01/29 -- US Fed holds interest rates despite White House pressure; Social Security Isn't a Retirement Account -- and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
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Thomas L. Knapp
Jan 29, 2026, 6:18:33 AM (13 days ago) Jan 29
to Freedom News Daily
Freedom News Daily, 01/29/26
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Today's Freedom News:
1) US Fed holds interest rates despite White House pressure
2) China’s Xi, UK’s Starmer agree to deepen economic ties
3) CBO: Feds spent nearly $500 million on domestic military occupations in 2025
4) GA: FBI searches Fulton County elections office
5) UK: First woman leader of the Church of England confirmed in ancient ceremony
6) Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
7) Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
8) Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
9) Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
10) Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
11) Study: Sleep timing could directly impact chances of heart attack or stroke
12) South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
13) India: Private plane crashes, killing politician and four others
14) Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push
15) UK: Starmer vows to push ahead with cuts to jury trials despite backlash
16) TikTok settles frivolous lawsuit ahead of trial
17) Philippines: Mayor unharmed after apparent RPG attack on car in broad daylight
18) North Korea: Kim says upcoming party congress will unveil plans to bolster nuclear deterrent
19) NASA plane skids down runway in dramatic Houston belly landing
20) Judge rules Virginia Democrats violated law with redistricting amendment
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Social Security Isn’t a Retirement Account — and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
22) The Real Reason Beef Costs More: Fewer Cows, Not Corporate Greed
23) Bigger government is enemy of liberty
24) Christian Nationalism and the Devil’s Bargain
25) We Have Been Here Before
26) On guns, everyone’s a hypocrite
27) The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us — and It’s Failing
28) Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity
29) Is This a Police State?
30) Goofy Wig and All
31) There’s Never Been a More Fitting Time for Democrats to Stop Funding ICE
32) Reform on the Move
33) What ICE’s Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
34) Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
35) Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
36) Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
37) Politicians Make Things Worse
38) Worse Than Lying
39) After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
40) Trump Is Broadening His Use of Economic Warfare
41) Minnesota CEOs Cry Crocodile Tears Over ICE
42) Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
43) We Can Have Unity or We Can Have Freedom. We Can’t Have Both.
44) The lawlessness of ICE is a betrayal of voters
45) A therapist’s warning: Trump didn’t break America — permanent outrage did
46) The Government’s Story About Alex Pretti Just Fell Apart — And They Know It
47) From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism Is Driving America’s Decline
48) Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE) and Data Centers
49) The civic future of America’s past
50) Come on, folks — use some common sense
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 01/28/26
52) The Political Orphanage, 01/28/26
53) Rising, 01/28/26
54) Reason Interview: JC Bradbury
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
56) TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
57) Underthrow Podcast, 01/28/26
58) The Next Level, 01/27/26
59) Nonzero, 01/27/26
60) Politics Politics Politics, 01/27/26
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) US Fed holds interest rates despite White House pressure
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The US Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates on Wednesday despite White House pressure to lower borrowing costs. The Fed said it will keep its key lending rate between 3.5% to 3.75%, stating that economic activity in the US ‘has been expanding at a solid pace.’ There are signs the employment market is stabilising – job creation is sluggish but the unemployment rate has ticked lower. Policymakers are continuing to monitor the effect on the economy of three interest cuts last year. … Two Fed officials voted in favour of an interest rate cut — Stephen Miran, who is on leave from his post at the White House where he leads Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Christopher Waller, a Trump appointee whose name has been floated as contender to succeed Powell.” (01/28/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wxedz9v22o
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2) China’s Xi, UK’s Starmer agree to deepen economic ties
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chinese President Xi Jinping have called for a closer strategic partnership as they met in Beijing during the first trip of its kind by a British leader in eight years. … Starmer’s trip is also overshadowed by London’s strained relationship with the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Their ties have been tested by Trump’s tariff war and his recent threats of annexing Greenland, much to the alarm of NATO members like the UK. Trump was angered by a similar visit this month to Beijing by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who also sought deeper economic ties with China.” (01/29/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/29/chinas-xi-jinping-uks-kier-starmer-agree-to-deepen-economic-ties
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3) CBO: Feds spent nearly $500 million on domestic military occupations in 2025
Source: United Press International
“Deploying National Guard and other military troops [to occupy] U.S. cities cost taxpayers nearly $500 million in the second half of 2025, the Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday. The cost breakdown includes the cost to activate, deploy and pay National Guard personnel; related operational, logistical and sustainment costs; and other direct and indirect costs of deploying National Guard and other military units, such as the U.S. Marine Corps, the CBO report shows. Since June, the CBO said the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to [occupy] the nation’s capital, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis and Portland, Ore.” (01/28/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/01/28/national-guard-military-costs/8801769639387/
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4) GA: FBI searches Fulton County elections office
Source: The Hill
“FBI agents on Wednesday executed a search warrant at the Fulton County, Ga., elections office south of Atlanta. Agents executed ‘a court authorized law enforcement action’ at the county’s main office in Union City, according to an FBI statement obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s cable partner. … Fulton County was a flash point between local prosecutors and President Trump following the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) indicted Trump on racketeering charges in 2023, alleging he and 18 others conspired to subvert former President Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia and keep Trump in office. … In December, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a complaint against Fulton County over information related to the 2020 election. The DOJ requested ‘all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County’ to investigate ‘compliance with federal law.'” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5710930-fbi-search-fulton-county/
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5) UK: First woman leader of the Church of England confirmed in ancient ceremony
Source: Reuters
“Sarah Mullally was officially confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to lead the Church of England as Archbishop of Canterbury in a traditional ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The vast cathedral was converted into a court of law for the ancient Confirmation of Election, a legal ceremony set within a church service marking the moment an archbishop-elect legally assumes office. Mullally, who will also serve as the spiritual head of 85 million Christians across 165 countries in the global Anglican Communion, took an oath of allegiance as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury before senior bishops acting as Royal Commissioners under the authority of King Charles. The British monarch has served as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England since Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/xL9rA
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6) Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
Source: US News & World Report
“A Ugandan court on Wednesday released on bail a prominent rights activist whose detention was seen by campaign groups as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent ahead of the country’s general election that was held on January 15. Sarah Bireete, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Governance, a Kampala-based pressure group, was detained on December 30 after questioning the accuracy of the voter register to be used in the poll. She was later charged with offences related to alleged unlawful disclosure of voters’ information. … Rights groups and the opposition have long accused his government of using the military to suppress dissent. The government denies those accusations.” (01/28/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-01-28/uganda-court-releases-prominent-rights-activist-on-bail
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7) Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
Source: New York Times
“The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved dangerous flight routes that allowed an Army helicopter to fly into the path of a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025, to calamitous results. … the investigating board also castigated the agency for not doing enough to respond to warnings about longtime risks to safety and found a complacent culture within the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport that relied too heavily on pilots in the airspace being able to see and steer clear of each others’ aircraft, a practice called visual separation. They also determined that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet involved in the crash, and altimeters that, unbeknown to the helicopter pilots, habitually gave faulty readings of altitude, also contributed to the tragic crash.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/PMkuO
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8) Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Hungarian prosecutors have charged Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony over his role in arranging last year’s gay pride march in the capital city, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people despite a ban. Prosecutors have ‘filed charges and seek a fine against the mayor of Budapest, who organised and led a public gathering despite a police ban,’ their office said in a statement announcing the case on Wednesday. … Since returning to power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been tightening his grip over the country and has targeted groups advocating for human rights. Orban’s conservative government has also pushed for legislation promoting traditional family values and steadily rolled back LGBTQ rights. In 2025, his Fidesz party amended laws and the constitution to ban the annual pride march, drawing protests from critics and the European Union.” (01/28/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/28/hungary-charges-budapest-mayor-for-allowing-banned-pride-march
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9) Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
Source: Politico
“The group behind the nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies. Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third ‘No Kings’ protest on March 28 is in response to a ‘secret police force terrorizing American communities.’ … Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its ‘Hands Off’ rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first ‘No Kings’ protest and 7 million for the second ‘No Kings’ demonstration in October. Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.” (01/28/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/28/no-kings-protest-march-00750265
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10) Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
Source: United Press International
“The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in the South American country after a federal immigration agent tried to enter its consulate in Minneapolis. Uncorroborated video of the incident shared online shows a consular employee confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to enter the facility. The employee stands in the doorway and tells the ICE agent that he is not allowed to enter. The ICE agent is heard telling the employee to ‘relax’ and threatens to ‘grab’ the employee if the agent is touched. … Law enforcement of the host country is generally prohibited from entering diplomatic missions of foreign nations, including consulates, except with the consent of the head of the mission, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 states.” (01/28/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/01/28/latam-ecuador-protests-ICE-Minneapolis-consulate/9821769579981/
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11) Study: Sleep timing could directly impact chances of heart attack or stroke
Source: Fox News
“Adults who consider themselves ‘night owls’ tend to score lower in cardiovascular health assessments and face a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. That’s according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which examined how a person’s chronotype — their natural tendency to be active in the morning or evening — is linked to overall heart health. The researchers looked at 14 years of UK Biobank data for around 300,000 adults averaging 57 years old, according to a press release for the study. … people who were more active in the evening (‘night owls’) had a 79% higher risk of poor cardiovascular health compared to the intermediate group, and a 16% higher risk of heart attack or stroke, the release stated. People who identified as being more active in the morning had slightly better heart health scores. The link was more pronounced in women than men.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/sleep-timing-could-directly-impact-chances-heart-attack-stroke-study-suggests
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12) South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
Source: Reuters
“A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to 20 months in jail on Wednesday for accepting Chanel bags and a diamond pendant from Unification Church officials in return for providing political favours. The wife of ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted from office last year, was cleared on other charges of stock price manipulation and violating the political funds act. Prosecutors will appeal against the not-guilty verdicts, media reports said. The ruling comes amid a series of trials stemming from investigations into Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law in 2024 and related scandals involving the once-powerful couple.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/xPb8O
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13) India: Private plane crashes, killing politician and four others
Source: New York Post
“A private plane carrying a deputy chief minister crashed in an open field in western India on Wednesday, killing the official and four other people on board, aviation authorities said. There were no survivors. The aircraft was en route from India’s financial capital of Mumbai to Ajit Pawar’s home city Baramati when it crash-landed and burst into flames some 159 miles from Mumbai. The reason for the crash was not immediately known. Television footage showed smoke rising from the wreckage. … Pawar was a key figure in state politics and served as the second highest elected official in Maharashtra as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling coalition in the state.” (01/28/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/28/world-news/india-politician-ajit-pawar-killed-in-private-plane-crash-with-4-others/
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14) Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push
Source: CNBC
“Amazon said Wednesday it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its second round of mass job cuts since last October. In a blog post, the company wrote that the layoffs were part of an ongoing effort to ‘strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.’ That coincides with a push to invest heavily in artificial intelligence. The job reductions come just a few months after October’s layoffs, when 14,000 employees were let go across Amazon’s corporate workforce. At the time, the company indicated the cuts would continue in 2026 as it found ‘additional places we can remove layers.'” (01/28/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/amazon-layoffs-anti-bureaucracy-ai.html
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15) UK: Starmer vows to push ahead with cuts to jury trials despite backlash
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the government is pushing ahead with plans to halve the number of jury trials in England and Wales because he had given his word to crime victims that he would tackle delays to justice. The government is facing a rebellion by Labour MPs over the proposals, which are aimed at cutting the huge backlog in cases that built up during the Covid pandemic. Opponents argue that judge-only trials for less serious cases would undermine public trust and have little impact on the backlog.” (01/28/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp87pl83nvko
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16) TikTok settles frivolous lawsuit ahead of trial
Source: The Hill
“TikTok has settled a lawsuit accusing it and several other social media companies of designing addictive platforms shortly before the landmark case headed to trial Tuesday, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs. It is the latest company to settle the case and avoid trial, after Snapchat’s parent company similarly reached a settlement last week. The trial will now go forward with the two remaining companies, Meta and YouTube. … The plaintiffs have accused the social media companies of deliberately designing their platforms to induce kids to use their products despite research linking social media to youth mental health issues. ” (01/27/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5708532-tiktok-lawsuit-avoided-trial/
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17) Philippines: Mayor unharmed after apparent RPG attack on car in broad daylight
Source: Fox News
“A Filipino mayor escaped unharmed after an apparent rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on his convoy in broad daylight Sunday in the southern province of Maguindanao del Sur, authorities said. The Philippine News Agency (PNA), the country’s state-run news outlet, reported that Mayor Akmad Ampatuan was inside a bulletproof vehicle when the attack occurred at around 6:30 a.m. … Police and military forces later killed three suspected attackers in a pursuit.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/philippine-mayor-unharmed-after-apparent-rpg-attack-car-broad-daylight
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18) North Korea: Kim says upcoming party congress will unveil plans to bolster nuclear deterrent
Source: Seattle Times
“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will unveil plans to further bolster its nuclear program at the upcoming ruling party congress, as he observed the North’s latest weapons launch, state media reported Wednesday. The Korean Central News Agency said North Korea performed a live-fire drill of an upgraded large-caliber multiple rocket launcher system in the presence of Kim on Tuesday, an apparent reference to what South Korea and Japan earlier described as ballistic missile launches from North Korea. State media photos show Kim walking near a huge launch truck with his teenage daughter in her latest public appearance with her father. South Korea’s spy service said in early 2024 it considered the girl, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, as her father’s likely heir.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/FwdYZ
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19) NASA plane skids down runway in dramatic Houston belly landing
Source: Houston Chronicle
“A NASA plane made a dramatic landing at Ellington Airport this morning—skidding across the runway on its belly, gears up. The incident occurred around 11:30 a.m. on Runway 17R-35L at Ellington Airport (EFD), Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for Houston Airports, said in a statement. First responders with a military subcontractor responded to the incident. … Video footage shows the aircraft sliding along the runway on its belly before coming to a full stop, as reported by KHOU 11. Additional footage shows the pilot climbing out of the plane’s cockpit with assistance from emergency responders.” (01/27/26)
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/nasa-plane-belly-landing-houston-21318239.php
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20) Judge rules Virginia Democrats violated law with redistricting amendment
Source: Washington Post
“A circuit court judge in rural Tazewell County has ruled against the redistricting effort started by Virginia Democrats, declaring that the process they used to create a proposed constitutional amendment is invalid. Democrats immediately pledged to appeal. With controlling majorities in the General Assembly, Democrats have pushed through a proposed amendment that would give lawmakers power to draw new congressional maps in time for this fall’s midterm elections. If passed by voters in a referendum scheduled for April 21, Democrats could create maps that give their party a 10-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, which is split between six Democrats and five Republicans. Democrats launched the effort in response to President Donald Trump’s encouraging of Republican states to create red-leaning districts to help the GOP retain control of the House of Representatives this fall.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/TDANk
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Social Security Isn’t a Retirement Account — and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
Source: The Daily Economy
by Romina Boccia
“Many Americans think Social Security works like a retirement account. In Cato polling conducted in August, about one in four said they believed they had a personal account within the system. That misconception didn’t arise by accident. Politicians routinely describe payroll taxes as ‘contributions,’ speak of a ‘trust fund’ as if it held real savings, and defend benefits as ‘earned.’ Social Security is not a savings program. It is a pay-as-you-go transfer system. Today’s workers’ payroll taxes fund today’s retirees’ benefits. There is no individual account accumulating a balance over time. Payroll taxes are taxes, neither deposits nor savings. Its early history makes that clear.” (01/28/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/social-security-isnt-a-retirement-account/
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22) The Real Reason Beef Costs More: Fewer Cows, Not Corporate Greed
Source: Reason
by Jack Nicastro
“It’s not corporate greed that’s driving up the price of beef at the grocery store; it’s the fact that it’s now much more expensive for meat-packers to buy beef from farms. This isn’t due to cattle farmers colluding to raise prices. There are simply fewer cows. The American beef inventory shrank from 30.9 million in January 2021 to 27.9 million in January 2025, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data. From January 2021 to January 2026, cattle and calves on feed for the U.S. slaughter market, the main indicator of the six-month supply of beef, declined by 500,000 head. This decrease is attributable to a combination of weather, disease, and reduced imports.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-beef-costs-more-fewer-cows-not-corporate-greed/
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23) Bigger government is enemy of liberty
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“There is no ‘right vs. left,’ no ‘conservative vs. liberal,’ no ‘Republican vs. Democrat.’ These labels are deliberate distractions — tools used by the true culprit to keep people confused, angry, and divided. The real conflict has always been simpler and more fundamental: the State against you and your liberty. Anyone who helps expand the State, either by giving it more wealth, providing an excuse to gain more power, or cheering its growth, is an enemy of individual liberty and human rights.” (01/28/26)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2026/01/28/voices/opinion-bigger-government-is-enemy-of-liberty/232636.html
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24) Christian Nationalism and the Devil’s Bargain
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles
“Christian nationalism is a political movement that seeks to blend its view of Christianity with government power. The objective is to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us through laws and policies. They believe the United States is — or should be — a Christian nation governed by those who subscribe to their religious orthodoxy. In the end, what Christian nationalists want is control. The pursuit of power as a means of control stands in direct opposition to Christ’s teachings.” (01/28/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/christian-nationalism-and-the-devils
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25) We Have Been Here Before
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Congress passes a law. States where the law is unpopular refuse to enforce it. The federal government hires hundreds of armed federal agents, sets then to enforcing the law. Chaos follows, the law is widely violated with the approval of many, including a state governor and prominent media figures. The time is the early Twentieth Century. The law is the Volstead Act, setting up federal enforcement of prohibition. … It is not a perfect parallel to the present situation. Prohibition was the result of a constitutional amendment, was ended by the repeal of that amendment. The present conflict was started by the election of a president with majorities in both houses of Congress who was determined to enforce existing law more energetically than in the past.” (01/28/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/we-have-been-here-before
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26) On guns, everyone’s a hypocrite
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Jonathan Zimmerman
“When Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, two of them fatally, at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — in self-defense, he said — Republicans made him into a hero. But when Alex Pretti showed up at an anti-ICE demonstration with a loaded handgun, Trump administration officials condemned him as a ‘would-be assassin’ and a ‘domestic terrorist.’ It’s outrageous. And hypocritical. Yet when it comes to guns, everyone’s a hypocrite right now. All of us are allowing the fatal shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis last week to alter our principles.” [editor’s note: Nope, not all of us – TLK] (01/28/26)
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/alex-pretti-ice-shooting-gun-ownership-hypocrisy-20260128.html
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27) The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us — and It’s Failing
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Mollie Engelhardt
“merica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy — it’s food.” (01/28/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-most-socialist-system-in-america-is-the-one-feeding-us-and-its-failing/
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28) Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz
“Whores are the authority on masculinity. If you want to understand hunger, you don’t ask a hungry person. You ask someone who sells food. Whores sell masculinity to men. We don’t put it like that, of course. We sell sex, nominally. Because sex is what masculine men are supposed to want. Sex and power and resources. But they’re not allowed to want anything else. It’s not masculine to want to be touched softly. It’s not masculine to want to feel important or loved or interesting or special or attractive. Feelings are for girls, unless the feeling is anger or lust. It’s the same with food, too. Or really anything else you want to sell. What you’re selling isn’t a product or service, ultimately. It’s a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s a dream. Look at advertising.” (01/28/26)
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/literal-prostitutes-dont-get-to-define
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29) Is This a Police State?
Source: Mother Jones
by David Corn
“If you deploy a paramilitary force to terrorize the public — which certainly was the goal of flooding ICE and CBP agents into the Twin Cities — you must support your thugs and back up the narrative that the people they brutalize and perhaps kill had it coming. You can’t enforce rules and regs for this force. That will reveal contradictions and undermine your Manichean tale of good (us) and evil (them). This is about power and decidedly not about the rule of law. The aim is to obliterate the rule of law. So are we now in a police state? Not quite.” (01/28/26)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/police-state-minneapolis-donald-trump-stephen-miller-alex-pretti-renee-good/
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30) Goofy Wig and All
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“‘Disguised and undercover,’ explains the O’Keefe Media Group article, ‘James O’Keefe embeds inside the World Economic Forum, slipping past armed security and exclusive guest lists to capture what the global climate elite say when they think no one is listening.’ The bad haircut? A goofy blond wig that Mr. O’Keefe (1984– ) donned to fool the European bigwigs (er, elites). He looked like Andy Warhol as a special guest on ‘Sprockets.’ What did this subterfuge accomplish? ‘Posing as an employee of a fictional climate engineering firm, O’Keefe and the OMG team are welcomed into late-night events, luxury hotels, and mountaintop forums where climate financiers openly discuss carbon taxes, geoengineering, and weather modification, commonly referred to as ‘chemtrails.’’ Yes, chemtrails!” (01/28/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/01/28/goofy-wig-and-all/
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31) There’s Never Been a More Fitting Time for Democrats to Stop Funding ICE
Source: In These Times
by Sonali Kolhatkar
“More Americans now support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than keeping it. A January 13, 2026 Economist/YouGov poll found that 46 percent want to eliminate ICE, compared to 43 percent who support preserving it. It’s a trend that’s been growing since ICE agents have been running rampant in U.S. cities during President Donald Trump’s second term. … Senators who believe in compassion and human rights have a unique opportunity to pull back the agency’s powers by refusing to back an appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives. That bill, according to the ACLU, ’would renew ICE’s excessive budget, with no strings attached, adding to the over $170 billion in taxpayer funds already allocated for immigration enforcement in July 2025.'” (01/28/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/democrats-stop-funding-ice-abolish-immigration-and-customs-enforcement
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32) Reform on the Move
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Harry Phibbs
“Like the United States, the United Kingdom has a first-past-the-post voting system. This tends to entrench a two-party system. It takes a lot for other rivals to break through. The resulting culture of complacency and entitlement by the main parties is certainly less than ideal. In the UK, politics has been dominated by the Conservative and Labour Parties for the last century. In 1922, Labour overtook the Liberal Party. By 1924, the Liberal Party’s support had collapsed. Our opinion polling suggests that just over a hundred years later, British politics is having another shake-up. An insurgent party called Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, a friend of Donald Trump’s, has a commanding lead in the polls, and has done so since the end of April last year.” (01/28/26)
https://fee.org/articles/reform-on-the-move/
-----
33) What ICE’s Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
Source: Common Dreams
by JM Berger
“In principle, extremists primarily seek to harm people who do not share their race, religion, or nationality. In practice, they often harm the very people they claim to serve and protect, people with whom they share some supposedly sacred demographic. Consider Minnesota, currently under siege by anti-immigrant extremists in the employ of the federal government, with ICE and CBP at the forefront. Immigrants have indisputably suffered the most from this program of harm, but we have seen a recent turn toward harming non-immigrants.” (01/28/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/extremism-ice-enforcement
-----
34) Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru
“You’re a government official and you have just learned that some of your employees have shot and killed a civilian. You don’t have all the facts, and there are discrepancies in the initial accounts. What do you do? For most of us, I presume, the answer is to call the victim’s family to express condolences and then to promise the public a full investigation followed by whatever consequences the results warrant. That’s how previous administrations, regardless of party, would have responded. But the Trump administration views such niceties as weakness. Looking weak, giving an inch to the critics, must be avoided at all costs. … If the administration were consciously pursuing a strategy optimized for producing confrontation rather than for bringing down the number of illegal immigrants, it would be proceeding just as it has been.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/M0Txu
-----
35) Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter
“Ted Cruz is reportedly planning on running for president. But which version? The Tea Party Republican senator who once called the Iraq war a mistake, tried to appeal to non-interventionist Ron Paul libertarians, questioned Barack Obama’s authority to strike Syria, warned against U.S. military adventurism, who was also once the favored alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary only to eventually capitulate to MAGA even after Trump insulted his wife? No. This Cruz will be neocon. But without calling it that, or even appearing to rebrand to Trump voters, while also, in actuality, rebranding.” (01/28/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ted-cruz-2028-primary/
-----
36) Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Graham Piro
“The chill in the air on Texas’[s] campuses isn’t just the winter storm sweeping the nation. The state’s public university systems have taken aim at faculty course materials that touch on the topics of race and gender, imposing a system of effective prior review that gives administrators carte blanche to excise course material they don’t like or think will pose political problems. At Texas A&M University alone, administrators have canceled or interfered with approximately 200 courses. Now faculty and students are fighting back.” (01/28/26)
https://www.thefire.org/news/fighting-back-against-texas-wave-censorship
-----
37) Politicians Make Things Worse
Source: Townhall
by John Stossel
“Home prices keep rising. One reason is that today’s houses are bigger. Buyers now want more rooms, washers and dryers and air-conditioning. But even if you adjust for the improvements, houses cost more today. Why? Politicians blame big companies like Blackstone, Invitation Homes and JPMorgan because they’ve been buying thousands of homes. … The opposite is true. The biggest reason for rising prices is intrusive government. Regulations now account for almost a quarter of the cost of a new home.” (01/28/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2026/01/28/politicians-make-things-worse-n2670182
-----
38) Worse Than Lying
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg
“In his seminal book On Bulls— (the actual title isn’t censored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for, and knowledge of, the truth. ‘It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bulls— requires no such conviction.’ What this administration does is worse than lying because they don’t care whether something is true or false, only whether it will be believed. The Trump White House is a bulls— distribution hub, that connects via tubes, canals, and sluices across the media landscape. Like some vast Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel powering the whole thing is a president who spent his life saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment to make a deal, get out of trouble, whatever.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/oeWex
-----
39) After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“It turns out that President Donald Trump can change direction when a high-profile enforcement effort staged for political impact instead causes blowback. While sending 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota was supposed to embarrass the state’s Democratic politicians and make them look impotent, it instead resulted in the deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti and further alienated a public already turning against hardline immigration policies. The shift is welcome, but the price in lives required to achieve it is too high. It’s also unlikely to bring us the far-reaching law enforcement reform we need.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/28/after-alex-prettis-death-the-administration-signals-a-shift-on-immigration-enforcement/
-----
40) Trump Is Broadening His Use of Economic Warfare
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider
“‘Tariffs,’ President Donald Trump is fond of reminding us, ‘is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.’ It’s the most beautiful word ‘because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our countries businesses back that left us.’ And that’s how it started. On ‘Liberation Day,’ on April 2, Trump announced a 10% minimum tariff on goods from all countries with some countries being hit with higher ‘reciprocal tariffs.’ ‘For decades,’ he explained, ‘our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’ But Trump’s use of tariffs and sanctions quickly broadened as a versatile tool for much more than returning business to America. First they became a blunt tool for regime change; then they became the go to tool for everything from foreign policy goals to election interference.” (01/28/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trump-is-broadening-his-use-of-economic-warfare
-----
41) Minnesota CEOs Cry Crocodile Tears Over ICE
Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish & David Dayen
“Executives who lobbied for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enabled the immigration terror in their state, now want everyone to believe they are on the people’s side.” (01/28/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/01/28/minnesota-ice-trump-ceo-big-beautiful-bill-alex-pretti/
-----
42) Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
Source: Antiwar.com
by William D Hartung & Tom Engelhardt
“Trump’s rush to war in Latin America is a phenomenon that, until recently, seemed long over. Its revival should raise multiple red flags, given the history of Washington’s failed efforts to install allied governments through regime change. (Can you spell Iraq?) In fact, given this country’s lack of success with such attempts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it’s a good bet that regime change in Venezuela will not end well for any of the parties concerned, whether the Trump administration, the new leaders of Venezuela, or the people of our two countries.” (01/28/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/william-d-hartung/2026/01/27/trumps-doubling-down-on-imperialism-in-latin-america-is-a-formula-for-decline
-----
43) We Can Have Unity or We Can Have Freedom. We Can’t Have Both.
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“The idea of political unity has long been a popular trope and slogan in politics. ‘He’s a uniter, not a divider’ is a sentiment that many American politicians like to cultivate about themselves. Over many centuries and across many jurisdictions we encounter the claim that unity is a political virtue, and that anything that ‘divides us’ must therefore be condemned. Some even label opposition to unity as a type of treason. So, it makes sense that political unity is often the language employed by those who seek to enhance and increase the power of the state.” (01/27/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-can-have-unity-or-we-can-have-freedom-we-cant-have-both
-----
44) The lawlessness of ICE is a betrayal of voters
Source: spiked
by Fraser Myers
“Voters want the law enforced, fairly and consistently. They want criminal elements removed from their communities. But when it appears, fairly or not, that agencies like ICE have themselves become sources of disorder or lawlessness, it is entirely understandable that public opinion will turn. The killings of two citizens have not been the only outrages. In Minnesota this past month, immigration officers have arrested a five-year-old child, and were filmed pepper spraying a man they had already detained. Last week, they wrongfully arrested a US citizen at gunpoint, searched his house without a warrant, and led him out on to the streets in his underwear, in sub-zero conditions. This aggressive, confrontational approach – by masked-up heavies – may appeal to the diehards, but it shocks ordinary folk who would otherwise support robust border control.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/q04Xy
-----
45) A therapist’s warning: Trump didn’t break America — permanent outrage did
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Alpert
“After my Wall Street Journal opinion piece, ‘Is ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ Real?’ was published, the response was immediate and intense. Some readers thanked me. Many were furious. I was accused of excusing Donald Trump, minimizing harm and betraying my profession. Some messages were hostile. A few crossed into threats. What struck me wasn’t the disagreement itself, but how quickly disagreement turned into fury. Simply questioning the idea was enough to set people off. That reaction stayed with me, because it reflected something I had already been seeing in my clinical work. Over the past decade, one psychological pattern has quietly become dominant in American life. It cuts across education, geography and socioeconomic status. I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our political era: a state of chronic political anxiety in which outrage becomes habitual and threat becomes the default lens.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/therapists-warning-trump-didnt-break-america-permanent-outrage-did
-----
46) The Government’s Story About Alex Pretti Just Fell Apart — And They Know It
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles
“When Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24, the Trump administration immediately launched into damage control mode. But instead of being honest about what happened, top officials — from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to FBI Director Kash Patel to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — did what every government does best: They told lie after lie to justify killing an American citizen. Video evidence, witness testimony, and investigative reporting have exposed these lies one by one. And the pattern is clear: these people will say anything to protect federal agents who kill civilians — whether it is true or false.” (01/27/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/the-trump-administrations-lies-about
-----
47) From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism Is Driving America’s Decline
Source: The UnPopulist
by Johan Norberg
“How do you create a golden age? In my book Peak Human, I tried to answer that question by examining seven exceptionally creative and innovative civilizations — ancient Athens, Rome, the Abbasid Caliphate, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic, and today’s Anglosphere. … In the United States, it is hard to escape the feeling that President Trump has read my book in reverse. He speaks of unleashing a new American golden age, but the way in which he is upending many of America’s greatest strengths seems designed to move the country straight toward its phase of decline and fall.” (01/27/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/from-athens-to-sparta-how-trumpism
-----
48) Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE) and Data Centers
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank
“Instead of placing new data centers on the existing regulated grid, we could match data centers with an independent CRE utility (CREU). Furthermore, if electricity demand for these data centers falls short of its sky-high projections, then the excess capacity will have been a poor investment. This protects ratepayers by putting private companies on the hook for that risk instead. There are benefits to data center developers as well.” (01/27/26)
https://showmeinstitute.org/article/energy/consumer-regulated-electricity-cre-and-data-centers/
-----
49) The civic future of America’s past
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by the editorial board
“Amid a fraught political environment, Americans are preparing to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States this year. It’s a timely opportunity for both honest self-reflection and potential unity – around a remarkable story of national achievement and a recognition of all that still needs doing to fully realize the country’s founding ideals. Two-thirds of Americans, the Pew Research Center reported this week, believe it is extremely or very important to publicly discuss historical strengths and successes – as well as flaws and failures. Yet, the nation still disagrees on how to tell its history.” (01/28/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0127/The-civic-future-of-America-s-past
-----
50) Come on, folks — use some common sense
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Several faith leaders are urgently calling for protecting the rights of worshippers while also expressing compassion for migrants. That’s after a group of anti-immigration enforcement protesters disrupted Sunday service at a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota. … the behavior of Walz, Ellison, Frey, or whoever (including the ‘protesters’ who invaded the meetinghouse), do not justify or demand more laws or calls for more government action ‘protecting the rights’ and ‘sanctity of our houses of worship.’ For one thing, we don’t need new laws – we need to get rid of most we have.” (01/27/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/01/27/come-on-folks-use-some-common-sense/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 01/28/26
Source: Parallax Views w/ JG Michael
“The Killing of Alex Pretti and the Siege at Ruby Ridge: Examining the Parallels w/ Jim Bovard.” (01/28/26)
https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/jbovard1-28-26/
-----
52) The Political Orphanage, 01/28/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“I Time Traveled to Talk to Medieval Yokels about Economics.” (01/28/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/i-time-traveled-to-talk-to-medieval-yokels-about-economics
-----
53) Rising, 01/28/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on what he believes as a Republican hypocrisy on the second Amendment and on gun rights after the [murder] of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, over the weekend.” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5710053-rising-january-28-2026/
-----
54) Reason Interview: JC Bradbury
Source: Reason
“The Real Reason You Pay for NFL Stadiums.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-you-pay-for-nfl-stadiums/
-----
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Advisers Quietly Turn on Stephen Miller as Brutal ICE Poll Hits.” (01/28/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/205788/trump-advisers-quietly-turn-stephen-miller-brutal-ice-poll-hits
-----
56) TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
Source: The American Conservative
“Trump’s Crisis in Minneapolis & Divorce from Europe.” (01/28/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/tac-right-now-trumps-crisis-in-minneapolis-divorce-from-europe/
-----
57) Underthrow Podcast, 01/28/26
Source: Underthrow
“Peace Propaganda: The Power of Story.” (01/28/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/peace-propaganda-the-power-of-story
-----
58) The Next Level, 01/27/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Lil’ Greg Bovino Sent Home; Tom Homan In.” (01/27/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-dlOE7u40
-----
59) Nonzero, 01/27/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The Case Against AI | Robert Wright, Emily Bender, and Alex Hanna.” (01/27/26)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69257
-----
60) Politics Politics Politics, 01/27/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“What We Know About the Minneapolis Fallout. Talking Canada, Carney, and Midterms (with Evan Scrimshaw).” (01/27/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/what-we-know-about-the-minneapolis
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Today's Freedom News:
1) US Fed holds interest rates despite White House pressure
2) China’s Xi, UK’s Starmer agree to deepen economic ties
3) CBO: Feds spent nearly $500 million on domestic military occupations in 2025
4) GA: FBI searches Fulton County elections office
5) UK: First woman leader of the Church of England confirmed in ancient ceremony
6) Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
7) Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
8) Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
9) Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
10) Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
11) Study: Sleep timing could directly impact chances of heart attack or stroke
12) South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
13) India: Private plane crashes, killing politician and four others
14) Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push
15) UK: Starmer vows to push ahead with cuts to jury trials despite backlash
16) TikTok settles frivolous lawsuit ahead of trial
17) Philippines: Mayor unharmed after apparent RPG attack on car in broad daylight
18) North Korea: Kim says upcoming party congress will unveil plans to bolster nuclear deterrent
19) NASA plane skids down runway in dramatic Houston belly landing
20) Judge rules Virginia Democrats violated law with redistricting amendment
Today's Freedom Commentary:
21) Social Security Isn’t a Retirement Account — and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
22) The Real Reason Beef Costs More: Fewer Cows, Not Corporate Greed
23) Bigger government is enemy of liberty
24) Christian Nationalism and the Devil’s Bargain
25) We Have Been Here Before
26) On guns, everyone’s a hypocrite
27) The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us — and It’s Failing
28) Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity
29) Is This a Police State?
30) Goofy Wig and All
31) There’s Never Been a More Fitting Time for Democrats to Stop Funding ICE
32) Reform on the Move
33) What ICE’s Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
34) Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
35) Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
36) Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
37) Politicians Make Things Worse
38) Worse Than Lying
39) After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
40) Trump Is Broadening His Use of Economic Warfare
41) Minnesota CEOs Cry Crocodile Tears Over ICE
42) Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
43) We Can Have Unity or We Can Have Freedom. We Can’t Have Both.
44) The lawlessness of ICE is a betrayal of voters
45) A therapist’s warning: Trump didn’t break America — permanent outrage did
46) The Government’s Story About Alex Pretti Just Fell Apart — And They Know It
47) From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism Is Driving America’s Decline
48) Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE) and Data Centers
49) The civic future of America’s past
50) Come on, folks — use some common sense
Today's Freedom Podcast and Video:
51) Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 01/28/26
52) The Political Orphanage, 01/28/26
53) Rising, 01/28/26
54) Reason Interview: JC Bradbury
55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
56) TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
57) Underthrow Podcast, 01/28/26
58) The Next Level, 01/27/26
59) Nonzero, 01/27/26
60) Politics Politics Politics, 01/27/26
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_____ Today's Freedom News _____
1) US Fed holds interest rates despite White House pressure
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“The US Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates on Wednesday despite White House pressure to lower borrowing costs. The Fed said it will keep its key lending rate between 3.5% to 3.75%, stating that economic activity in the US ‘has been expanding at a solid pace.’ There are signs the employment market is stabilising – job creation is sluggish but the unemployment rate has ticked lower. Policymakers are continuing to monitor the effect on the economy of three interest cuts last year. … Two Fed officials voted in favour of an interest rate cut — Stephen Miran, who is on leave from his post at the White House where he leads Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, and Christopher Waller, a Trump appointee whose name has been floated as contender to succeed Powell.” (01/28/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wxedz9v22o
-----
2) China’s Xi, UK’s Starmer agree to deepen economic ties
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chinese President Xi Jinping have called for a closer strategic partnership as they met in Beijing during the first trip of its kind by a British leader in eight years. … Starmer’s trip is also overshadowed by London’s strained relationship with the United States under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Their ties have been tested by Trump’s tariff war and his recent threats of annexing Greenland, much to the alarm of NATO members like the UK. Trump was angered by a similar visit this month to Beijing by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who also sought deeper economic ties with China.” (01/29/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/29/chinas-xi-jinping-uks-kier-starmer-agree-to-deepen-economic-ties
-----
3) CBO: Feds spent nearly $500 million on domestic military occupations in 2025
Source: United Press International
“Deploying National Guard and other military troops [to occupy] U.S. cities cost taxpayers nearly $500 million in the second half of 2025, the Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday. The cost breakdown includes the cost to activate, deploy and pay National Guard personnel; related operational, logistical and sustainment costs; and other direct and indirect costs of deploying National Guard and other military units, such as the U.S. Marine Corps, the CBO report shows. Since June, the CBO said the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to [occupy] the nation’s capital, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis and Portland, Ore.” (01/28/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/01/28/national-guard-military-costs/8801769639387/
-----
4) GA: FBI searches Fulton County elections office
Source: The Hill
“FBI agents on Wednesday executed a search warrant at the Fulton County, Ga., elections office south of Atlanta. Agents executed ‘a court authorized law enforcement action’ at the county’s main office in Union City, according to an FBI statement obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s cable partner. … Fulton County was a flash point between local prosecutors and President Trump following the 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) indicted Trump on racketeering charges in 2023, alleging he and 18 others conspired to subvert former President Biden’s 2020 election win in Georgia and keep Trump in office. … In December, the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a complaint against Fulton County over information related to the 2020 election. The DOJ requested ‘all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County’ to investigate ‘compliance with federal law.'” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5710930-fbi-search-fulton-county/
-----
5) UK: First woman leader of the Church of England confirmed in ancient ceremony
Source: Reuters
“Sarah Mullally was officially confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to lead the Church of England as Archbishop of Canterbury in a traditional ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The vast cathedral was converted into a court of law for the ancient Confirmation of Election, a legal ceremony set within a church service marking the moment an archbishop-elect legally assumes office. Mullally, who will also serve as the spiritual head of 85 million Christians across 165 countries in the global Anglican Communion, took an oath of allegiance as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury before senior bishops acting as Royal Commissioners under the authority of King Charles. The British monarch has served as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England since Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/xL9rA
-----
6) Uganda: Court Releases Prominent Rights Activist on Bail
Source: US News & World Report
“A Ugandan court on Wednesday released on bail a prominent rights activist whose detention was seen by campaign groups as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent ahead of the country’s general election that was held on January 15. Sarah Bireete, who heads the Centre for Constitutional Governance, a Kampala-based pressure group, was detained on December 30 after questioning the accuracy of the voter register to be used in the poll. She was later charged with offences related to alleged unlawful disclosure of voters’ information. … Rights groups and the opposition have long accused his government of using the military to suppress dissent. The government denies those accusations.” (01/28/26)
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-01-28/uganda-court-releases-prominent-rights-activist-on-bail
-----
7) Safety Board Blames FAA For Multiple Failures in DC Crash
Source: New York Times
“The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the Federal Aviation Administration had approved dangerous flight routes that allowed an Army helicopter to fly into the path of a passenger jet over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, 2025, to calamitous results. … the investigating board also castigated the agency for not doing enough to respond to warnings about longtime risks to safety and found a complacent culture within the air traffic control tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport that relied too heavily on pilots in the airspace being able to see and steer clear of each others’ aircraft, a practice called visual separation. They also determined that insufficient warnings from the air traffic controller to the pilots of the Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet involved in the crash, and altimeters that, unbeknown to the helicopter pilots, habitually gave faulty readings of altitude, also contributed to the tragic crash.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/PMkuO
-----
8) Hungary: Regime charges Budapest mayor for allowing banned pride march
Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“Hungarian prosecutors have charged Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony over his role in arranging last year’s gay pride march in the capital city, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people despite a ban. Prosecutors have ‘filed charges and seek a fine against the mayor of Budapest, who organised and led a public gathering despite a police ban,’ their office said in a statement announcing the case on Wednesday. … Since returning to power in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been tightening his grip over the country and has targeted groups advocating for human rights. Orban’s conservative government has also pushed for legislation promoting traditional family values and steadily rolled back LGBTQ rights. In 2025, his Fidesz party amended laws and the constitution to ban the annual pride march, drawing protests from critics and the European Union.” (01/28/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/28/hungary-charges-budapest-mayor-for-allowing-banned-pride-march
-----
9) Third “No Kings” US-wide protest planned for March
Source: Politico
“The group behind the nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests are planning their fourth demonstration of President Donald Trump’s second term — and are anticipating even greater turnout than their earlier rallies. Ezra Levin, a rally organizer and the co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, said in an interview that the planned third ‘No Kings’ protest on March 28 is in response to a ‘secret police force terrorizing American communities.’ … Indivisible estimated 3 million protesters turned out for its ‘Hands Off’ rally in April 2025, while 5 million showed up in June as part of the first ‘No Kings’ protest and 7 million for the second ‘No Kings’ demonstration in October. Organizers said they are aiming for nearly 9 million people to turn out in March.” (01/28/26)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/28/no-kings-protest-march-00750265
-----
10) Ecuador regime files protest after ICE gang tries to enter its consulate in Minneapolis
Source: United Press International
“The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in the South American country after a federal immigration agent tried to enter its consulate in Minneapolis. Uncorroborated video of the incident shared online shows a consular employee confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to enter the facility. The employee stands in the doorway and tells the ICE agent that he is not allowed to enter. The ICE agent is heard telling the employee to ‘relax’ and threatens to ‘grab’ the employee if the agent is touched. … Law enforcement of the host country is generally prohibited from entering diplomatic missions of foreign nations, including consulates, except with the consent of the head of the mission, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 states.” (01/28/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/01/28/latam-ecuador-protests-ICE-Minneapolis-consulate/9821769579981/
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11) Study: Sleep timing could directly impact chances of heart attack or stroke
Source: Fox News
“Adults who consider themselves ‘night owls’ tend to score lower in cardiovascular health assessments and face a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. That’s according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which examined how a person’s chronotype — their natural tendency to be active in the morning or evening — is linked to overall heart health. The researchers looked at 14 years of UK Biobank data for around 300,000 adults averaging 57 years old, according to a press release for the study. … people who were more active in the evening (‘night owls’) had a 79% higher risk of poor cardiovascular health compared to the intermediate group, and a 16% higher risk of heart attack or stroke, the release stated. People who identified as being more active in the morning had slightly better heart health scores. The link was more pronounced in women than men.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/health/sleep-timing-could-directly-impact-chances-heart-attack-stroke-study-suggests
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12) South Korea: Court jails former first lady for bribery
Source: Reuters
“A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to 20 months in jail on Wednesday for accepting Chanel bags and a diamond pendant from Unification Church officials in return for providing political favours. The wife of ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was ousted from office last year, was cleared on other charges of stock price manipulation and violating the political funds act. Prosecutors will appeal against the not-guilty verdicts, media reports said. The ruling comes amid a series of trials stemming from investigations into Yoon’s brief imposition of martial law in 2024 and related scandals involving the once-powerful couple.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/xPb8O
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13) India: Private plane crashes, killing politician and four others
Source: New York Post
“A private plane carrying a deputy chief minister crashed in an open field in western India on Wednesday, killing the official and four other people on board, aviation authorities said. There were no survivors. The aircraft was en route from India’s financial capital of Mumbai to Ajit Pawar’s home city Baramati when it crash-landed and burst into flames some 159 miles from Mumbai. The reason for the crash was not immediately known. Television footage showed smoke rising from the wreckage. … Pawar was a key figure in state politics and served as the second highest elected official in Maharashtra as part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling coalition in the state.” (01/28/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/01/28/world-news/india-politician-ajit-pawar-killed-in-private-plane-crash-with-4-others/
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14) Amazon laying off about 16,000 corporate workers in latest anti-bureaucracy push
Source: CNBC
“Amazon said Wednesday it plans to eliminate about 16,000 corporate jobs, marking its second round of mass job cuts since last October. In a blog post, the company wrote that the layoffs were part of an ongoing effort to ‘strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.’ That coincides with a push to invest heavily in artificial intelligence. The job reductions come just a few months after October’s layoffs, when 14,000 employees were let go across Amazon’s corporate workforce. At the time, the company indicated the cuts would continue in 2026 as it found ‘additional places we can remove layers.'” (01/28/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/amazon-layoffs-anti-bureaucracy-ai.html
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15) UK: Starmer vows to push ahead with cuts to jury trials despite backlash
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the government is pushing ahead with plans to halve the number of jury trials in England and Wales because he had given his word to crime victims that he would tackle delays to justice. The government is facing a rebellion by Labour MPs over the proposals, which are aimed at cutting the huge backlog in cases that built up during the Covid pandemic. Opponents argue that judge-only trials for less serious cases would undermine public trust and have little impact on the backlog.” (01/28/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp87pl83nvko
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16) TikTok settles frivolous lawsuit ahead of trial
Source: The Hill
“TikTok has settled a lawsuit accusing it and several other social media companies of designing addictive platforms shortly before the landmark case headed to trial Tuesday, according to an attorney for the plaintiffs. It is the latest company to settle the case and avoid trial, after Snapchat’s parent company similarly reached a settlement last week. The trial will now go forward with the two remaining companies, Meta and YouTube. … The plaintiffs have accused the social media companies of deliberately designing their platforms to induce kids to use their products despite research linking social media to youth mental health issues. ” (01/27/26)
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5708532-tiktok-lawsuit-avoided-trial/
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17) Philippines: Mayor unharmed after apparent RPG attack on car in broad daylight
Source: Fox News
“A Filipino mayor escaped unharmed after an apparent rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attack on his convoy in broad daylight Sunday in the southern province of Maguindanao del Sur, authorities said. The Philippine News Agency (PNA), the country’s state-run news outlet, reported that Mayor Akmad Ampatuan was inside a bulletproof vehicle when the attack occurred at around 6:30 a.m. … Police and military forces later killed three suspected attackers in a pursuit.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/world/philippine-mayor-unharmed-after-apparent-rpg-attack-car-broad-daylight
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18) North Korea: Kim says upcoming party congress will unveil plans to bolster nuclear deterrent
Source: Seattle Times
“North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country will unveil plans to further bolster its nuclear program at the upcoming ruling party congress, as he observed the North’s latest weapons launch, state media reported Wednesday. The Korean Central News Agency said North Korea performed a live-fire drill of an upgraded large-caliber multiple rocket launcher system in the presence of Kim on Tuesday, an apparent reference to what South Korea and Japan earlier described as ballistic missile launches from North Korea. State media photos show Kim walking near a huge launch truck with his teenage daughter in her latest public appearance with her father. South Korea’s spy service said in early 2024 it considered the girl, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, as her father’s likely heir.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/FwdYZ
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19) NASA plane skids down runway in dramatic Houston belly landing
Source: Houston Chronicle
“A NASA plane made a dramatic landing at Ellington Airport this morning—skidding across the runway on its belly, gears up. The incident occurred around 11:30 a.m. on Runway 17R-35L at Ellington Airport (EFD), Jim Szczesniak, director of aviation for Houston Airports, said in a statement. First responders with a military subcontractor responded to the incident. … Video footage shows the aircraft sliding along the runway on its belly before coming to a full stop, as reported by KHOU 11. Additional footage shows the pilot climbing out of the plane’s cockpit with assistance from emergency responders.” (01/27/26)
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/nasa-plane-belly-landing-houston-21318239.php
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20) Judge rules Virginia Democrats violated law with redistricting amendment
Source: Washington Post
“A circuit court judge in rural Tazewell County has ruled against the redistricting effort started by Virginia Democrats, declaring that the process they used to create a proposed constitutional amendment is invalid. Democrats immediately pledged to appeal. With controlling majorities in the General Assembly, Democrats have pushed through a proposed amendment that would give lawmakers power to draw new congressional maps in time for this fall’s midterm elections. If passed by voters in a referendum scheduled for April 21, Democrats could create maps that give their party a 10-1 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation, which is split between six Democrats and five Republicans. Democrats launched the effort in response to President Donald Trump’s encouraging of Republican states to create red-leaning districts to help the GOP retain control of the House of Representatives this fall.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/TDANk
_____ Today's Freedom Commentary _____
21) Social Security Isn’t a Retirement Account — and Congress Must Stop Pretending It Is
Source: The Daily Economy
by Romina Boccia
“Many Americans think Social Security works like a retirement account. In Cato polling conducted in August, about one in four said they believed they had a personal account within the system. That misconception didn’t arise by accident. Politicians routinely describe payroll taxes as ‘contributions,’ speak of a ‘trust fund’ as if it held real savings, and defend benefits as ‘earned.’ Social Security is not a savings program. It is a pay-as-you-go transfer system. Today’s workers’ payroll taxes fund today’s retirees’ benefits. There is no individual account accumulating a balance over time. Payroll taxes are taxes, neither deposits nor savings. Its early history makes that clear.” (01/28/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/social-security-isnt-a-retirement-account/
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22) The Real Reason Beef Costs More: Fewer Cows, Not Corporate Greed
Source: Reason
by Jack Nicastro
“It’s not corporate greed that’s driving up the price of beef at the grocery store; it’s the fact that it’s now much more expensive for meat-packers to buy beef from farms. This isn’t due to cattle farmers colluding to raise prices. There are simply fewer cows. The American beef inventory shrank from 30.9 million in January 2021 to 27.9 million in January 2025, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data. From January 2021 to January 2026, cattle and calves on feed for the U.S. slaughter market, the main indicator of the six-month supply of beef, declined by 500,000 head. This decrease is attributable to a combination of weather, disease, and reduced imports.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-beef-costs-more-fewer-cows-not-corporate-greed/
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23) Bigger government is enemy of liberty
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“There is no ‘right vs. left,’ no ‘conservative vs. liberal,’ no ‘Republican vs. Democrat.’ These labels are deliberate distractions — tools used by the true culprit to keep people confused, angry, and divided. The real conflict has always been simpler and more fundamental: the State against you and your liberty. Anyone who helps expand the State, either by giving it more wealth, providing an excuse to gain more power, or cheering its growth, is an enemy of individual liberty and human rights.” (01/28/26)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2026/01/28/voices/opinion-bigger-government-is-enemy-of-liberty/232636.html
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24) Christian Nationalism and the Devil’s Bargain
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles
“Christian nationalism is a political movement that seeks to blend its view of Christianity with government power. The objective is to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us through laws and policies. They believe the United States is — or should be — a Christian nation governed by those who subscribe to their religious orthodoxy. In the end, what Christian nationalists want is control. The pursuit of power as a means of control stands in direct opposition to Christ’s teachings.” (01/28/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/christian-nationalism-and-the-devils
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25) We Have Been Here Before
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Congress passes a law. States where the law is unpopular refuse to enforce it. The federal government hires hundreds of armed federal agents, sets then to enforcing the law. Chaos follows, the law is widely violated with the approval of many, including a state governor and prominent media figures. The time is the early Twentieth Century. The law is the Volstead Act, setting up federal enforcement of prohibition. … It is not a perfect parallel to the present situation. Prohibition was the result of a constitutional amendment, was ended by the repeal of that amendment. The present conflict was started by the election of a president with majorities in both houses of Congress who was determined to enforce existing law more energetically than in the past.” (01/28/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/we-have-been-here-before
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26) On guns, everyone’s a hypocrite
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Jonathan Zimmerman
“When Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people, two of them fatally, at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — in self-defense, he said — Republicans made him into a hero. But when Alex Pretti showed up at an anti-ICE demonstration with a loaded handgun, Trump administration officials condemned him as a ‘would-be assassin’ and a ‘domestic terrorist.’ It’s outrageous. And hypocritical. Yet when it comes to guns, everyone’s a hypocrite right now. All of us are allowing the fatal shooting of Pretti in Minneapolis last week to alter our principles.” [editor’s note: Nope, not all of us – TLK] (01/28/26)
https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/alex-pretti-ice-shooting-gun-ownership-hypocrisy-20260128.html
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27) The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us — and It’s Failing
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Mollie Engelhardt
“merica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy — it’s food.” (01/28/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-most-socialist-system-in-america-is-the-one-feeding-us-and-its-failing/
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28) Literal prostitutes don’t get to define masculinity
Source: Sex and the State
by Cathy Reisenwitz
“Whores are the authority on masculinity. If you want to understand hunger, you don’t ask a hungry person. You ask someone who sells food. Whores sell masculinity to men. We don’t put it like that, of course. We sell sex, nominally. Because sex is what masculine men are supposed to want. Sex and power and resources. But they’re not allowed to want anything else. It’s not masculine to want to be touched softly. It’s not masculine to want to feel important or loved or interesting or special or attractive. Feelings are for girls, unless the feeling is anger or lust. It’s the same with food, too. Or really anything else you want to sell. What you’re selling isn’t a product or service, ultimately. It’s a feeling. It’s an experience. It’s a dream. Look at advertising.” (01/28/26)
https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/literal-prostitutes-dont-get-to-define
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29) Is This a Police State?
Source: Mother Jones
by David Corn
“If you deploy a paramilitary force to terrorize the public — which certainly was the goal of flooding ICE and CBP agents into the Twin Cities — you must support your thugs and back up the narrative that the people they brutalize and perhaps kill had it coming. You can’t enforce rules and regs for this force. That will reveal contradictions and undermine your Manichean tale of good (us) and evil (them). This is about power and decidedly not about the rule of law. The aim is to obliterate the rule of law. So are we now in a police state? Not quite.” (01/28/26)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/police-state-minneapolis-donald-trump-stephen-miller-alex-pretti-renee-good/
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30) Goofy Wig and All
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“‘Disguised and undercover,’ explains the O’Keefe Media Group article, ‘James O’Keefe embeds inside the World Economic Forum, slipping past armed security and exclusive guest lists to capture what the global climate elite say when they think no one is listening.’ The bad haircut? A goofy blond wig that Mr. O’Keefe (1984– ) donned to fool the European bigwigs (er, elites). He looked like Andy Warhol as a special guest on ‘Sprockets.’ What did this subterfuge accomplish? ‘Posing as an employee of a fictional climate engineering firm, O’Keefe and the OMG team are welcomed into late-night events, luxury hotels, and mountaintop forums where climate financiers openly discuss carbon taxes, geoengineering, and weather modification, commonly referred to as ‘chemtrails.’’ Yes, chemtrails!” (01/28/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/01/28/goofy-wig-and-all/
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31) There’s Never Been a More Fitting Time for Democrats to Stop Funding ICE
Source: In These Times
by Sonali Kolhatkar
“More Americans now support abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than keeping it. A January 13, 2026 Economist/YouGov poll found that 46 percent want to eliminate ICE, compared to 43 percent who support preserving it. It’s a trend that’s been growing since ICE agents have been running rampant in U.S. cities during President Donald Trump’s second term. … Senators who believe in compassion and human rights have a unique opportunity to pull back the agency’s powers by refusing to back an appropriations bill passed by the House of Representatives. That bill, according to the ACLU, ’would renew ICE’s excessive budget, with no strings attached, adding to the over $170 billion in taxpayer funds already allocated for immigration enforcement in July 2025.'” (01/28/26)
https://inthesetimes.com/article/democrats-stop-funding-ice-abolish-immigration-and-customs-enforcement
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32) Reform on the Move
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Harry Phibbs
“Like the United States, the United Kingdom has a first-past-the-post voting system. This tends to entrench a two-party system. It takes a lot for other rivals to break through. The resulting culture of complacency and entitlement by the main parties is certainly less than ideal. In the UK, politics has been dominated by the Conservative and Labour Parties for the last century. In 1922, Labour overtook the Liberal Party. By 1924, the Liberal Party’s support had collapsed. Our opinion polling suggests that just over a hundred years later, British politics is having another shake-up. An insurgent party called Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, a friend of Donald Trump’s, has a commanding lead in the polls, and has done so since the end of April last year.” (01/28/26)
https://fee.org/articles/reform-on-the-move/
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33) What ICE’s Extremism in Minnesota Reveals
Source: Common Dreams
by JM Berger
“In principle, extremists primarily seek to harm people who do not share their race, religion, or nationality. In practice, they often harm the very people they claim to serve and protect, people with whom they share some supposedly sacred demographic. Consider Minnesota, currently under siege by anti-immigrant extremists in the employ of the federal government, with ICE and CBP at the forefront. Immigrants have indisputably suffered the most from this program of harm, but we have seen a recent turn toward harming non-immigrants.” (01/28/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/extremism-ice-enforcement
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34) Trump officials, Alex Pretti and the truth
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru
“You’re a government official and you have just learned that some of your employees have shot and killed a civilian. You don’t have all the facts, and there are discrepancies in the initial accounts. What do you do? For most of us, I presume, the answer is to call the victim’s family to express condolences and then to promise the public a full investigation followed by whatever consequences the results warrant. That’s how previous administrations, regardless of party, would have responded. But the Trump administration views such niceties as weakness. Looking weak, giving an inch to the critics, must be avoided at all costs. … If the administration were consciously pursuing a strategy optimized for producing confrontation rather than for bringing down the number of illegal immigrants, it would be proceeding just as it has been.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/M0Txu
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35) Ted Cruz’s anti-Tucker pose for 2028 is truly a Jurassic Park dud
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jack Hunter
“Ted Cruz is reportedly planning on running for president. But which version? The Tea Party Republican senator who once called the Iraq war a mistake, tried to appeal to non-interventionist Ron Paul libertarians, questioned Barack Obama’s authority to strike Syria, warned against U.S. military adventurism, who was also once the favored alternative to Donald Trump in the 2016 GOP presidential primary only to eventually capitulate to MAGA even after Trump insulted his wife? No. This Cruz will be neocon. But without calling it that, or even appearing to rebrand to Trump voters, while also, in actuality, rebranding.” (01/28/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ted-cruz-2028-primary/
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36) Fighting back against Texas’s wave of censorship
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Graham Piro
“The chill in the air on Texas’[s] campuses isn’t just the winter storm sweeping the nation. The state’s public university systems have taken aim at faculty course materials that touch on the topics of race and gender, imposing a system of effective prior review that gives administrators carte blanche to excise course material they don’t like or think will pose political problems. At Texas A&M University alone, administrators have canceled or interfered with approximately 200 courses. Now faculty and students are fighting back.” (01/28/26)
https://www.thefire.org/news/fighting-back-against-texas-wave-censorship
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37) Politicians Make Things Worse
Source: Townhall
by John Stossel
“Home prices keep rising. One reason is that today’s houses are bigger. Buyers now want more rooms, washers and dryers and air-conditioning. But even if you adjust for the improvements, houses cost more today. Why? Politicians blame big companies like Blackstone, Invitation Homes and JPMorgan because they’ve been buying thousands of homes. … The opposite is true. The biggest reason for rising prices is intrusive government. Regulations now account for almost a quarter of the cost of a new home.” (01/28/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2026/01/28/politicians-make-things-worse-n2670182
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38) Worse Than Lying
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg
“In his seminal book On Bulls— (the actual title isn’t censored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for, and knowledge of, the truth. ‘It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bulls— requires no such conviction.’ What this administration does is worse than lying because they don’t care whether something is true or false, only whether it will be believed. The Trump White House is a bulls— distribution hub, that connects via tubes, canals, and sluices across the media landscape. Like some vast Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel powering the whole thing is a president who spent his life saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment to make a deal, get out of trouble, whatever.” (01/28/26)
https://archive.is/oeWex
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39) After Alex Pretti’s Death, the Administration Signals a Shift on Immigration Enforcement
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille
“It turns out that President Donald Trump can change direction when a high-profile enforcement effort staged for political impact instead causes blowback. While sending 2,000 federal agents to Minnesota was supposed to embarrass the state’s Democratic politicians and make them look impotent, it instead resulted in the deaths of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti and further alienated a public already turning against hardline immigration policies. The shift is welcome, but the price in lives required to achieve it is too high. It’s also unlikely to bring us the far-reaching law enforcement reform we need.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/2026/01/28/after-alex-prettis-death-the-administration-signals-a-shift-on-immigration-enforcement/
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40) Trump Is Broadening His Use of Economic Warfare
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Ted Snider
“‘Tariffs,’ President Donald Trump is fond of reminding us, ‘is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary.’ It’s the most beautiful word ‘because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It’s going to bring our countries businesses back that left us.’ And that’s how it started. On ‘Liberation Day,’ on April 2, Trump announced a 10% minimum tariff on goods from all countries with some countries being hit with higher ‘reciprocal tariffs.’ ‘For decades,’ he explained, ‘our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.’ But Trump’s use of tariffs and sanctions quickly broadened as a versatile tool for much more than returning business to America. First they became a blunt tool for regime change; then they became the go to tool for everything from foreign policy goals to election interference.” (01/28/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trump-is-broadening-his-use-of-economic-warfare
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41) Minnesota CEOs Cry Crocodile Tears Over ICE
Source: The American Prospect
by Whitney Curry Wimbish & David Dayen
“Executives who lobbied for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which enabled the immigration terror in their state, now want everyone to believe they are on the people’s side.” (01/28/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/01/28/minnesota-ice-trump-ceo-big-beautiful-bill-alex-pretti/
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42) Trump’s Doubling Down on Imperialism in Latin America Is a Formula for Decline
Source: Antiwar.com
by William D Hartung & Tom Engelhardt
“Trump’s rush to war in Latin America is a phenomenon that, until recently, seemed long over. Its revival should raise multiple red flags, given the history of Washington’s failed efforts to install allied governments through regime change. (Can you spell Iraq?) In fact, given this country’s lack of success with such attempts since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it’s a good bet that regime change in Venezuela will not end well for any of the parties concerned, whether the Trump administration, the new leaders of Venezuela, or the people of our two countries.” (01/28/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/william-d-hartung/2026/01/27/trumps-doubling-down-on-imperialism-in-latin-america-is-a-formula-for-decline
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43) We Can Have Unity or We Can Have Freedom. We Can’t Have Both.
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“The idea of political unity has long been a popular trope and slogan in politics. ‘He’s a uniter, not a divider’ is a sentiment that many American politicians like to cultivate about themselves. Over many centuries and across many jurisdictions we encounter the claim that unity is a political virtue, and that anything that ‘divides us’ must therefore be condemned. Some even label opposition to unity as a type of treason. So, it makes sense that political unity is often the language employed by those who seek to enhance and increase the power of the state.” (01/27/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/we-can-have-unity-or-we-can-have-freedom-we-cant-have-both
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44) The lawlessness of ICE is a betrayal of voters
Source: spiked
by Fraser Myers
“Voters want the law enforced, fairly and consistently. They want criminal elements removed from their communities. But when it appears, fairly or not, that agencies like ICE have themselves become sources of disorder or lawlessness, it is entirely understandable that public opinion will turn. The killings of two citizens have not been the only outrages. In Minnesota this past month, immigration officers have arrested a five-year-old child, and were filmed pepper spraying a man they had already detained. Last week, they wrongfully arrested a US citizen at gunpoint, searched his house without a warrant, and led him out on to the streets in his underwear, in sub-zero conditions. This aggressive, confrontational approach – by masked-up heavies – may appeal to the diehards, but it shocks ordinary folk who would otherwise support robust border control.” (01/27/26)
https://archive.is/q04Xy
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45) A therapist’s warning: Trump didn’t break America — permanent outrage did
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Alpert
“After my Wall Street Journal opinion piece, ‘Is ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ Real?’ was published, the response was immediate and intense. Some readers thanked me. Many were furious. I was accused of excusing Donald Trump, minimizing harm and betraying my profession. Some messages were hostile. A few crossed into threats. What struck me wasn’t the disagreement itself, but how quickly disagreement turned into fury. Simply questioning the idea was enough to set people off. That reaction stayed with me, because it reflected something I had already been seeing in my clinical work. Over the past decade, one psychological pattern has quietly become dominant in American life. It cuts across education, geography and socioeconomic status. I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our political era: a state of chronic political anxiety in which outrage becomes habitual and threat becomes the default lens.” (01/28/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/therapists-warning-trump-didnt-break-america-permanent-outrage-did
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46) The Government’s Story About Alex Pretti Just Fell Apart — And They Know It
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles
“When Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on January 24, the Trump administration immediately launched into damage control mode. But instead of being honest about what happened, top officials — from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to FBI Director Kash Patel to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller — did what every government does best: They told lie after lie to justify killing an American citizen. Video evidence, witness testimony, and investigative reporting have exposed these lies one by one. And the pattern is clear: these people will say anything to protect federal agents who kill civilians — whether it is true or false.” (01/27/26)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/the-trump-administrations-lies-about
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47) From Athens to Sparta: How Trumpism Is Driving America’s Decline
Source: The UnPopulist
by Johan Norberg
“How do you create a golden age? In my book Peak Human, I tried to answer that question by examining seven exceptionally creative and innovative civilizations — ancient Athens, Rome, the Abbasid Caliphate, Song China, Renaissance Italy, the Dutch Republic, and today’s Anglosphere. … In the United States, it is hard to escape the feeling that President Trump has read my book in reverse. He speaks of unleashing a new American golden age, but the way in which he is upending many of America’s greatest strengths seems designed to move the country straight toward its phase of decline and fall.” (01/27/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/from-athens-to-sparta-how-trumpism
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48) Consumer-Regulated Electricity (CRE) and Data Centers
Source: Show-Me Institute
by Avery Frank
“Instead of placing new data centers on the existing regulated grid, we could match data centers with an independent CRE utility (CREU). Furthermore, if electricity demand for these data centers falls short of its sky-high projections, then the excess capacity will have been a poor investment. This protects ratepayers by putting private companies on the hook for that risk instead. There are benefits to data center developers as well.” (01/27/26)
https://showmeinstitute.org/article/energy/consumer-regulated-electricity-cre-and-data-centers/
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49) The civic future of America’s past
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by the editorial board
“Amid a fraught political environment, Americans are preparing to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States this year. It’s a timely opportunity for both honest self-reflection and potential unity – around a remarkable story of national achievement and a recognition of all that still needs doing to fully realize the country’s founding ideals. Two-thirds of Americans, the Pew Research Center reported this week, believe it is extremely or very important to publicly discuss historical strengths and successes – as well as flaws and failures. Yet, the nation still disagrees on how to tell its history.” (01/28/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0127/The-civic-future-of-America-s-past
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50) Come on, folks — use some common sense
Source: The Price of Liberty
by Nathan Barton
“Several faith leaders are urgently calling for protecting the rights of worshippers while also expressing compassion for migrants. That’s after a group of anti-immigration enforcement protesters disrupted Sunday service at a Southern Baptist church in St. Paul, Minnesota. … the behavior of Walz, Ellison, Frey, or whoever (including the ‘protesters’ who invaded the meetinghouse), do not justify or demand more laws or calls for more government action ‘protecting the rights’ and ‘sanctity of our houses of worship.’ For one thing, we don’t need new laws – we need to get rid of most we have.” (01/27/26)
https://thepriceofliberty.org/2026/01/27/come-on-folks-use-some-common-sense/
_____ Today's Freedom Podcast and Video _____
51) Parallax Views w/ JG Michael, 01/28/26
Source: Parallax Views w/ JG Michael
“The Killing of Alex Pretti and the Siege at Ruby Ridge: Examining the Parallels w/ Jim Bovard.” (01/28/26)
https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/jbovard1-28-26/
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52) The Political Orphanage, 01/28/26
Source: The Political Orphanage
“I Time Traveled to Talk to Medieval Yokels about Economics.” (01/28/26)
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/i-time-traveled-to-talk-to-medieval-yokels-about-economics
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53) Rising, 01/28/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave delivers radar on what he believes as a Republican hypocrisy on the second Amendment and on gun rights after the [murder] of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, over the weekend.” (01/28/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5710053-rising-january-28-2026/
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54) Reason Interview: JC Bradbury
Source: Reason
“The Real Reason You Pay for NFL Stadiums.” (01/28/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/01/28/the-real-reason-you-pay-for-nfl-stadiums/
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55) The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 01/28/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Advisers Quietly Turn on Stephen Miller as Brutal ICE Poll Hits.” (01/28/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/205788/trump-advisers-quietly-turn-stephen-miller-brutal-ice-poll-hits
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56) TAC Right Now, 01/28/26
Source: The American Conservative
“Trump’s Crisis in Minneapolis & Divorce from Europe.” (01/28/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/tac-right-now-trumps-crisis-in-minneapolis-divorce-from-europe/
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57) Underthrow Podcast, 01/28/26
Source: Underthrow
“Peace Propaganda: The Power of Story.” (01/28/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/peace-propaganda-the-power-of-story
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58) The Next Level, 01/27/26
Source: The Bulwark
“Lil’ Greg Bovino Sent Home; Tom Homan In.” (01/27/26)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2-dlOE7u40
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59) Nonzero, 01/27/26
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“The Case Against AI | Robert Wright, Emily Bender, and Alex Hanna.” (01/27/26)
https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/69257
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60) Politics Politics Politics, 01/27/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“What We Know About the Minneapolis Fallout. Talking Canada, Carney, and Midterms (with Evan Scrimshaw).” (01/27/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/what-we-know-about-the-minneapolis
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