I heard that Massachusetts is trying to pass a law against spanking children. It seems ridiculous, but given that this state gave us Mitt Romney, anything is possible.
I don’t approve of spanking children, because I see no reason to teach your children that initiation of violence is ever a good thing. At the same time, parents must be given wide discretion, outside the obvious examples of physical or sexual abuse, or outright neglect, before the government gets involved in prosecuting them for raising their children.
However, there’s one thing worse than the image of an adult spanking a child, and that’s the spectacle of a government social worker coming in to a home trying to enforce this law. Just imagine what this would look like. The premise of such a law is that such an official could do a better job of raising a child than even the most insensitive, ignorant, uneducated parent.
I don’t share this premise.
Parents, even inadequate parents, have given us some pretty intelligent and accomplished offspring over the centuries. Look at all the accomplished people who write and speak of their inadequate parents, and imagine the ones we don’t know about. Now look at what government gives us. Take your pick on the various accomplishments of government: incompetently fought wars; the welfare state bureaucracy; Medicare and Social Security, with their impending bankruptcy; the O.J. Simpson verdict; political correctness; public schools that do everything but teach; and so much more.
I’ll pick parents over the government, any day of the week.
Q: Can a person be lacking in character and strong in competence?
A: In certain respects, yes; but ultimately, no. Ultimately, low character will drive out and undermine competence. Imagine you have a car mechanic, or some other service professional, whose work you like. Yet you discover he charges fees when he said he wouldn’t, and you catch him in a few lies. You hear complaints from other customers as well. What happens to your opinion of him? The same thing happens to him, internally. The concentration, focus and motivation that makes some of his work competent will inevitably be stressed by the ongoing consequences of complaints by customers, as well as the stress of remembering which lies he told–to whom–and when he has spoken the truth. It’s an accomplishment to be competent, but it also takes work to be a liar, or otherwise lacking in character. The two are constantly colliding within the conflicted individual
One of the most incredible accomplishments in the annals of global propaganda is the idea that Republicans in the United States are opposed to civil rights for individuals and the Democrats are for them.
n the summer of 1964, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andy Goodman left Oxford, Ohio to go and register blacks to vote in Mississippi. As they well understood, a vast network of self-styled vigilante “justice” existed in citizen councils, State Sovereignty commissions, the KKK, and many other locally oriented partisans aimed to intimidate and if necessary, kill them. For these civil rights activists from the Congress of Racial Equality led by James Farmer Jr., there was little hope of registering blacks to vote and educating black children about their inherent dignity without the protection and law enforcement of the federal government. This nexus of local authoritarians refused federal intervention in their state in a manner not unlike their refusals when Republican president Ulysses S. Grant sent troops into the South to prevent the repeal of civil rights for blacks in the aftermath of the civil war. The Democrat Party has since the inception of the Republican Party in the 1850s refused to accept the federal government’s disruption of their local “warm collectivism.” The Justice Department was created by Republican administrations to thwart the Southern efforts to locally repeal the civil rights of black citizens. One of the most incredible accomplishments in the annals of global propaganda is the idea that Republicans in the United States are opposed to civil rights for individuals and the Democrats are for them.
Republican presidents are like Hitler and Democratic presidents are the rhetorical antithesis is fueling dangerous incivility in our current era. President Bush has largely remained silent while Democratic Presidents Obama and Clinton loudly violate the civic norm of quiet presidential retirement. This is also a feature of our public culture fixated on demonization of Republican presidents. Fantasies about killing President Bush and arguing that he was “Hitler” and determined to ‘kill as many innocent civilians as possible in Iraq and New Orleans’ abounded in his time as president and academic rankings of him as president show he is held in public contempt. This is the over-riding structuration of incivility in 21st century American culture. Trump is undoubtedly a rhetorical reaction to the “compassionate conservatism” of George W. Bush who continually seeks to turn away the partisan tide against him with conciliatory rhetoric.
The Jacobin protest culture of the 21st century is not the heir of the beloved community and civil rights movement formed by great leaders such as James Farmer Jr. and Martin Luther King Jr. They continue to burn and intimidate Christian churches and Jewish voices like the anti-civil rights partisans of the 1960s. The calls for violence against ICE agents and Border Patrol are plainly inconsistent with the central call for non-violence. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum bravely criticized Governor Tim Walz for characterizing his refusal of federal law enforcement as akin to the dangers endured by Anne Frank. The deliberate characterization of ICE officers as “gestapo” is a concerted rhetorical privilege accorded America’s structural anti-Republicanism that has inspired assassination attempts — many successful — of Republican presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Gerald Ford and of course two recent attempts on President Trump. The deaths of Goode and Pretti should be a subject of public lament, but they should be seen as subordinate and caused by a larger culture of incivility incited by a Jacobin culture that refuses the public credibility of Republican presidents. Shortly before the shooting of Pretti, the attorney general of Arizona called upon her residents to treat ICE agents under a doctrine of self-defense allowing them to shoot to kill. This Jacobin culture openly celebrates the death of Charlie Kirk, regrets the failed assassination attempts against President Trump, and fundamentally repudiates the stated principles of nonviolence enacted by leaders such as John Lewis. This public privilege allows and encourages professionally unethical behavior on social media as medical personnel wish harm on an array of individuals serving in the Trump administration. The status and standing of professionals calling for harm of Trump supporters is relatively uncompromised. American history is clear despite the fomented propaganda: Democratic Presidents as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joe Biden have fought fiercely against individual civil rights. Democrat cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland, and others have partisan traditions that refuse the public legitimacy of Republican presidents. These traditions incite violent rebellions that since Ulysses S. Grant required justice department interventions including Republican president Dwight Eisenhower at Little Rock in the 1950s. The insurrections of Democratic localities from Mississippi to Arkansas and now Minneapolis and Portland are not commendable and they are not in the tradition of civil rights. Punishing misconduct of law enforcement requires adherence to rule of law that does not surrender localities to mob rule like that seen in Minneapolis. The refusal of Republican federal enforcement in democratic localities is in the same political tradition that killed Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman. It demonstrates an American structural anti-Republicanism that endangers civil rights for all individuals.
Dr. Ben Voth is professor of rhetoric and director of debate at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of several academic books regarding political communication, presidential rhetoric, and genocide.
Hillary Clinton took to social media to express support for the rioters in Minneapolis even as the disgraced former candidate and her husband were dodging a congressional subpoena looking into their relationship with family friend and Clinton Foundation co-founder Jeffrey Epstein.
After condemning the Trump administration’s push to deport illegal alien criminals from Minneapolis, despite the obstruction of violent leftist rioters who had tried to murder federal law enforcement agents and bit off an agent’s finger, Clinton urged directing funding to the rioters.
“In Minnesota, scores of ordinary people are bravely looking out for their neighbors, defending their communities, and protesting lawless violence,” she tweeted. “Here’s how to stand with them.”
The link that the former senator and presidential candidate promoted goes to the ‘Stand With Minnesota’ site which urges defunding ICE, praises the harassment of ICE personnel on behalf of illegal aliens and tells readers to “Hassle ICE-Supporting Businesses” and lists hotels that are housing ICE agents. This list was already used by leftist radicals to mob hotels.
And it gets worse from there.
The primary purpose of ‘Stand With Minnesota’ is to fundraise for various groups including those linked by investigative journalists to the Minneapolis riots.
The list of groups that Hillary Clinton is fundraising for includes the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), a core group behind the protests, whose members have been caught on video defending violence, and which received funding from the city of Minneapolis.
MIRAC calls for the legalization of all illegal aliens, including criminals and even child rapists, and the end of any kind of immigration laws. Its toolkit encourages the harassment of federal immigration law enforcement personnel, reporting sightings of officers trying to arrest illegal alien criminals, and confronting them. State Sen. Omar Fateh, another Somali ally of Rep. Ilhan Omar, had rallied with MIRAC and supported its demand to arrest federal immigration officers.
Mira Altobell-Resendez, a MIRAC organizer and a DEI employee of the University of Minnesota, who had previously been involved in the pro-Hamas encampment, had rallied with Rep. Ilhan Omar, and who had been accused of having allegedly smashed her way into a federal vehicle during the riots to seize documents and lists of agents. The activist denied doing it but later appears to have stated, “Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean we won’t do it.”
Beyond Hillary Clinton, pro-crime and pro-illegal organizations have been helping finance MIRAC like a coffee shop selling ‘F___ ICE” coffee with the proceeds going to MIRAC.
Another organization being funded through the list shared by Hillary Clinton is ‘Communities Organizing Power and Action for Latinos’ (COPAL) which created the ‘Immigrant Defense Network’ that claims to have trained 10,000 activists tracking and harassing ICE personnel. COPAL maintains a ‘rapid response’ line to track federal officers arresting illegal alien criminals.
Multiple beneficiaries of the fundraising list shared by Hillary are part of IDN including the ACLU, Minnesota 8, a Cambodian pro-illegal group, and Ayada Leads, a Somali Muslim activist group with ties to Rep. Omar.
Ayada Leads had tweeted a message urging reporting of any ICE personnel while warning “Remember SALUTE when reporting.” SALUTE is a military acronym meaning ‘Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment’. The use of military terminology suggests active warfare.
Monarca, another of the groups on the list, also maintains a ‘rapid response’ network offering training on “protecting your neighborhoods from federal enforcement incursions.” Its butterfly logos have been viewed as coded signals spotted at the scenes of riots and worn by politicians and activists including Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan who has been linked to some of the riots.
Of the two ‘direct service organizations’ on the list spread by Hillary is the ‘Headwaters Foundation’ headed by Bilal Alkatout, a Kuwaiti immigrant who describes himself as a gay ‘Palestinian’ who has “never stepped foot in Palestine”. Headwaters is a notorious local operation that helped fund BLM during the riots and more recently provided funding to pro-Hamas groups like ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’.
Much of the funding for this comes from the Bush Foundation (no relation to the presidential family) which announced that “we have temporarily removed our staff and board member information from our website”. Before the information was suppressed, Bush listed grantmaking staff that included Farhiya Abdulkarim, a Somali Muslim migrant, who formerly worked as a DEI coordinator at Concordia College, who promoted the ‘Immigrant Rapid Response Fund’ that is the other direct response organization that appears on the Hillary list.
Other radical groups on the list promoted by Hillary Clinton includes CAIR, an unindicted Hamas terror funding co-conspirator whose leadership praised Oct 7, and SWOP “Support Sex Workers Impacted by ICE Presence” meaning the often criminally trafficked illegal alien prostitutes
This comes as Hillary and her husband continue to dodge a congressional subpoena looking into the human trafficking operations of their former friend and partner, Jeffrey Epstein.
Hillary Clinton’s actions show the extent to which the Minneapolis riots are being supported from the top down by key figures in the Democratic Party. These riots are not organic. Many of the groups involved have benefited from federal, state and city funding. Their nonprofits have been protected from interference within the IRS despite their involvement in illegal activities.
The riots won’t stop until the insurrectionist networks behind them have been dismantled.
By spreading the list, Hillary unintentionally helped highlight the radical networks behind the riots. It remains for federal law enforcement to break up the network, pull federal funding and non-profit status, seize all communications by key personnel and prosecute the conspirators.
Gold and silver prices plunged Friday, as President Donald Trump’s nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, appeared to relieve concerns about the central bank’s independence.
By 7:12 a.m. ET, spot silver was down 10.6% to settle at around $103.81 an ounce, paring back earlier losses. In the early hours of the morning, the metal had plummeted as much as 16% and dipped below the $100 milestone.
Meanwhile, spot gold shed around 5.7% to trade at $5,136.27 an ounce. Earlier, the safe-haven metal had lost as much as 7%.
Argor-Heraeus’ CEO Robin Kolvenbach holds one kilo bars of silver and gold at the plant of refiner and bar manufacturer Argor-Heraeus in Mendrisio, Switzerland, July 13, 2022.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Gold and silver prices plunged Friday, as President Donald Trump’s nomination for the next chair of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, appeared to relieve concerns about the central bank’s independence.
By 7:12 a.m. ET, spot silver was down 10.6% to settle at around $103.81 an ounce, paring back earlier losses. In the early hours of the morning, the metal had plummeted as much as 16% and dipped below the $100 milestone.
Prices of the precious metals also faltered on futures exchanges, with front-month gold contracts losing 3.4% in New York, while silver futures for February delivery were down by 10%.
The sell-off gripped the wider precious metals market, with spot platinum dropping more than 10%, while palladium fell close to 8%.
On Friday, Trump named Warsh — who served at the central bank during the 2008 financial crisis — successor to current Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett had been the favorite to replace Powell for some time, but Warsh became the front-runner in prediction markets in recent days.
In a note on Friday morning, Evercore ISI’s Krishna Guha said the market was “trading Warsh hawkish.”
“The Warsh pick should help stabilize the dollar some and reduce (though not eliminate) the asymmetric risk of deep extended dollar weakness by challenging debasement trades – which is also why gold and silver are sharply lower,” the firm’s vice chairman said.
“But, we advise against overdoing the Warsh hawkish trade across asset markets – and even see some risk of a whipsaw. We see Warsh as a pragmatist not an ideological hawk in the tradition of the independent conservative central banker.”
Claudio Wewel, FX strategist at J. Safra Sarasin Sustainable Asset Management, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that a “perfect storm” of geopolitical tensions had helped precious metals move higher this year, pointing to the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Washington’s threats to use military force in Greenland and Iran.
More recently, he said, speculation over who would be nominated as the next Fed chair had been influencing metals markets.
“The market has clearly been pricing the risk of a much more dovish contender, that’s been largely helping the gold price along with other precious metal prices. Over the last 24 hours, the news flow has changed a little bit,” Wewel said, prior to Trump’s announcement.
‘Even good assets can sell-off’
Gold and silver both enjoyed record-smashing rallies in 2025, surging 65% and 150%, respectively, over the course of the year. Those gains have largely continued into 2026, with silver adding 45% while gold is up 19% year to date.
On stock exchanges across the globe, the impact of the metals sell-off was visible on Friday. In Europe, the regional Stoxx 600 Basic Resources index — which includes the Continent’s most valuable mining companies — was down 2% in afternoon trading.
London-listed Fresnillo, the world’s biggest silver producer, was last seen 4% lower, paring earlier losses.
In premarket trade on Wall Street, silver miner Endeavour Silver was down 9%, while Coeur Mining lost 8%. Silver ETFs were dragged into the action, with the ProShares Ultra Silver fund last seen more than 22% lower ahead of the opening bell. The iShares Silver Trust ETF lost 11.2%.
Precious metals have been on a stellar rally over the past 12 months, amid broader market volatility, the decline of the U.S. dollar, bubbling geopolitical tensions and concerns about the independence of the Federal Reserve.
Katy Stoves, investment manager at British wealth management firm Mattioli Woods, told CNBC on Friday morning that the moves were likely “a market-wide reassessment of concentration risk.”
“Just as tech stocks — particularly AI-related names — have dominated market attention and capital flows, gold has similarly seen intense positioning and crowding,” she said. “When everyone is leaning the same way, even good assets can sell off as positions get unwound. The parallel isn’t accidental: both represent areas where capital has flooded in based on powerful narratives, and concentrated positions eventually face their day of reckoning.”
Meanwhile, Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management, contended that gold’s run to the $5,000 mark had happened “too easily.” He noted that the unwinding of the greenback had supported gold prices, but that the dollar had appeared to stabilize.
“Central bank buying has driven the longer-term rally but this has tailed off in recent months,” he said. “The case for further reserve diversification is still there though as Trump’s trade policies and intervention in foreign affairs will make a lot of countries nervous about holding U.S. assets, especially those countries in the emerging markets or aligned to China or Russia. Silver will mirror the direction of gold, so it is not surprising to see falls there.”
Now over a year into the new congressional term and moving toward the midterms, the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress has been racking up one major victory after another. Don’t believe it? Just look at the facts.
The Babylon Bee has the receipts with the following list of things the GOP has accomplished while in power:
1. Got Little Debbie Zebra Cakes added to the Capitol cafeteria: The far-reaching magnitude of this cannot be overstated.
2. Thought long and hard about doing something: They’re not sure what it was, but they definitely considered it.
3. Added a cool light show to the Washington Monument: And it reportedly only cost American taxpayers $7 trillion.
4. Issued a record number of sternly worded letters: Shape up, or they’ll send one to you, too.
5. Convinced Mike Johnson to try parting his hair on the other side: This required months of tough negotiation.
6. Released six heavily redacted pages of the Epstein files: They’re serious about accountability.
7. Exempted the National Mall landscapers from all ICE operations: They can’t afford to lose José and his crew.
8. Passed legislation to fund the federal government for the next 8 minutes: Isn’t that amazing? Oh, wait, time’s up, and the government is about to shut down again.
9. Lost the midterms earlier than any other Republican Congress in history: And that’s saying something.
No one can say the GOP hasn’t been getting things done. What else have Republicans accomplished while controlling both chambers of Congress for the last year? Add your thoughts in the comments.
To anyone who thinks there is a chance Vice President JD Vance will change his continuing disdain for the Jews, as New Yorkers say, fuhgeddaboudit!
January 27 was Holocaust Remembrance Day, which recognizes, not all the dead of WWII or the victims of the Nazis, but very specifically, the Jews whom the Nazis sought to exterminate entirely from Earth. Here’s how JD Vance acknowledged a day remember that unique, targeted evil:
I was not the only one to notice that omission. Perhaps not coincidentally, the BBC, which is notoriously antisemitic, also forgot to mention the Jews when it acknowledged Holocaust Remembrance Day. With a nod to Ilhan Omar, it’s as if both said, “Some people did something…”
As you can see, Vance’s post included photos of the vice president and his wife, Usha, in 2025 visiting a Holocaust memorial site at the Dachau Death Camp, where he signed a guestbook. Please look to see if it’s signed “JD Vance” or “Tucker Carlson.”
How in the hell (as in the hell of a Nazi death camp) could anyone reference what happened in the Holocaust and not mention Jews? For those keeping count, the Nazis won the game by 6 million.
Imagine someone talking about the American Revolutionary War without mentioning George Washington. Or the Civil War without saying Abraham Lincoln’s name. Or the Great Depression, and omitting Franklin Roosevelt from the discussion. Except it’s worse than that because while Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt were all major players in those historical events, the Holocaust is specifically, by definition, about the Jews.
Vice President JD Vance didn’t mention the Nazis systematically murdering European Jewry because he is Tucker Carlson with a beard. Thus, Vance avoids anything that even remotely gives Jews or Israel a sympathetic view.
From the official White House statement to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s post, there was mention of Jews or antisemitism in their own commemorations of Holocaust Remembrance Day. But not Vance, who seems to want to represent the Woke Reich of the Republican Party.
With much regret, it is now definite that VP Vance is a “groyper,” those Republicans who lean to the Woke Reich. As Commentary Executive Editor Abe Greenwald wrote in an email entitled “JD Vance Has Made His Choice”:
So, let’s also stop looking for Vance to change his tune. He’s dancing with the one that brought him to the party, and that’s Carlson. According to multiple accounts, Carlson was heavily involved in getting Donald Trump to pick Vance as his running mate. That’s a favor you don’t take for granted. Especially if you’re as calculating as our current vice president. If he’s not going to disown the racist right for insulting his wife and child, he’s certainly not going to do it for the Jews. He’s decided that the Republican future belongs to anti-Semites.
Every night when I say my prayers, I ask G-d to protect President Donald J. Trump. Those prayers take on a stronger meaning out of worry that the “Woke Reich” will put Vance in the Oval Office before the next presidential election, when many Americans are looking to SOS Marco Rubio to be the presidential nominee and continue MAGA.
Robin M. Itzler is a regular contributor to American Thinker. She is the founder and editor of Patriot Neighbors, a free weekly national newsletter and can be reached at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com
Homan said he was deployed to Minnesota earlier this week to help restore law and order and remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from local communities.
He made clear his focus is public safety — not politics or headlines.
Sanctuary cities are “sanctuaries for criminals” who endanger communities, President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said Thursday morning in his first press conference after arriving in Minneapolis.
Homan said he was deployed to Minnesota earlier this week to help restore law and order and remove dangerous criminal illegal aliens from local communities.
He made clear his focus is public safety — not politics or headlines.
Ii didn’t come to Minnesota for photo ops or headlines,” Homan told reporters. “I came here to seek solutions.”
Homan said more than 10 million illegal aliens entered the country under the Biden administration, including millions of “gotaways” who evaded authorities.
Many, he warned, pose national security and public safety threats.
Trump, he said, promised voters he would reverse those failures and prioritize the safety of American communities.
The border czar said he has spent the past several days meeting with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey — all Democrats — as well as law enforcement leaders and others.
“We didn’t agree on everything. I didn’t expect to agree on everything,” Homan said. “But you can’t fix problems if you don’t have discussions.”
One key area of agreement, Homan noted, was that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a legitimate law enforcement agency with a duty to enforce federal law.
Homan said the administration was working on drawdown plan to decrease presence of ICE in Minnesota.
“As we drill down on these great agreements [with Minnesota officials] we’ve got, this great understanding we have means less so we can draw down those resources,” he said.
“When the violence decreases, we can draw down those resources. But based on the discussions I’ve had with the governor and the AG, we can start drawing down those resources.”
He added the drawdown “can happen even more if the hateful rhetoric” stops.
He emphasized that his request is not for local officials to become immigration officers, but for cooperation to remove criminal aliens already in custody.
“Jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities are sanctuaries for criminals,” Homan said. “Sanctuary cities are sanctuaries for criminals and endanger the residents of the community.”
Homan praised Minnesota’s Department of Corrections for honoring ICE detainers and said that cooperation has made communities safer — not only for residents, but for law enforcement officers as well.
He also announced progress with Ellison, who clarified that county jails may notify ICE of release dates for criminal illegal aliens so agents can take custody lawfully and safely.
“That’s common sense,” Homan said, noting that arrests inside jails are safer than attempting to locate dangerous suspects after release.
He dismissed claims that cooperation with ICE discourages crime victims and witnesses from coming forward.
“Victims and witnesses don’t want the bad guy back in their neighborhood either,” Homan said.
Homan said continued cooperation will reduce crime, save resources, and fulfill Trump’s commitment to put American safety first, especially in cities that he said have paid the price for years of failed border policies.
President Donald Trump is moving to rip fraud out by the roots.
In a Jan. 28 announcement on Truth Social, Trump named Colin McDonald as the first-ever Assistant Attorney General for National Fraud Enforcement, a brand-new division at the Department of Justice created to hunt down, expose, and prosecute the fraud networks that have been bleeding American taxpayers dry for years.
“I created this Division to catch and stop FRAUDSTERS that have been STEALING from the American People,” Trump wrote, pointing to massive schemes recently uncovered in states like Minnesota and California that he says have siphoned off hundreds of billions of dollars from public programs.
This is not another symbolic task force or press-release office. This is a direct strike force.
A White House–Directed Fraud Purge
The new division will operate with nationwide jurisdiction and report directly to the White House—bypassing the usual DOJ bureaucracy that critics say has looked the other way while fraud exploded across federal programs.
Vice President JD Vance made clear this will be a no-nonsense operation.
“We are creating a new assistant attorney general position who will have nationwide jurisdiction over the issue of fraud,” Vance said. Enforcement actions will begin immediately, starting in Minnesota—ground zero for some of the most shocking fraud revelations in the country.
The position carries Special Counsel–level authority, but unlike past special counsels who chased political narratives, this office is being run out of the White House, under direct presidential supervision.
Translation: no cover, no delays, no sacred cows.
McDonald: A Prosecutor Who Actually Puts Criminals Away
Trump praised McDonald as a proven fighter who has delivered justice in some of the most complex and high-stakes cases in the country.
McDonald currently serves as an associate deputy attorney general and previously worked as senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. His background includes years as a federal prosecutor in Southern California and Hawaii, as well as service as a judicial law clerk.
While in Hawaii, McDonald helped convict former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife—both entrenched insiders—on multiple charges including bank fraud and conspiracy. A federal judge said their crimes “staggered the community” and shook confidence in governing institutions.
That résumé matters.
This division isn’t being handed to a political climber or a bureaucrat—it’s being handed to someone with a record of taking down powerful fraudsters who thought they were untouchable.
Fraud Wasn’t an Accident—It Was Allowed
The creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division follows mounting evidence that fraud was not just missed, but tolerated under prior leadership.
Federal investigators are now probing sprawling schemes tied to programs like Feeding Our Future, Housing Stabilization Services, Medicaid, and early childhood intervention initiatives—many of them centered in Minnesota. Billions meant to help vulnerable Americans instead flowed into shell companies, luxury purchases, and organized fraud rings.
For years, taxpayers were told these were “isolated incidents.”
They weren’t.
They were systemic.
The Message Is Clear
This move sends a blunt warning: the era of open-season theft from federal programs is over.
No more fake nonprofits. No more politically protected grifters. No more bureaucratic excuses.
With McDonald at the helm and the White House backing the mission, the Trump administration is signaling that fraud against the American people will be treated for what it is: a major crime against the nation.
As Trump put it succinctly:
“Congratulations Colin—STOP THE SCAMS!”
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Brothers Hamid and Vahid Arzanlou were two well-known entrepreneurs in Iran’s furniture industry who despite their wealth still chose to raise their voices in anti-government protests this month and paid with their lives.
During mass killings by security forces in the Tehranpars area east of Tehran on January 9, Hamid Arzanlou was shot in the head and Vahid was shot twice in the neck while trying to save him, according to sources close to the family.
Both brothers later died from their wounds.
At their funeral, a third brother Kiomars Arzanlou asked mourners to clap if they believed his brothers had chosen the right path, and the mourners responded by applauding the two Arzanlou brothers.
According to the sources, security agencies demanded more than one billion tomans (about $6,670) from the relatives in exchange for handing over the bodies.
Hamid and Vahid, the sources added, actively supported and helped organize walkouts during the early days of strikes in Tehran’s central bazaar beginning late last year.
The large‑scale strike on January 7 at the furniture market in the Delavaran district was organized partly through their efforts and became one of the biggest strikes in eastern Tehran.
Sources close to the family say the two brothers were also among the first on the streets on the night of January 8, standing alongside other protesters for hours before security forces unleased a two-day crackdown which killed them along with thousands of other demonstrators.
Hamid and Vahid were owners and managers of the Aysa Mobl Kian furniture company which is one of the best‑known brands in Iran’s furniture industry.
At its peak, this group created jobs for at least one thousand people directly and indirectly and employed about 200 workers directly.
The two brothers hailed from a working‑class family and grew up in Tehran’s Khak‑e Sefid neighborhood and had built up wealth through their hard work and thrift, the sources added.
Vahid was the father of three children while Hamid is leaves behind two young children. Their mother, 68, survives them.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 