendition to the US, Trump has already altered the trajectory of relations between the US and the rest of Latin America, between the US and China, between the US and Russia, even between the US and the EU. That might end badly or it might end well, but in no circumstance will it end with the status quo intact.

Does that make this a Trump victory or a Trump fiasco? At present, no one knows—and that makes Donald Trump all the more powerful a geopolitical force.

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In terms of his oratory, Donald Trump was his usual pedestrian self. No one will ever confuse a Trump speech with one from The Great Communicator, Ronald Reagan.

That does not mean Trump is inarticulate and ineffective. Donald Trump’s rhetoric is a perfect fit for the populist themes he captures time and again in all his public comments. His laundry list of the accomplishments of his Administration, and the promises of even better things to come, were as populist a political address as we have heard in recent memory.

Donald Trump may not be the second coming of Ronald Reagan, but he makes an interesting comparison to that most (in)famous of populist politicians, Louisiana’s Huey Long.

The point of the address was left unspoken, but it is quite obvious with his repeated transitions from successes of the past year to promises for the next year: Donald Trump intends to make the mid-term elections a referendum on his Presidency and his policies. Technically, Donald Trump is not on the ballot next year, but he means to have his name hanging over every candidate in every district everywhere in the country.

With last night’s speech, Donald Trump declared the 2026 mid-term campaign to have begun.

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Was it an effective speech? Did President Trump accomplish what he hoped to achieve? People will have to make up their minds about such questions on their own.

Corporate media will in due course “fact check” the speech, and engage in a myriad of ways to belittle and demean the address. How effective they will be in that regard remains to be seen.

I encourage everyone to read Trump’s words for themselves. Listen to what he had to say. Gauge whether he spoke fairly or no, whether he was honest or duplicitous.

Mark what he said. President Trump laid down several markers about what will come next in his Administration. I for one shall be very interested to see how many he is able to deliver.

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Trump’s speech, courtesy of Substack’s video transcription tools:

Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I’m fixing it.

When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans.

This happened during a Democrat administration, and it’s when we first began hearing the word affordability.

Our border was open, and because of this, our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people, many who came from prisons and jails, mental institutions, and insane asylums. They were drug dealers, gang members, and even 11,888 murderers, more than 50% of whom killed more than one person.

This is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country, and it can never be allowed to happen again.

We had men playing in women’s sports, transgender for everybody, crime at record levels with law enforcement and words such as that just absolutely forbidden.

We had the worst trade deals ever made, and our country was laughed at from all over the world.

But they’re not laughing anymore.

Over the past 11 months, we have brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history. There’s never been anything like it, and I think most would agree.

I was elected in a landslide, winning the popular vote and all seven swing states and everything else with a mandate to take on a sick and corrupt system, that really just took the wealth from people and crushed the dreams of the American people.

For the last four years, the United States was ruled by politicians who fought only for insiders, illegal aliens, career criminals, corporate lobbyists, prisoners, terrorists, and above all, foreign nations, which took advantage of us at levels never seen before.

They flooded your cities and towns with illegal aliens. They decimated your hard-earned savings. They indoctrinated your children with hate for America. Really, I mean, they just released a level of violent felons that we had never seen to prey on innocent.

They caused war. They caused mayhem. They caused a horrible situation all over the globe.

But now you have a president who fights for the law-abiding, hardworking people of our country, the ones who make this nation run, who make this nation work. And after just one year, we have achieved more than anyone could have imagined.

Starting on day one, I took immediate action to stop the invasion of our southern border. For the past seven months, zero illegal aliens have been allowed into our country, a feat which everyone said was absolutely impossible.

Do you remember when Joe Biden said that he needed Congress to pass legislation to help close the border? He was always blaming Congress and everyone else. As it turned out, we didn’t need legislation. We just needed a new president.

We inherited the worst border anywhere in the world, and we quickly turned it into the strongest border in the history of our country. In other words, in a few short months, we went from worst to best. We’re deporting criminals, restoring safety to our most dangerous cities.

Just take a look at Washington, D.C. It’s at levels of safety that we’ve never seen before. And they decimated the bloodthirsty foreign drug cartels. We did that, all by ourselves with our people and we’re so proud of it because they were poisoning and destroying our population.

Drugs brought in by ocean and by sea are now down 94%. We have broken the grip of sinister woke radicals in our schools and control over those schools is back now in the hands of our great and loving states where education belongs.

After rebuilding the United States military in my first term and with the addition we are adding right now, we have the most powerful military anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close. I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat, and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years peace to the Middle East and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead.

Here at home, we’re bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin. The last administration and their allies in Congress looted our treasury for trillions of dollars, driving up prices and everything at levels never seen before. I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast.

Let’s look at the facts.

Under the Biden administration, car prices rose 22 percent, and in many states, 30 percent or more. Gasoline rose 30 to 50 percent. Hotel rates rose 37 percent. Airfares rose 31 percent.

Now, under our leadership, they are all coming down and coming down fast. Democrat politicians also sent the cost of grocery soaring, but we are solving that, too. The price of a Thanksgiving turkey was down 33 percent compared to the Biden last year. The price of eggs is down 82% since March, and everything else is falling rapidly. And it’s not done yet, but, boy, are we making progress. Nobody can believe what’s going on.

Here are just some of the efforts that we have underway that you will see in your wallets and bank accounts in the new year.

After years of record-setting falling incomes, our policies are boosting take-home pay at a historic pace. Under Biden, real wages plummeted by $3,000. Under Trump, the typical factory worker has seen a wage increase of $1,300. For construction workers, it’s $1,800. For miners, we’re bringing back clean, beautiful coal, it’s $3,300. And for the first time in years, wages are rising much faster than inflation. Remember that wages, just look at it. Wages are going up much faster than inflation.

How big is that? Very. Importantly, there are more people working today than at any time in American history, and 100% of all jobs created since I took office have been in the private sector. Think of that, 100% of all jobs have been in the private sector rather than government, which is the only way to make a country powerful and great.

This historic trend will continue already.

I’ve secured a record-breaking $18 trillion of investment into the United States, which means jobs, wage increases, growth, factory openings, and far greater national security.

Much of this success has been accomplished by tariffs, my favorite word, tariffs, which for many decades have been used successfully by other countries against us. But not anymore. Companies know that if they build in America, there are no tariffs. And that’s why they’re coming home to the USA in record numbers. They’re building factories and plants at levels we haven’t seen, AI, automobiles. We’re doing what nobody thought was even possible, not even remotely possible.

There has never, frankly, been anything like it.

One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail. Totally failed. Now, we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. And that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last five months.

Next year, you will also see the results of the largest tax cuts in American history, that were really accomplished through our great, big, beautiful bill, perhaps the most sweeping legislation ever passed in Congress. We wrapped 12 different bills up into one beautiful bill. That includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.

Under these cuts, many families will be saving between $11,000 and $20,000 a year, and next spring is projected to be the largest tax refund season of all time. Because of tariffs, along with the just passed one big beautiful bill, tonight I am also proud to announce that more than 1,450,000, think of this, 1,450,000 military service members will receive a special we call Warrior Dividend before Christmas, a Warrior Dividend.

In honor of our nation’s founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier $1,776.

Think of that.

And the checks are already on the way.

Nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago. We made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs, and the bill helped us along. Nobody deserves it more than our military. And I say congratulations to everybody.

And by the way, We now have record enlistment in our military, and last year we had among the worst recruitment numbers in our military’s history. What a difference a year makes.

In addition, I’m doing what no politician of either party has ever done, standing up to the special interest to dramatically reduce the price of prescription drugs. I negotiated directly with the drug companies and foreign nations, which were taking advantage of our country for many decades to slash prices on drugs and pharmaceuticals by as much as 400, 500, and even 600 percent.

In other words, your drug costs will be plummeting downward.

And I used the threat of tariffs to get foreign countries who would never have done it to pay the cost of this giant dollar reduction. They stopped ripping us off, and it began as of four days ago. There has never been anything like this in the history of our country.

Drugs have only gone up, but now they’ll be going down by numbers never conceived possible. It’s called Most Favored Nation. And no president has ever had the courage or ability to get this done until now. The first of these unprecedented price reductions will be available starting in January through a new website, TrumpRx.gov.

And these big price cuts will greatly reduce the cost of healthcare I’m also taking on the gigantic health insurance companies that have gotten rich on billions of dollars of money that should go directly to the people. The money should go to the people. That’s you. So they can buy their own health insurance, which will give far better benefits at much lower costs. It will be far better health insurance. The current Unaffordable Care Act was created to make insurance companies rich. It was bad health care at much too higher cost.

And you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats. And they are demanding those increases. And it’s their fault. It is not the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault.

It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it. Again, I want the money to go directly to the people so you can buy your own healthcare. You’ll get much better healthcare at a much lower price. The only losers will be insurance companies that have gotten rich and the Democrat Party, which is totally controlled by those same insurance companies. They will not be happy, but that’s okay with me because you, the people, are finally going to be getting great healthcare at a lower cost.

Another major focus is the cost of energy. For years, the radical-left Democrats exploited the green energy scam as an excuse to funnel many billions of dollars into their own massive slush funds as their energy restrictions drastically drove up prices, and they drove them up at record levels. Electricity costs surge 30 to 100 percent under Biden, and the typical family lost $5,000 to $10,000 in higher energy costs.

Think of that, $5,000 to $10,000 you lost.

On day one, I declared a national energy emergency. Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in much of the country. In some states, it, by the way, just hit $1.99 a gallon. And within the next 12 months, we will have opened 1,600 new electrical generating plants, a record, and it’s a record that won’t be beaten by practically, I would say, by anybody, or certainly not very soon.

Prices on electricity and everything else will fall dramatically. The Democrat inflation disaster, again, the worst in the history of our country, also robbed millions of Americans of home ownership and, indeed, the American dream. The yearly cost of a typical new mortgage increased by $15,000 under Democrat rule. In 11 months, we’ve already gotten that annual cost down by $3,000, and it’s coming down a lot lower.

Wait till you see. The numbers are going to be shocking. And I’ll soon announce our next chairman of the Federal Reserve, someone who believes in lower interest rates by a lot and mortgage payments will be coming down even further early. The new year, and you will see this, in the new year I will announce some of the most aggressive housing reform plans in American history. A major factor in driving up housing costs was the colossal border invasion. We have never been invaded. This is the worst thing that, frankly, in my opinion, the worst thing that the Biden administration did to our country is the invasion at the border.

The last administration and their allies in Congress brought in millions and millions of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing while your rent and housing costs skyrocketed. Over 60 percent of growth in the rental market came from foreign migrants.

At the same time, illegal aliens stole American jobs and flooded emergency rooms, getting free healthcare and education paid for by you, the American taxpayer. They also increased the cost of law enforcement by numbers so high that they are not even to be mentioned. For the first time in 50 years, we are now seeing reverse migration as migrants go back home, leaving more housing and more jobs for Americans.

In the year before my election, all net creation of jobs was going to foreign migrants. Since I took office, 100 percent of all net job creation has gone to American-born citizens. One hundred percent. In the end, government either serves the productive, patriotic, hardworking American citizen, or it serves those who break the laws, cheat the system, and seek power and profit at the expense of our nation.

Look at Minnesota, where Somalians have taken over the economics of the state and have stolen billions and billions of dollars from Minnesota and, indeed, from the United States of America.

And we’re going to put an end to it for so long as.

Before my election, the vast majority of good and decent Americans were forced to watch as corrupt politicians plundered the halls of power, exploited our taxpayers, and pillaged every system that makes civilized society function.

But not anymore, and you see that every day. Not anymore.

We’re putting America first, and we are making America great again.

Very simple. We are making America great again.

Tonight, after 11 months, our border is secure. Inflation has stopped. Wages are up. Prices are down. Our nation is strong. America is respected. And our country is back, stronger than ever before.

We’re poised for an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen. Soon we will host the World Cup and the Olympics, both of which I got. But most importantly, we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. There could be no more fitting tribute to this epic milestone than to complete the comeback of America that began just one year ago.

When the world looks at us next year, let them see a nation that is loyal to its citizens, faithful to its workers, confident to its identity, certain to its destiny, and the envy of the entire globe, we are respected again like we have never been respected before.

To each and every one of you, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. God bless you all.

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At present, we do not know the answer. No Presidential signature has ever been challenged for its validity—until now.

On Friday, President Trump posted on Truth Social yet another bombast against President Joe Biden’s extensive (excessive?) use of an autopen device to sign official documents, arguing that all such documents are “hereby terminated.”

President Trump is all but claiming outright that every time Joe Biden’s name was “signed” via autopen amounted to a forgery. Trump is claiming outright that use of the autopen by the Biden Administration was illegal (the implication being that it was criminal). He even warned Biden of the penalties for perjury should Biden decide to contest Trump’s assertions.

It bears noting that Trump used the word “documents” and not “bills” or “executive orders” or even “pardons.” That word choice makes his condemnation of Biden’s autopen usage very close to universal. That word choice is an attack on the legitimacy of the whole of the Biden Administration.

At present, Donald Trump has confined his bombast to Truth Social. A review of Presidential Actions on the whitehouse.gov website does not list any new Executive Order or Presidential Proclamation related to Joe Biden and autopen signatures.

However, even with just a Truth Social post, Trump is reminding the country that the Biden Administration’s extravagant use of the autopen leaves unanswered the question of whether Joe Biden personally and explicitly authorized each and every signature affixed to an official document.

The Democrats undoubtedly want that question to disappear. The Democrats want to dismiss the question as just another “conspiracy theory”.

Donald Trump seems quite determined that it not disappear. That’s a good thing, because the question has already been proven to be far more than just another “conspiracy theory.”

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Why Now? Sarah Beckstrom

The most obvious question to ask is why is Donald Trump choosing this moment to resurrect the autopen issue yet again?

The answer is almost certainly Sarah Beckstrom, the young National Guard member murdered last week by Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who was allowed into the US after the Biden Administration shambolic and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The Trump Administration is portraying Beckstrom’s murder as yet another preventable death that occurred because of Biden’s incompetence and ineptitude. Had there been effective vetting of Afghans after the US withdrawal from that country, someone like Lakanwal might not have been in the US to commit that crime.

The Trump Administration has received some unlikely support from corporate media, with CNN’s own Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller conceding that the Biden Administration let thousands of Afghans in without any real background checks or vetting at all.

Well, I mean, it’s pretty well documented how he got in. We’re not 100% sure about why he was chosen to be part of Operation Refuge or Operation Welcome Allies, but there had to be some process for him to get on that plane that got him to Dulles.

But remember, this is a program that as of 2022 had moved 88,500 refugees seeking asylum from Afghanistan. Now, some of these people were people who worked for the military. Some of these people had worked for the CIA. Some of these people had worked for USAID. Most of them or their families associated with them were coming on the idea that if we stay behind, the Taliban will make us pay the price.

The vetting process that they went through with these people was chaotic. I had detectives from the Joint Terrorism Task Force assigned to that vetting process who reported back. You know, it was being run by the Department of Homeland Security. But the Afghan records were spotty, as you would imagine. The names were sometimes hard to document. People didn’t exactly know their particular dates of birth, which made, on the other hand, what they did is they collected biometrics.

It’s how this suspect who had no ID was identified when they ran his fingerprints, the biometrics that they collected from this process. That’s how they confirmed his identity.

Moreover, while Lakanwal apparently did work with the US forces in Afghanistan, there are those who served in Afghanistan who viewed Afghan interpreters and other allies as decidedly problematic, creating problems and security concerns of their own. Based on what Bronze Star recipient Mark Lucas shared with InfoWars Breanna Morello, the troops in Afghanistan often had to protect female soldiers from predatory Afghan “allies”:

While his unit had three women who served as members of its female engagement team, Lucas said, “We had to constantly protect them from our Afghan allies and the Afghan Border Patrol.”

“When we’d go out on a foot patrol, you’d have these sick Afghan men just hover around them,” he explained

Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s murderous attack last week adds credibility to such reports, no matter how strenuously Democrats and corporate media might object. There is simply no escaping the reality that having an erstwhile Afghan refugee be revealed as a murderous jihadist is a bad look for the Biden Administration’s “Operation Allies Welcome”, a program led by the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas which claimed “rigorous vetting” of all Afghan nationals admitted to the US.

The rigorous screening and vetting process, which is multi-layered and ongoing, involves biometric and biographic screenings conducted by intelligence, law enforcement, and counterterrorism professionals from DHS and DOD, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and additional intelligence community partners. This process includes reviewing fingerprints, photos, and other biometric and biographic data for every single Afghan before they are cleared to travel to the United States. As with other arrivals at U.S. ports of entry, Afghan nationals undergo a primary inspection when they arrive at a U.S. airport, and a secondary inspection is conducted as the circumstances require.

Lakanwal represents at least one instance where the DHS “rigorous vetting” failed, with lethal consequences.

Presumably, Joe Biden directed DHS to set up and implement Operation Allies Welcome. That much is specifically documented in the DHS archives.

Was Biden fully involved in the discussion and decision process leading to Operation Allies Welcome? Did his staffers and subordinates use the autopen to issue Presidential directives without his full knowledge and explicit authorization?

Because of testimony gathered by Congress earlier this year, we do not know the answer, nor can we safely assume the answer.

By posting his intention to “cancel” anything Biden signed by autopen, President Trump is reminding the country that we do not know that answer. President Trump is taking full advantage of the opportunity to bring the autopen scandal and all its unanswered questions once again back into people’s attention spans

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Autopen Questions Have Not Gone Away

While there is no denying that media attention has shifted away from the autopen scandal since the summer, that is not the same as saying that the scandal itself has somehow disappeared.

Quite the contrary, it was just at the end of October when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a fairly scathing report detailing a number of procedural concerns regarding autopen use during the Biden Administration, all of them centered on a structural uncertainty whether or not Biden had actually authorized and directed the autopen be used to sign his name.

The Biden Autopen Presidency Decline Delusion And Deception In The White House 2025

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The Biden Autopen Presidency ranks among the greatest scandals in U.S. history. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized. While President Biden became progressively less able to do his job—when every measure should have been taken to document and, if ever questioned, prove that President Biden had made final decisions—White House staff took shortcuts and ad hoc actions to keep the Biden presidency afloat. The Committee has found that there was, in fact, a cover-up of the president’s cognitive decline and that there is no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him.

Biden Administration staffers admissions given during direct testimony to the Oversight Committee leave substantial questions about how Joe Biden’s authorization to use the autopen was obtained. That we even have cause to ask such questions itself challenges the legitimacy of nearly everything the Biden Administration did—if the President has not authorized something, it is fraudulent to claim that he has.

Longtime readers may recall Neera Tanden’s admission that she “directed” autopen use for nearly a year and a half, as that admission by itself created the scandal’s indisputable Constitutional dimensions.

Neera Tanden, former Director of the White House Policy Council as well as a self-described “staff secretary”, claimed in her opening remarks on Tuesday that she was the one who “directed” autopen use.

Neera Tanden, who served as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, explained in her opening remarks Tuesday that she was given authority to wield the autopen. She said she “was responsible for handling the flow of documents to and from the president” and was authorized to direct autopen use from October 2021 to May 2023 when she was serving as staff secretary and senior adviser to Biden.

What does she mean by “authorized to direct autopen use”? The answer is not merely problematic, but Constitutionally critical.

Ms. Tanden was one of the few Biden staffers who did not invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, which, politically speaking, makes the choice of those who did all the more disturbing and even damning.

Ms Tanden’s surprisingly frank admission before the Committee crystalized the speculation that Biden might not have properly authorized autopen use into a real and definable political and legal question—one with disturbing ramifications for laws passed during Biden’s time in office.

At issue is not whether the use of the Autopen itself invalidates a Presidential signature. At issue is whether Joe Biden—the duly elected 46th President of the United States—authorized each and every instance of Autopen usage.

The official stance of the White House Office of Legal Counsel has for nearly 20 years been that Autopen signatures are valid when affixed upon direction by the President. However, the memo establishing that stance also is clear that the President cannot delegate the decision whether or not a signature should be so affixed.

We do not suggest that the President may delegate the decision whether to approve[]” and “sign” a bill.U.S. Const. art. I,§ 7, cl. 2. It has long been the view of the Executive Branch that the President may not delegate this decision.

If Joe Biden did not explicitly authorize the use of the Autopen—even by a perfunctory “go ahead and sign it” verbal declaration—then it is an open question whether he could have actually made the decision that a bill, executive order, or pardon should be signed.

Donald Trump’s Truth Social post brings all of this recent history back to the foreground.

None of these questions have lost their relevance, or their Constitutional significance.

None of these questions have been at all answered.

Donald Trump, with his Truth Social post, is both reminding the American people that these questions remain unanswered and challenging the Democrats to respond to those questions with honest, factual answers.

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What Changes?

Of itself, President Trump’s Truth Social post is, legally speaking, a non-event. It carries no legal significance of any kind.

Bear in mind that President Trump does not need to challenge the credibility of Biden’s signature to cancel any of Biden’s Executive Orders. By mid-March, Trump had already rescinded close to 100 Biden Executive Orders. Trump did so without mentioning at all the Biden Administration’s use of the autopen to sign official documents.

Trump cancelling 100 Biden Executive Orders is significant, because Biden issued a total of 162 Executive Orders during his term of office. President Trump has already reversed the bulk of what Biden sought to achieve via Presidential directive.

However, this is why we must note Trump’s reference to “documents” and not just Executive Orders.

If Biden’s signature via autopen is invalid, what becomes of the 274 laws passed by the 118th Congress during 2023 and 2024?

What becomes of the 362 laws passed by the 117th Congress during 2021 and 2022?

Each of those laws required Joe Biden’s signature to become law. If Joe Biden’s signature was fraudulently affixed to those laws, did they become law?

We should note that, in almost every case, a good argument exists that a fraudulent Biden signature does not invalidate a law. While Article 1 Section 7 of the Constitution mandates that the President sign all legislation before it becomes law, that same section also specifies that, if the President takes no action for ten days, such legislation automatically becomes law.

Far more problematic are Joe Biden’s 13 vetoes—none of which were overridden by Congress.

Per Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, when the President vetoes legislation he returns it to the Congress with his stated objections to the bill. Congress then has the option to reconsider and amend the legislation, override the veto by a two-thirds vote, or to simply drop the matter entirely.

Did Joe Biden legitimately sign the communications by which he returned those 13 pieces of legislation to Congress?

If he did not, did he actually veto those 13 pieces of legislation?

If Joe Biden did not veto those 13 pieces of legislation, would not the same ten-day period which arguably preserves the legitimacy of the laws Biden allegedly did sign also make those 13 pieces of legislation actual US law?

That is not an insignificant question. Biden’s last veto, of S.4199, the “JUDGES Act of 2024”, stopped a congressional effort to create new judgeships in the closing days of the 118th Congress. That bill was officially transmitted to the Oval Office on December 20, 2024, and presumably vetoed on December 23. The veto was received by the Senate on January 3, 2025.

If Joe Biden did not veto that bill it would have automatically become law and the judgeships it sought to create would now exist.

Did fraudulent use of the autopen derail Congress’ Constitutional authority to create judgeships as it believes are appropriate? Without fully adjudicating the question of how the Biden Administration used the autopen, the answer to that question is a disturbing “we do not know.”

When Donald Trump says he is cancelling all documents signed via autopen during the Biden Administration, how many documents are at issue, and what consequences follow from that cancellation?

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Real Questions, Real Problems

Corporate media has predictably sought to minimize the significance of President Trump’s assertions vis-a-vis Biden Administration use of the autopen.

They note that Trump himself has used such a device.

CNN in particular highlights the body of legal opinion supporting the validity of the autopen as a means of affixing the Presidential signature onto a document.

Yet corporate media does not address the specific charge made both by President Trump and the House Oversight Committee, which is that Joe Biden did not authorize every use of the autopen—something the same body of legal opinion to which CNN genuflects explicitly requires.

We should perhaps not be surprised by corporate media’s reluctance to engage on the substance. We must remember it was corporate media who willingly participated in White House efforts to conceal Joe Biden’s indisputable cognitive decline. As Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson detailed in their “don’t blame me” tome earlier this year, everyone knew Biden was slipping into dementia, and no one wanted to say or do anything about it.

The same corporate media who assured a credulous public that there was “nothing to see” regarding Joe Biden’s dementia now wants to assure what it hopes is an equally credulous public that there is “nothing to see” regarding how the Biden Administration “signed” documents on Joe Biden’s behalf.

Except there was quite a bit to see—and quite a bit that was seen—regarding Joe Biden’s dementia, and that means there is quite a bit that needs to be seen regarding how the Biden Administration used the autopen.

No matter how much corporate media want to dismiss Donald Trump’s claims regarding the autopen, he is raising very real questions. He is raising very real questions which point to very real problems, not just for the Biden Administration but for all future administrations.

If any staffer can affix a Presidential signature to a document without the President’s express authorization, how much faith can we place in Presidential authority? How can any President presume to run a country if he cannot run his own administration?

What recourse does the nation have if a member of the White House staff opts to defraud the nation by “signing” an official document—a law, a pardon, an executive order—without Presidential authorization? How does one make the nation whole after such a deception?

The Democrats want these questions to go away. Corporate media wants these questions to go away.

These questions will never go away unless they are answered substantively and directly. Not answering them has already persuaded a portion of the American electorate to infer the worst possible answer, and continuing to not answer them will only cause that portion of the American electorate to grow.

The autopen scandal has not yet reached the dramatic intensity of Watergate just before Nixon’s resignation in 1974. We do not know if it will reach that intensity, or if there will be fallout from the scandal.

We do know that the questions are real. We do know that the problems are real. That means we know the Biden Administration’s use of the autopen is quite a bit more than “conspiracy theory”. Whether or not we get any other answers regarding this issue, we have already been given that much of an answer.

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Unlike Congressional Democrats, he can back his claims up.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I have always believed that sunshine is the best disinfectant.

For years, the American people have demanded transparency about Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s horrific crimes, and about the federal government’s failure to protect the victims.

The House Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough review of the federal government’s investigation into Epstein. Our work goes far beyond the legislation before us today.

We are committed to accountability, transparency, and justice for the American people and for the survivors of these appalling crimes.

To date, the Oversight Committee has released more than 65,000 pages of documents, issued 13 subpoenas, and conducted interviews with two key witnesses.

The Trump Administration has provided us with Department of Justice materials and access to suspicious activity reports.

Unfortunately, throughout this investigation, Democrats have chosen to manufacture yet another anti-Trump hoax instead of pursuing justice.

They have mischaracterized witness testimony and selectively released documents, complete with targeted redactions, in an effort to smear President Trump.

For example, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who oversaw the 2019 Epstein investigation, stated clearly that the prosecution team found no evidence that President Trump committed wrongdoing.

Despite this simple and straightforward fact, Ranking Member Robert Garcia publicly claimed that “Barr could not clear Trump of wrongdoing.”

When the Oversight Committee interviewed former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta, Democrats whipped themselves into a frenzy trying to manufacture a “gotcha” moment.

They failed.

Mr. Acosta dismantled the Democrats’ narrative. His testimony confirmed there was no contact between President Trump and Mr. Acosta and no connection between President Trump and Epstein in the case.

Next, Democrats resorted to selective leaks and doctored documents to mislead the American people.

Oversight Committee Republicans have posted 65,000 pages of documents we have received to date. Democrats, by contrast, have released fewer than a dozen.

In their latest selective leak, Democrats released just three of the 23,000 pages of documents from the Epstein Estate and made redactions to two of those emails that changed both the content and the meaning.

When CNN called them out for the deceptive redactions, Representatives Melanie Stansbury and Jasmine Crockett tried to blame Republicans for their own edits.

After Democrats released only three emails, Republicans released over 23,000 pages.

And what did Democrats say in response? They claimed that full transparency was meant to “disorient” and “distract” from their manufactured narrative.

These are the same Democrats who chant “release the files” every day—until the files contradict the story they want to tell.

That is the definition of hypocrisy.

In contrast, full transparency exposed how Epstein appears to be TDS Patient Zero.

The emails reveal that a “journalist” coached Epstein to blackmail then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

The files also show that a House Democrat colluded with Epstein during a 2019 Oversight hearing to target a discredited witness with a vendetta against President Trump.

And, unsurprisingly, Democrats have been silent about their colleague’s coordination with Epstein.

Another email shows Democrat fundraisers invited Epstein to attend an event, or meet privately with Hakeem Jeffries, in 2013 as part of their effort to build a Democrat House majority.

The files also underscore why former President Bill Clinton must appear for his deposition. The Oversight Committee subpoenaed him for testimony in August, yet Democrats have done nothing to help secure his appearance.

The Democrats’ latest anti-Trump hoax has collapsed—just like Russiagate, the Steele Dossier, and the politically motivated prosecutions before it.

Time and again, Democrats will promote any hoax rather than have a serious conversation with President Trump about how to improve the lives of the American people.

I support full transparency and will vote for this legislation today.

However, I want to be clear: Congress should not conduct investigations through legislation. That sets a dangerous precedent for the powers of the House.

The House Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough review to ensure transparency and accountability, and we will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead for the American people and for the survivors of Epstein’s crimes.

Democrats must end their latest hoax and turn their attention to truly bring transparency and accountability for survivors.

After the House voted to release the Epstein Files, the Senate unanimously voted likewise. Given that President Trump has already said he would sign the legislation, the public is about to see all that the FBI has amassed in investigating Jeffrey Epstein.

Yet already the Epstein Files have shown they contain more embarrassments to Democrats than to President Trump. Hakeem Jeffries seeking fundraising support from Epstein in 2013 is only the latest reveal showing senior Democrats shmoozing with the infamous sexual predator. Perhaps even more damaging to the Democrats is their penchant for flip-flopping on releasing Epstein documents—they are for it to damage Donald Trump and against it if it exonerates Donald Trump.

The released documents have already taken one minor scalp, with Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers stepping out of the public eye after he was revealed to have been a close associate of Epstein right up until the latter’s arrest and then all-too-convenient “suicide” while in custody.

Meanwhile, President Trump is posting to Truth Social his vision of Obamacare reform, ahead of next month’s likely vote on whether or not to sustain the Obamacare subsidies currently set to expire at year’s end.

To hear The Donald tell it, he’s been pitching this idea direct to Democrats as well. These are the things one needs to do before anyone else in order to frame a debate or a set of talking points.

While the Democrats have been distracted by Jeffrey Epstein, President Trump is angling to set the terms of the inevitable Obamacare reform debate.

Corporate media has done its best to spin the Epstein vote as some sort of “win” for Democrats against Donald Trump, yet even they have had to acknowledge the embarrassing ties Democrats had to Epstein right up until his death in 2019.

The release of the Epstein Files is not likely to do any real harm to President Trump. It has already done a measure of harm to Democrats.

How much longer can the Democrat Party stumble on without any semblance of platform, any sense of vision for the future?

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The solution was simple: the Democrats surrendered. They stopped blocking the House CR in the Senate and got only a token promise of a “vote” in the Senate on extending the Obamacare subsidies within the next few weeks.

Democrats were largely united in opposition to the package, which did not address their primary demand during the government shutdown: passage of legislation to extend enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire at the end of the year, driving up premiums for more than 20 million Americans.

Under the terms of the agreement in the Senate, Democrats will get a vote in mid-December on a bill to extend the subsidies. The Democrats who negotiated the bipartisan arrangement lauded this concession from GOP leaders as a victory, and a chance to win over Republicans who might be convinced to pursue a compromise. But Speaker Mike Johnson was not part of these negotiations and has refused to promise a similar vote in the House.

The expiration of the Obamacare subsidies—which most Obamacare policyholders use to pay their ever-increasing premiums—was the policy issue the Democrats belatedly sought to position as their rationale for their refusal to pass the House Continuing Resolution.

It was never a strong bargaining position, and one the Democrats made even weaker by their muddled, contradictory, and at times simply disingenuous messaging.

The Republicans never had much of a response other than “pass the CR”, but Democrat fecklessness ensured that was all they needed.

The Democrats may also have created another political headache for themselves—by publicly using the SNAP food-stamp program as “leverage” during the shutdown, they inadvertently brought to the fore all the corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse which apparently exists within that program.

Should we really be surprised that the Democrats are now attempting to pivot to that most reliable of ongoing controversies, the “Epstein Files” currently in the hands of the government?

With the shutdown squabble finally over, Congress should be putting its energies into attending to the nation’s business, with Obamacare and SNAP near the front of the line.

With this latest pivot to Jeffrey Epstein, Congress is once again falling short of its obligations.

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From the moment the Democrats began releasing selected emails sent by infamous sex-trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein referencing President Trump, it was clear they sought to reignite that longstanding controversy, as some of the messages suggested Trump knew full well of Epstein’s sexual predations—a narrative the White House predictably denounced.

The White House called the Democratic release of the emails a “smear.” Trump attended parties with Epstein and flew on his private plane during the 1990s. But Trump later ousted Epstein from his club and has forcefully denied knowing about the sex trafficking. Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.

For its part, corporate media has been happy to play along with the Democrats new narrative focus, highlighting the salacious albeit unsubstantiated details the messages contained.

Democrats in the House released emails this week that show Epstein discussing Trump, including one that said Trump “spent hours at my house” with a victim. The emails have reignited the controversy around the Epstein case, which has dogged Trump during his second term.

The Trump administration’s decision not to release more Epstein documents has prompted backlash, and a push by Congress to get the records. A petition aimed at releasing all of the Epstein documents garnered enough signatures this week to force a vote on the issue in the House.

Responding to a question about reports that he lobbied Republican lawmakers to withdraw their signatures from the petition, Trump said “We think it’s bad to talk about (Epstein) because it gets away from the subject of how well the Republicans are doing.”

“They want to waste people’s time, and some of the dumber Republicans like that,” Trump added

The Democrats might not end up having any better luck with their latest anti-Trump tactic than with the shutdown, however, as one of the key details they sought to highlight—a claim by Jeffrey Epstein that President Trump spent Thanksgiving 2017 with him—was quickly debunked, forcing the Democrats to quickly delete the social media postings.

Ironically, it was corporate media’s own coverage of President Trump during 2017 that disproved the claim—as Trump supporters were only too happy to point out.

Nor was any of this coincidental. According to reporting in ZeroHedge, media data compiled by Bloomberg shows a surge in Epstein stories almost immediately after the Democrats’ surrender on the shutdown became official.

What’s clear is that the Democratic Party staked heavily on the Jeffrey Epstein email narrative. Bloomberg data shows that headlines mentioning “Epstein” were minimal throughout the shutdown, but as soon as Trump signed the bill to reopen the government, putting Democrats in a very unfavorable position and creating terrible optics in the news cycle, their propaganda cannon was fired.

The Democrats’ misfire over Epstein grew worse during this past weekend, when the Washington Post reported that Epstein was actively text messaging with Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands during a Congressional hearing with disgraced former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and even influencing her questions.

In the texts, Epstein appeared to be watching the February 2019 hearing in real time and at one point informed Plaskett — whose name is redacted from the documents — that Cohen had brought up former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff in his testimony. At the time, Cohen was testifying before the House Oversight Committee against his former boss, alleging that Trump was racist, manipulated financial records and directed hush money payments to cover up his extramarital affairs — allegations Trump denied. The president said on social media that Cohen was “lying” before testimony began..

Is Epstein playing the Democrats for fools from beyond the grave? That appears to be a not-unreasonable view of how the narrative is unfolding.

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While the Democrats might have been motivated to pivot to Epstein to get media attention off their abject surrender to end the shutdown, that narrative shift is also pulling attention away from the very topic the Democrats insist was the justification for the shutdown: the expiring Obamacare subsidies and projected sticker shock Obamacare policy holders are facing on January 1.

This is not mere speculation. A survey of Google Trends regarding the search term “ACA Subsidies” shows a brief surge in interest at the end of October and beginning of November, but a drop in interest at the start of last week when it became clear the Democrats were surrendering.

A broader topic survey shows a similar surge and dropoff for “Affordable Care Act”

At the same time, interest in Jeffrey Epstein soared.

Even interest in the broader Affordable Care Act topic was easily outpaced by interest in Esptein.

That the Democrats would choose to focus on Epstein rather than Obamacare seems an odd strategic choice, given both their rationale for the shutdown and that the current state of Obamacare premiums points to a looming crisis of affordability for policy holders.

Even if Congress should opt to extend the Obamacare subsidies at the last minute, those premiums are still set to rise for calendar 2026 by an average of 26 percent. Perhaps unsurprisingly, policies purchased through Healthcare.gov—the main federal health insurance exchange—are seeing the largest increases, at 30%, while the few states which run their own exchanges are seeing “smaller increases” of around 17%.

The expiration of the subsidies means Obamacare policy holders will have to foot the bill for their premiums entirely out of pocket, which will mean an effective premium hike of approximately 114% for most policy holders.

If the enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of this year, KFF estimates that currently subsidized enrollees will see their monthly premium payments more than double, increasing by about 114%, on average. This reflects people with incomes below four times the poverty level receiving less financial assistance and those with incomes over four times poverty no longer being eligible for financial assistance at all and therefore being hit by a double whammy of lost tax credit and higher insurer premiums.

Without the subsidies, the insurance policies Americans have purchased under the Affordable Care Act are no longer looking all that affordable.

By the numbers, this is not a small issue. 22 million Americans rely on the subsidies to cover some or all of their insurance premiums for Obamacare (out of 24 million total who are enrolled in Obamacare policies).

The Democrats stated rationale for the shutdown was to head this issue off by extending the subsidies—slated to expire automatically at the end of this year—with the goal of making them permanent.

As highlighted by corporate media, the Republicans have yet to fully articulate a policy response to the looming likely collapse of Obamacare.

How prepared the Republicans are to have a debate over the future of Obamacare is problematic however, as in the final days of the shutdown Donald Trump posted to Truth Social a proposal to send Americans the money to purchase healthcare directly, rather than paying insurance carriers directly, as is the current practice.

The following day Trump doubled down on the question of Obamacare subsidies by highlighting the greatly improved profits among leading insurance carriers thanks to Obamacare.

While a social media post is not a fully articulated government policy proposal for healthcare, we still must make note of the resemblance between Donald Trump’s Truth Social postings and the late Senator John McCain’s healthcare proposal during the 2008 Presidential election:

The McCain health plan proposes three funda­mental reforms that would change the financing of health care and reform the health insurance market to give families more control of personal health care decisions:

1. Equal tax treatment for health coverage. The Senator would replace the special tax breaks for employer-based health insurance with a univer­sal system of health care tax credits for the pur­chase of health insurance. These health care tax credits of $5,000 for a family and $2,500 for an individual would be indexed annually for infla­tion and would be available to Americans regard­less of income, employment, or tax liability. Even prominent critics concede that such a tax change is a principled and far-reaching proposal.[2] This change alone would lay the groundwork for unprecedented consumer choice and competi­tion in the health care sector.

2. Health insurance competition on a national scale. Currently, only federal workers and retir­ees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) benefit from competition among private health insurance companies on a national scale. In sharp contrast with almost every other sector of the economy, competition across state lines in health insurance is virtually nonexistent. The McCain health plan would change this by allowing individuals and families to buy health plans domiciled and regulated in other states. This would both expand personal options for affordable coverage and force health insurance companies to compete directly for consumers’ dollars on an unprecedented scale.

3. Federal assistance to the states to cover vul­nerable populations. The Senator envisions a large role for state innovation and experimenta­tion in health care financing and delivery, but he would provide safety-net funding to ensure cov­erage of the most vulnerable populations: the hard-to-insure and the uninsurable. McCain’s Guaranteed Access Plan would provide federal assistance to the states to secure access to health insurance coverage through state high-risk pools or similar arrangements. His plan would also encourage expanding coverage options for Med­icaid enrollees and veterans

We should also remember that Donald Trump and the Republicans attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act once before, in 2017. While the Republicans have yet to provide clear messaging on what they want to do vis-a-vis Obamacare, if they opt to resurrect their earlier proposals, the amount of policy work they need to do on the topic could be greatly reduced.

By comparison, beyond the simple extension of the existing subsidies, Democrats do not have even an historical articulated policy framework on Obamacare, leaving them with an uncertain path forward even with the promise of a Senate vote on the topic.

Despite having triggered the record-breaking government “shutdown”, the Democrats arguably are even less prepared to have a full fledged debate on Obamacare than the Republicans—and the Republicans have been consistent that any extension of the subsidies will have to be accompanied by significant reforms of Obamacare itself.

The Democrats apparently would rather the public focus on Epstein than on Congress’ seeming unpreparedness to tackle an issue that cannot be postponed for even a little while.

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The Epstein distraction may serve to obfuscate another awkward moment for Democrats: the revelations of considerable fraud, waste, and abuse within the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) which emerged during the shutdown, as Democrats sought to compel the Trump Administration to keep the program fully funded.

President Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has been, with assistance from Elon Musk’s “DOGE” team, digging into the SNAP program since assuming her post earlier this year, an effort which drew headlines this past spring with the USDA making an extraordinary data request of the states regarding SNAP recipients.

SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is a federal program. Each state administers the program and enrolls participants based on eligibility determined by Congress. While the USDA and its Office of Inspector General can audit state SNAP programs, participants’ personal data typically remains under the state’s control.

In March, the USDA’s Office of Inspector General notified California, Florida, New York and Texas of inspections of their SNAP programs to see if the states were improperly using administrative funds to pay out benefits, the emails show.

That ultimately led to a request for detailed sensitive data — including citizenship status and addresses — of all SNAP participants in the previous year from at least one of the states.

While corporate media at the time maintained a predictable narrative that SNAP fraud is “rare”, as SNAP funding ran out at the end of October, Secretary Rollins took to social media to report rather significant levels of fraud and abuse within the program:

Also appearing on Fox News, Rollins stated that hundreds of thousands of ineligible persons were on the SNAP rolls.

In an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Rollins elaborated on what she said the states’ SNAP data revealed.

“We have found thousands and thousands of illegal use of the EBT card,” Rollins said, referring to the electronic benefit transfer cards used by SNAP recipients. “We have been moving people off of SNAP. We’ve got almost 700,000 people, I think we’ve moved off just since the president took office. We’ve arrested about 118 people.”

She added, “We found one guy in six different states getting a benefit. We found about 5,000 people that are dead who are still getting benefits.”

700,000 people illegally receiving SNAP benefits certainly strains the common understanding of “rare”.

Rollins went on to assert that a sizable portion of illegal alien households were receiving SNAP benefits.

By the time the government reopened, Rollins’ data on SNAP fraud indicated that as many as 186,000 deceased individuals were still receiving SNAP payments each month.

So great is the claimed level of corruption within the program that Secretary Rollins is proposing that every SNAP recipient be made to reapply to continue receiving benefits, in order to re-vet eligibility across the board.

Despite the incendiary nature of Secretary Rollins allegations, the Democrats have been largely silent in response. Even corporate media has opted to focus more on pending changes to SNAP arising from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress earlier this year.

As a recent overview of US headlines in Google’s News feed shows, Epstein news reports rank far higher than reporting on SNAP, with no direct mention of Secretary Rollins’ allegations.

Apparently, corporate media at least would much rather people focus on Jeffrey Epstein than potentially millions of dollars of detectable fraud within SNAP.

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For Jeffrey Epstein’s victims and their families, any disclosure of information regarding Epstein’s contacts, associates, and potentially sex-trafficking “clients” is quite significant and hugely important. Nor can there be any doubt that significant questions linger about how Epstein was able to negotiate such a favorable plea arrangement in 2008 to settle charges of sexual contact with minor girls.

For these reasons alone, the Epstein story continues to fascinate the American public, with a number of as-yet unproven hypotheses about who Epstein was and the source of his wealth.

Yet as the latest efforts by Democrats to make a fresh issue out of Jeffrey Epstein illustrate, what has never materialized from any of the revelations about Epstein or his associates over the years has been criminal indictments, let alone prosecutions.

Not only are efforts to paint President Trump with an Epstein brush apparently failing, among the recently released messages was one which claimed that Bill Clinton—a man with his own infamy for sexual predation—was never on Epstein’s Caribbean island.

Regardless of the email’s accuracy or truthfulness, it is significant for being exculpatory evidence which would help generate reasonable doubt about any Epstein-related sex crimes for which Clinton might potentially be charged.

The questions about Jeffrey Epstein are real and are significant, yet the narrative threads which have emerged surrounding Epstein are, to put it mildly, a mess. For all the certainty among some that Epstein was a notorious sex trafficker who peddled young girls to politicians and billionaires alike, as of yet significant actionable evidence able to withstand scrutiny in a court of law has not been made public. The evidence might be out there, and might even be lurking in the FBI’s records on Epstein, but unless it breaks into the light of day nothing will come of it.

As I have said before, no matter what is revealed from the FBI’s records on Epstein, people are sure to be disappointed.

By comparison, the state of Obamacare is a current crisis, and is clear-cut. Without the subsidies, Obamacare is facing a “death-spiral”, as skyrocketing premiums push healthier Americans off their policies, leaving an insured pool of sicklier—and therefore costlier—individuals. Unlike whatever information resides within the FBI’s records on Epstein, the state of Obamacare is an unfolding issue, and for the 22 million Americans who have been receiving the subsidies, an unfolding crisis.

Similarly, reports of 700,000 individuals illegally receiving SNAP benefits, and 186,000 deceased individuals still receiving SNAP payments, are an unfolding scandal that surely warrants both attention and action. If those numbers are wrong, proper administration of government finances demands that they be corrected. To whatever extent those numbers are correct, proper administration of government finances demands that SNAP be overhauled and reformed.

It is not inconceivable that, but for the levels of abuse claimed by Secretary Rollins, SNAP might have been able to fund November benefits out of the contingency fund. The lawsuits to force the Trump Administration to fully fund SNAP somehow might not have been necessary.

The Obamacare and SNAP issues both carry significant political and economic consequences. No matter what the outcomes of debate and Congressional actions might be on these issues, people’s lives are going to be impacted both in the present and in the future.

Is it truly a reasonable position that Jeffrey Epstein, someone who has been dead for over six years, should command greater attention either from the public or the media than either of these issues? Is it not possible to pursue greater disclosure on Epstein’s associates while at the same time keeping focus on issues which are going to impact quite a few Americans for the foreseeable future?

Is it a more plausible assessment that Epstein is emerging as a distraction, keeping public scrutiny away from vital issues, thereby allowing Congress to evade what little political accountability exists today?

The government shutdown is over. Congress should be focusing on returning to dealing with the nation’s business, with Obamacare and SNAP very near the top of the priority list. Both corporate and alternative media ideally should be putting the public’s focus on such a return to the nation’s business.

Instead we get Jeffrey Epstein.

How is that good government?

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A pair of aces can be a winning hand if the other player only has king high. A well executed bluff will beat a full house.

The latest episode of Washington’s eternal soap opera “As The Stomach Churns” suggests the Republicans understand this better than the Democrats. At least, they appear to be playing their shutdown cards better than the Democrats are playing theirs.

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First we must pause to note that House Minority Whip Katherine Clark has accomplished an astounding feat—she has replaced House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as the most clueless and artless speaker in the Democrat leadership. She accomplished this momentous feat by frankly admitting that the 42 million SNAP recipients whose benefits are in jeopardy as of November 1 are “leverage” to the Democrats, and she made that admission on, of all places, Fox News.

From her interview with Fox News’ Chad Pergram:

Katherine Clark: You know, shutdowns are terrible for everybody. But what it shows here is an absolute failure on the Republicans’ part to put the American people first.

Chad Pergram: But none of that on the Democrats. I mean, again, and I understand the math in the Senate. I understand the health care position from the Democrats. No responsibility on the Democrats, or at least you don’t think that the public will perceive that the Democrats are responsible.

Katherine Clark: I mean, shutdowns are terrible, and of course there will be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leveraged times we have. It is an inflection point in this budget process where we have tried to get the Republicans to meet with us and prioritize the American people. And it’s been an absolute refusal. And they were willing to let government shut down when they control the House, the Senate, and the White House, rather than come and talk about an issue as important to the American people as if they can afford health care.

Let’s say the quiet part out loud—”leverage” is exactly what those 42 million people are, and what those 42 million people have always been.

Unpaid air traffic controllers, and the disruptions to air travel that causes, are leverage.

An unpaid military is leverage.

Unpaid DHS, ICE, CBP agents are leverage.

The closure of various and sundry government agencies, some of whom are occasionally useful, is leverage.

Shutdowns are all about leverage.

That does not mean it is a good idea to openly admit it. It is an especially bad idea to openly admit it on the one news channel most likely to take shameless advantage of a Democrat faux pas. It is a staggeringly stupid idea to openly admit it when it invites a few “fact-checking” challenges about who is—and who is not—negotiating.

A quick tally of the negotiating facts:

• It is the Republicans who have offered the Democrats a one-year extension on the Obamacare subsidies. That offer was on the table before the shutdown.

• It was Hakeem Jeffries who openly sneered at it after the shutdown.

• Republicans have been discussing possible compromises on the Obamacare subsidies all along.

• Republican Senator Rand Paul, appearing on “Fox News Sunday”, proposed a bipartisan commission to propose legislative fixes for Obamacare.

  “I suggest that President Trump come forward and name three Republicans and three Democrats in the Senate to an official commission to figure this out over a one-month period and come back with a solution,” Paul said. “But in exchange for that, I think the Democrats need to open the government for a month, and then we need to pay the workers, pay our soldiers.”

• Speaker Mike Johnson was emphatic shortly after the shutdown began that addressing healthcare was a major legislative priority for remainder of the year.

  “Health care is broken in America. It’s too expensive. The quality of care needs to rise. We need more access for more people,” Johnson said Monday. “We have lots of ideas to do that, but that issue is up for debate in the next three months.”

Whether any of these ideas are “enough” for the Democrats is beside the point. They are compromise positions Republicans have publicly articulated, positions which move closer to the Democrats on healthcare, and on the Obamacare subsidies in particular. They are proposals to be considered, discussed, and amended.

Putting proposals on the table is the basis of negotiation. The Republicans have been negotiating all along, and very openly so.

The Democrats could have responded to the one-year extension by asking for a two year extension (pushing the issue past the mid-term elections). They did not.

The Democrats could have added their own ideas to Rand Paul’s commission proposal. They did not.

The Democrats have not put out any proposals. All the Democrats have put out are demands—$1.5 Trillion worth of demands.

Making demands is not negotiation. Making demands is extortion.

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The Republicans are using the 42 million SNAP recipients as leverage as well—but they are being far smoother about it.

In a move that should have surprised exactly no one, the Trump Administration reversed its position from September on whether or not it could use SNAP contingency funds to keep the program solvent during the shutdown.

The Trump administration’s position that it cannot extend SNAP benefits during the shutdown is a reversal from the USDA’s stated shutdown contingency plan from late September, which said that “Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown.”

But in a new memo issued late last week and obtained by ABC News, USDA said contingency funds are “only available” when SNAP funds have been approved by Congress.

As a result, no SNAP funding will be going out to the states after the end of the month.

ABC News was less than impressed by the Trump Administration’s sudden concern for legal niceties.

Earlier in the shutdown, the Trump administration redirected others funds to pay service members -- even as it says it can’t do the same with SNAP funding.

They have a point. President Trump has not been afraid to throw a few Constitutional elbows to muscle his agenda through. It is beyond ironic that his Administration is suddenly reluctant to do so over SNAP.

One might almost think the Trump Administration was treating SNAP recipients as “leverage” (what are the odds?).

Democrats are already calling on President Trump to use the contingency funds and keep SNAP afloat.

In a letter Oct. 24 to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Michigan’s six House Democrats, led by U.S. Reps. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Bay City and Hillary Scholten of Grand Rapids, urged the department to use contingency funds to pay SNAP benefits. It is believed those contingency funds if used − as some Democrats say is a legal requirement − could cover SNAP payments for at least a few weeks in November.

If the Democrats are concerned that Trump might be ever-so-kingly in wielding the Executive pen to make that happen, they are hiding it well.

Speaker Johnson, unsurprisingly, is backing the Trump Administration.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson argued the contingency funds for SNAP are “not legally available right now” to cover the benefits and pleaded with Democrats to support the clean continuing resolution to reopen the government.

“The reason is because it’s a finite source of funds. It was appropriated by Congress, and if they transfer funds from these other sources, it pulls it away immediately from school meals... So … it’s a trade off,” he said. “There has to be a pre-existing appropriation for the contingency fund to be used.”

Speaker Johnson is being coy by saying this. And why not be coy? With the largest government worker union already telling the Democrats to stand down, now is hardly the time to ease up on the pressure.

Telling the Democrats that Republican hands are tied is only likely to increase Democrat calls to use the contingency funds. The more the Democrats make that call, the more cover the Trump Administration has later. The Democrats will not be able to complain that Trump is violating the law by moving funds around to keep SNAP solvent if they are the ones demanding he move the funds around.

Could the Administration tap the contingency fund if they really wanted? Without a doubt.

Would it be legal? It might not be, but the number of people who care is shrinking rapidly (and will be zero by November 1).

Could the Administration reverse course and do an 11th hour funding of SNAP? They could. They might.

It’s pure speculation on my part, but if they wait to the last minute President Trump could issue an Executive Order declaring the right sort of national emergency Alternatively, he might simply say “get it done.”

Should he find the funding at the last minute, and should the media decide to challenge President Trump about the legality, he can easily fire back “I don’t want people going hungry, unlike the Democrats.” With the Democrats already calling on him to find the funding, the law be damned, what would they have to say if he does other than “thank you”?

Do the Democrats really understand the significance of President Trump doing them a solid by doing whatever he must to keep SNAP solvent during a shutdown Democrats could end tomorrow just by passing the House CR?

Is the Trump Administration bluffing about not being able to locate funds to keep SNAP going during the shutdown? That is a possibility. It is equally a possibility that, as the contingency fund would only sustain SNAP for a few weeks, President Trump might not see any point in jumping through that particular set of hoops.

What is a certainty is that Trump and the Republicans are using SNAP recipients as leverage just as much as the Democrats are. They’re just clever enough not to say that part out loud.

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I am certain that anyone who has ever been in financial straits and not known where they were getting their next meal will have a certain empathy for SNAP recipients being thrown into the lurch this way.

Even if one believes that welfare programs like SNAP are inherently a bad idea, this is not how one goes about reducing or cancelling such a program. Regardless of SNAP’s merits and demerits as a government program, SNAP recipients have a commitment from the government to provide a discrete level of nutrition assistance each month, and that commitment is right now not being honored due to the shutdown.

That’s not okay. One does not promise to feed the hungry and then renege on the promise because “politics”.

In this regard, the whole of Washington, Donald Trump included, should be ashamed of this shutdown Kabuki crap. Turning potential food insecurity into the stuff of political theater is obscene no matter who is doing it. This should not be happening. SNAP should not be thrown into the hazard this way.

Yet, nauseating though this sorry episode is, it is the game that the Democrats and Republicans are playing with this latest shutdown. It is a poker game, and the Democrats do not know if President Trump is bluffing when he says he can’t fund SNAP or not. They do not know how much funding the Trump Administration might be able to scrounge to keep SNAP going.

No, the Democrats and the Republicans should not be treating American voters as “leverage.” Not over SNAP, not over Obamacare, not over anything.

But if they are going to be dumb enough to use voters as “leverage”, they need to be smart enough not to openly admit to doing it.

Right now the Republicans are showing they understand that, and the Democrats are showing they do not.

That means the Republicans’ weak hand on the shutdown is very likely stronger than the Democrats even weaker hand, and that’s all the Republicans need to prevail in this shutdown.

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Which sets up perfectly the salient question regarding what could become the longest government shutdown ever: does either side know when to flinch?

Do the Democrats know how to find any sort of ending to the shutdown?

Do the Republicans know how to win gracefully, or how to avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?

The answer to both questions is “we do not know.” That’s not a good answer.

While most of America has so far been fairly unimpressed by the shutdown Kabuki playing out on Capitol Hill, the unavoidable reality is that, eventually, both parties must come together, pass either a continuing resolution or a full budget, and restore normal government functions. One side or the other, or even both, must flinch.

As the shutdown moves into its third week, there are few indications that either side has come to grips with that reality. There are no indications the Democrats understand that reality.

At present, neither side feels particularly compelled to move off its position and seek a negotiated compromise, which means neither side is going to negotiate.

And so the shutdown will drag on.

Does either side know when to flinch? Don’t bet on it.

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The Collateral Damage Is Widening

While Americans for the most part have yet to notice any immediate effect on their daily lives from the shutdown, we should not have any illusions that there is no collateral damage being inflicted.

As government operations are currently unfunded, government workers are going unpaid—including the ones still at work. Among those working without a paycheck: the nation’s air traffic controllers.

While many are still showing up for work, confident that they will be paid in full once Congress tires of their performative posturing, many are suddenly calling off their regularly scheduled shifts, producing staffing shortages at several airports and air traffic control facilities.

A total of 180 staffing shortages have been reported since the start of the government shutdown — up from 42 reported during the same dates last year.

The cause of the staffing problems is not immediately clear, but Transportation secretary Sean Duffy said last week some workers are taking unscheduled time off to protest not currently being paid for the time they are working while the government is closed.

It is not hard to fathom why workers were protest this way. No one enjoys the thought of working for free, and that is technically what government employees are doing at the moment.

How many staffing shortages among air traffic controllers can the country absorb before there is a major aviation safety incident? Will the budget battle result in a plane crash and hundreds of lives being lost? It certainly is a grim possibility.

Nor is aviation safety the only growing risk. The National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), responsible for overseeing America’s nuclear weapons stockpile, is having to furlough some 1,400 workers. The NNSA Office of Secure Transportation runs out of funding next week, on October 27.

Does this mean national defense could be compromised? Not really, although the process of shutting down nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly raises the possibility of a nuclear accident.

The government shutdown is also increasing food insecurity for a not-insubstantial number of people. Without a budget or even a “clean” continuing resolution, nutritional assistance programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) are currently not receiving fresh infusions of funds. Approximately 6 million low-income mothers and their children rely on WIC to ensure an adequate food budget each month, and all of them are effectively at increased risk of hunger because of the shutdown.

A week into the shutdown, President Trump redirected some $300 million in tariff funds into WIC, enough to keep most states funded through the end of October. With the end of October getting closer, however, whether Trump will be able to find additional funds to keep WIC going even longer remains a question.

A much larger food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is in much the same funding predicament. While the program has a $6 billion contingency fund it can utilize, with 42 million SNAP recipients, November’s cash requirements for SNAP could easily top $8 billion, meaning the program would run completely out of money sometime in November.

Several states have already started notifying SNAP recipients not to expect full benefits in November.

While the nation’s food pantries can absorb some of the need for food assistance, they will not be able to replace SNAP benefits completely.

Regardless of how one views government nutritional assistance programs, an abrupt discontinuity in benefits means at least some people are going to experience at least some food insecurity. The government shutdown is on the verge of literally taking food out of people’s mouths.

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Always The Other Party’s Fault

What is particularly disturbing about the looming disruption to WIC and SNAP is that both parties are fully aware of the funding dilemma, and its consequences.

We know both parties are aware of the problem, because both parties are only too happy to get on social media platforms such as X and virtue-signal about how horrible the other party is for putting the nation’s vulnerable at risk of hunger.

The Democrats are blaming the Republicans.

The Republicans are blaming the Democrats.

The Democrats even managed to turn President Trump’s decision to fund WIC with tariff funds into a reason for criticism.

“Since President Trump is now signaling he cares about the WIC program, he should finally get to the negotiating table to reopen the government,” said Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state. “And he should immediately disavow his budget request to significantly cut benefits for millions of moms and kids — and tell House Republicans to back off their proposed cuts as well.”

We must not forget that neither party was terribly interested in avoiding the shutdown. That has been painfully obvious all along.

Both parties were willing to shut the government down.

Both parties were willing to disrupt WIC and SNAP benefits by shutting the government down.

Both parties are not willing to admit they chose to disrupt WIC and SNAP benefits by shutting the government down.

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Not Flinching: Political Optics Matter Most

Both parties have already proven one thing: the shutdown standoff is driven primarily by political “optics.” Democrats are far more concerned with seeming to show strength and unity of purpose then they are with the harms done to various constituencies by the shutdown.

That the Democrats are chiefly concerned with appearances was a thesis highlighted recently by White House economic advisor Kevin Hasset.

Hassett said on CNBC that he has heard from the Senate that Democrats thought it would be “bad optics” to vote to reopen the government before this weekend’s massive nationwide “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump.

“Now there’s a shot that this week, things will come together, and very quickly,” Hassett said. “The moderate Democrats will move forward and get us an open government, at which point we could negotiate whatever policies they want to negotiate with regular order.”

We should note that CNN reported the Democrats’ stance on healthcare was a motivation for this past weekend’s “No Kings” protests. We should also note that Democrats have had for weeks an option before them to end the shutdown: a one-year extension on Obamacare subsidies due to expire at years end.

CNN reports that another cause for protest was healthcare—and in particular the ending of the enhanced premium subsidies that have sustained Obamacare in the past few years.

Left out of that reporting, however, is the reality that the GOP has proposed a one-year extension to those subsidies, only to have House Minority Leader derisively dismiss the idea as a “non-starter.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is pushing legislation to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expire on Jan. 1, through the end of 2026. The proposal has bipartisan support, and some political observers view it as a launching pad for securing a deal to reopen the government.

Jeffries, though, has other ideas, saying a one-year extension is “a non-starter.” He emphasized that President Trump and Republicans had adopted a permanent extension of tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest people earlier in the year. With that in mind, he’s demanding a similarly permanent extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies, which overwhelmingly help working class people.

The Democrats quite literally could have both ended the government shutdown and won a legitimate victory on Obamacare two weeks ago, and quite literally laughed it off.

Following Hassett’s line of reasoning, now that the “No Kings” protests are done, a primary reason for the Democrats’ intransigence has disappeared. Lacking a continuing reason for holding out, Democrats are likely to buckle soon, with enough defections to overcome the filibuster in the Senate and secure passage of the Republicans’ clean Continuing Resolution to temporarily fund the government.

Some in corporate media are unconvinced of this, and assess that Democrats will continue to be concerned about their image during the shutdown.

There are two very questionable assumptions Hassett articulated in his happy talk about an end to the shutdown. The first is that “Democratic moderates” will split with the rest of their party (presumably in the Senate, where a Democratic filibuster is the obstacle to a reopening vote) to give Donald Trump and the GOP exactly what they want. It’s true that three Democratic senators (John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, and Angus King) have from the get-go voted for the Republican measure funding the government at current levels until November 21. But it’s also true that not a single Democrat has joined them in nine subsequent Senate votes. In March, when ten Democrats did “cave” and vote to keep the government open, they were led across the line by Chuck Schumer, whose standing among grassroots Democrats took a severe pounding he is unlikely to ever forget.

Yet we should not assume that optics are important only to Democrats. Republicans, including President Trump, have made it clear that they do not want to be seen indulging the Democrats’ “extortion” by negotiating over the shutdown.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Democrat lawmakers’ shutdown strategy is extortion and Republicans will not give in to “this crazy plot of theirs.”

Trump’s comments came on day 20 of the government shutdown during a lunch with Republican senators in the Rose Garden Club, as Democrats have repeatedly opposed a stopgap continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government at the 2024 levels approved by then-President Joe Biden.

“I wanted to say from the beginning, our message has been very simple: We will not be extorted on this crazy plot of theirs. They’ve never done this before. Nobody has. You always vote for an extension,” Trump said.

“Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats need to vote for the clean, bipartisan CR and reopen our government. It’s got to be reopened right now,” he added.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune echoed that sentiment.

Everybody here has voted now 11 different times to open up the government, and we are going to keep voting to open up the government. And eventually, the Democrats, hopefully sooner or later, are going to come around.

Perversely, the one point of agreement between Democrats and Republicans is that their priority is not to be seen agreeing with each other. Negotiation itself becomes surrender and defeat.

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GOP At Least Preparing To Negotiate

While neither party is interested in negotiating over the shutdown at the moment, the Republicans are reportedly developing a negotiating position for when the Democrats do finally decide to negotiate. At a minimum, the GOP is fleshing out what sort of compromises they are willing to accept on Obamacare’s premium subsidies.

Key Republicans have floated a list of possible ways to curb the subsidies without eliminating them entirely when they expire on Dec. 31. Those include imposing an income cap for beneficiaries, forcing some individuals to pay a minimum out-of-pocket premium or grandfathering in current enrollees while cutting off new enrollment.

Indeed, even the Republicans’ “fiscal hawks,” such as Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Harris, concede they can accept some extension of the Obamacare subsidies, under the right circumstances.

They’re also hoping to shape how the deal moves through Congress. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview Monday that while leadership could move a health care package attached to a bundle of funding bills, he said he would prefer “a standalone bill.”

The spending bills, Harris said, “should be kept as clean as possible.” And he added that his support for the health care piece “depends on what the whole package is” and that he wants the ACA credits to be eventually sunsetted completely in any deal.

Eventually, such thinking goes, it will be time to negotiate and compromise with the Democrats. That time is not now, but presumably that time will come—not that the Republicans know (or much care) when that time will be.

Are there similar thoughts on the Democrat side of the aisle? None that have been reported in either corporate or alternative media. If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democrat leadership have thought beyond the shutdown, they have buried those thoughts deep and not disclosed them to anyone.

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Eventually, The Shutdown Must End

Left unspoken by everyone, including President Trump, is that the final outcome in every conceivable scenario is already known: the shutdown has to end.

If the government does not reopen, the government ceases to exist.

Nobody wants that, not even the people who are most okay with the government remaining shut down.

If the government is to reopen, there must be funding.

If there is to be funding, Democrat and Republican must actually agree on the funding.

Because the government must open, eventually there must be agreement between Democrats and Republicans, there must be funding, and the present standoff between Democrats and Republicans must end.

The only real question is the timing. When will the shutdown end? When will Democrat and Republican both decide to stop the posturing and pontificating and actually pass funding legislation?

The simplest ending is that the Senate Democrats pass the “clean" continuing resolution already passed by the House of Representatives. Only seven Democrats need cross over to vote with Republicans on cloture for this to happen. Chuck Schumer could even select seven Democrats to make the necessary votes while the rest of the Democrats howled “betrayal”—that would be a fitting end to the performative nonsense of this shutdown.

The ending which saves the greatest amount of face on both sides is that the Republicans agree to a one year extension on Obamacare premium subsidies. With the Freedom Caucus in the House already signalling they can live with that, that presents as a relatively low-cost compromise for Republicans to make. The House could pass that extension as a standalone bill before the Senate Democrats vote on cloture on the “clean” CR to fund the government, to show good faith on the matter.

The ending that is least likely to happen is the Democrats succeed in their quest to make the Obamacare subsidies permanent. There is no appetite for that in the Republican Party, and the Freedom Caucus in the House has already said the subsidies must sunset eventually. Speaker Mike Johnson needs Freedom Caucus votes to move legislation through the House, so what the Freedom Caucus says on this very likely carries the weight of the entire Republican caucus in the House.

It requires no great political insight or reading of Congressional tea leaves to see how this shutdown “fight” must end. Since it must end, it is a matter of simple logic and common sense to work out the various and most plausible ways in which it will end.

Unlike debates over Obamacare subsidies, there are no complicated issues at play. The government needs to be funded. There is a continuing resolution passed by the House to fund the government—a “clean” resolution without a lot of extra goodies tacked on, as even Democrats have implicitly acknowledged. This much is easily established by a plain reading of what both Republicans and Democrats have said. That makes passing the continuing resolution the easiest and most direct path to funding the government, albeit briefly.

The Democrats want to add a number of funding items to that continuing resolution—only one of which involves the Obamacare subsidies, we should note—funding that is in addition to maintaining the government funding for a period of weeks while the final budget bill for fiscal 2026 is cobbled together. The Republicans have signaled willingness to bend on Obamacare subsidies, but have used the rest of the Democrats’ wish list as talking points against the Democrats, which effectively ends the possibility of them being adopted alongside the continuing resolution.

The Republicans know all of this as well as the Democrats, and both sides are aware of what the shutdown is doing to government infrastructures deemed essential (and aviation safety and maintenance of the nuclear weapons stockpile do seem pretty essential infrastructures), as well as the impact of a funding loss for assistance programs such as WIC and SNAP. Both sides are willing to impose on the country the damage of having these infrastructures and programs compromised by lack of funding.

Both sides are sacrificing the well being of Americans for the sake of their political priorities. Whether those sacrifices are necessary and defensible is a conclusion I leave to the reader. What is indisputable is those sacrifices are being made, even though neither Democrats nor Republicans are willing to be honest enough to admit it.

The shutdown will end when Democrats and Republicans alike decide the performative Kabuki of the shutdown, and the intentional infliction of economic distress on various constituencies, has gone on long enough. At that point Democrats and Republicans will get together and fund the government along the lines of one of the scenarios outlined here.

The shutdown will end when one or both sides chooses to flinch.

Do either the Democrats and Republicans understand that? I doubt that very much.

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That is a welcome change from how Democrats have chosen to oppose the Trump Administration thus far.

Yet their conspicuous lack of messaging substance is itself a useful point of departure for assessing how political opposition should unfold in a constitutional republic. For every free and democratic society, it remains a given that there will be disagreements over politics as well as policy. How society digests those disagreements says much about the health of its politics and the sobriety of its policies.

We do well to remember that state and local opposition to federal authority is nearly as old as the Republic. In this regard, “No Kings” is merely the latest cycle of state and local vs national politics. Even the Democrat Rebellion is not without certain historical antecedents, over and above the obvious one of the American Civil War.

We do well also to note that states have in the past handled their defiance of federal authority with far greater principle and far greater fidelity to the Constitutional order than have the modern Democrats. The best example of this comes from 1830s South Carolina, home of the pivotal “Nullification Crisis”, a major turning point on this nation’s tragic path to the American Civil War.

Unlike South Carolina then, Democrats today are not championing Constitutional principles, but advocating Constitutional destruction.

Unlike South Carolina then, Democrats today seek to dismantle the Constitutional order, leaving nihilistic anarchy in its wake.

That difference is the difference between the political crisis of the 1830s and the Democrat Rebellion of today.

That difference is why the Democrats are not fighting President Trump, but the United States Constitution.

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The Nullification Crisis

The Nullification Crisis at one time was an essential teaching in high-school civics, and it remains a key object lesson in the dynamic tensions which both sustain and restrain Constitutional governance. With respect to the ongoing Democrat Rebellion and the “No Kings” rallies in particular, the Nullification Crisis also gives a practical measure by which we may measure the extent to which both are an abject political failure.

The Crisis erupted in 1832 in South Carolina1 as that state’s vehement opposition to the Tariff of 1828 (popularly known as the “Tariff of Abominations”)2 boiled over, leading the state to simply declare the tariff itself void.

The Tariff itself was a protective tariff which sought to protect the nascent northern industrial economy from external competition. For South Carolina and its primarily agrarian economy, that was a problem. The tariff’s clear pro-Northern bias was seen as an assault on South Carolina’s economy by a federal government that in theory was as obligated to preserve South Carolina’s economic interests as it was the North’s.

It is instructive for our purposes here to observe that the imposition of tariffs is indisputably a federal authority and prerogative, explicitly stated in the very first clause of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Congress is allowed to establish tariffs, and the states are not given a say in the matter. The states are explicitly enjoined from establishing their own tariff regimes in Article 1 Section 10.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it’s inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

On the surface it might seem that South Carolina did not have much of a legal leg to stand on. They might not have liked the Tariff of 1828, but Constitution delegates the power of the tariff to the Congress and denies it to the states.

Yet the Tariff of 1828 was an extreme tariff for its time, with some tariff rates approaching 49%. The tariff was not merely a revenue measure, nor was it even run-of-the-mill economic nativism. It was extreme economic protectionism, and at that protection of one part of the country at the expense of another.

The apparent regional bias of the Tariff caused great resentment in the South, and in South Carolina especially.

There was perhaps also a bit of sour grapes at work, for the Tariff of 1828 was largely the handiwork of southern Democrats led by Andrew Jackson. Jackson, aided by then-Senator (and later President) Martin Van Buren, manipulated a tariff bill through the Congress3 that was intended to be so extreme—so “abominable”—that the northern states would recoil at the tariffs placed on raw materials imports.

That plan backfired, as a sizable contingent of northern interests calculated that the long-term impacts of the tariff would be beneficial to the north’s growing industrial economy. As a result, that “abominable” tariff bill passed Congress in 1828 and was signed by President John Quincy Adams, and so the Tariff of 1828 (the “Tariff of Abominations”) became law.

Into this conflict waded America’s second greatest political thinker after Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun.

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Calhoun’s Theory Of State “Nullification”

Calhoun was the Vice-President under both President John Quincy Adams and his successor Andrew Jackson. Ironically, as Vice-President he had also been one of the players in crafting the Tariff’s extreme rates4.

When the tariff became law, and the extent of the Democrats miscalculation became clear, Calhoun began arguing strenuously against the tariff, developing a political theory of “nullification”, where states could “nullify” federal laws they considered to be unconstitutional.

While Calhoun acknowledged the power of the federal government to enact tariffs, in an essay first published anonymously, “South Carolina Exposition and Protest”5, he argued that the protectionist nature of the Tariff of 1828 exceeded the power allocated to the Congress.

The general government is one of specific powers, and it can rightfully exercise only the powers expressly granted, and those that may be “necessary and proper” to carry them into effect; all others being reserved expressly to the states, or to the people. It results necessarily, that those who claim to exercise a power under the constitution, are bound to shew, that it is expressly granted, or that it is necessary and proper, as a means to some of the granted powers. The advocates of the Tariff have offered no such proof. It is true, that the third section of the first article of the constitution of the United States authorizes Congress to lay and collect an impost duty, but it is granted as a tax power, for the sole purpose of revenue; a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties. The two are incompatable; for the prohibitory system must end in destroying the revenue from impost.

Having established a Constitutional argument against the legitimacy of the Tariff, Calhoun went on to recall Alexander Hamilton’s assessment of federalism under the Constitution in Federalist 516, and the imperative of not disfavoring minority interests to appease a majority.

There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view. First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Second. It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.

Calhoun found in Hamilton’s thesis an argument that the individual states within the United States remain the true sovereign entities, and arguably the final governmental authority.

Our system, then consists of two distinct and independent sovereignties. The general powers conferred on the general government, are subject to its sole and separate control, and the states cannot, without violating the constitution, interpose their authority to check, or in any manner counteract its movements, so long, as they are confined to its proper sphere; so also the peculiar and local powers, reserved to the states, are subject to their exclusive control, nor can the general government interfere with them, without on its part, also violating the constitution. In order to have a full and clear conception of our institutions, it will be proper to remark, that there is in our system a striking distinction between the government and the sovereign power. Whatever may be the true doctrine in regard to the sovereignty of the states individually, it is unquestionably clear that while the government of the union is vested in its legislative, executive and political departments, the actual sovereign power, resides in the several states, who created it, in their separate and distinct political character.

Accordingly, when states found federal action exceeding the Constitutional constraints placed upon federal action, they were endowed by their native sovereignty to resist—to “nullify”—federal law.

We should note that Calhoun’s thesis was less radical than it might first appear. At its core was the same premise Chief Justice John Marshall elucidated in 1803’s historic Marbury v Madison Supreme Court ruling7:

Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.

Marshall in turn channeled Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who promoted much the same arguments in the Kentucky8 and Virginia9 Resolutions in 1798.

In fact, one could argue—and I have argued—that Marshall’s defense of judicial review is a lineal antecedent to theories of nullification as a necessary check on federal power.

Thus, Calhoun argued, as the federal government exceeded its authority with the overprotective Tariff of 1828, South Carolina was within its prerogatives as a sovereign state to declare that Tariff unconstitutional and, therefore, void.

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The Ordinance Of Nullification And Andrew Jackson’s Brutal Response

Calhoun’s arguments resonated with South Carolinians, and as resentment and opposition to the Tariff of Abominations rose, a culmination was reached on November 24, 1832. Congress had attempted to defuse the crisis that summer by passing the Tariff of 1832, but that provided only token reductions in tariff rates.

South Carolina responded by holding a popular convention to enact the “Ordinance of Nullification.”10 Calhoun’s theories on state nullification were put to practical test.

And just like that, the Tariff of Abominations was deemed null and void within the state of South Carolina.

President Andrew Jackson was not at all impressed, not with his Vice-President’s cerebrations on state nullification and especially not with South Carolina’s “Ordinance of Nullification.” His response came swift and was unequivocal: On December 10, 1832, Jackson issued his blunt and brutal “Proclamation Regarding Nullification”11, where he flatly rejected the entire argument, making it clear that he was prepared to back up federal authority with federal force.

One week later, Jackson began making preparations to use federal troops to enforce the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832, and South Carolina began making preparations to resist.

On December 17, 1832, one week after issuing his proclamation, Jackson told Secretary of War Lewis Cass, “We must be prepared to act with promptness and crush the monster in its cradle before it matures to manhood. We must be prepared for the crisis.” At the same time, the new South Carolina governor, Robert Hayne, whose former Senate seat was now occupied by John C. Calhoun and who had resigned as Jackson’s vice president, was mobilizing men and arms to defend the state’s sovereignty.

Eventually, cooler heads would prevail. With other Southern states declining to support South Carolina’s nullification efforts, the state bowed to reality and rescinded the Ordinance of Nullification. At the same time, Senator Henry Clay brokered a compromise tariff, and the protectionist tariff rates were diluted for a time, temporarily diffusing the crisis.

Still, many consider the Nullification Crisis as a pivotal contest between state and federal authority which would explode a generation later into the bloodbath of the American Civil War, when Jackson’s threat of federal force against South Carolina’s assertion of state sovereignty became a grim reality instead of merely a hypothetical possibility.

One is certainly tempted to see within the Nullification Crisis echoes of themes we hear today in the Democrat Rebellion: we have the absurdity of Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago pretending to impose restrictions on federal agents in the discharge of their federal duties. We have Governor J. B. Pritzker of Illinois threatening to arrest and prosecute federal agents for carrying their federal duties. We have Gavin Newsom enacting laws purporting to regulate whether ICE agents may wear face masks to prevent doxxing.

Now in the Democrat Rebellion as during the Nullification Crisis, we have states asserting authority to effectively cancel federal government acts and policies.

Why, then, are the Democrats today guilty of rebellion, when the people of South Carolina were not in 1832?

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The Democrat Rebellion: No Debate And No Ideas

The principal distinction between South Carolina then and the Democratic Party today lies in how the Nullification Crisis unfolded. Without commenting on the merits and demerits of either side, the Nullification Crisis was, first and foremost, a debate.

South Carolina did not simply resort to violence when the Tariff of 1828 was passed. There was protest and there was dissatisfaction, but violence and force were not a first response, or even a reflexive response. Calhoun, as one of the state’s political luminaries, analyzed the situation and advanced a substantive argument in favor of South Carolina nullifying the tariff at least within the boundaries of South Carolina.

The threat of force emerged when both the federal government and South Carolina would not budge and would not back down from their respective positions.

Was Calhoun on to something with his theory of state nullification?

A great many staunch political conservatives today would argue otherwise, holding that the Civil War resolved all such ideas permanently through force of arms.

Advocates for states rights might argue that force of arms can never resolve such questions with finality. Full Disclosure: I would be one of those states rights advocates.

Yet for such questions to be resolved both sides have to put forward ideas. They have to put forward policies. They have to promote legislation to enact those policies and implement those ideas. South Carolina did all three.

When we look at the Democrat Rebellion today, what ideas have the Democrats put forward? What policies are they promoting? What legislation are they seeking to enact?

We do well to observe that Democrats’ lack of ideas or policies is what has left them straitjacketed during the current government shutdown.

The Democrats in Congress have not articulated a clear case for anything, allowing the Republicans in Congress to frame even the corporate media narratives, sapping the usual Democrat edge in the political gamesmanship of shutdown. They blunted what could have been a clear message on avoiding a potential economic shock when the Obamacare subsidies expire with a grab-bag of other policy preferences, including Medicaid expansions which would, among other things, fund healthcare for illegal aliens.

It should surprise no one that Republicans seized on the gift of those talking points and have made political hay with them.

In similar fashion, the “No Kings” protests articulate little of substance. They call President Trump a “King” but cannot articulate how he is behaving like a king.

Nor is that merely my opinion. A witness to Saturday’s “No Kings” protest in New York City made substantially the same observation.

Yet whenever I asked someone what they hated about Trump, the answer was almost always the same: “Everything!” This was true of men and women, young and old, black and white. When pressed, they would detail a list of personal qualities and moral failings. He was gross, vulgar, a rapist, disgusting, vile, fat, stupid, mentally deficient. No one seemed particularly fazed by tariffs or spending, though some signs denounced ICE as an agency and dispatching National Guard troops to cities.

Democrats call his willingness to dismantle the federal bureaucracy and aggressive enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws “authoritarian”, while ignoring both the Constitutional reality that enforcing the laws is a President’s sworn obligation and the electoral reality that both of these actions are part of President Trump’s Agenda 47 platform which propelled him back into the Oval Office.

Democrats object to President Trump deploying the National Guard into Washington DC and other cities to contend with both assaults on ICE and CBP agents in the performance of their duties and to the urban blight of rampant crime and lawlessness, yet have no ready alternative to combating crime and lawlessness in America’s cities.

Is sending National Guard troops into urban areas to combat crime an appropriate deployment of the Guard? One could make an argument that it is not. Indeed, even Calhoun argued that the federal government has no authority to intervene in areas of governance which are unambiguously within state and local jurisdictions.

Yet surely combating crime is an issue of concern for everybody, Democrats included. Nobody desires to live in an unsafe community. The Constitution, in Article 4 Section 4, even provides for federal intervention when “domestic violence” impedes the working of state government. A President taking a stand for law and order in American cities is part and parcel of the Constitutional order in this country, even if his methods of addressing the issue carry their own problems and Constitutional concerns.

While we can and should debate the wisdom of President Trump relying on the National Guard to root out crime in America’s cities, we cannot debate the need for somebody to root out crime in America’s cities. Any level of crime above “no crime” is too much crime by definition. If Democrats do not want Trump to use the National Guard to address crime, what do they propose as an alternative? Thus far, they have proposed nothing.

Similarly, we can debate the merits and demerits of a policy of aggressive immigration enforcement, to include raiding workplaces where illegal aliens are working—illegally, it should be noted—but we cannot deny that persons in this country illegally are subject to deportation, nor can we deny that the federal government has a legal obligation to deport every illegal alien it can.

What immigration reforms have the Democrats proposed as an alternative to Trump’s aggressive deportation policies. Thus far, they have proposed nothing.

Alas, such subtleties of thought are lost on today’s Democrats. Their argument against immigration enforcement, downsizing the federal bureaucracy, and the use of the National Guard is that these policies are championed by President Trump. That is the entire substance of their position.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is simply not an argument.

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The Democrat Rebellion Must Be Put Down

The First Amendment guarantees to every person in the United States an unfettered right to peaceably assemble and an equally unfettered right to petition for redress of grievances. These rights are no less significant than the considerably more popular rights of Free Speech and a Free Press.

To the extent that the “No Kings” rallies have been peaceable, they have been a celebration of this First Amendment principle and, on that basis, warrant a certain celebration.

If the Democrats confined their opposition to such rallies, we would not be talking about a Democrat Rebellion now. Unfortunately, as we have seen for many months, the Democrats have not confined their opposition to such rallies.

Instead of championing a reform of the nation’s immigration laws, the Democrats have used terroristic violence and intimidation to thwart enforcement of those laws. They have arrogated to Democrat states a power and authority over immigration that the Constitution explicitly denies them.

The Democrats’ insistence that the federal bureaucracy be considered sacrosanct flies in the face of the Constitutional order in which We The People are the final check on government power. Donald Trump was elected in part on a promise to rein in the federal bureaucracy, and Democrats do not get to impose their own veto on the clearly expressed will of the electorate who voted Trump into office.

The Democrats’ demands that President Trump allow crime to run unchecked in America’s cities is nothing short of a plea for anarchy. The Constitution is explicit that public safety is of paramount importance to the governing of the Republic, yet the Democrats would set public safety aside for the sake of their own political power. The Constitutional order rejects anarchy while the Democrats celebrate it.

The Democrats’ willingness to resort to violence when their messaging fails to persuade is proof positive that nihilistic anarchy is their ultimate objective. They do not want Constitutional governance, nor do they want a continuation of the Republic. They want power for themselves and for none other.

For the Democrats to get what they want, the United States Constitution must cease to exist. There is no third alternative on the table.

Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were peaceful, and for that we should be thankful. We should celebrate the right of all those who attended those protests to assemble peaceably, even when they are unable to articulate any actual grievances they wish redressed.

Yet Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were also very much the exception and not the rule. While Democrats as a party share the “No Kings” protests’ lack of coherent messaging, Democrats as a party remain committed to insurrection and rebellion. Saturday’s “No Kings” protests offered nothing to suggest that has changed.

Instead of debate and eventual compromise and accommodation, as happened even during the Nullification Crisis, the Democrats today demand total surrender. Lacking the voter base to support that demand, they substitute coercion and intimidation. They substitute insurrection and rebellion.

This must not stand. We The People must never accept the Democrats’ intended eradication of the Constitutional order.

The Democrat Rebellion must be put down.

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Happily, it turns out that was not the case.

Reading the disclaimer that Inequality Media Civil Action was asking prospective event attendees to sign, it seemed a not unreasonable extrapolation to conclude the Democrats were going to use the protests to foment further violence and insurrection in this country.

What else can one conclude from the disclaimer the principal organizer of the No Kings rally—Inequality Media Civic Action—has on their web page to RSVP for the event?

I hereby and forever release and discharge the Releasees from and against any and all costs, damages, and liability for death, injury to person, injury or damage to property, or other damages, costs, losses, or expenses of whatsoever nature, caused during or by reason of my participation in this event. I am 18 years of age or older. If I am a parent or guardian of an individual under 18 years of age, I make this agreement on behalf of myself and that individual.

Umm…..excuse me? Liability for death? Injury to people? Damage to property?

Would a reasonable person conclude from this language that the rally organizers are anticipating—even intending—that the rally become more than a little unhinged? Would a reasonable person conclude that the “No Kings” rally is, from start to finish, conceived as a violent uprising, which is to say a rebellion and an insurrection?

This reasonable person does conclude precisely that.

Extrapolations are inferences and, in this case, a prediction. Both can be proven wrong when hard data becomes available, and they were proven wrong here. While there was some rioting in Portland as well as Chicago—where 15 rioters were arrested at an ICE detention facility—by far the tenor of the protests was peaceful. I have seen no reporting in corporate media, alternative and independent media, or even social media to contest that assessment.

I said at the time I would be happy to be proven wrong. I am very happy to be proven wrong. Peaceable assembly is part and parcel of this country’s cherished traditions and is every bit as essential to a Free Society and a Free People as the moral imperative of Free Speech. These assemblies were peaceful, and I celebrate that.

I reject their message. I also reject the utility of these particular protests. By the day’s end, what was accomplished?

For Democrats, nothing at all.

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A Very Democrat Protest

While corporate media has almost reflexively billed the protests as a display of deep dissatisfaction within the broad American electorate with the policies of President Trump, the protest event sizes themselves tell a much different tale.

Even the protest locations illustrate that they were concentrated primarily in Democrat strongholds.

It is telling that the New York Times blanched at giving estimated turnout even for the New York City event, confining its estimates primarily to the overall national turnout, and emphasizing the large number of events instead.

CNN was similarly reluctant to go into specific even turnouts. They reported overall turnout of some 7 million, but gave few crowd estimates, although they did report the size of the New York City event at 100,000.

CBS was a little braver, giving some crowd estimates for a few large cities.

In Los Angeles, organizers said they expect 100,000 people to attend. Beyond New York and San Francisco, protests are scheduled in major cities such as Washington, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans, but also in small towns across all 50 states.

New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago are among the deepest blue cities in America. Large turnouts in Democrat strongholds signifies that Democrats are still rabidly anti-Trump—something that has been well known and even more well documented for over a decade.

With corporate media as of this writing having declined to provide turnout specifics for most major cities, we must look to an equally problematic information source—Elon Musk’s “Grok” AI engine on X—to get a state by state breakdown of turnout.

It is worth noting that Google’s Gemini AI engine gives similar size estimates.

The “No Kings” protests on October 18, 2025, involved over 2,500 events across all 50 states, with organizers estimating millions of attendees nationwide.¹

While a complete, independently verified, state-by-state breakdown of the total attendance for all events is not consistently available, organizers and news reports provided estimated numbers for major cities and some states, including:

• California (Various Locations):

  • Los Angeles: Over 200,000 protesters.²

  • San Francisco Bay Area: Over 140,000 total, with about 50,000 in San Francisco, over 10,000 in Oakland, and about 12,000 in San Jose.³

  • San Diego: About 60,000 people.

• Illinois (Chicago):⁴ An estimated 100,000 people.⁵

• Washington, D.C.: Around 200,000 protesters gathered near the White House.

• Oregon (Portland):⁶ Estimated 40,000 people.

• Arizona (Phoenix): Organizers estimated 20,000 people at the State Capitol rally.⁷

• Colorado (Denver): More than 10,000 people at the State Capitol.⁸

• Georgia (Atlanta):⁹ An estimated 10,000 people.

• Connecticut (Hartford):¹⁰ Approximately 9,000 to 10,000 people.¹¹

• Arkansas (Little Rock): Over 8,000 people.¹²

• Hawaii (Honolulu): Crowds of up to 7,000 at the State Capitol.

• Maine (Portland): Estimated 5,000-7,000 people.¹³

• Alabama (Mobile):¹⁴ An estimated 2,000 people.

• Alaska (Fairbanks): About 2,000 people.¹⁵

It’s important to note that these figures are often estimates provided by organizers or local media and may vary. Organizers stated they expected the nationwide turnout to surpass the similar demonstrations held in June.¹⁶

The accuracy of these estimates is unknown, but if we take them at face value for the sake of argument, what they show is that, nationwide, disparity in turnout between Democrat and Republican strongholds is not merely pronounced, it is overwhelming.

If the AI estimates are accurate, the turnout in Blue states vs Red states was roughly 8:1.

With the exception of Washington, DC, the Democrat margins of victory in states carried by Kamala Harris in last year’s election were not at all that pronounced.

Put simply, “No Kings” is exactly what Republicans have broadly claimed it to be: a Democrat political event. It confirms that Democrats are opposed to Donald Trump—a finding which is about as revelatory as proving conclusively that dihydrogen monoxide is wet.

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Why Protest?

While it is easy to ascertain the composition of the “No Kings” events, apprehending their agenda is far more problematic.

The corporate media reporting is that Democrats protesters oppose President Trump’s policies and agenda.

Energized by a slew of actions taken by the administration since the summer protests, the group cited widespread immigration detentions carried out by often-masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the administration’s aggressive slashing of federal education resources and environmental protections, gerrymandering and other concerns.

What corporate media overlooks is that these actions by President Trump are also campaign promises explicitly stated in his 2024 election platform “Agenda 47”.

“No Kings” is quite literally protesting an elected President delivering on campaign promises.

While Democrats have excoriated President Trump for using the National Guard and federal law enforcement to crack down on crime in Washington DC, we do well to note the Supreme Court has sustained his authority to federalize the National Guard, and, given the propensity of judges to give violent criminals a pass (such as recently happened to the two who savagely beat Edward “Big Balls” Coristine back in August), one has to marvel at Democrats dogged refusal to confront the issue of crime in America’s cities. Any level of crime above that of “no crime” is too high a crime level in any city.

CNN reports that another cause for protest was healthcare—and in particular the ending of the enhanced premium subsidies that have sustained Obamacare in the past few years.

Left out of that reporting, however, is the reality that the GOP has proposed a one-year extension to those subsidies, only to have House Minority Leader derisively dismiss the idea as a “non-starter.”

Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) is pushing legislation to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expire on Jan. 1, through the end of 2026. The proposal has bipartisan support, and some political observers view it as a launching pad for securing a deal to reopen the government.

Jeffries, though, has other ideas, saying a one-year extension is “a non-starter.” He emphasized that President Trump and Republicans had adopted a permanent extension of tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest people earlier in the year. With that in mind, he’s demanding a similarly permanent extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies, which overwhelmingly help working class people.

The Democrats quite literally could have both ended the government shutdown and won a legitimate victory on Obamacare two weeks ago, and quite literally laughed it off.

“No Kings” proved that Democrats are as opposed to Agenda 47 as they were in November of last year, when they lost the election.

The speakers at the various events, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, never got beyond vapid soundbite speechifying, leaving the goal of the protest more muddled than ever.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson asked if residents in his city were ready to “defend this democracy,” “fight fascism” and “destroy authoritarianism” before leading the crowd in a chant of “No Kings.”

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker took the stage to speak, telling the crowd, in part: “We are here today to defend the principle that has defined America since its founding: The belief that tyranny in any form must be resisted by the people of conscience – especially here in Chicago. We will never surrender.”

“Throughout history, we have learned that tyranny doesn’t arrive with dramatic proclamations: Most times, it comes quietly, wrapped in the language of law and order, with fingers pointed at someone who doesn’t look like you, promising safety while demanding we sacrifice our neighbors,” he continued.

Missing from any of the speeches was advocacy for any reform of the nation’s immigration laws, or concrete proposals on how to preserve Obamacare or extend the enhanced premium subsidies. The preference by far was to reflexively rely on the now-standard ad hominems for Trump, calling him “fascist”, “authoritarian", and a “dictator.”

That fascist authoritarian dictators are not known for allowing the political opposition to hold even small rallies was an irony completely lost on speaker and audience alike.

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No Rebellion, No Clue, No Point

The “No Kings” protests were peaceful. On that basis alone, we cannot lump them in with the Democrat Rebellion even in Chicago and Portland, where defiance of lawful federal authority has spilled over into actual violence.

Violence in an attempt to frustrate federal law enforcement is insurrection by definition and must be put down.

Rhetoric valorizing such violence and encouraging violent efforts to frustrate federal law enforcement is sedition and, as such, must be put down.

Peaceful protest, and peaceable assembly of any kind, is an expression of freedom guaranteed in this country by the First Amendment. We do not exaggerate to call these protests an expression of freedom.

Yet the protests still lacked a political point to be made, an agenda to be implemented, or even an issue to be highlighted.

Democrats are opposed to President Trump. We already knew that.

Democrats are opposed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. We already knew that.

Democrats are opposed to reforming Obamacare. We already knew that.

What are Democrats actually for? Yesterday, at least, they never said. Certainly Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the Congressional Democrats have to date never actually said.

Democrats have been willing to rebel and to incite rebellion for the sake of opposing President Trump’s willingness to enforce immigration laws. Democrats have been willing to rebel and to incite rebellion for the sake of President Trump’s willingness to trim the federal bureaucracy.

“No Kings” yesterday proved to be a peaceable assembly equally lacking in clear agenda and purpose.

Happily, there was no new Democrat Rebellion yesterday.

Sadly, and especially for Democrats, there was no clue either, about anything.

The entire effort was as pointless as the rest of Democrats’ anti-Trump activities have been thus far.

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What else are we to think when the organizers for this weekend’s “No Kings” rally are actively preparing for violence, bloodshed, and even a few casualties?

What else can one conclude from the disclaimer the principal organizer of the No Kings rally—Inequality Media Civic Action—has on their web page to RSVP for the event?

I hereby and forever release and discharge the Releasees from and against any and all costs, damages, and liability for death, injury to person, injury or damage to property, or other damages, costs, losses, or expenses of whatsoever nature, caused during or by reason of my participation in this event. I am 18 years of age or older. If I am a parent or guardian of an individual under 18 years of age, I make this agreement on behalf of myself and that individual.

Umm…..excuse me? Liability for death? Injury to people? Damage to property?

Would a reasonable person conclude from this language that the rally organizers are anticipating—even intending—that the rally become more than a little unhinged? Would a reasonable person conclude that the “No Kings” rally is, from start to finish, conceived as a violent uprising, which is to say a rebellion and an insurrection?

This reasonable person does conclude precisely that.

That Inequality Media Civic Action is a front organization for the Democratic Party is self-evidence just from the organization’s website. The organization proudly lists as co-founder the ever-diminutive Democrat dullard Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Of course, corporate media is ignoring Inequality Media Civic Action’s preparations for mass violence, choosing instead to play up the lofty rhetoric deployed by the organizers.

“The purpose here is to stand in solidarity, to organize, to defend our democracy and protect each other and our communities, and just say enough is enough,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group that is one of the protest organizers.

The irony of the Democrat rebels seeking to “protect communities” is positively epic. The insurrectionists are the ones escalating confrontations with ICE, CBP, the National Guard and federal law enforcement to bloodshed and violence.

The Democrat rebels are the ones attacking American communities, operating with impunity under the Antifa banner. They are the ones starting the fighting. ICE and CBP just happen to be the ones finishing it.

We do well to remember that the last “No Kings” rally in June was occasioned by planned violence, for which rally attendees came prepared.

The anti-Trump “No Kings” protest held on the grounds of the Texas Capitol continued long after the scheduled close as hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Austin. The protesters, some wearing dark clothing, helmets, face coverings, and gas masks, blocked traffic, taunted police, overturned garbage receptacles, and moved barricades into the downtown streets until finally being dispersed by authorities several hours later.

When people show up to a “peaceful” protest with helmets and gas masks, they are undeniably expecting, even planning, for things to get violent.

Planning for violence means “No Kings” once again will not be a protest. It will not be a rally, either for the Democratic Party or even against President Trump. It will not be a peaceable assembly pursuing redress of grievances.

It will be the latest act of insurrection and sedition in the ongoing Democrat Rebellion.

It will be an assault on the United States and on the United States Constitution.

That is all the Democrats have left to offer their party’s base: violence, anti-American hatred, and unconstitutional sedition.

That is what the Democrats have become: a party of rebellion.

It is, of course, always possible that the No Kings organizers, recognizing the folly of instigating violence, will keep the rallies peaceful and lawful. That would be a pleasant surprise, and I for one would be quite pleased to have been proven wrong about them.

I do not anticipate being proven wrong.

I anticipate this weekend will be another escalation in the ongoing Democrat Rebellion, another episode of anarchic violence that must not be tolerated even for a moment.

The Democrat Rebellion must be put down.

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When Josh Hawley sounded off over the FBI spying on US senators, Politico could only carp that he claimed the FBI “tapped” his phone, rather than “merely” logging who he called and for how long.

This was how Politico reported on Hawley’s remarks in committee:

Sen. Josh Hawley falsely claimed Tuesday that newly disclosed records revealed that the FBI “tapped” the phones of eight sitting U.S. senators during special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Hawley was describing an FBI document, publicly released Monday by Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley, that referenced a “preliminary toll analysis” of nine lawmakers. Grassley underscored that the records revealed a subset of calls made and received by those lawmakers and did not reveal the content of those calls — only the time and duration.

In other words, the FBI was taking careful notes about who Senator Hawley contacted, how often he was in communication with them, and how long the conversations were. Nothing authoritarian or corrupt about that at all!

Across the pond, the The Independent dismissed the surveillance as a “common investigative tactic.”

Pulling phone records is a common investigative tactic, and those “toll” records include what numbers were called and when and for how long. They do not include the contents of messages or conversations, which would require a court-approved wiretap.

Of course, the FBI using a “common investigative tactic” on someone means that the FBI is investigating that someone. No matter how the media wants to spin it, the FBI spied on Senator Hawley.

That is what one does when a person’s phone calls are under surveillance—one spies on that person.

The FBI spied on Republican Senators.

Why did the FBI spy on them? Politico declines to give an answer, although it gratuitously implies that it was because of J6.

It’s unclear why the FBI reviewed the phone records of the particular set of senators included on the list. Though some, like Hawley, were deeply engaged in efforts to block the certification of Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election, others appeared less involved.

The Independent was no more illuminating as to the catalyst for the surveillance.

It’s unclear why the FBI sought those records, but agents were pulling data from the days immediately before and after January 6, 2021, when Trump and his allies were scrambling to derail a joint session of Congress to formally certify Biden’s election.

What both Politico and The Independent left out was that Josh Hawley brought receipts that the FBI was doing much, much more than just noting who called whom.

Senator Josh Hawley: I’ve been listening closely in this hearing, and I’ve heard over and over from my Democrat colleagues concerns about targeting political enemies, and they’ve accused you of all manner of things and the current president.

I’ve also heard them said, and I just wrote it down because I wanted to be sure I heard it correctly. I’ve heard them say that Joe Biden never targeted his political enemies. Joe Biden never directed his attorney general to target his political opponents.

Huh.

That’s interesting because I could have sworn that yesterday we learned that the FBI tapped my phone. Let’s look at it.

We’ve got a list. Tapped my phone, tapped Lindsey Graham’s phone, tapped Marsha Blackburn’s phone, tapped five other phones of United States senators.

Gee, it sure looks like targeting political opponents to me, and yet I haven’t heard a word from that side of the dais about any concern whatsoever. We’ve got nothing but concerns today, but no concern at all for a Justice Department that is tapping the phones of sitting United States senators because who knows why?

They don’t like them.

They’re members of the opposition party.

They’re Republicans.

They’re conservatives.

You’ve seen this document, Attorney General Bondi. What was going on here? Who ordered this? Who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States senators?

Attorney General Pam Bondi: Senator Hawley, I cannot discuss the details of that right now for very good reasons.

Hawley: You’re going to do a thorough investigation into this, I trust. Is that correct?

Bondi: We will be looking at all aspects of this. And I have talked to director Patel at length.

Hawley: And you’re going to figure out who was involved in this, who signed off on it, who knew about it. You’re going to get to the bottom of all of it. Is it correct?

Bondi: Yes, and I’ve spoken to Director Patel about it, and he is committed to doing this.

Hawley: Well, I can tell you, we already know many of the details. We already know that this was ordered by the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who reported directly to the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland.

And we know that Jack Smith was on his witch hunt because he was directed to do so by the President of the United States, Joe Biden. Let’s just remember. Let’s take a walk down memory lane.

April 2nd, 2022, the New York Times. Garland faces growing pressure. The Times says as recently as late last year, that would have been 2021, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle he believed former President Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted. It goes on to say that Garland, that Biden rather, was frustrated with Garland and wanted him to take decisive action against Trump.

Here’s what we’re talking about. Trump, of course, was a private citizen at the time. So he appoints his own hitman, Jack Smith, who goes after the president, former president, who goes after members of this body.

You know, the thing about it, though, that really strikes me is, is that it didn’t stop with members of the United States Senate. It didn’t stop here at all. I mean, just as egregious, maybe more so than tapping the phones of U.S. senators, is this memo that I know you’ve seen before. Let’s just look at it again.

This is an FBI memo from the same time period, I might add, from the same time period, in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation attempts to recruit informants into Catholic parishes in this country. So here you have an administration that is activating the FBI against its political opponents and tapping the phones of United States senators.

Can I just say that again for my colleagues, for the benefit of my colleagues on the other side of the dais? Tapping the phones of United States senators. This isn’t hypothetical. This isn’t maybe what will you do in the future. This isn’t, oh gee, can we imagine the situation?

This happened. This happened. And this happened, the targeting of Catholics in this country because Joe Biden and his FBI didn’t like Catholics who went to a certain kind of mass. I mean, good God in heaven, what is happening to this country? What happened under Joe Biden?

Or then how about this? The infamous school board memo. Where Merrick Garland, at the direction of the White House, issued a memo activating the FBI’s counterterrorism division against parents who attended school board meetings and had the temerity to ask what their kids were being taught. And some of those parents were treated like this.

Let’s just remember. Let’s remember how parents were treated. Treated like this man. A parent at a school board meeting, I think in Virginia, who was drug out of the school board meeting. He’s bloodied there. You can see it.

And what was the response of Joe Biden’s DOJ and FBI? It was to issue a memorandum saying that people like this ought to be investigated by the counter-terrorism unit. And unbelievably, they were. They were.

Or how about this? Let’s remember Mark Houck and the pro-lifers who were prosecuted for what? For going to a clinic, an abortion clinic, and praying on a sidewalk outside an abortion clinic. This is Mark Houck and his beautiful family at Mass. This man, at the direction of Joe Biden’s FBI, this man had an FBI SWAT team come to his door in the early morning hours with his beautiful children there, terrorizing them with weapons drawn. He was then arrested and prosecuted. Fortunately, a jury acquitted him.

This is what was happening under Joe Biden. United States senators spied upon. Former presidents, the political opponents of the president at the time, targeted, prosecuted. Pro-lifers targeted, prosecuted. Catholics targeted, prosecuted. 92 conservative organizations put under surveillance targeted for potential prosecution. Gee, I don’t know, would you call that an example of weaponization, Attorney General Bondi? Do you think that’s a fair characterization?

As AG Bondi went on to respond, yes, what Hawley outlined was unequivocally the weaponization of the FBI, using the FBI for political persecution rather than criminal investigation.

The FBI spied on US Senators, and Josh Hawley gave chapter and verse.

The FBI spied on US citizens, and Josh Hawley gave chapter and verse.

The FBI spied on conservative organizations, and Josh Hawley gave chapter and verse.

The Democrats want to pretend that none of this happened.

Corporate media wants to pretend that none of this happened.

They both want you to believe that none of this happened.

Yet it happened.

It has been happening.

It has been happening at least since the start of “Russiagate” during President Trump’s first term, a hoax which in the end collapsed into a mud-puddle of fake news and conspiracy theories.

It has been happening, and corporate media has been a willing participant in it, aiding and abetting the FBI both during the Biden Administration and afterwards.

“Arctic Frost” is not the first evidence the Biden Administration turned the American criminal justice system on anyone the Biden Administration just didn’t like, for whatever reason. “Arctic Frost” is not the first evidence corporate media has tried to either cover up or gaslight the American people over.

“Arctic Frost” is merely the latest proof that the Biden Administration was the clear and unequivocal enemy of the American people.

Corporate media would rather you not know about that.

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is in open rebellion against the authorities of the United States. His own words prove this.

The Chicago Mayor operates under the delusion that he can order federal law enforcement agencies around at will.

It is instructive to note that said executive order, pulled straight from the Chicago City Clerk’s web site, offers no citation of legal authority as a foundation for the order. Probably because there is no legal authority.

Executive Order 2025 8

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Brandon Johnson is guilty of insurrection, and his mayoral administration is guilty of seditious conspiracy. The US Attorney General and the Department of Justice need to arrest him, indict him, prosecute him, and incarcerate him.

The Democrat Rebellion must be put down.

Starting Point

Earlier in the summer we witnessed insurrection unfold in California.

As that insurrection spread, it became clear that it was organized and instigated by the Democratic Party itself.

The Democrats are not protesting, however, they are rioting.

The Democrats are not peaceably assembling, they are engaging in insurrection and violence.

The Democrats are not speaking their minds, they are attacking people—law enforcement and ICE especially.

The Democrats are not petitioning for redress of grievances. They are not even articulating what policies they want for this country. Their rhetoric gets as far as “But…But…Trump! Orange Man Bad!” and goes no further.

Now in Chicago we have fresh evidence that the Democrats are in open rebellion against the authority of the United States government. The top brass of the Chicago Police Department (and apparently the Mayor’s Office as well) ordered rank and file police officers to refuse to help uniformed Federal law enforcement officers when they were ambushed and attacked.

Sanctuary city Chicago has reportedly ordered its police force to refuse calls for help from ICE agents who are under siege by increasingly violent protesters in support of criminal illegal aliens.

At the same time, Democrats around the country continue to encourage violence against ICE and CBP officers, resulting in open attacks on law enforcement in the performance of their duties.

We should commend the National Fraternal Order of Police for promptly condemning the City of Chicago for abandoning fellow law enforcement officers.

I will repeat what I said about the California Insurrection:

This is Democrat violence, and therefore this is a Democrat Insurrection. That is what is being promoted for this coming weekend: a Democrat-led attack on any semblance of law and order.

It needs to not happen. If it does happen governors in every state (including California) have a duty to the citizens of every state to put the insurrection down.

Let there be no misunderstanding. All of this has been catalyzed and set in motion by Democrats.

The Democrats have done this.

The Democrats own this.

The Democrats are the party of violence.

There is no defending this. Anyone who supports Governor J. B. Pritzker, or Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, or any of the violence against law enforcement officers doing their job, is clearly and unequivocally aiding and abetting open insurrection against the United States of America.

Anyone supporting this violence is participating in seditious conspiracy1 against the United States, and deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Violence is not Free Speech on America’s college campuses.

Violence was not Free Speech in California.

Violence is not Free Speech in Chicago.

Violence is not Free Speech anywhere.

Violence against the lawful authorities of the United States is by definition an act of war against the United States. It is by definition insurrection against the United States2.

The Democratic Party is at war with the United States, and must be dealt with accordingly.

The Democrat Rebellion must be put down.

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