Minnesota’s defiance of federal immigration law echoes pre–Fort Sumter nullification, forcing Trump to choose between enforcement and letting blue states slide toward open rebellion.

By Victor Davis Hanson

January 29, 2026

In the months before the April 12, 1861, firing on Fort Sumter, there were lots of sharp divisions in the North about the proper reaction to the first seven Confederate states that had already left the Union.

Not all Unionists believed that war was inevitable. Some, in fact, were happy to be done with the departing South and thus see their stain of slavery gone from the Union. Similarly, others agreed that the emerging Confederacy was not worth the trouble and costs of war, and the secessionists could just form their own nation and stew in their own backward, servile juice.

But after Fort Sumter, Lincoln—who was hated as much by the Confederates as Trump is by the woke and socialist left—gained a consensus that the Constitution had no clauses about any lawful departure from the union. But it did operate under a clear supremacy clause that made state obstruction of federal law and occupation of federal property veritable sedition.

Lincoln and the preservationists felt that they easily had the moral high ground of abolition versus the continuance of slavery. Nor did they want a North America of fragmenting, warring nations in the manner of Europe.

Something similar is emerging over Minnesota, the South Carolina of our age.

Once sanctuary states, cities, and counties had established the precedent that, with impunity, they could nullify federal immigration law, then what followed was a logical and mounting descent into the current open defiance of the federal government. How odd that self-described progressives are now acting out the visions of prior kindred nullificationists and neo-Confederates from John C. Calhoun to George Wallace.

The reaction of the rest of the nation, especially its conservative half, to Minnesota resembles the 1861 disconnect in the North over the insurrectionary states.

Some believe that if Minnesota wants to protect its approximately 1,300 jailed illegal alien murderers, rapists, and assorted felons, so be it, and ICE should leave such a dysfunctional and dystopian state to its own self-destructive path.

In this way of “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya” thinking, Trump should stick to the red and purple states, clear them of criminal aliens with the help of local enforcement, but without the organized performance-art leftist resistance. Then he could contrast the nation with the difference between low crime, noncontroversial deportations, versus the blue-state model of protecting illegal alien criminals and their indifference to the mayhem they inflict on the innocent.

If Minnesota further wants to be a state like 1861 South Carolina that openly defies the federal government, then also so be it. But it should accordingly not expect federal funding for its pick-and-choose approach to federal law and property.

Has Minnesota forgotten that, like blue-state America, it cheered on Barack Obama’s DOJ when it successfully sued Arizona in 2010, insisting that it was Obama’s right as a federal custodian not to enforce federal immigration law at the border—and thus not legal for Governor Jan Brewer to use her state resources to enforce a federal law that derelict federal officers would not?

But on the other hand, contemporary Unionists objected that such live and let suffer is defeatist. Moreover, there are millions of Americans inside insurrectionary Minnesota who do not support their neo-Confederate leaders. Millions in Minnesota properly see themselves as Americans first and Minnesotans second.

In this line of argument, just as Lincoln refused to give up federal armories, property, and offices inside the South—most notably Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor—to insurrectionists, so too the Trump administration has an obligation to protect federal property and offices in Minnesota and to enforce federal law throughout the nation, at least if it is to continue as a nation.

Very soon, Trump will have to decide which strategy is preferable and politically viable before the midterms.

Meanwhile, Minnesota’s highest elected officials have ordered local and state police not to protect federal immigration officers from the very street violence that they fuel. Indeed. Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and Attorney General Ellison are actively encouraging Minnesotans to obstruct federal officers from enforcing federal laws—despite the mounting violence that follows their collective prompts.

The three know that organized and well-funded groups organize the protests and incite the violence. And perhaps the trio even welcomes would-be martyrs to use their vehicles to ram ICE officers or to arrive at protests armed with military-grade, semi-automatic pistols with plenty of magazines and ammunition to spare.

Walz and company further quietly accept that they could easily mitigate the violence by simply turning over roughly 1,300 criminal illegal aliens in various Minnesota jails to federal authorities. To do so would lessen the chances of violence, make Minnesota a safer place, and expedite the rotation of ICE out of Minnesota.

But, of course, Walz, Frey, and Ellison have no such intentions, given their schemes are elsewhere.

Given the failure of an increasingly socialist Democratic Party in 2024 to offer a more popular and convincing agenda than Trump’s, they believe their future lies in an increasingly redistributionist America, fueled by unlimited, unaudited immigration from the former Third World. They view as a political asset millions of arriving poor in dire need of massive federal health, food, housing, and education subsidies and entitlements, imbued with DEI victimhood, and nursed on America as toxic at its birth and ever more pathological ever since.

So for the Minnesota state officials, screaming for ICE “to get the f**k out of Minnesota” is more than mere braggadocio. It is a reminder that the Democratic Party wants a safe place for illegal immigration, the fuel of a future dependent constituency—as the architecture of the recent massive Somali frauds attests.

They also believe that the more turmoil, the more violence, the more resistance, and the more a general sense of chaos and unrest swirl around the Trump administration, the more they can drive down its popularity before the midterms.

They still cherish the months of riot, violence, and arson in the George Floyd “summer of love” in 2020 as critical in defeating Donald Trump.

Now as then, the left believes they can create a lose/lose dilemma for Trump: send in the National Guard to restore order, and he confirms that he is a “Nazi” and using the “Gestapo” to quell “peaceful” protests. Stand down, and the left owns the street, exasperating the MAGA base that mysteriously Trump has allowed the criminal left to nullify the enforcement of federal law in near-secessionist fashion.

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So for the Minnesota state officials, screaming for ICE “to get the f**k out of Minnesota” is more than mere braggadocio. It is a reminder that the Democratic Party wants a safe place for illegal immigration, the fuel of a future dependent constituency—as the architecture of the recent massive Somali frauds attests.

There are other Democratic agendas, both short- and long-term.

The Minnesota Democrat apparatus either knowingly turned a blind eye to, protected, or silently partnered with the architects of likely the largest theft of federal welfare and entitlement monies in U.S. history—largely by the Somali community, both immigrants and their second-generation apparatchiks. The Democratic elite counted on the prophylactic cry of “racist!” to exempt the Somali community from any legal accountability. And so far, they seem right in that assumption.

And the public?

Polls reveal its trademark ambiguity. A majority voted for Trump to enforce immigration law, close the border, end illegal immigration, and deport those who broke federal law. But that hope and the reality of implementing it are two different things—especially when a state like Minnesota has not just institutionalized illegal immigration but nearly canonized foreign nationals illegally residing in the U.S.

To sum up public opinion, the proverbial people want all criminal illegal aliens deported as soon as possible, and they may even support the deportations of all 10-12 million illegal aliens who came en masse, unaudited, and with the de facto blessing of the Biden administration.

But that said, they want the act of deportation of the non-criminal to be out of sight, out of mind—as if magically they can simply disappear and thus either self-deport or assemble at ICE stations eager to be sent at no cost home.

For now, Walz, Frey, and Ellison are upping the rhetoric, fanning the violence, and talking openly about how best to nullify federal law and impede federal enforcement. They are convinced that they have galvanized national opposition to the hated Trump, smothered the Somali fraud scandal, and stopped ICE deportations of their constituents.

In all of those assumptions, they have little idea they are following the Confederate script to the letter. And like their spiritual forefathers of 1861, they grow ever more cocky, boastful, and defiant as they create martyrs, spread narratives of victimhood, and daily slouch toward another Fort Sumter.

About Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O’Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent  The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — If there’s been a soundtrack to life in Minneapolis in recent weeks, it’s the shrieking whistles and honking horns of thousands of people following immigration agents across the city.

They are the ever-moving shadow of the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge.

They are teachers, scientists and stay-at-home parents. They own small businesses and wait tables. Their network is sprawling, often anonymous and with few overall objectives beyond helping immigrants, warning of approaching agents or filming videos to show the world what is happening.

And it’s clear they will continue despite the White House striking a more conciliatory tone after the weekend killing of Alex Pretti, including the transfer of Gregory Bovino, the senior Border Patrol official who was the public face of the immigration crackdown.

“I think that everyone slept a little better knowing that Bovino had been kicked out of Minneapolis,” said Andrew Fahlstrom, who helps run Defend the 612, a hub for volunteer networks. “But I don’t think the threat that we’re under will change because they change out the local puppets.”

The surge begins

What started with scattered arrests in December ramped up dramatically in early January, when a top ICE official announced the “largest immigration operation ever.”

Masked, heavily armed agents traveling in convoys of unmarked SUVs became commonplace in some neighborhoods. By this week, more than 3,400 people had been arrested, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 Border Patrol officers were on the ground.

Administration officials insist they are focusing on criminals in the U.S. illegally, but the reality in the streets has been far more aggressive. Agents have stopped people, seemingly randomly, to demand citizenship papers, including off-duty Latino and Black police officers and city workers, area officials say.

They smashed through the front door of a Liberian man and detained him without a proper warrant, even though he’d been checking in regularly with immigration officials. They have detained children along with their parents and used tear gas outside a high school in an altercation with protesters after detaining someone.

To be sure, federal agents are barely a presence in many areas, and most people have never smelled a whiff of tear gas. But the crackdown rippled quickly through immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. Patients are avoiding life-saving medical care, doctors said. Thousands of immigrant children are staying home. Immigrant businesses shut down, cut their hours or kept their doors locked to everyone but regular customers.

They smashed through the front door of a Liberian man and detained him without a proper warrant, even though he’d been checking in regularly with immigration officials. They have detained children along with their parents and used tear gas outside a high school in an altercation with protesters after detaining someone.

To be sure, federal agents are barely a presence in many areas, and most people have never smelled a whiff of tear gas. But the crackdown rippled quickly through immigrant-heavy neighborhoods. Patients are avoiding life-saving medical care, doctors said. Thousands of immigrant children are staying home. Immigrant businesses shut down, cut their hours or kept their doors locked to everyone but regular customers.

Pushback comes quickly

Activist groups rapidly organized across deeply liberal Minneapolis-St. Paul and some suburbs. Small armies of volunteers began making food deliveries to immigrants afraid to leave their homes. They drove people to work and stood watch outside schools.

They also created interlocking webs of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of rapid response networks — sophisticated systems involving thousands of volunteers who track immigration agents, communicating with encrypted apps like Signal.

Tracking often means little more than quietly reporting the movement of convoys to dispatchers and recording the license plates of possible federal vehicles.

But it’s not always quiet. Protester caravans regularly form behind immigration convoys, creating mobile protests of anger and warning that weave through city streets.

When agents stop to arrest or question someone, the networks signal the location, summoning more people who sound warnings with whistles and honking, film what’s happening and call out legal advice to people being detained.

Many protesters come expecting trouble

Sometimes it all can feel performative, whether it’s Bovino in body armor tossing a smoke grenade, or young activists who rarely take off their helmets and gas masks, even when law enforcement is nowhere to be seen.

But crowds often lead to real confrontations, with protesters screaming at immigration agents. Agents respond only sometimes, but when they do it’s often with punches, pepper spray, tear gas and arrests.

Those confrontations worry some in the activist world.

Take the recent afternoon in south Minneapolis, where dozens of protesters, some in gas masks, clashed with immigration agents in south Minneapolis. Protesters screamed at agents, threw snowballs and tried to block their vehicles. Agents responded by shoving protesters who got too close, firing pepper balls and finally throwing tear gas grenades and driving away. Demonstrators without masks wretched in the streets as volunteers handed out bottles of water to flush their eyes.

By then, even many of the people in the protest weren’t sure what started it, including the city council member who soon arrived.

Minneapolis has a long tradition of progressivism, and Jason Chavez is a proud part of that.

He bristled when asked about the confrontation.

“I didn’t see anybody ‘confronting,’” said Chavez. “I saw people alerting neighbors that ICE was in their neighborhood. And that’s what neighbors should continue to do.”

Tracking immigration in an immigrant neighborhood

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

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

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

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

“Sometimes people just want to pick up their kid and walk their dog and go to work. And I get that. I get that desire,” she said while driving through the neighborhood last week. “I just don’t know if that’s the world we live in anymore.”

She runs constant equations in her head: Should she report an immigration vehicle to the network’s dispatcher, or honk her horn as a warning? Would honking unnecessarily scare residents who are already afraid? Are agents leading her around? Are federal vehicles moving to launch a raid, or are they distracting observers while other agents make arrests elsewhere?

She is careful and avoids confrontation. She also finds hope in the community that has been created, and how offers to volunteer exploded after the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent. And she understands the anger of the people who face off against agents.

“My strategy, my approach, my risk calculation is different than other peoples’. And at the same time, the vitriol, the frustration, I get it,” she said. “And sometimes it feels good to see someone unleash that.”

Not everyone agrees. Even nationally, some activist groups have pushed back against protest strategies that could lead to clashes.

“Loud does not equal effective,” a group in a heavily immigrant Maryland county said in a recent social media post, explaining why their volunteers don’t use whistles. Among other things, the Montgomery County Immigrant Rights Collective warned that whistling can “escalate already volatile ICE agents who don’t respect our rights” and “increase the likelihood of aggression toward bystanders or the detained person.”

“This is not an action movie,” the post says. “You are not in a one-on-one fight with ICE.”

The following guest post is by Dominic J. Grigio, author of The Disastrous Pontificate: Pope Francis’ Rupture from the Magisterium.

During the Most Holy Mass for the Inauguration of his Pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI said something quite remarkable, ‘Pregate per me, perché io non fugga, per paura, davanti ai lupi — Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.’^[1]

The wolf is a powerful Christian symbol for wickedness and deceit within the Church, especially among those exercising pastoral leadership such as popes, cardinals, bishops and priests. These connotations of deceitful wickedness can be traced back to a warning from Our Lord, ‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’ (Mt 7:15). The Greek word for ‘ravenous’ used by Matthew is harpax which has two meanings — rapacious or ravening, and robbery by a swindler^[2]. In the context Matthew’s Gospel our Lord’s warning about the ravening wolf disguised as a sheep conveys the danger of the disguised evil of those pastors who steal salvation from souls through imposing doctrinal error.

The enormity of this evil is so appalling that the faithful, understandably, have difficulty comprehending it — popes, bishops and priests who steal salvation from those under their care. We have to be absolutely clear about this: teaching heresy and affirming mortal sin puts unrepentant sinners in danger of eternal punishment in Hell. Spiritual fathers who teach heresy are literally in danger of stealing eternal life in heaven from their spiritual children.

This is the worst form of spiritual abuse by men in positions of authority and power in the Church. It is a type of spiritual abuse that impacts the faithful and unrepentant sinners in very different ways — faithful Catholics are distressed, even at times distraught, to see the Faith attacked by those entrusted to cherish and guard it, while misguided, unrepentant sinners rejoice to be confirmed in their sin. As Peter Kwasniewski put it during his conversation with Eric Sammons, living through the pontificate of Pope Francis as a faithful Catholic ‘was like being an abused child and waking up every day fearing how you were going to be abused next.’^[3]

When I was working on this book, there were many times when I wanted to flee for fear of the wolves. It got to the point that I was very reluctant to immerse myself in the heresies and duplicitous, cunning actions of this disastrous pontificate. It affected me physically, psychologically and spiritually. A friend kept reminding me to pray for spiritual protection, warning me of the danger inherent with the work, ‘He that toucheth pitch, shall be defiled with it.’ (Ecclesiasticus 13:1). I was very much tempted to walk away and try to forget the whole, sordid thing.

However, in retrospect I realise I was given the grace to persevere and was sustained by the three theological virtues. I love the Faith, especially as expressed through the sacred dogmas and doctrines of the Church. In the midst of the chaos and confusion caused by Bergoglio’s words and deeds, I found stability in the doctrinal pronouncements of previous councils, popes and saints. I fostered the hope that my book would help pass on the true Faith to those seeking the Truth now and in the future, and I saw my book as expressing the fundamental act of Christian love — caring for the salvation of souls.

I totally understand those who just want to forget the Bergoglian pontificate and get on with their lives. However, the fact of the matter is that though Jorge Bergoglio is dead (RIP), the evils he inflicted on the Church remain a clear and present danger to souls and the unity of the Church. As Fr Davide Pagliarani, the Superior General of the SSPX, expressed it recently:

After the pontificate of Pope Francis, we find ourselves in an emergency situation. Although the Pope has passed away, his decisions remain epoch making, problematic, and far reaching. This pontificate exemplifies the state of necessity within the Church from start to finish. In ordinary parishes, the means for the salvation of souls are often lacking. The preaching of the truth and the administration of the sacraments are no longer guaranteed.^[4]

Many of the cardinals and bishops who collaborated with his heretical agenda remain in positions of power; his many error-ridden documents remain unchallenged as part of the ordinary magisterium of the Church, and countless millions of souls remain confused and misguided about the Catholic Faith.

God has called those of us who can clearly see this appalling state of affairs to take part in the great work of restoring the truth of divine revelation in the life of the Church. He created us for this moment and this work. Just as He called the faithful during the Arian crisis and the Protestant revolt, He calls all of us to defend doctrine and challenge heresy during the Bergoglian crisis. What would have happened to the Church if the faithful had said they’d “heard enough of” Arius or Luther and “just wanted to forget about these heresiarchs and get on with their lives”?

We must re-discover the deep, abiding passion for sacred doctrine that previous generations of Catholics possessed, sometimes at the cost of persecution and martyrdom. After the doctrinal and catechetical chaos of the post-Vatican II period, many have lost a sense of the importance of doctrine for their salvation. The saintly Pope Pius XII warned in the early 20th century that ‘perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin.’^[5]

It seems to me that those who have lost the sense of the importance of doctrine are the very ones who have lost the sense of sin. This is exemplified in their permissive attitude about a whole range of sins — from sexual sins to sins against the Faith, such as sacramental sacrilege, atheism and religious indifferentism. Only bishops who have completely lost a sense of the importance of doctrine would advocate the acceptance of contraception, masturbation, same-sex unions, and homosexual acts, as many German bishops did under the banner of synodality.^[6] Only a pope who had completely lost the sense of the importance of doctrine would advocate to a group of young people the grave sin of religious indifferentism, as when Pope Francis proclaimed that all religions led to God and that Christianity was not more important than any other religion.^[7]

We need to regain the passion for doctrine that Catholics of the fourth century possessed when the sailors, dockworkers, and ordinary faithful sang sea-shanties about the divine nature of Christ. We need to regain the zeal for doctrine that led St. Francis de Sales and his cousin, Fr. Louis de Sales, to slip apologetic pamphlets under the doors of Calvinists because they were banned from public preaching, resulting in the conversion back to the Faith of 100,000 Protestants. We need to regain the courage for doctrine that led St. Edmund Campion S.J., to risk his life by not only returning to England as a priest on penalty of being hanged, drawn and quartered, but also by sneaking 400 copies of his pamphlet Decem Rationes (Ten Reasons), challenging Protestant heresies with Catholic doctrine, into the heart of England’s intellectual establishment.

How do we regain this passion, this zeal, this courage for doctrine after sixty years of heterodox catechesis and preaching? Only through a correct understanding of sacred doctrine. This is one of the reasons why I wrote The Disastrous Pontificate: to reveal the beauty, consistency and truth of genuine sacred doctrine by contrasting it with the gravely erroneous teaching of Pope Francis and his collaborators. Goodness, Beauty, and Truth stand out more clearly when contrasted with evil, ugliness and lies.

worked on the book it became obvious to me that there are four keys to the authentic Catholic hermeneutic of sacred doctrine:

1. As St. Paul expresses it, we accept sacred doctrine as originating from God, and not from human thinking (Gal 1:11-12; 1 Cor 2:13).

2. We insist that the Word of God contained in sacred Scripture, and safeguarded by sacred doctrine, judges our thoughts and actions, rather than our thoughts and actions judging the Word of God.

3. We uphold St. John Henry Newman’s true understanding of the development of doctrine which was frequently misrepresented by Pope Francis and his collaborators to justify their blatant contradiction of sacred doctrine. Authentic development of doctrine means the Church, through the Holy Spirit, attains a deeper understanding of doctrine that:

– maintains the original divine truth;

– ensures that the underlying revealed truths remain permanent and consistent;

– appreciates that the deeper understanding of doctrine can be accepted by the Church without changing her apostolic, hierarchical nature and tradition;

– knows that the deeper understanding is logically inferred from, and implicit in, apostolic doctrine, and not imposed abruptly or arbitrarily;

– safeguards, strengthens, and explains doctrine rather than undermining or contradicting it, as this deeper understanding acts to preserve the past rather than overthrow it.

4. We realise that the principle lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi is vital to the life and wellbeing of the Church. It is a threefold cord that cannot be broken. In the context of the Latin-rite church, the worthy, reverent worship of God through the traditional Latin Mass is not a matter of personal or aesthetic taste but is essential to the correct understanding, safeguarding and expounding of sacred doctrine.

These four keys to a correct understanding of sacred doctrine are absolutely necessary if we are to see through the doctrinal chaos and confusion caused by Pope Francis’ disastrous pontificate, which failed every single one of Cardinal Newman’s premises for the genuine development of doctrine.^[8] As St. Vincent of Learns advised the faithful, ‘What if some novel contagion seek to infect not merely an insignificant portion of Church, but the whole? Then it will be his [the believer’s] care to cleave to antiquity, which at this day cannot possibly be seduced by any fraud of novelty.’^[9] This must be our care: to regain our sense of sin through our love, defence and adherence to true doctrine.

Democrat running to be Ohio’s attorney general promised to kill President Donald Trump if he wins the November election.

Elliot Forhan, a former state representative and current attorney general candidate, posted a plan outlining how he would “kill Donald Trump.”

“I want to tell you what I mean when I say that I am going to kill Donald Trump,” Forhan said in a video. “I mean I’m going to obtain a conviction rendered by a jury of his peers at a standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt based on evidence presented at a trial conducted in accordance with the requirements of due process, resulting in a sentence, duly executed, of capital punishment. That is what I mean when I say I am going to kill Donald Trump.”

Trump narrowly survived his first assassination attempt on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. The president was again targeted just weeks later while golfing in Palm Beach, Florida.

Notably, Forhan responded to the political assassination of Charlie Kirk by posting “Fuck Charlie Kirk.”

Forhan’s comments — disturbing as they are — are par for the course for Democrats.

Just this past November, Virginians willingly elected Jay Jones to serve as the state’s attorney general despite him fantasizing in a 2022 exchange with a colleague about killing former Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert.

“Three people, two bullets. [Republican House Speaker Todd] Gilbert, [H]itler, and [P]ol [P]ot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head. Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time,” Jones said.

Jones also reportedly suggested that he wished Gilbert’s wife “could watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views,” as the National Review reported.

When Jones’ colleague later pushed back, Jones only doubled down.

“Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy,” he wrote in a message. “I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer [Gilbert’s wife] are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes.”

More than 1.7 million Virginians voted for Jones despite his assassination fantasies.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2

Brianna Lyman

I’ve been working for Article V, off and on, since 1983. That’s when the Alaska Legislature passed a Resolution calling for a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA), using Article V.  I was serving in the Alaska Senate.  At the time, the national debt was $1.8 trillion.

From 2013 to 2018, the campaign for fiscal reform, using Article V, was my sole preoccupation.  My sons Darren and Brendan and I co-founded the Reagan Project to promote it.  I gave it everything I had.

But I basically gave it up, because left-wing dark money (Soros et al.) had entered the game in Montana in 2015.  There was no money to oppose them and no national figure of stature to take the lead in the campaign.  We were dead in the water.

Now things have changed.  The debt has increased twentyfold, to $37.85 trillion.  And Congress remains unwilling to restrain its deficit spending.  In 2025, the debt increased $2.23 trillion.

Most importantly, our movement now has Florida governor Ron DeSantis as its leader.  He was in Idaho a few days ago, imploring its state legislators to pass the same bill I voted for 43 years ago.

There are different ways of counting how many states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V BBA.  Thirty-four are needed.  There may be litigation soon to argue that that threshold has already been crossed.  But the outcome of such a lawsuit is uncertain, and the safest way to proceed is to put the current count at 27 and run a campaign to get seven more state legislatures to act.

Believe me — this won’t be easy.  In addition to the left-wing dark money problem, the ultra-far-right John Birch Society is adamantly opposed, claiming to fear the boogeyman of a runaway convention.  They are a real force in states like Idaho and Montana.  Getting to an undisputed 34 states will take several years at a minimum.

At the end of this year, Gov. DeSantis will be term-limited out of his job.  What better way to spend his time than by traveling the country, promoting a BBA using Article V?  If the American people were made aware that there is a way to force Congress to stop spending this country into bankruptcy, they would demand that their state legislators take action and pass the needed resolutions.

The best way for DeSantis to promote Article V is by running for president.  He’d have the bully pulpit and could use it to inform the voters that there really is a way to deal with the debt and with deficit spending.

He wouldn’t be running against Vance, or Rubio, or Newsom or any Democrat.  He’d be running against Congress.  The American people, of all political persuasions, are well aware of the dismal state of the United States Congress.  In a bipartisan manner, it is dysfunctional, corrupt, and incapable of reforming itself.

The Framers of the Constitution, George Mason in particular, foresaw the possibility of such a Congress and gave the states a way to bypass it and propose congressional reform amendments to the Constitution without congressional approval.  This was the way the 17th Amendment, the direct election of United States senators, came into being.  At the time, 32 state Article V resolutions were needed for an Article V Amendment Convention.  When the count reached 30, the Congress, in order to prevent such a convention from taking place, rolled over and proposed the 17th Amendment.

So we may not need to get 34.  If we get five more states, for a total of 32, Congress may propose an amendment itself.  An actual Article V Convention would be avoided, and congressional power would not be challenged.

Ron DeSantis may or may not ever be elected to the presidency.  But if he can lead a successful Article V campaign, he will have made a more significant contribution to this country than a whole lot of presidents have ever done.

Fritz Pettyjohn is working with the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation to promote a lawsuit arguing that 34 states have passed Article V BBA resolutions.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — The malodorous substance sprayed on Representative Ilhan Omar at a town hall meeting has been identified as Somali food.

A man seated on the front row of the town hall suddenly rose and began shouting at Omar midway through the event before spraying her with Somali cuisine that had been fed through a blender.

“Oof. It smells like rice and bananas,” said security guard Jim Palmer as he secured Omar. “This is the most awful stench I have ever encountered. We need to get that substance down to the laboratory immediately. It’s either poo mixed with rancid eggs and sardines or Somali food.”

Despite aides calling for Omar to cancel the remainder of the town hall, she bravely decided to press on. “I refuse to cower in the face of Somali food,” declared Omar, returning to the podium. “These hurlers of Somali fare cannot be allowed to win. I have overcome the unwholesome effluvia of these foods many times, and I shall do so once more.”

At publishing time, several town hall attendees had been hospitalized with severe nostril damage.

Babylon Bee

America loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy—it’s food.

Our food system is not a free market. It is not capitalism in any recognizable form. It is a government-engineered economy propped up by taxpayer dollars at every stage, directed by regulation, shaped by corporate interests, and leaving both consumers and farmers dependent, unhealthy, and without real alternatives.

Each year, more than $40 billion of taxpayer money is used to subsidize commodity crops like corn, soy, wheat, and cotton. Crop insurance—also paid for largely by the public—is essentially another subsidy, and without it, most large commodity farms wouldn’t survive. But the subsidies don’t stop at growing. Once harvested, those subsidized crops become corn syrup, seed oils, stabilizers, livestock feed, artificial ingredients, ultraprocessed food additives, and ethanol—fuel grown on prime farmland and heavily subsidized again under the banner of environmental benefit.

Then the same Farm Bill that subsidizes growing and processing also subsidizes purchasing those foods through SNAP benefits. And when the predictable metabolic outcomes emerge—obesity, diabetes, fatty liver disease, autoimmune disorders—the government subsidizes the healthcare required to manage the consequences. So the loop looks like this: we subsidize growing the ingredients. We subsidize the industry turning those ingredients into processed food. We subsidize the public buying those products. And then we subsidize the medical care required to treat the disease that food causes. That isn’t a food economy. It is a taxpayer-funded dependency system.

People like to imagine that subsidies make farming cushy. Nothing could be further from reality. Even with subsidies, 85 percent of US farmers work a second job just to stay on their land and feed their families. They are subsidizing the food system with unpaid labor simply to keep feeding the country. I once watched a dairy farmer who had just won the lottery. When asked what he planned to do with the money, he shrugged and said, “I’ll keep farming until it runs out.”

He wasn’t joking—he was describing reality. Ask a farmer where they see themselves in five years and many go silent. Some get emotional. Some laugh because it’s safer than crying. I know that feeling: the pit in your stomach, the exhaustion, the prayer for a path forward.

What we have is not capitalism. It is a hybrid of state control and corporate power—uncomfortably close to agricultural indentured servitude for the very people who feed the country.

And the regulations farmers face are not about safety—they are about control. To legally sell raw milk in Texas, I need a raw milk permit, a government-approved facility, a mop sink, a floor sink, a dishwashing sink, a handwashing sink, an employee restroom, specific ceiling materials, and multiple pages of compliance requirements. In Idaho, to legally sell raw milk, you need a business license. Same country. Same product. Same cows. In California, raw milk regulations are so extreme that only one company in the entire state can meet them.

When I lived in Ventura County and asked about applying for a dairy permit—not even raw milk, just a legal dairy—the official told me, “There isn’t a single dairy left in this county. The regulations are too much. We don’t recommend you apply.” The department responsible for food production was actively discouraging food production.

Some people say, “Regulations should protect health, not eliminate competition.” But the government’s job was never to protect our health, and it certainly isn’t protecting it now. If health were the priority, soda wouldn’t be cheaper than water. Ingredients banned in other countries wouldn’t appear in US baby food. Seed oils wouldn’t be unavoidable. And products engineered for addiction wouldn’t be placed directly into school cafeterias and federally funded food programs. This has never been about safety—it has always been about protecting industrial systems and the corporate interests behind them.

Meanwhile, the public is not thriving. We are overfed and undernourished, surrounded by food yet biologically starving for nutrients. We solved hunger by creating a new kind of starvation—one hidden inside colorful packaging and subsidized pricing. And while we celebrate cheap food as if it’s proof the system works, we’ve lost 170,000 farms in just eight years.

So what is the path forward? It’s not bigger government, not more regulation, and not another layer of bureaucracy. The solution is choice, access, and freedom. We need regional processing, on-farm legal processing, reduced permitting, consumer willingness to support real farms, and knowledge passed farmer to farmer—not mandated, standardized, or enforced from a federal desk. Agriculture was never meant to be uniform. Different soils, climates, cultures, and regions require different approaches. We need fewer barriers, not more. And we need systems built for resilience and nourishment, not efficiency and control.

We can call this system whatever we want—capitalism, socialism, or something in between—but if a nation cannot freely feed itself, it isn’t free.

Epoch Times

A giant reservoir of “secret” fresh water off the East Coast that could potentially supply a city the size of New York City for 800 years may have formed during the last ice age, when the region was covered in glaciers, researchers say.

Preliminary analyses suggest the reservoir, which sits beneath the seafloor and appears to stretch from offshore New Jersey as far north as Maine, was locked in place under frigid conditions around 20,000 years ago, hinting that it formed in the last glacial period due, partly, to thick ice sheets.

Sascha Pare, MSN

Dear friends and family,

Once again, we are sitting on the edge of our seats. Will Trump attack Iran or won’t he? I want to try to share the feelings here in Israel.

On the one hand, most Israelis want a military operation—either by America alone or jointly with Israel—that would result in regime change in Iran. Iran is the proverbial head of the snake. If the Ayatollahs could be replaced with a “normal” regime, it would completely change the face of the Middle East. It would dry up much of the funding, supply lines, and support to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. It would contribute greatly to bringing peace to the region and would prevent Iran from eventually becoming a threat to Europe, which it will, if it goes nuclear.

Iran is rebuilding its ballistic missile program, which Israel severely damaged in our 12‑Day War with it last year. It has already replenished its stockpile, and it’s estimated that they now have over a thousand missiles. Next year they may have 2,000, and the year after that 3,000. They are also trying to rebuild their nuclear weapons program. The lesson of October 7 for us is that we cannot ignore and allow the military buildup of our neighbors to become too dangerous to us. In Gaza, we let Hamas become a major threat by not paying enough attention to their activities and not reacting in time. So, regarding Iran, it seems better to attack their nuclear program, their missiles, and overthrow the regime now, rather than wait a few years when they may have a nuclear weapon and thousands of missiles that can overcome our air defenses.

On the other hand, we know that if America attacks Iran, Iran will retaliate against us, as they have done in the past. Even though in the 12 Day War our anti‑missile defense intercepted 90% of the incoming missiles, the ones that got through caused a lot of damage. Their missiles were accurate and very destructive. Soroka Hospital in Beersheva took a direct hit, and we have not been able to repair the damage to this very day. The same goes for the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, an academic center of research and learning. Not to mention the many apartment buildings that took direct hits, causing massive damage to entire neighborhoods and the loss of civilian life. We know the price of a confrontation with Iran, and most Israelis are very worried—and frankly, scared. But again, many feel that the best thing to do would be to take down the regime now and pay the price, rather than confront a stronger and more dangerous Iran in a few years in order to defend ourselves against nuclear attack. The tension here is great.

We are also approaching dangerous crossroads in Gaza and Lebanon. I’ll start with Lebanon. In the war, we pushed Hezbollah back from our border about 20 kilometers. We agreed to a ceasefire on the condition that the Lebanese government would take control of the border area, prevent Hezbollah from returning, and disarm them. The ceasefire was backed and guaranteed by France and the U.S., whose role was to help strengthen the Lebanese government and army. But agreements are one thing and reality is another—especially in the Middle East. Hezbollah is stronger than the Lebanese army, is refusing to disarm, and is trying to return to areas adjacent to the Israeli border. As with Iran, Israel cannot allow Hezbollah to regain the strength and threat level it had on October 6. Things may lead to a military confrontation in the not‑too‑distant future if the Lebanese government and the West cannot get control of the situation.

Gaza is also complicated. Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire—sort of. It was more like Trump announcing that Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire, and then the parties had no choice but to go along with it rather than upset Trump. The ceasefire was to take place in two stages. In the first stage, Israel was to withdraw its troops and occupy only about 50% of the Gaza Strip (down from over 70%). Hamas was to return all the hostages, living and dead, within 72 hours. Once this happened, the ceasefire would move to the second stage.

In the second stage, Israel would withdraw completely except for a one‑kilometer‑wide buffer zone along its border. Hamas would give up power and turn the Gaza Strip over to a new governing body. They would surrender their weapons. An International Stabilization Force would take military control of Gaza. Israel would open and relinquish control of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Everything that enters Gaza—cars, food, building materials, medicines—goes through the Rafah crossing. But not only those things. It has also been the route for weapons, tunnel‑building supplies, money to fund Hamas, and the movement of terrorists traveling to Iran for training and returning afterward. So control of the Rafah crossing is a big deal for Israel. We do not want to relinquish control if Hamas is still a force in Gaza.

We kept our obligations of stage one. We ended our attack and did our partial withdrawal. But Hamas hasn’t fulfilled their side completely. Hamas is still holding one hostage—the body of Ron Gvilli. They claim they don’t know where his body is. Israeli intelligence believes they do know and are withholding him as a bargaining chip for future concessions. As far as Israel is concerned, Hamas has not met its obligations under stage one of the ceasefire—the return of all our hostages—and therefore we object to moving on to stage two. If we don’t insist Hamas meet its obligation now, we may never get Ron Gvilli back.

The U.S. apparently wants to move on to the second stage of the ceasefire even though Ron Gvilli has not been returned. Trump set up the Board of Peace and other committees to govern Gaza. The problem we have with the committee Trump set up is that representatives of Turkey and Qatar sit on it, and they are supporters and sponsors of Hamas. Turkey, in particular, makes no secret of its hostility toward Israel. Having them on the committee is like having Hamas on the committee.

But most importantly, an International Stabilization Force has not been established. There are not many countries willing to send troops to Gaza to confront Hamas, disarm them, and take control of the territory. As in Lebanon, where the Lebanese government is no match for Hezbollah, Israel doubts that there will be an international force strong enough—or willing enough—to take on Hamas.

Despite Trump’s pressure, Israel does not want to relinquish control of the Rafah crossing and will not agree to withdraw to its border until Hamas is eliminated politically and militarily. Today, it seems doubtful that will happen. In the meantime, Trump wants to move forward and may read us the riot act, forcing us to keep our end of the agreement while Hamas does not keep theirs. In the end, everything may go back to the way it was before October 6. Hamas will still be in power. They will rebuild their military strength. They will begin launching attacks against Israel. (They have already replenished their ranks to 20–30,000 fighters, which is what they had before October 7.) Israel does not want to move onto stage two while Hamas is not committed to fulfilling their obligations – return of Ron Gvilli, disarmament, and relinquishing control of Gaza.

As I wrote above, for Israelis the lesson of October 7 is not to let our enemies gain strength to the point that they threaten not only our security but the very existence of our country. We feel we are moving in the direction where we will have to act and “mow the lawn” before the terrorist armies around us become too strong again.

What I am trying to say is that even after the ceasefires that were signed, it is beginning to look like not much has changed. Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are becoming the threats they were before October 7, and the international community is not effective, so far, in stopping this. It will leave Israel with no choice but to act. We came very close to annihilation on October 7. Our enemies did not take full advantage of their strengths and they made a few mistakes. That is what saved us—their mistakes. We cannot return to that situation again.

That is why we think regime change in Iran is crucial to preventing the Middle East from being continuously at war. As long as Iran keeps funding, arming, and training Hamas and Hezbollah, the hostilities will continue. Their terrorist armies are simply too strong, even for the Western world. Do I think Trump will take down the regime in Iran? Personally, I don’t think so. That would probably mean a protracted war in the Middle East that Americans—and Trump—have no motivation for. I think the worst outcome for us would be an American attack on Iran that falls short of regime change and results in a rain of missiles falling on Israel without any decisive outcome. That would accomplish little except endless rounds of retaliation that lead nowhere except continued hostilities.

Whatever happens will happen—or not happen—in the next 7–10 days. Like most Israelis, I’m not really sure what I’m hoping for.

As always, feel free to share this letter with whomever you want. Comments and questions are of course welcome.

Also, important for me to say, that despite the ominous tone of this mail, we are all fine and doing well. We trust our military and our defenses and have confidence that everything will be fine at the end of the day. We can handle anything that happens.

Glen

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he continues to have confidence in Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and does not plan to ask her to step down despite mounting scrutiny following a fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis and a subsequent reshuffling of immigration enforcement leadership in Minnesota.

“I think she’s done a very good job,” Trump said as he departed the White House. “The border is totally secure.”

Asked directly by a reporter whether Noem would resign or be forced out of her Cabinet post, Trump replied, “No.”

Noem has faced increasing criticism following the Saturday shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti during a federal law enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

In response to the controversy, Trump on Monday assigned White House border czar Tom Homan to take over leadership of immigration law enforcement operations in Minnesota. Those efforts had previously been overseen by Noem and Gregory Bovino, the administration’s Border Patrol commander.

The White House has since moved into damage control mode as details surrounding the Minneapolis operation and Pretti’s death continue to emerge.

According to The New York Times, Trump and Noem met privately for about two hours on Monday amid growing political backlash.

Several Democrat members of Congress have publicly called for Noem’s impeachment, citing concerns over the use of force by federal agents and the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Pretti’s death marked the second fatal shooting involving federal immigration authorities in Minneapolis in less than three weeks. Earlier this month, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross while inside her vehicle, which authorities said she was using to block an ICE operation.

Trump said the circumstances surrounding Pretti’s death remain under investigation and declined to offer a judgment on whether the shooting was justified.

“We’re doing a big investigation. I want to see the investigation,” Trump said.

“I’m going to be watching over it. I want a very honorable and honest investigation.”

However, Trump also suggested that Pretti’s possession of a firearm was a key factor in the confrontation.

“You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” he said.

“You can’t do that,” added Trump. “It’s just a very unfortunate thing.”

Federal officials have not yet released full details of the investigation, and DHS has said it is cooperating with ongoing reviews of both incidents.

Brian Freeman ✉

Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and