Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s Jacksonian Foreign Policy [With a Twist]

By The Daily Signal

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

This content was recorded by Victor Davis Hanson prior to his Dec. 30 medical operation.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. In the past, I’ve characterized as, Walter Russell Mead, most famously [said], that Trump’s foreign policy is neither interventionist, surely not nation building, nor is it isolationist, as the Left accuses. It was something called Jacksonian. That is, “no better friend, no worse enemy.” “Don’t tread on me.”

At various times if people took advantage of the United States’ desire to live in peace, and they started to push their luck, then we would hit them, overwhelmingly. Sort of what we saw with the two Americans that were tragically killed in Syria. Then there was an overwhelming retaliation.

But I think there’s a quirk to Jacksonianism, a subset. And I would call the Trump Foreign Policy, the Vise Policy. V-I-S-E. Like a vise, that you clamp down on something. By that, I mean, rather than intervene or even use kinetic force, he has another alternative when he sees a renegade country.

Most famously, we saw Iran, that when he came into office, the first thing he did was get back out of the Iran Deal, put back the sanctions, support Israel’s effort to retaliate against Iran.

Although he did take out the nuclear facilities, that was an act that he felt he had no choice, because Iran was reaching a point where they’d have a nuclear weapon. But up until then, he had almost bankrupt, again, by squeezing the Iran economy at no cost to the United States.

We see that much better with Venezuela and the rogue Maduro government. The illegitimate government, that throughout the last elections, in which [Nicolas] Maduro lost, and has been sending shiploads of narcotics to the United States.

It’s using embargoed oil tankers to sell sanctioned oil to Cuba, to China, and, more or less, opened up its jails and mental institutions and sent thousands of people, in spite, to the United States.

So, Trump is now reestablishing the Monroe Doctrine. Remember, Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Monroe Doctrine was pretty much ossified, calcified. Trump has reinstated it. But with a vise policy.

So, sanctions on Maduro. He’s not going to have any income through narco sales. We’re blowing up narco terrorist shipments on the high seas.

He uses that money to bribe officers, bribe the media, bribe the opposition, to stay in power illegitimately. And then, in addition to that, he’ll have no oil income. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. So, he has a limitless supply of credit and cash. But not if he can’t get it to somewhere.

And, in the Western hemisphere, Trump is showing the world that he just almost automatically reestablished the Monroe Doctrine. What is China going to do? They may say they have a blue-water Navy. They may say they’re catching up. But they’re not there yet. And they have no ability to transmit power, in the Western hemisphere, among our shores.

So, Maduro is in a vise. And we’re squeezing it down, at no cost to us. Is Trump going to invade? I doubt it. Is he going to bomb? I doubt it. I think he’s just slowly going to intimidate Maduro so people within the Venezuelan hierarchy, both legitimate opponents and opportunistic supporters, who feel that he’s a bad investment. And they will throw him out.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since this commentary was recorded, President Donald Trump did launch a military operation to seize Nicolas Maduro so he could face criminal charges in the United States. What assistance the U.S. had from “legitimate opponents and opportunistic supporters” within Venezuela has not been made known.

The same thing is true of Cuba. We didn’t really know how to deal with Cuba. Since 1959, we’ve had embargoes. Sometimes they’re liquid. Sometimes they’re fluid. They don’t really work. But, more or less, the Castro-ite government in Cuba is an existential enemy of the United States.

We have a lot of people who go there and visit. But the country has never worked. It’s impoverished. And it’s dependent wholly on the legacy of Hugo Chavez and now Maduro, to give them cheap oil. If they don’t get cheap oil, and what do I mean by that?

If Maduro cannot put embargoed oil on sanctioned tankers and get to Cuba, then Cuba’s going to have no ability to distill gasoline, nor will it have energy. And that’s exactly what is happening. The Cuban economy is in a Trump vise.

Are we going to bomb Cuba? No. Are we going to have a Bay of Pigs standoff or invasion? No. Are we going to have a Cuban missile crisis with China? No. We’re going to have a Trump vise. And it’s going to squeeze.

Does this work all the time? No. I mean, it doesn’t work in the case of a full-fledged war, like the Ukraine War or the Middle East, sometimes.

But with other powers in our vicinity or that we have leverage over, we’re going to start to squeeze them, to bring back legitimate government, pro-American governments, and stability for the entire Western hemisphere. And most importantly, a chance for their citizenry to have a normal life.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson, a senior contributor for The Daily Signal, is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and host of “The Victor Davis Hanson Show.” His website, The Blade of Perseus, features columns, lectures, and exclusive content for subscribers. Contact him at authorvdh@gmail.com. VDH on X: @VDHanson.

U.S. Already Has Wide Berth in Greenland without Possession, Say Experts

By Family Research Council

Fresh from the successful capture of Venezuelan dictator and wanted drug smuggler Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has ramped up rhetoric hinting at a possible takeover of Greenland, which is raising alarm among conservatives and NATO allies. Experts say that the U.S. can continue to take advantage of the vast autonomous territory’s natural resources and strategic military locations without wresting away ownership from Denmark.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the Trump administration is exploring a range of options to acquire Greenland, going so far as to say that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option.” President Trump also contended that “we need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.” The president’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller added that the U.S. “should have Greenland as part of the United States,” but declined to say if it should be acquired through military force.

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill were quick to throw cold water on the idea of a military operation to obtain the territory. “No, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) remarked. Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) bluntly dismissed the idea, stating, “This is a topic that should be dropped.”

A number of the U.S.’s NATO allies, including Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the U.K. quickly issued a statement in response to the idea of a military takeover, stating, “Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.” Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen urged the U.S. to proceed with a “respectful dialogue” on the matter.

Greenland, the world’s largest island, has long been considered to be of great strategic importance to the U.S. from a military perspective due to its relative proximity in the Arctic region, missile defense, the ability to control naval shipping routes and chokepoints, and to counter the growing presence of Russia and China in the region. It is also home to vast amounts of untapped rare earth mineral deposits and oil underneath its ice sheet.

Military experts like Brigadier General (Ret.) John Teichert, who formerly served as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary for the Air Force for International Affairs, argue that existing agreements between the U.S. and Denmark already give the U.S. broad leeway in how to utilize the island.

“[W]e get all or almost all of the benefits from Greenland by the partnership we currently have with Greenland and Denmark,” he explained during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday. “There are economic benefits, there are security benefits, there are diplomatic benefits. And we have a very robust series of mechanisms to allow for collaboration in Greenland, including a U.S. Air Force or Space Force base that we utilize regularly. And I don’t know why now we are threatening, implicitly or explicitly, our friend and our partner in Denmark and Greenland to try to bargain better and get those benefits that were already receiving from that territory.”

As Teichert went on to detail, the partnership is rooted in a Cold War agreement the U.S. signed with Denmark in 1951, which allows America to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases virtually anywhere on the island, including the ability to “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”

“[T]hose mechanisms for collaboration can allow us mutual benefit from the territory by working alongside of our Danish and our Greenlander partners,” the general pointed out. “I reflect back on the U.S. Space Force base that’s already there, the agreement that allows space situational awareness, missile defense, Arctic defense. And I have no doubt that if we ask Denmark and Greenland for an economic collaboration on critical minerals or oil or another base or a series of bases, then we could easily get to yes on that without again threatening our friends and our partners.”

Greenland’s immense mineral and metal deposits will almost certainly prove to be vitally important to the U.S. going forward, since they are used extensively in everything from military fighter jets and electric motors to rechargeable batteries and magnets for electronic devices and vehicles. As highlighted by National Review, harnessing more mineral production will be critical if the U.S. hopes to compete with China. “China now has 70 percent of global rare-earth mining inside its borders, 85 to 90 percent of mineral refining, and more than 90 percent of magnet production,” the outlet noted.

“[T]here are a lot of critical minerals, rare earth metals, and oil that [are] there in the territory,” Teichert observed. “But we have economic agreements with Greenland and Denmark that can allow us the benefit of exploring and exploiting those minerals, metals, and that oil. And there’s no reason why we need to own it to benefit from it. And I think that we could very easily, without threats, pursue opportunities for added collaboration to benefit economically like we already are, but maybe even a larger extent without the threats that we’ve seen in the last few days.”

As Teichert went on to postulate, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s planned meeting with Danish officials next week could go a long way in smoothing things over with America’s European allies.

“I really hope … that they come to some conclusions about the mutual benefit of how we can work together to use Greenland alongside of Denmark and our NATO partners,” he emphasized. “… [T]he president loves the negotiating tactic of keeping all options on the table. And in general, when working against adversaries, that’s wise. You don’t want the adversary to know what you’re not going to do because it simplifies their strategic calculus.”

“But the trust that’s ingrained in this large network of allies and partners allows us to benefit massively and mutually,” he insisted. “And the problem with threats is that we can’t explore the benefits, because now you don’t have the trust that cements the nations together. And I fear that [the] comment[s] from the [administration] [could have] a chilling effect on … the benefits that we get from a close relationship with NATO and allies and partners.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Lawmakers Unveil Blueprint to Balance Budget, Execute Trump Agenda

By The Daily Signal

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL — The Republican Study Committee released a comprehensive blueprint Wednesday for how the 189-member conservative caucus plans to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda while balancing the federal budget within 10 years.

“It is our fiscal responsibility to not only deliver a balanced budget, but get the federal government out of the way to strengthen the economy so families, small businesses, seniors, and farmers can thrive,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal.

In keeping with decades of tradition, the RSC offered its budget proposal early in the year to provide a roadmap for Congress. The plan includes proposals for codifying Trump’s birthright citizenship order, defunding sanctuary cities, and eliminating wasteful spending on NPR, PBS, and DEI programs.

Despite years of profligate spending during the Biden administration, the proposal manages to cut enough federal largesse to balance the budget in a decade—a long-stated goal of conservatives.

In keeping with Trump’s promise, it does not raise the Social Security retirement age or cut benefits.

“The RSC budget reins in Washington’s out-of-control spending and eliminates waste, fraud, and abuse across all levels of the federal government,” said Van Duyne, who chairs the RSC’s Budget and Spending Task Force. “We are returning to pre-pandemic levels of spending, advancing pro-growth tax policies, slashing regulatory burdens, and unleashing American energy.”

Budget Blueprint

The RSC is the House GOP’s largest caucus, and each year since 1995 it has released its own budget blueprint. This year, it was Van Duyne’s responsibility to collaborate with dozens of other RSC members to prepare the 115-page proposal (see the full document below).

The budget arrives as Republicans saw their margin of control in the U.S. House shrink from 220 to 218 with the death of Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., and resignation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. Democrats control 213 seats; there are four vacancies.

Republicans gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to hear from Trump and plot their agenda for 2026. They’ve faced fervent opposition from congressional Democrats, leading to the longest government shutdown in history and setting up another showdown over government spending this month.

Despite those challenges, the RSC helped deliver the votes for the historic reconciliation legislation passed in 2025 that delivered $1.9 trillion in spending reductions and tax relief for American families. The caucus now hopes to build on that success with its latest proposal.

“At its core, the RSC budget is a fundamental rejection of the excessive government spending and regulatory overreach that characterized the Biden Administration’s approach to government,” reads the budget’s introduction.

Immigration and Border Security

The RSC Budget strongly backs Trump’s border security initiatives, which have driven illegal border crossings to new lows. Under the Biden administration, approximately 10,000 unvetted migrants entered the U.S. illegally every day at the southern border. That number dropped to an average of less than 150 per day in 2025.

The proposal funds border wall construction with multiple barrier systems, deploying advanced detection technologies, and substantially expanding the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement through hiring bonuses and retention incentives.

Other immigration-related provision include codifying Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, defunding sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE, expanding interior enforcement and deportations, providing federal grants to border communities, and establishing a State Border Security Reinforcement Fund to offset costs related to illegal immigration.

The RSC also lists 25 bill and policies its members support, including the Laken Riley Act, which was introduced by RSC member Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., and became law in January 2025. It requires ICE to detain illegal immigrants who commit theft-related crimes.

Wasteful Spending

The proposal takes aim at what conservatives often consider unnecessary government expenditures.

The RSC budget eliminates all federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

It repeals statutory authorizations for every diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program and office across the federal government, building on Trump’s executive actions to end what the budget calls “radical and wasteful government DEI programs.”

The budget eliminates RAISE Grants (formerly TIGER Grants from the Obama era), the Thriving Communities Initiative stemming from Biden’s Justice40 initiative, and federal funding for high-speed rail projects like California’s troubled high-speed rail system.

The proposal eliminates the Interagency Council on Homelessness and reduces funding for the Community Development Block Grant program and rental assistance programs, restructuring them into state formula grants with work requirements for able-bodied adults.

Entitlement Reforms

The budget includes proposals to curtail the ever-increasing spending on entitlement programs, such as undoing Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions, which lead to the federal government’s spending more on able-bodied Medicaid recipients than on the original population Medicaid was designed for.

Additionally, the budget proposes cost-saving reforms to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), such as more strictly enforcing work requirements in the program that are often circumvented and ignored by states.

The budget’s section on Medicare proposes eliminating wasteful spending by cracking down on up-coding, a process by which private providers inflate diagnoses and exaggerate patients’ health risks in order to extract more funding from the federal government.

The budget also calls for completely eliminating the estate tax, commonly called the “death tax,” which the RSC argues particularly harms family farms and small businesses.

National Security

The RSC proposes a balancing act when it comes to defense spending—dramatically expanding America’s capabilities while cutting out anything deemed redundant.

“Every dollar allocated to national defense must be utilized strategically to ensure resources directly support our defense capabilities and mission readiness rather than expanding administrative overhead,” reads the budget proposal.

Specifically, the RSC proposes eliminating programs that duplicate work already conducted in other federal agencies.

For example, the RSC suggests moving “the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program” to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), arguing that the department already performs research of this kind.

Drill, Baby, Drill

RSC Chairman August Pfluger and budget chief Van Duyne are both Texans, and that shows in their budget’s emphasis on increased energy access as an economic boost.

“The Biden administration was asleep at the wheel as their policies reduced wages, raised prices, and distorted market signals,” reads the section on “Unleashing American Energy.”

The energy section takes a more celebratory tone, highlighting how the July budget reconciliation bill undid many of the anti-fossil fuel regulations and green energy subsidies established by former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

After applauding Trump’s executive orders to allow for increased drilling, the budget calls for further deregulation to speed up the industry.

“Our allies abroad are waiting for the United States to unleash American energy production,” reads the budget. “The RSC Budget supports policies that decrease the capital costs of producing energy on federal lands, rather than disincentivize energy producers.”

AUTHORS

RELATED POSTS:

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Congress Should Prioritize American Graduates, Not Foreigners Who Promised to Go Home

EXCLUSIVE: GOP Rep. Pushes Bill To Codify Trump’s Vow To Keep Big Investors From Snatching Up Homes

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Mamdani’s Rent Czar Breaks Down When Asked About Mother’s Reportedly $1.6M Tennessee Home

By The Daily Caller

A senior aide in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration grew visibly upset when asked about her mother reportedly owning a home worth millions.

Cea Weaver, a far-left activist who heads Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Office to Protect Tenants, apparently teared up and ran down the street when reporters — including one from the Daily Mail — approached her outside her Brooklyn apartment Wednesday morning, according to a Daily Mail report.

Weaver was asked about her mother, Celia Applegate, who reportedly owns a home in Nashville, Tennessee. Through tears, Weaver replied, “No,” declining to comment, before quickly retreating back inside her building, according to the report.

The encounter has drawn attention to Weaver’s past statements criticizing private property ownership. She has previously argued that owning private property perpetuates “white supremacy” — despite her own mother, a professor of German Studies at Vanderbilt University, who owns a Craftsman home worth $1.6 million, the New York Post reported, citing records.

In a 2019 post on X (then Twitter), she wrote, “Private property including and kind of ESPECIALLY homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy masquerading as ‘wealth building’ public policy,” according to screenshots.

However, at the time Weaver sent the post, her professor mother had already been the owner of a 3,400-square-foot home in Nashville for seven years.

Applegate and her partner bought their home for $814,000 in 2012, and its value has since doubled to $1.6 million, according to property records cited by the New York Post.

NYC’s Tenant Director, Cea Weaver:

“People like home ownership because they like control, which is rooted in a racist and classist society”

“This is why rent control is important” pic.twitter.com/1zQ1NL0ZxY

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 6, 2026

Weaver’s past criticism of homeownership resurfaced Monday in a viral X thread by writer Michelle Tandler, which featured more than a dozen screenshots from Weaver’s now-deleted account dating from 2016 to 2022.

Beyond her social media activity, several of Weaver’s earlier remarks opposing private property ownership were also captured on video.

“I think the reality is, is that for centuries we’ve really treated property as an individualized good and not a collective good,” she said, adding that “transitioning to treating it as a collective good and towards a model of shared equity will require that we think about it differently,” Weaver said in the 2021 YouTube video for the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization to which both she and Mamdani belong.

Now that the backlash has ignited over her blatant hypocrisy, Cea Weaver now says of her insane “home ownership is a weapon of white supremacy” comments:

“Some of those things are certainly not how I would say things today.”

These commies, LOL https://t.co/ZDTx70JFnb pic.twitter.com/ohAiXLwK4y

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) January 7, 2026

“And it will mean that families, especially white families but some POC [people of color] families who are homeowners as well, are gonna have a different relationship to property than the one that we currently have,” Weaver added in the video.

After the posts resurfaced and circulated widely online, the Mamdani official described her past remarks as “regretful.”

“Regretful comments from years ago do not change what has always been clear — my commitment to making housing affordable and equitable for New York’s renters,” Weaver said in a Tuesday statement to The New York Times, released by Mamdani’s press office.

AUTHOR

Ashley Brasfield

Reporter

RELATED ARTICLES:

Turns Out Mamdani Rent Czar’s Own Mom May Be ‘White Supremacist’ According To Her Logic

Mamdani Team Member’s Full Blown Public Meltdown Only Scratching The Surface

Ayanna Pressley Screams At Top Of Her Lungs As Somali Fraud Hearing Descends Into Mayhem

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump Admin Withdrawing From ‘Anti-American’ Global Climate Change Regimes

By The Daily Caller

The White House announced Wednesday that the U.S. is exiting 66 international organizations and treaties, including a landmark climate change entity joined in 1992.

The Trump administration found that the listed international organizations, conventions and treaties did not serve America’s interests. Notable exits pertaining to global efforts to combat climate change include two United Nations entities: the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the last of which the U.S. joined in 1992 under President George H.W. Bush.

“Today, President Trump announced the U.S. is leaving 66 anti-American, useless, or wasteful international organizations. Review of additional international organizations remains ongoing,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X Wednesday. “These withdrawals keep a key promise President Trump made to Americans — we will stop subsidizing globalist bureaucrats who act against our interests. The Trump Administration will always put America and Americans first.”

Today, President Trump announced the U.S. is leaving 66 anti-American, useless, or wasteful international organizations. Review of additional international organizations remains ongoing.

These withdrawals keep a key promise President Trump made to Americans – we will stop…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) January 8, 2026

The presidential memorandum notes that the exits follow a February 2025 executive order and subsequent recommendations from the Secretary of State.

“I have considered the Secretary of State’s report and, after deliberating with my Cabinet, have determined that it is contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to the organizations listed,” the presidential memorandum reads.

Notably, Trump signed an executive order to exit the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC on his first day back in the Oval Office, The Paris Agreement is a global climate change compact marked by a pledge to lower emissions.

The Wednesday announcement also said the U.S. will leave the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals, and Sustainable Development, the International Energy Forum, U.N. Energy and the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

“For United Nations entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law,” the announcement said.

AUTHOR

Audrey Streb

DCNF Energy Reporter

RELATED ARTICLE: Paris Agreement Ten Years Later: ‘Failed’

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Manuel Noriega: The Precedent for Maduro’s Capture

By Family Research Council

The Trump administration’s sudden capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro caught many Americans by surprise, giving Democrats a leg up in the subsequent messaging war. Democratic leaders in Congress asserted that the operation was executive overreach, an act of war, and the beginning of another foolish attempt at nation-building. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Sunday and Monday, only 11% of Democrats, 23% of Independents, and 65% of Republicans approved of the overseas military operation.

But this lack of support is likely due in large part to Americans’ unfamiliarity with such a display of total military dominance — something rarely implemented in this century. Its execution left many Americans wondering: what was the justification? Are there any precedents? Does the Constitution allow this? And, perhaps most of all, are we now at war with Venezuela?

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio answered the first and last questions during a Sunday interview on NBC. “This was, at essence, at its core, a law enforcement function,” he stated. “There’s not a war. I mean, we are at war against drug trafficking organizations and not at war against Venezuela. We are enforcing American laws.”

The Trump administration contends that they arrested Maduro on the basis of an outstanding warrant, issued by a U.S. federal court. Based on reports from his Monday court appearance, “it sounds like a criminal enterprise: they were working with the cartels, running drugs, weapons,” assessed Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.” “He was using the country as a launching pad for criminal activity that was affecting the United States.”

This criminal indictment for drug trafficking establishes a connection to a precedent. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush authorized a military invasion of Panama to capture General Manuel Noriega, the country’s de facto leader, for his connection to the Medellin cartel.

“This is exactly the same scenario,” argued retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, an original member of the U.S. Army Delta Force that helped capture Noriega, and now executive vice president of FRC. “You had a guy that was pushing drugs into America, and nobody had done anything to try and stop him. … Those people are killing Americans. And our president’s first duty to the people is to protect the nation.”

“What prompted George H.W. Bush to finally pull the trigger on that,” Boykin explained, “was that Noriega’s thugs down there killed an American naval officer and, and in some ways brutalized his wife.” Maduro had not taken so bold a step, but his regime had detained at least five Americans in recent months.

The circumstances for the two episodes are not identical. For one thing, “the U.S. already had a military in Panama. We were still controlling the Panama Canal at the time,” listed Richard Gregorie, a DOJ veteran of four decades who indicted Noriega and also investigated corruption inside the Maduro regime, on “Washington Watch.”

“Secondly,” Gregorie continued, “Noriega was the military head in Panama … he was never made the head of the government. The U.S. did not recognize him as the head of state.” Whether Maduro is considered the head of state for Venezuela is a relevant legal question because active heads of state are immune from prosecution for actions taken in the course of their official duties.

However, that second distinction may not actually be a difference, as the Trump administration contends that the U.S. did not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of state for Venezuela. “Determining who is the head of state is a diplomatic question, which is handled by the executive branch of government and not the legislative branch of government,” said Gregorie. “So, technically, when our secretary of state and our president say you are not a head of state … then Mr. Maduro was not a head of state and not entitled to head of state immunity.”

The un-recognition of Maduro is not some squirrely move made by the Trump administration to evade their legal obligations, as some might choose to argue. Rather, it is consistent with the policy pursued by the Biden administration, after the opposition collected conclusive evidence that Maduro had himself fraudulently declared the winner of the 2024 election.

Ten days before President Trump re-assumed the office of president, Biden administration Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote:

“Today, Nicolás Maduro held an illegitimate presidential inauguration in Venezuela in a desperate attempt to seize power. The Venezuelan people and world know the truth — Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency. The United States rejects the National Electoral Council’s fraudulent announcement that Maduro won the presidential election and does not recognize Nicolás Maduro as the president of Venezuela. President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia should be sworn in, and the democratic transition should begin.”

Blinken also announced that the Biden administration was raising the bounty on Maduro to a sizable $25 million, while imposing additional “visa restrictions on Maduro-aligned individuals for their roles in undermining the electoral process.”

The other main question Americans want answered is whether Maduro’s capture was constitutional. Since the U.S. Constitution invests the power to declare war in the Congress, and Congress has not authorized a war against Venezuela, the question remains whether the Maduro raid constituted an act of war.

“If we’re going to declare war or take some serious military action, Congress should be informed and there should be some congressional action taken,” Gregorie contended. He did not hazard an answer to that important question. Instead, he predicted, “This is a question that will start with the district court in New York and will work its way up, I’m sure, all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Notably, the lack of constitutional authorization is another parallel Maduro’s capture shares with Noriega’s capture. The 1989 Panama invasion lacked congressional authority, too. That did not stop the U.S. judicial system from convicting Noriega, who served a 20-year prison sentence before being extradited to France.

What is true is that hours-long Maduro raid presents a favorable contrast with America’s pursuit of Noriega. Even with twice the military presence, it took the U.S. weeks to capture Noriega, after a military campaign in which 23 American soldiers were killed, besides 500 Panamanians. In the Maduro raid, the U.S. did not suffer a single fatality; the only reported deaths were those of Maduro’s bodyguard, largely comprised of Cuban mercenaries.

While American courts sort out the legal issues at play, that display of power sends a message sure to chill any dictator’s spine.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Real Clue Behind The Maduro Capture Might Lie In Trump’s Flashy Past

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

“SEIZE PRIVATE PROPERTY!”: Mamdani Appoints Communist Radical to Run Housing, Blasted Homeownership As ‘White Supremacy’

By The Geller Report

If the goal was to euthanize New York real estate, Zohran Mamdani couldn’t have executed it more efficiently. His newly appointed tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, has a documented record of calling to “seize private property,” denouncing homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy,” and urging voters to “elect more communists.” These are not fringe comments—they are the ideology now embedded inside City Hall. Weaver, a Democratic Socialists of America activist and longtime Mamdani adviser, has openly attacked landlords, law enforcement, and the concept of private property itself, while helping push some of the most punitive rent laws in the city’s history. Pair that with Mamdani’s plan to freeze rents on one million apartments, expand enforcement hearings, and empower activist bureaucracies, and the message to investors, homeowners, and developers is unmistakable: get out. With City Hall openly hostile to ownership and capital, the only rational question left is not what to buy in NYC—but who, in their right mind, would buy here now?

Appointing a “seize private property” communist and freezing rents on a million units is not reform—it’s destruction.

Ayn Rand: “Man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind. If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced. The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.”

Zohran Mamdani’s new NYC tenant advocate called to ‘seize private property,’ blasted homeownership as ‘white supremacy’

By Carl Campanile, NY Post, Jan. 4, 2026, 6:45 p.m. ET

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly appointed tenant advocate called to “seize private property” and blasted homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in a series of pro-Communist social media posts.

Cea Weaver, Mamdani’s new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, made the statements and urged her followers to elect more Communists in several lecturing posts on her now-deleted X account that were unearthed by internet sleuths.

“Seize private property!” she said on June 13, 2018.

Weaver also pushed to “Elect more communists” in December 2017 — when a Harlem street corner was being renamed in honor of former Manhattan Rep. Vito Marcantonio, who was a Communist.

Weaver called homeownership a “weapon of white supremacy” in a 2019 X post.

Weaver, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and former campaign coordinator for Housing Justice For All, also served as an adviser to the Mamdani campaign in 2025.

The Post featured her as part of a group of young lefty progressives in Mamdani’s brain trust.

She was a key player in lobbying the Democrat-run state Legislature to tighten the city’s rent stabilization laws in 2019, making them more pro-tenant.

One major property owner said Mamdani and Weaver are misguided.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

10 Times Democrats, Corporate Media Leaped to Defend Somalis Despite Massive Fraud Scandals

By The Daily Signal

Democrats and the corporate media rushed to defend Somalis throughout the end of 2025 as reports emerged that they committed widespread fraud in Minnesota.

Federal prosecutors charged dozens of Somalis with stealing over $9 billion of taxpayer money intended for social services, including the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

As more details have emerged about their fraudulent actions, Democrats accused President Donald Trump and conservatives of using Somalis as scapegoats and expressed their support for the population.

Tim Walz Pivots to Attacking White Peoples’ Crimes 

In response to a question about whether Somalis should be held accountable, Democrat Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has faced scrutiny for his handling of the fraud, immediately pivoted to saying that white men have committed several crimes.

“Look, it’s not law-abiding citizens. If that were the case, there’s a lot of white men should be holding a lot of white men accountable for the crimes that they have committed,” Walz said during a Dec. 12 press conference.

“I think for the community to maybe educate their population, because I think what you’re seeing here is there’s secondary victims in this, that there’s providers inside the community that are then victimizing the community themselves by signing them up, because when we’re going to some of these people, they’re like, I had no idea I was in this program. So I think it’s asking us then, you know, for every crime, which of course the majority being committed by white men, asking us to do more about that. I think it’s crime in general.”

Walz faced scrutiny from state officials who accused him of “willfully” disregarding “rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet.” The governor accused President Donald Trump of engaging in a “PR stunt” and of “indiscriminately targeting immigrants” as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramped up operations in Minnesota to detain Somali nationals.

Minnesota State Senators Tear Up as They Expresses Support for Somalis

Democrat state Sen. Ann Johnson Stewart tearfully apologized to Somalis and extended her support for them during an event at a Somali mosque on Dec. 12.

“We are heartbroken by the horrible actions of our government, and we want you to know that at the state level, we will do all that we can to support you. Whether you live in our district or not, we are here,” Stewart said through tears. “We are 100% committed to helping you. You are welcome here, you belong here and we are here for you. I apologize, I have to leave for another commitment.”

Democrat state Sen. Steve Cwodzinski then praised diversity and stated that America is a nation of immigrants.

“That’s what America is all about. We’re not a nation of ‘we’re all the same.’ We’re a nation of immigrants. We’re a nation of diversity. That’s our strength, not our weakness,” Cwodzinski said. “I really don’t know what to say.”

Their statements came after Trump referred to Somalia as a “garbage” country during a Dec. 8 Cabinet meeting. He also said that many Somalis, such as Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, had no appreciation for the U.S. despite giving them everything.

In response to the fraud, the administration has also cracked down on detaining and deporting Somalis in the U.S. illegally. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Wednesday that Trump supports denaturalizing any Somali convicted of the crimes.

Ilhan Omar Claims Trump Is Only Angry About Somali Fraud Because He’s Racist 

Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar said Trump does not want Somalis in the U.S. because he is “bigoted” and “Islamophobic.”

“The president has always had very bigoted, xenophobic, Islamophobic comments when it comes to, you know, people who are of Muslim faith or people who are black. We’ve seen him call African nations as ‘shitholes.’ So it’s not really surprising,” Omar said. “But what is weird to me is just how creepy he’s been obsessed with me and the Somali community.”

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar condemned President Trump’s recent comments about Somalis and said his focus on her is “creepy.” pic.twitter.com/mXLC0N1hve

— New York Post (@nypost) December 4, 2025

Omar, a Somali immigrant, has defended Somalis by saying they think of themselves as Americans and pay taxes. She has urged people not to blame the Somali community for the actions of a few.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent alleged on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that individuals charged with stealing from Minnesota’s “Feeding Our Future” donated to Omar’s campaign. Omar denied any wrongdoing.

Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Says Somalis Are ‘Welcome’ In His Community 

After Trump condemned the fraud and cracked down on Somalis, Democrat Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey affirmed his support for Somalis, saying they are part of the city’s “family.”

“Minneapolis is proud to be home to the largest Somali community in the country. They are our neighbors, our friends, and our family — and they are welcome in our city. Nothing Donald Trump does will ever change that,” Frey said.

Minneapolis is proud to be home to the largest Somali community in the country. They are our neighbors, our friends, and our family — and they are welcome in our city. Nothing Donald Trump does will ever change that. pic.twitter.com/3DmvQ4jRov

— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) December 2, 2025

Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor Wears Hijab on Television 

Minnesota Democrat Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan appeared on the TV station, Somali TV of Minnesota, on Dec. 26 wearing a hijab, stating that Somalis are “part of the fabric of the state of Minnesota.”

“My name is Peggy Flanagan. I’m the lieutenant governor of Minnesota and I’m really honored and humbled to be here with you all today. I am incredibly clear that the Somali community is part of the fabric of the state of Minnesota,” Flanagan said.

Boston’s Mayor Claims Somalis Are Responsible For City’s ‘Every Achievement’ 

Democrat Boston Mayor Michelle Wu stated that “hate has no place in our society” without expressing any criticism for the crimes committed by the Somali population.

“You cannot talk about any achievement that the city of Boston has had in safety, jobs, and economic development, in education, without talking about the Somali community that has lifted our city up. We are proud and we are grateful for our Somali community and for our Somali American neighbors. Boston and the country are clear that hate has no place in our society,” Wu said.

“We will use every attack to actually strengthen and expand the services available, to empower and work alongside our community members who are already doing so much good in the world and setting the example for the rest of the country,” she continued.

MS NOW Analyst Laments How Somalis Are Allegedly Being ‘Scapegoated’ 

MS Now political analyst Mara Gay said on “Morning Joe” that Somalis were victims of the so-called far-right’s anti-immigrant narrative. She also downplayed the significance of the fraud by saying that these types of actions are “not unique to politics.”

“Let’s recall too that there’s also other scandals in other states,” Gay said. “For example, the Mississippi welfare scandal. This is not unique to politics. Americans know that. But of course, the other factor here is that because it looks like the Somali population in Minnesota, the Somali immigrant population may have been involved in some way, those people are being scapegoated.”

“And that community is being scapegoated in a way that certainly serves the far right. And so, that’s also something to keep an eye on. And that’s inappropriate, absolutely,” Gay added.

More reports of fraudulent crimes committed by Somalis have continued to emerge. While a majority of those stealing from social programs are Somali, YouTube Nick Shirley released a documentary on Dec. 26 which indicated that Somali daycare centers that receive taxpayer money are not actually providing any services.

CNN’s Abby Phillip Claims Somalis Are ‘Under Attack’ 

CNN anchor Abby Phillip criticized Shirley for exposing the daycare centers for their alleged fraud, saying that the population is “under attack” and receiving threats.

“But, you know, honestly, you knock on the door of a daycare center, and you’re like, let me in, let me in. What do you expect people to do? You know, in some of those cases, there were children in there. What do you want people to do in that situation? Open the door and say, come on in. When they know that the Somali community is under attack, is being threatened every single day, what is going on here?”

Politico Reporter Makes Thinly Veiled Threat to Nick Shirley 

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Josh Gerstein claimed in a Monday X post that citizen journalists like Shirley could be shot under “stand your ground” laws.

“At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws,” Gerstein said.

At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws

— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) December 30, 2025

Minnesota is not a “stand your ground” state, but instead imposed a “duty to retreat” before using force, according to the United States Concealed Carry Association.

CNN Publishes Article About Somali Community’s ‘Anxiety’ 

CNN published an article on Dec. 4 titled, “Anxiety grips Somali community in Minneapolis as ICE agents zero in on the Twin Cities,” which claimed that Somalis in Minnesota were living in fear because of Trump’s crackdown.

“A young man working at a bakery at the Karmel Mall south of downtown Minneapolis said the shopping center on Tuesday night was dead compared to usual. The man, who only gave his first name, Fawzi, said he is nervous even though he was born in Minneapolis, CNN wrote.

The article detailed how Somali shops in the area were deserted and how many were carrying IDs and papers in case they were confronted by immigration officials. It also quoted local Somalis condemning Trump’s statement about them.

The outlet wrote a separate piece on Dec. 7, which said that Somalis were embraced by Minnesota after being “scorned” by Trump.

Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

Nicole Silverio

Nicole Silverio is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation. Nicole on X: @NicoleMSilverio.

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Census Battle: How This Lawsuit Could Change Political Power in Congress

By The Daily Signal

A federal lawsuit could be decided in early 2026 to require the Census Bureau to only count people rather than use statistical sampling—a move that could determine who controls Congress.

The 2020 Census overcounted the population of several Democrat-leaning states and undercounted the population of several Republican-leaning states.

While the agency admitted this was an error, plaintiffs in the case of University of South Florida College Republicans et al. v. Lutnick allege that its method of sampling led to the inaccuracies in the Census—and, ultimately, to the wrong apportionment of seats in Congress.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was named as the defendant in the case, as the Census Bureau is part of his agency.

America First Legal is representing the plaintiffs in the case, and Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla. has also intervened as a plaintiff.

“When the federal government manipulates census data, it manipulates political power,” said Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal, in a public statement. “This case is about stopping illegal methods that undermine equal representation and ensuring the next Census complies with the Constitution.”

President Donald Trump and other Republicans have cited the Census inaccuracies to make the case for mid-decade redistricting. Trump said on Truth Social in November: “Democrats are trying to steal our seats everywhere, and we’re not going to let this happen!”

His post continued, “This all began with the Rigged Census. We must keep the Majority at all costs. Republicans must fight back!”

In 2024, the Census Bureau released the 2020 Census Post-Enumeration Survey, showing population overcounts in Democrat-leaning states such as New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Delaware, Minnesota, while finding undercounts in Republican-leaning states such as Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

Notably, the population for the blue state of Illinois was undercounted, while the red states of Utah and Ohio were overcounted.

A press release by the plaintiffs called this a “landmark case” and said the matter would be decided in early 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

The plaintiffs on Dec. 23 also asked for summary judgement in the case—for the court to rule in their favor without a trial.

They contend that the 2020 Census undercounted Florida’s state population by 3.8 percent, added fictitious persons to the count, and diluted lawful representation.

Meanwhile, the intervenor defendants have asked for the case to be dismissed.

In their Christmas Eve motion to dismiss the lawsuit, lawyers for the intervenor defendants argued: “Plaintiffs fail to allege facts supporting their standing to sue, because their factual allegations combined with judicially noticeable facts leave them without an injury-in-fact that is redressable by relief against the Census Bureau.”

The Alliance of Retired Americans and college students backed by the National Redistricting Foundation have intervened as defendants in the case, represented by the Elias Law Group, run by Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias.

Arguing on behalf of the Commerce Department, attorneys from the Justice Department contend that the plaintiffs lack standing and have failed to demonstrate an injury.

Donalds has argued that he can intervene in the case because he relies on Census data to make decisions for constituents.

Neither the Census Bureau nor the Commerce Department responded to inquiries about this story.

The Elias Group did not respond to inquiries about the story, nor did the Alliance for Retired Persons.

Donalds’s office did not immediately respond.

AUTHOR

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Fred on X: @FredLucasWH.

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Nicolás Maduro the dictator of Venezuela Captured by U.S. Marines, Navy SEALs and U.S. Marshals

By Geoff Ross USN retired Surface Warfare/Air Warfare

Today, January 3rd 2026 my beautiful wife from Venezuela commences her third year in our constitutional republic and she reminded me yesterday to take down all the Christmas lights hanging around the outside of the house starting on January 6th.

She said January 6th 2026 in Venezuela they celebrate the visit of the three wise men or the Magi, men more powerful than the criminal Communist dictator Maduro now in the U.S. custody as we recognize the end of the Christmas period.

So today we mark the 2nd anniversary of my Venezuelan wife in the USA and the end of the Communist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. What a beautiful day it is.

On January 6th we will mark the end of Christmas festivities and after I take down all the Christmas decorations we will watch our family in the mountains of Venezuela and Caracas via FaceTime chats give gifts to our young nieces and nephews — an event called the Día de los Reyes.

My family in Venezuela will also be starting a new life as free people thanks to President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US military and US Marshals.

We will watch these children receive gifts from family members dressed as Kings not Santa in a new beginning and a free Venezuela followed up with everyone eating a giant King Cake called the Rosca de Reyes.

My brother-in-law in Caracas Venezuela did text me around 1 AM today central time (January 3rd 2026) with the news that explosions near his home were targeting the Maduro security forces.

In fact these explosions were actually a targeted distraction to enable the U.S military and U.S. Marshals to capture Maduro and bring him to the United States for trial for crimes against the American people.

He said he also saw U.S Chinook helicopters flying low over his apartment. He was cheering and texting us, so happy and excited for his country.

Trump should now stop ICE from installing fear into the minds of legal Venezuelan immigrants who followed all due process and congressional immigration laws and focus instead on helping the rightful elected president of Venezuela return home to Caracas — President Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

Now the mission is accomplished I am confident no further military action will be necessary in Venezuela.

©2026 . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Admin Announces Indicted Socialist Dictator Will Face ‘Full Wrath Of American Justice’

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‘THEY WERE HIRING IDIOTS’: FBI Agent Explains How DEI Split The Agency and Led to Disaster

By The Geller Report

Leftist rule hollowed out once-great institutions and turned them against the American people.

Former FBI special agent Nicole Parker says the bureau was torn apart by DEI ideology, creating what she calls “two FBIs”: one focused on merit, integrity, and protecting the public, and another consumed by identity politics, quotas, and performative priorities.

In her new book, The Two FBIs, Parker describes how, beginning under Barack Obama and accelerating under Joe Biden, hiring standards deteriorated as diversity targets overtook competence and mission readiness. Under FBI Director Christopher Wray, she says morale collapsed and unqualified recruits were brought in to satisfy DEI quotas.

Parker—who worked major violent crime, human trafficking, and active shooter cases—links this cultural shift directly to operational failure. She recounts how, in the lead-up to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, leadership attention was focused on diversity events rather than acting on credible tips. She believes lives may have been lost because competence and training were subordinated to DEI priorities.

After 12 years with the bureau, Parker left in 2022, concluding that the FBI she joined no longer existed. Her account portrays an agency hollowed out by ideology—less capable, more politicized, and increasingly unable to fulfill its core mission of protecting the American people.

Former FBI agent Nicole Parker explains how DEI split the agency and led to disaster: ‘They were hiring idiots’

By Doree Lewak, NY Post, Dec. 31, 2025:

President Trump’s heralded decision to make DEI DOA couldn’t come a moment too soon for Nicole Parker.

The so-called diversity, equity and inclusion initiative was a boondoggle that wrought incalculable damage across every sphere of employment in the country.

No one knows that better than Parker, a former FBI special agent of 12 years who described how a civil war brewed inside the once-venerable agency, with “lines drawn” between two clashing factions she termed “FBI 1 versus FBI 2.”

One side represents “integrity, meritocracy and protecting the American people” while the other force pushes “personal agendas and identity politics, DEI and politically motivated cases” in lieu of serious crime investigations and “the upholding of law and order replaced by performative posturing.”

By the time she left Wall Street to join the FBI in 2010 at age 32, Parker writes in her new book, “The Two FBIs: The Bravery and Betrayal I Saw In My Time At the Bureau,” that she saw segments of the bureau “becoming increasingly obsessed with diversity,” with breathless announcements about new clubs, meetings and “other diversity events.”

A mere three years later, Parker described the newly formed “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” and “Diversity Advisory Committee” and by 2015, “diversity” was added as a core value of the bureau — which she claimed had nothing to do with “protecting the US from terrorist attacks” and combating threats that should have been priorities at the heart of the agency.

While standards “deteriorated” during the era of President Barack Obama and bureau Director James Comey, Parker claimed, under President Joe Biden and Director Christopher Wray “it really amped it up” and “morale took a serious hit.”

“Under the Biden administration, they were hiring idiots,” Parker bluntly claimed to The Post. “Hiring standards dropped and it was noticeable, lowering the standards to meet quotas.”

It was all part of an insidious apparatus that degraded the agency to which she devoted more than a decade of her life.

In addition to being the agent in charge of the Parkland school shooting for the bureau, doing the death notifications, Parker worked high-profile investigations, specializing in human trafficking, violent crimes, active shooting situations and manhunts — until, after much soul-searching, she ultimately walked away in October 2022.

Days before the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre that saw 17 students and staff killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parker described a diversity event at the bureau — and how Wray’s priority seemed to be on that, rather than taking tips.

“I had to tell shattered parents that their child was dead when it could have been stopped,” she told The Post.

“My blood was boiling. What if instead of focusing so much time and energy on diversity, such as the Diversity Agent Recruitment (DAR) event that Director Wray had attended nine days before, only twenty-seven miles south of the Parkland killing spree location, he had prioritized hiring the best and brightest and making sure that they were properly trained to know how to document a tip that might have saved seventeen lives?

“In my mind, the improper prioritization of diversity might have cost those lives,” she writes.

For Parker — a Texas native and former hedge fund exec who was traumatized by witnessing 9/11 from the World Financial Center (Brookfield Place) — it was a tale of two FBIs, essentially one good, one sinister.

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, D.C., with two American flags flying on its facade.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DOGE WAS RIGHT: HUD Finds $5+ Billion in Fraud in One Year Under Biden—Dead Tenants, Fake IDs, Inactive Accounts Paid

By The Geller Report

You can begin to understand why the swamp fought Elon Musk and DOGE so hard.

HUD officials say the majority of some $5 billion in fraudulent rental aid in 2024 went to New York, California and D.C. — though dead people from all 50 states got paid.

HUD just found $5 BILLION+ in FRAUDULENT payments in 2024 alone, under Biden.

Payment error of over 11% PERCENT.

  • $5.2 BILLION to inactive accounts
  • $77M to deceased tenants
  • $150M to nonexistent Social Security numbers
  • $288M to excessively high rent

A new HUD Agency Financial Report reveals more than $5 billion in potential fraudulent and improper rental-assistance payments in 2024 alone, underscoring why entrenched bureaucracies fought oversight efforts like DOGE so aggressively.

According to HUD, payment errors exceeded 11% across federal housing programs under  Joe Biden’s administration. The findings include $5.2 billion paid to inactive accounts, $77 million sent to deceased tenants, $150 million tied to nonexistent Social Security numbers, and $288 million for excessively high rents. Fraudulent payments were concentrated in New York, California, and Washington, D.C., though improper payments were identified in all 50 states.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the losses were enabled by weak financial controls and process failures, calling the abuse “massive” and effectively incentivized by the prior administration’s lack of oversight. For the first time, HUD used advanced data analytics to review all Tenant-Based and Project-Based Rental Assistance payments, uncovering systemic weaknesses and triggering a formal disclosure of material financial risk.

The report covers just one year. If the error rate held across the full term, the total losses could be staggering. The findings reinforce calls to aggressively audit and overhaul federal housing programs—what critics summarize bluntly as the need to “DOGE housing.”

In short: billions vanished, accountability was absent, and only now—after leadership and oversight changed—has the scope of the damage come into view.

WASHINGTON — Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Scott Turner released HUD’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) Agency Financial Report (AFR) to Congress, which detailed significant misuse of taxpayer funds under the Biden administration including potential payment errors totaling more than $5 billion.

For the first time ever, HUD’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) used advanced data analytics to examine all Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) and Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) payments made in 2024. Through a series of internal management reviews, HUD identified significant potential improper payments, process gaps, and material weaknesses.

“A massive abuse of taxpayer dollars not only occurred under President Biden’s watch, but was effectively incentivized by his administration’s failure to implement strong financial controls resulting in billions’ worth of potential improper payments,” said Secretary Turner. “HUD will continue investigating the shocking results and will take appropriate action to hold bad actors accountable. Additionally, the Department is advancing efforts made under President Trump’s first administration to strengthen program integrity and ensure taxpayer-funded assistance serves the vulnerable communities it was intended for.”

INFOGRAPHIC: Total Payment Integrity Unknown Payment Estimate

After identifying process gaps and weaknesses, HUD disclosed a material weakness to be transparent about the inherent risks that existed under the Biden administration and to establish accountability for fixing financial oversight moving forward. HUD will continue to implement new processes to track how Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and HUD-funded grantees spend the funds they receive, ensuring efficiency, transparency, and accountability at every level.

Background:

The AFR is HUD’s annual report on how the department manages public funds.
HUD’s rental assistance programs provide critical housing support to deserving communities across the nation:
Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) program helps families afford safe housing through vouchers they can use in the private market.

Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) program provides rental subsidies tied to specific properties to ensure long-term affordability.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

4 Things to Expect From the Trump Administration in 2026

By The Daily Signal

After the Trump administration wrapped up its first news-packed year of the president’s second term, the White House will gear up for a year of addressing health care costs and other affordability concerns, saving the Republican majority in Congress, and more.

Here are four things to expect from year two of Trump 47:

1. Saving the Republican House Majority

President Donald Trump is ramping up domestic travel ahead of midterms as he sells voters on his affordability accomplishments.

The party of the president in power historically loses midterms, but Trump is fighting hard to keep the Republican majority.

At the end of 2025, he held two rallies in North Carolina where he pitched his efforts to lower prices for Americans. He is expected to hold many more of such rallies in 2026.

Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, said Trump will be a constant presence on the campaign trail, saying he will “campaign like it’s 2024 again.”

“Typically in the midterms it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House,” Wiles said. “You localize the election, and you keep the federal officials out of it. We’re actually going to turn that on its head and put him on the ballot because so many of those low propensity voters are Trump voters.”

After Republicans’ poor performance in the 2025 off-year elections, deputy chief of staff James Blair said Americans should expect to see the president put a great emphasis on affordability.

“The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living,” Blair told Politico.

Vice President JD Vance is hitting the campaign trail as well, starting with a trip to Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, where he related his own low-income childhood to the affordability concerns plaguing Americans.

In addition to campaigning to win seats, Trump has pressured state legislatures to redistrict in order to create more seats for Republicans. Indiana GOP state senators resisted the push, but other states, like Florida, plan to revisit their Congressional maps in 2026.

2. Nominating a Fed Chair

Trump has said he will likely pick the person to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors early in 2026.

Trump recently told The Wall Street Journal he is favoring selecting either National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett or former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh.

Trump has said he expects the next Fed chair to cut interest rates. On Dec. 17, the president said he will name someone “who believes in lower interest rates by a lot.”

Previously, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the short list also includes Fed Governor Christopher Waller and Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman.

3. Ramping Up Deportations

The Department of Homeland Security has hired 11,751 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after receiving over 220,000 applications. These agents are expected to ramp up deportations in 2026.

The administration has deported over 600,000 illegal aliens since Trump returned to the White House in January, according to the Department of Homeland Security. An additional 1.9 million have self-deported, but the White House is not satisfied, sources familiar with the situation told The Daily Signal’s Virginia Allen.

“ICE is under major pressure from the White House,” a senior Trump administration official told The Daily Signal, adding, “That’s public information. A bunch of people got transferred and fired … in ICE because they’re not hitting the numbers that they want them to hit.”

The Trump administration is remaining highly focused on deportations headed into 2026 and deportation numbers are expected to grow higher. To this end, a senior Trump administration official says, the media should not be surprised when illegal aliens without a criminal record are also arrested and deported.

The Trump administration “said the ‘worst first,’ not only the worst of the worst,” the senior official noted, adding, “obviously, there’s some other category that’s going to be second and third.”

4. Addressing Health Care Prices

The House and Senate adjourned for the holidays without reaching a consensus on what to do about COVID-19-era Obamacare subsidies expiring on Dec. 31. Congress now has until Jan. 30 to pass an appropriations bill before the government shuts down again.

The House is expected to vote on Jan. 5 after Democrats passed a “discharge petition” to force a vote on a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies. The House passed Republicans’ health care proposal on Dec. 17, which does not extend ACA subsidies, but the bill is expected to be dead on arrival in the Senate.

Republicans are divided about if, and how, to extend expiring subsidies. Most conservative members have also said they will not vote for a health care deal unless it includes a provision prohibiting Obamacare from continuing funding abortions, an issue which will be a nonstarter for Democrats.

The White House has been letting Congress lead on landing on a health care deal, but if members are unable to come to an agreement, the president will likely have to step in.

So far, he has repeatedly said that he wants to see a plan that puts money in the wallets of Americans, not insurance companies.

“What we do wanna see is the money go to the people, not the insurance companies,” Trump told The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell

Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is the White House Correspondent for “The Daily Signal.” Send her an email. Elizabeth on X: @TheElizMitchell.

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Lessons to Learn From the Welfare Mega-Fraud Scandal in Minnesota

By The Daily Signal

I recall a saying from my youth that went, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

This comes to mind reading reports of the mind-boggling welfare fraud megascandal that has been exposed in Minnesota.

For perspective on the scope of the scandal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimates fraud losses in Minnesota since 2018 could top $9 billion.

We’re talking about fraud in Medicaid, nutrition programs, government-funded housing programs, government programs to assist autistic children, etc.

Beyond tracking down and indicting criminals, there are critically important lessons to be learned here for our country, and we must learn them.

What do we learn about the connection between fraud and big government? What do we learn about fraud, big government and the Democratic Party? What lessons do we learn regarding our immigration policy?

Fraud and big government go hand in hand.

A Government Accountability Office report in July notes over $300 billion of fraudulent payments in 19 pandemic-relief programs.

Last May, CBS’ “60 Minutes” reported on vast fraud in federal spending programs. Per estimates of a woman who spent “a decade” at GAO, “I believe the government is losing between $550 billion and about $750 billion a year” in fraud.

What’s the connection to the Democratic Party? Simple. Democrats are the party of big government. Every proposal coming out of the Democratic Party involves more government. More government programs, which means more fraud.

And, of course, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, at the helm of his state while all this was happening, was the Democrat nominee in 2024 to be our vice president. He was introduced by Kamala Harris as her running mate, saying he’s “the kind of vice president that America needs.”

The Cato Institute issues a biannual Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors, grading all 50 governors on tax and spending policies. In the last report in 2024, number 50 out of 50 governors was Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, scoring 19 points out of a possible 100.

What is the lesson regarding immigration?

The Somali community in Minnesota disproportionately participated in this widespread fraud.

Interviewing Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, CBS’ “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan noted that in COVID-19 fraud exceeding a billion dollars, “of 87 charged all but eight are of Somali descent.”

Omar herself is Somali and a member of the far-left “squad” in Congress.

Noting the disproportionate Somali presence in the scandal, President Donald Trump wrote on social media, “Send them back to where they came from. It’s OVER.”

Those calling Trump a racist miss the point.

Consider the Corruption Perception Index published annually by Transparency International, an organization working to eliminate corruption around the globe.

Out of 180 countries measured in the Transparency International Index, Somalia is the second most corrupt country in the world.

Worth noting is the strong inverse relation of corruption with economic freedom. The most economically free countries—smaller government, less intrusive regulation, strong consistent rule of law—are also the least corrupt.

In the annual Fraser Institute Economic Freedom of the World Report, out of 165 countries measured and ranked in economic freedom, Somalia ranks 101.

The point is that the Somalis so prominent in the massive fraud in Minnesota come from a country with values and reality the total antithesis of what our country is about. It is a country with little economic freedom and widespread corruption.

If Somalis chose to come here to be free and responsible citizens, good for them and good for us. But it appears many have brought the destructive values of their home country with them. They should be screened.

Rep. Omar has been a perverse megaphone for anti-American sentiment since she arrived in Congress.

So, cut fraud by cutting back the scope of government, and shut our borders to those who do not aspire to our values of personal responsibility and freedom.

COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

AUTHOR

Star Parker

Star Parker, a columnist for The Daily Signal, is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Star on X: @StarParker.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

Mamdani Takes Over New York, Property Owners Take Cover

By The Daily Signal

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is set to move into public housing, New York City’s Gracie Mansion Thursday, when he assumes power on New Year’s Day. This is good for him and his wife, Rama Duwaji, as he is about to make owning private property in the Big Apple a riskier proposition.

Mamdani’s flagship housing policy has been to completely freeze rents on all rent-stabilized housing, which already limits how much landlords can raise rents.

Other aspects of his designs on private property have been taking shape for some time. While it looks like he may not have his commissars expropriate landlords by force, he will use regulation to achieve the same outcome.

Three weeks after being elected, Mamdani appointed Cea Weaver to his housing transition committee. An organizer, Weaver works for Housing Justice for All, a left-leaning organization also known as the Upstate-Downstate Housing Alliance. She also heads the New York State Tenant Bloc.

“Tenants are half the state and a majority in every major city. United, we have the power to reclaim our homes from the stranglehold of the real estate industry,” she said when she founded the bloc earlier this year.

Two months ago, Weaver wrote an essay calling for “policy interventions” to solve “New York’s housing crisis,” which she characterized as “sky-high rents, extraordinary waitlists for affordable housing, and low-quality housing stock.”

Weaver made a good point when she wrote that the city’s housing policies “are defined by acute competition” between two Goliaths. One is “a robust tenant movement that has secured the strongest rent stabilization laws and public-housing tools in the United States,” and the other is “the country’s most powerful real estate lobby, accustomed to shaping our city in its image.”

New York City is indeed known by the most famed skyline in the world, and by its strong-willed real estate developers (one of whom sits in the White House), but also for an aggressive, Marxist tenant movement, which has pushed for rent-control laws that have ironically given Gotham rents that are as high as the city’s skyscrapers.

How do you resolve this tension? Weaver wants to do it by putting regulations and taxes on steroids; then, when landlords cry “no mas” and are “no longer interested in ownership,” the city will step in, buy out their properties, and presto, Gotham becomes the city’s biggest landlord. What’s not to like?

This is how it works: Weaver recognized that the rent freeze could have adverse consequences. She’s not dumb.

“It is true that a rent freeze, without additional intervention, risks deepening the crises within the market,” she wrote in her essay. “Owners of rent-stabilized buildings may choose not to invest in their properties.” That would make an already deteriorating housing stock worse, and Mayor Mamdani would get the blame.

Effective code-enforcement programs would help, and make Mamdani appear to care, especially with the help of a sympathetic media.

“But investment in enforcement is not in itself enough,” Weaver wrote. The city, as the New York Post aptly put it in an editorial, can then pass “laws that cause real-estate values to collapse.”

In Weaver’s world, the city’s “lack of a profit motive” is actually an advantage, not a hindrance to making decisions that make economic sense. Mamdani could then combine that ability to ignore profit and loss with the city’s awesome “taxing power,” and have the Big Apple “intervene” and “acquire rent stabilized housing as a market actor.”

“With its multibillion-dollar capital budget, the city has the capacity to act as a non-speculative market actor: purchasing buildings where the landlord is no longer interested in ownership,” she wrote.

But first, you must pass laws that crush people who own property, precipitate a housing crisis, have prices plunge, and then force these property owners to sell to Big Brother.

“We need to combine the power to enforce housing standards and the power to finance and acquire rental housing—two capacities the city already has,” Weaver wrote.

Of course, none of this will touch the truly rich. Just as Trump decamped to Florida and resides in the District of Columbia, the rich can (and will) abandon New York City. Even if they stay, the city will never buy the buildings where they live.

No, it will be middle-class property owners who will be squeezed until they can no longer make ends meet, and have to sell to the city at bottom prices.

Add to this that part of Mamdani’s housing plan is already to have the city construct 200,000 new, “publicly-subsidized, affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes” over the next 10 years.

How will he pay for it? Tax and spend, of course.

“Zohran will allocate $70 billion new capital dollars in the city’s Ten-Year Capital Plan to create new affordable housing, raised on the municipal bond market. This is on top of the about $30 billion the city is already planning to spend,” says the plan. Crush owners with regulation and citizens with taxes.

The history of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, etc., tells you that governments make for really bad owners, precisely because they lack the profit motive. Block after block of ugly, decaying buildings was always the legacy of communism.

This means that we might all want to visit Gotham soon if we want to catch one last glimpse of its great skyline. Mamdani becomes Thursday.

Originally published by the Washington Examiner

AUTHOR

Mike Gonzalez

Mike is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow in the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research. Mike on X: @Gundisalvus.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump’s Border Shake-Up: Top Immigration Actions of 2025

By The Daily Signal

Seven weeks after Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump stood before America and declared the U.S. southern border secure.

“The media and our friends in the Democratic Party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” Trump said to loud applause during his address to a joint session of Congress on March 4.

Now, 11 months into Trump’s second term, the administration, under the leadership of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and border czar Tom Homan, has largely succeeded in the aggressive implementation of Trump’s border and immigration agenda.

“President Trump is delivering on his promise to Make America Safe Again and deport criminal illegal aliens,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Daily Signal.

“In record time, we have totally secured the border and are carrying out the largest mass deportation operation of criminal illegal aliens in history. Next year, the administration will continue to build upon our historic successes with even more deportations,” Jackson said.

Day 1 ‘Emergency’

Pen in hand, Trump signed an executive order during his first hours as the 47th president to declare the situation at the southern border a national emergency. The order allowed Trump to deploy additional military personnel and resources to the border.

From January to February 2025, encounters with illegal aliens between the ports of entry at the southern border fell by over a third.

In addition to the emergency declaration, Trump signed executive orders on his first day in office ending “catch and release” at the border, reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy, temporarily suspending processing of refugee applications, and more.

Birthright Citizenship

Arguably, the most controversial executive order Trump signed not just on his first day in office, but over the course of his first 11 months sitting back behind the Resolute Desk, was his order ending automatic birthright citizenship.

The 14th Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Trump’s executive order focuses on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” and holds that those born to parents who are not in the U.S. legally are not subject to U.S. jurisdiction and are therefore not legal citizens.

Legal action was immediately taken to block Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, and on Dec. 5, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case next year in what is expected to be the biggest Supreme Court case of 2026.

No Releases

For seven straight months, zero illegal aliens have been released into the interior of the U.S., the White House announced Dec. 15. The numbers are in stark contrast to the Biden administration, which saw about 10 million illegal aliens enter the U.S. over four years.

Additionally, about 600,000 illegal aliens have been deported since Jan. 20, and 1.9 million have self-deported, according to DHS.

‘Bringing Hell’ to a City Near You

Border czar Tom Homan has championed Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in cities across the U.S. since Trump returned to office.

From the start, Homan pledged to send additional ICE resources to Sanctuary Cities that refused to cooperate with ICE, such as Boston.

“I’m coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me,” Homan said during a speech in February.

Over the past 11 months, ICE has carried out operations arresting illegal aliens in cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle.

Shot at, Bit, and Assaulted: Violence Against ICE Spikes  

Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, assaults against immigration agents have seen a 1,150% increase in 2025, according to DHS.

Agents have been threatened, spat on, hit, bit, and even shot at.

In September, a shooter opened fire on an immigration detention facility in Dallas. An investigation revealed that the shooter was suspected of firing at agents but instead struck illegal aliens, two of whom were killed.

The words “Anti ICE” were found inscribed on some of the recovered shell casings.

Detention Facilities  

The Trump administration announced the opening of new illegal alien detention facilities across the U.S. in 2025.

Upon being apprehended, illegal aliens cannot immediately be deported. Mass deportation efforts require an equal number of beds to hold illegal aliens until the proper legal and logistical steps are completed to carry out the deportation.

Alligator Alcatraz, a tent detention facility in the Florida Everglades, opened in the middle of 2025. Multiple lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to shut down the facility.

Additionally, DHS has announced the expansion of an ICE detention facility in Nebraska, naming it the Cornhusker Clink. In Indiana, the Miami Correctional Center partnered with DHS to create the Speedway Slammer detention facility. And in September, DHS announced the Louisiana Lockup detention facility in partnership with the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

“Louisiana Lockup, Cornhusker Clink, and Speedway Slammer give ICE the ability to lock up some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, and gang members,” according to DHS.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia 

No singular illegal alien has made more headlines in 2025 than Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was living in Maryland when he was deported to El Salvador in March.

The Trump administration initially said he was removed due to an “administrative error,” but later said that was an inaccurate claim.

After a legal battle and outcry from Democrats, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., traveling to El Salvador to meet with Abrego Garcia and demand his release, the illegal alien was brought back to the U.S. in June after a court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return.

Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee in August and returned to Maryland, where he was then taken into immigration custody. A judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting Abrego Garcia a second time, and on Dec. 11, a judge ordered Abrego Garcia released from immigration custody.

The Trump administration is appealing the judge’s decision.

Abrego Garcia’s case is just one of many legal battles the Trump administration continues to fight on issues related to the implantation and execution of the Trump’s border and immigration agenda.

AUTHOR

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal and host of “The Daily Signal Podcast” and “Problematic Women.” Send an email to Virginia. Virginia on X: @Virginia_Allen5.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

‘Ten-year stain:’ Bondi asks prosecutors to probe Obama-Biden lawfare as criminal conspiracy

By Judicial Watch

FBI Director Kash Patel penned a memo predicating an investigation looking at the weaponization of intelligence and law-enforcement powers dating to the Russia collusion case as an ongoing conspiracy. 

WATCH:

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Just the News that she has asked prosecutors to investigate the Obama-Biden era of lawfare as an ongoing election-meddling conspiracy that protected Democrats from criminal investigation and infringed the civil rights of Republicans like President Donald Trump and his supporters.

Recovering from eye surgery, Bondi made the revelation in written answers Sunday to questions submitted by Just the News, signaling she agrees with FBI Director Kash Patel, who earlier this year penned a memo predicating an investigation looking at the weaponization of intelligence of law-enforcement powers dating to the Russia collusion case as an ongoing conspiracy.

An “ongoing conspiracy” and the statute of limitations

Such an approach allows prosecutors to charge defendants with alleged crimes outside the statute of limitations because they were connected to an ongoing conspiracy, much like those cases brought against the mafia and drug cartels.

“At my direction, our U.S. Attorneys and federal agents are actively investigating instances of government weaponization nationwide,” Bondi said. “This is a ten-year stain on the country committed by high-ranking officials against the American people.

“Under President Trump, we are fixing the damage and delivering justice,” she added. Bondi credited her department and the FBI for releasing “an unprecedented number of documents to Congress about government weaponization, far more than prior administrations.”

She said that evidence laid the predicate for a conspiracy case. Bondi did not identify where prosecutors are conducting the investigation, but officials told Just the News a large part of the probe is being done in Florida, where President Trump’s home was raided in 2022.

Bondi: “excessive” use of authority based on political beliefs

“This evidence illustrates that the FBI shielded political figures like Hunter Biden and Hillary Clinton while pursuing conservatives for their beliefs, using legal process and operations that were excessive, instead of protecting Americans from public safety threats posed by an open border and violent crime,” she said. “They went so far as to serve search warrants that their own Department and law enforcement officials believed were excessive.”

Bondi’s comments referred to recent evidence showing that FBI agents did not believe the Biden Justice Department had enough evidence to establish probable cause for the search warrants and the August 8, 2022, raid on Trump’s Florida home at Mar-a-Lago.

The mantra that “No one is above the law” works both ways 

“This Department of Justice takes government weaponization seriously. That means protecting civil liberties, preventing election interference, and holding bad actors accountable,” she said. “No one is above the law, even if they think they are.”

The Attorney General also blasted ex-CIA Director John Brennan, who got recent subpoenas from a grand jury investigating his testimony, for trying to get the chief federal judge in Miami to intervene in her investigation.

“Public reports of a recent letter sent to Cecilia M. Altonaga, the Chief Judge of the Federal District of Florida, by John Brennan’s defense attorneys, seeking judicial intervention in any legitimate grand jury investigation by the executive branch, shows these bad actors are clearly concerned about their liability and want to preserve a two-tiered justice system: one for them and one for everyone else. No more,” Bondi said to Just the News.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

$1.26M Child Care Fraud Center’s Phone Leads Directly to Tim Walz’s Office

By The Geller Report

Records show the center received $1.26 million in CCAP funds, while calls to its listed phone number route directly to the office of Tim Walz — prompting serious questions about oversight, access, and accountability.

Tim Walz is facing escalating scrutiny after the viral video by independent journalist Nick Shirley exposed apparent fraud at Minnesota child care and aid facilities allegedly tied to Somali-run operations. Shirley documented multiple sites that appeared shuttered or non-operational despite records showing millions in public funding, including one facility funded for nearly 100 children that reportedly received about $4 million.

Walz’s office insists the governor has worked to combat fraud, citing audits, investigations, program closures, and prosecutions. But critics point to a far more damning claim: more than 400 Minnesota Department of Human Services employees have accused Walz of ignoring repeated warnings about widespread fraud and retaliating against whistleblowers who tried to expose it.

The revelations have intensified questions about how such alleged abuse persisted for years — and why it took an independent journalist, not regulators, to bring it to light.

Backstory:

“I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal”: Young Reporter Exposes Somali Billion-Dollar Daycare Fraud That Billion-Dollar Media Willfully Ignores

Minnesota Is Just the Tip of The Iceberg: NY’s Medicaid Home-Care System Is Rife With Fraud, Statistical Impossibility

$18 BILLION Stolen Taxpayer Dollars in Somali Fraud, Millions FUNNELED TO DEMOCRATS

Minnesota Is Just the Tip of The Iceberg: NY’s Medicaid Home-Care System Is Rife With Fraud, Statistical Impossibility

FINANCING JIHAD: The Largest Funder of Islamic Terror Group Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer

PHOTOS ROCK MINNESOTA: Ilhan Omar and Tim Walz With Illegal Somali Fraudster in Massive Minnesota Scam

‘100% RESPONSIBLE’: Hundreds of DHS Employees Accuse Tim Walz of Covering Up Somali-Linked Billion Dollar Fraud That Funded Al-Shabaab

Somali “Staggering, Industrial-Scale” FRAUD in ONE STATE Far Exceeds Somalia’s ENTIRE GDP

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz desperately defends himself from Somali fraud allegations uncovered in damning viral video

By Caitlin McCormack, NY Post, Dec. 29, 2025

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back against the ever-growing fraud allegations levied against him in the disastrous aftermath of a viral video in which an independent journalist cracked open a crucial part of the alleged Somali aid scheme.

A spokesperson for Walz, a Democrat who frequently provokes President Trump’s ire, addressed a bombshell video posted by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley.

“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed,” the spokesperson told Fox News.

The spokesperson added that Walz has “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”

In the 43-minute video published on Friday, Shirley and a Minnesotan named David travel around Minneapolis and visit multiple child care and learning sites allegedly owned by Somali immigrants.

Many were either shuttered entirely, despite signage indicating they were open, or helmed by staff who refused to participate in the video.
One of the buildings they visited displayed a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The “learning” center is supposed to account for at least 99 children and funneled roughly $4 million in state funds, according to the video.

Shirley appeared on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” Sunday evening and boasted about his findings. He joked that the alleged scheme was “so obvious” that a “kindergartner could figure out there is fraud going on.”

“Fraud is fraud, and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening,” Shirley said.

Continue reading.

Staggering!

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Minnesota Is Just the Tip of The Iceberg: NY’s Medicaid Home-Care System Is Rife With Fraud, Statistical Impossibility

Somali Scammers Allegedly Stole Almost as Much in Minnesota as Entire Somalia GDP

Somali Fraud is the Tip of a Very Large Iceberg

RELATED VIDEO: Nick Shirley rips Democrat Governor Tim Walz for calling people exposing his state’s massive fraud ‘white supremacists’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

2025 Energy Year in Review

By John Droz, Jr.

As I periodically do, I repost something good published elsewhere. This is from Ed Reid’s substack, and the original is here. I’ve made minor edits…

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” ― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The year 2025 was all of the above, depending on who you were, what you did, and where you lived. For the citizens of the United States, it was (hopefully) the end of the aggressive pursuit of Net Zero by 2050 with its mandates, subsidies, and incentives. It was the end of the war on fossil fuels and the termination of oil and gas leases on federal land. It was the end of federal promotion of offshore wind. It was the end of the federal EV charging station program. It was the end of the federal pursuit of all-electric everything.

For states without Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) or Clean Energy Standards (CES) it was a new opportunity for the market to design the future energy system for both electric generation and direct energy end use — and use science as the basis, not politics. For states with RPS and CES, energy system evolution was dictated by emissions reduction targets and compliance dates. It was also the year that states like New York began to acknowledge that their aggressive renewable energy goals were physically and economically unattainable.

For the United Nations, it was the year that its dreams of global governance dissolved at COP30. Its planned commitment to the elimination of fossil fuels failed to materialize. Its grandiose plans for major funding increases for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage fell on deaf ears.

It was the year that the elimination of EV and rooftop solar subsidies caused dramatic decreases in both markets, resulting in increasing bankruptcies among market participants. It was also the year in which those bankruptcies revealed the inadequacy of the manufacturer’s capability to support warranty repair and maintenance obligations.

In the UK and the EU (particularly Germany), energy costs continued to rise as the transition to wind and solar generation advanced. It was also the year that governments received few or no bids for new offshore wind capacity as subsidies were reduced or costs increased.

It was the year undocumented “kill switches” were discovered in renewable energy system inverters built in China. It was also the year of the near-total blackout of the Iberian Peninsula due to “instability” in a Chinese inverter at a major solar field.

In the United States, the US EPA began the process of rescinding the scientifically questionable and legally faulty 2009 Endangerment Finding, which formed the basis for much of the federal effort to control CO2 emissions. US DOE also produced a Report by the Climate Working Group, which identified the significant areas of uncertainty remaining in the “settled science” of climate change.

The US federal government also announced a refocus on “Gold Standard” science and reduced or eliminated funding for speculative model-based studies intended to reinforce the climate crisis narrative and scare the population into submission.

Citizens in the US and globally increased their resistance to renewable energy projects and the major transmission grid expansion necessary to connect them to the grid.

A major developing challenge globally was the location and powering of data centers and AI. Data center operators typically do not use unreliable renewable generation to supply their power and are experiencing difficulty locating development sites with access to sufficient reliable power for their operations. Several major players have begun making arrangements to supply their own power, including restarting closed nuclear generators and funding life extension projects on other generators.

©2025 All rights reserved.

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Minnesota Is Just the Tip of The Iceberg: NY’s Medicaid Home-Care System Is Rife With Fraud, Statistical Impossibility

By The Geller Report

If Minnesota’s fraud scandal shocks you, wait until investigators turn their attention to New York City’s Medicaid-funded home healthcare racket. Home health aides have become the largest single occupation in New York, accounting for roughly 40 percent of all job growth — an explosion driven almost entirely by Medicaid dollars. The state now claims 171 aides for every 1,000 residents aged 65 and over, the highest rate in the nation and 153 percent above the national average. That level of “need” defies basic demographics. The system relies heavily on self-reported caregiving, often by family members, with weak real-time verification and minimal auditing. When a program grows this large, this fast, with this little oversight, fraud isn’t an anomaly — it’s baked in. This isn’t about caring for the vulnerable. It’s about a Medicaid pipeline so bloated and credulous that taxpayers are funding a workforce whose scale simply cannot be real.

Empire Center for Public Policy: Home health and personal care aides are now the single largest job category in New York State, and their growth has been extraordinary. The Empire Center, using BLS data, reports NY had roughly 623,000 aides as of May 2024 and that the category represented about 38% of all job growth in the state.

For the whole of the twentieth century, New York City’s wealth was driven by myriad sectors – manufacturing, with the garment trade being a dominant force finance, publishing, technology and shipping through its major port. The unions drove manufacturing out. It’s non-existent. And successive Democrat governments, through burdensome regulation and high taxes, drove out almost everyone else. Today the two largest employers in NYC is the government and Wall Street (financial sector).

The big dirty secret is NYC is kept afloat with taxpayer funded fraud.

The New York City home-healthcare scheme illustrates how Medicaid’s design failures invite industrial-scale abuse. At the center are third-party administrators — including Public Partnerships LLC (PPL) and Leading Edge Administrators — contracted to manage payroll and “benefits” for personal care aides. On paper, these arrangements promise efficiency. In practice, they create opaque money flows with minimal oversight.

One example is the much-touted Flex Card model. Funds are deducted from workers’ paychecks and earmarked for restricted benefits that are difficult to use, poorly explained, and time-limited. The predictable result: large balances go unspent — reportedly approaching 30% — allowing administrators to retain or recycle funds while workers never receive the compensation they were promised. This isn’t a glitch; it’s a feature of predatory design, where friction equals profit.

The scale of opportunity is enormous. New York’s home-care workforce is dramatically oversized relative to need, with roughly 171 aides per 1,000 seniors — about 153% above the national average. Such an imbalance is a classic red flag for eligibility inflation, phantom services, and inflated billing. When supply vastly outstrips plausible demand, fraud doesn’t just slip through — it flourishes.

All of this unfolds against a national backdrop of chronic Medicaid leakage. Federal audits have repeatedly found tens of billions of dollars in improper payments annually, yet Washington’s response has been to outsource more functions rather than enforce rigorous eligibility checks, utilization reviews, and clawbacks. Contractors are paid to move money, not to question whether it should be moving at all.

The incentives are upside-down. Low-wage aides shoulder administrative complexity and lose access to earned compensation. Taxpayers absorb the cost. Contractors collect fees insulated from outcomes. And state agencies point to compliance paperwork while avoiding the harder work of field audits, beneficiary verification, and real enforcement.

This isn’t about care delivery. It’s about a rent-seeking ecosystem where complexity substitutes for accountability. Until eligibility is tightened, benefit designs are simplified and audited, and administrators are paid based on value delivered — not dollars processed — the same result is guaranteed: workers shortchanged, taxpayers fleeced, and fraud normalized as “program management.”

Also…..California is the fraud capitol of the U.S.

Maine.

Idaho.

Utah.

Washington State.

Here, there, and everywhere.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Minnesota’s Lt. Gov. Takes Pandering To Somalis To The Next Level

RELATED VIDEO: Nick Shirley rips Democrat Governor Tim Walz for calling people exposing his state’s massive fraud ‘white supremacists’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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