Socialists are fascinating creatures. They produce nothing. They assume no responsibility for anything. They preach a morality of duty and self-sacrifice. Yet they offer to the world no marketable skills. They require government salaries, stipends or subsidies to survive. They demand the end of profit and private property. Yet they simultaneously demand that people — always others, never themselves– produce the loot in the multiple billions to be distributed solely to those whom they, the Socialists, deem deserving. On top of it, they call for censorship of all ideas, books, or forms of entertainment they dislike. They call any and all dissenters unspeakable monsters, horrible “white supremacists,” while demanding and getting everything they want.

Socialists are like the 30 year old son or daughter who won’t move out of the parents’ house, and who lectures the supporting parent on the evil of his or her ways. The great irony? Only capitalism and freedom of speech could have spawned the socialist, because without the luxury and comfort of a free society, the socialist could not survive five minutes. The even greater irony? Socialism will destroy the good life of capitalism and return humans to a state of Nature. The glowering, pedantic, mean-spirited Socialists will be the first to perish. There is justice in nature, even if not in socialism.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

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The “Mindfulness” Degree

What happens when colleges encourage students not to think?

Jan 16, 2026 Christopher L. Schilling

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Do American colleges still teach students how to think? Or have whole programs been built on fashionable but unexamined assumptions? Increasingly, one wonders whether parts of the curriculum are outright harmful. For years, it has felt as though American higher education were approaching rock bottom. One of the newest degrees on offer suggests we may finally have arrived.

As a religious practice within Buddhism—particularly in its Theravada and Zen traditions—so-called mindfulness meditation aims to cultivate an awareness of the present moment, calm the mind, and help one avoid being carried away by thoughts. The term often overlaps with self-help trends and spa treatments these days, especially on American campuses.

Mindfulness programs on campus have moved well beyond weekend retreats and self-help courses.At Bucknell University, for instance, students are offered a “mindfulness menu” featuring instructions for DIY body scrubs, eye masks, lotions, and similar indulgences. At Yale, students can enroll in a four-week Koru mindfulness course that promises to help them to become “kinder” to themselves (is there anyone else?) or to craft their “very own meditation bracelet with a variety of beautiful beads.”

They have emerged as an academic field that encourages students to calm what ought to be active minds.But mindfulness programs on campus have moved well beyond weekend retreats and self-help courses. They have now embedded themselves within higher education itself, emerging as an academic field that, paradoxically, encourages students to calm what ought to be active minds and to think as little as possible.

Lesley University, for example, offers both an M.A. and a graduate certificate in mindfulness studies, while Atlantic University markets an M.A. in the same subject. At Brown, the School of Public Health houses the Brown Mindfulness Center, which offers not only a master of public health concentration in mindfulness but a certificate track in mindfulness-based stress-reduction teacher training.

This is puzzling, given the fact that Brown is also home to a clinical and affective neuroscience laboratory that has provided extensive research on the adverse effects associated with the mindfulness fad. Its director, Willoughby Britton—who runs a support group for people who have experienced psychological and physical harm from meditation—has described potential side effects in stark terms: “People describe a loss of emotion beyond what they wanted, and loss of motivation or enjoyment of things.”

In one project, Britton and her research team documented accounts of severe adverse outcomes among nearly 40 individuals, noting that many were “fairly out of commission, fairly impaired for between six months [and] more than 20 years.” The research team found participants through established meditation teachers such as Jack Kornfeld—one of the key figures to introduce Buddhist mindfulness to the West—and Joseph Goldstein, who has spoken of “instances during past meditation retreats where students became psychologically incapacitated.”

Another study interviewing 60 meditation teachers and practitioners—an equal number of men and women across the traditions of Zen, Theravada, and Tibetan Buddhism—identified a range of common adverse effects such as hyper-arousal and increases in anxiety, fear, panic, insomnia, trauma flashbacks, and emotional instability. Participants also reported sensory hypersensitivity, including heightened sensitivity to light and sound. Such hypersensitivity might be pleasant at first when colors get brighter, and one might indeed start to notice more. But when that doesn’t stop, sounds may become irritating and distracting. Others might experience a loss of motivation or enjoyment of things—as if campuses weren’t experiencing enough of that already.

Regardless of these downsides, the academic mindfulness trend continues to spread worldwide. In Ireland, the master of science in mindfulness-based wellbeing at University College Cork promises to train graduates to teach mindfulness in schools, workplaces, and everyday life. City College Dublin offers a professional diploma in mindfulness and wellbeing. In Wales, Bangor University maintains an M.A. in mindfulness-based approaches, while Monash University in Australia describes itself as “a world leader in the integration of mindfulness into the workplace and tertiary education.” Scotland has joined in, as well: The University of Aberdeen now awards a master of science in studies in mindfulness, and the University of the West of Scotland advertises a master of science in mindfulness and compassion.

The modern American rebranding of mindfulness as some kind of ancient psychotherapy is mistaken.As absurd as it is to award degrees in compassion (as though it were something universities could certify), compassion is not even something that follows from mindfulness practice—at least not in the sentimental sense in which the term is now understood. Some scholars of Buddhism note that “compassion is generally understood in Buddhism as having a magical power to protect” one from vicious animals, assassins, or the weather. Instead of praying for good weather, you meditate for it. The modern American rebranding of mindfulness as some kind of ancient psychotherapy or wellness treatment is, thus, mistaken. It is more accurate to understand “compassion” in early Buddhist contexts as a form of capital—much like the way we speak today of political capital or moral bankruptcy—rather than as an emotional disposition. It is the dharma, the teachings of the Buddha, that instruct a Buddhist to be an ethical person. Both Buddhism and the academic study of it rest on scripture and doctrine, not on meditation.

The scientific literature identifies a wide range of negative effects associated with mindfulness meditation.It is puzzling that there is so little pushback from scholars of Buddhism against these programs that, at best, offer a thin, romanticized account of Buddhism and often function as an academic veneer for spa treatments. The course “Mindfulness, Meaning, and Resilience” at Harvard, for example, declares, “Mindfulness is a way of attending to the experience of the present moment with full awareness and without judgment or reactivity. […] This introductory course explores the origins of mindfulness in Buddhist philosophy and how it can promote these states.”

The historical record of Buddhist traditions shows something very different. Sources often refer to troubling effects from the practice. As Jared R. Lindahl and colleagues note in a paper, “The term nyams refers to a wide range of ‘meditation experiences’—from bliss and visions to intense body pain, physiological disorders, paranoia, sadness, anger and fear.” Zen lineages have long recognized a related condition, sometimes described as “Zen sickness” or “meditation sickness,” in which practice leads to prolonged psychological or physical distress. There is even a sutta—a canonical discourse attributed to the Buddha—in which a group of monks go insane and commit mass suicide after meditating. A part of the history of the method is also how well it was received by Nazis and terrorists.

The scientific literature identifies a wide range of other negative effects associated with mindfulness meditation. Studies have documented adverse psychological, physical, and spiritual side effects, including depersonalization, psychosis, hallucinations, anxiety, increased seizure risk, disorganized speech, loss of appetite, and insomnia. One study led by Brent M. Wilson at the University of California San Diego found that participants exhibited increased susceptibility to false memories following mindfulness meditation—a result that, on its own, should give universities more than enough reason to question the practice’s place in higher education.

A study by Pablo Briñol and colleagues found that when participants were encouraged to objectify their thoughts, they subsequently relied on those thoughts less in their evaluations and decisionmaking, a result that raises obvious concerns for education, during which deliberation is essential. Mindfulness practice may also foster an avoidance of difficult thinking and tasks. One study found that mindfulness meditation reduced future-oriented focus and lowered arousal levels, which in turn diminished participants’ motivation to undertake challenging activities. In other words, the practice can make students calmer but also less inclined to think hard, plan ahead, or engage in demanding work.

One study found that 62.9 percent of participants experienced negative effects such as anxiety, panic, less motivation in life, depression, a feeling of addiction to meditation, pain, confusion, disorientation, or feeling “spaced out” during and after meditation. Notably, 7.4 percent suffered profoundly adverse effects, regardless of whether they had practiced for 16 months or more than 100 months.

The effect of mindfulness meditation is often a reduction in emotional activity, which can indeed be helpful for students prone to overwhelming reactivity, making them calmer and less susceptible to stressful situations. Yet, for some, this dampening becomes excessive. As Britton puts it, “People in our research complain of not having any emotions, even positive ones, not feeling any kind of love or affection for their families.” These adverse effects are not limited to vulnerable individuals; they have appeared in experienced meditation teachers and in practitioners with no psychiatric history.

One study found that 62.9 percent of participants experienced negative effects such as anxiety, panic, and less motivation in life.Yet, in 2023, Harvard opened the Thich Nhat Hanh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health in the T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In his New York Times bestseller The Art of Power, Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” While these lines might be calming as poetry, they are most obviously destructive as self-help. Who would want to live in a world where everybody—the insane, the fanatical, the rude—simply accepts himself the way he is? One could even argue that such advice runs counter to the very purpose of education. But it must feel good for people at Harvard to hear such a message while they harass Jewish students on their way to class or rise to the university presidency without ever having written a book or an original paper. Just accept yourself!

The spillover effect of mindfulness into other fields is also concerning.The spillover effect of mindfulness into other fields is also concerning. Caroline C. Kaufman, an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, advocates incorporating meditation practices into psychotherapy with Jewish clients—a position that suggests a troubling lack of awareness of the potential negative side effects. Incorporating religious practices into therapy is also unethical unless they are clearly identified as such by the therapist; otherwise, the healthcare treatment risks becoming missionary in nature.

Moreover, mindfulness meditation is not a component of Judaism, nor does Kaufman’s approach indicate that this is something to be addressed with Jewish clients. Her approach assumes spirituality is universal and standardized rather than culturally specific or personal. In her research at Harvard, she even attempts to empirically measure spirituality. The very idea reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the limitations of scientific inquiry: It presupposes that a subjective, experiential, and culturally contingent phenomenon can be objectively quantified using standardized tools. For the same reason—the hopelessness of the attempt to quantify subjective inner states—mindfulness studies fails.

Meanwhile, Oxford is more upfront about incorporating a religious practice into healthcare with its master of science in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Beyond the supposed benefits for clients, the program also trains therapists themselves to be mindful during treatment. One might expect a “mindful” therapist to be especially attentive and capable of caring for clients. Yet one study suggested that “higher levels of therapist mindfulness predicted less reduction in client symptom severity at termination.” Mindfulness therapy, in this sense, seems oxymoronic. At most, one might argue that the practice helps therapists remain present while tracking themes. But that’s just another way of saying, “Therapists, pay attention and don’t drift off.” In which case, it should be a reminder, not a university degree.

Christopher L. Schilling is a lawyer and political scientist and the author of The Japanese Talmud: Antisemitism in East Asia (Hurst) and The Therapized Antisemite: The Myth of Psychology and the Evasion of Responsibility (De Gruyter). 

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s putting Secretary of State Marco Rubio in charge of the U.S. bid to bring the 2035 World Expo to Miami, stacking a new assignment onto the former Florida senator’s already-high-profile role running America’s top diplomatic shop.

Trump said Florida wants the Expo and that he backs Miami as the host city, according to an Associated Press report that cited his social media post.

“The Great State of Florida has expressed strong interest in hosting the Expo in Miami, which I fully support,” Trump wrote. “Miami Expo 2035 can be the next big milestone in our new Golden Age of America. I am appointing Miami native Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Chair the efforts of coordinating and advancing this exciting opportunity to convene the World.”

Rubio’s expanding portfolio has become a running joke online — and even Trump has leaned into it — as the White House increasingly taps the secretary for high-visibility political and policy tasks beyond traditional State Department work.

On Feb. 3, 2025, the State Department announced he’d been appointed the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Trump followed on Feb. 16, naming Rubio acting archivist of the United States in a Truth Social post about installing Jim Byron to run the National Archives day to day. On May 1, Trump said Rubio would also serve as national security advisor “in the interim” while continuing to lead the State Department. And now Trump is adding another line to the résumé — tapping Rubio to chair the effort to land the 2035 World Expo in Miami.

Rubio became secretary of state after leaving the Senate, triggering Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint then-state Attorney General Ashley Moody to fill the seat, The Associated Press reported.

At his first appearance at the World Economic Forum, Elon Musk predicted artificial intelligence will soon be smarter than any human alive.

“AI might be smarter than any human by the end of 2026,” Musk said, adding “no later than 2027.” Five years out, he went further: “AI will be smarter than all of humanity, collectively.”

Musk also warned that robots are coming fast — and in massive numbers. “There will be far more robots than people,” he told the globalist audience, describing an automation boom that will upend labour, economics and power structures far sooner than regulators are ready for.

Asked what drives him, Musk didn’t cite climate targets or social engineering schemes. Instead, he pointed to science fiction and turning it into reality. “I want to make science fiction not fiction forever — at some point science fiction to science fact,” he said.

Musk spoke of “giant spaceships traveling through space,” visiting other planets and star systems, adding with a shrug: “Are there aliens? Maybe there are aliens.”

Ever since Nick Shirley uploaded a YouTube video, produced with assistance from Minnesota House Republicans, claiming that Somali immigrants in Minneapolis take taxpayer money to run phony daycares, the state’s child care industry — one not exactly known before for fanning the flames of political conflict — has been in survival mode.

“Over the last few weeks, we have been so demonized,” said Dawn Uribe, who runs four Spanish immersion preschools under the name Mis Amigos. “It’s been heartbreaking.”

Here is a breakdown of the immediate and long-term obstacles for Minnesota’s child care centers and the families that use them. 

What is it like now to run a child care facility in Minnesota?

It was a week ago, Uribe said, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement grabbed a Mis Amigos’ facilities and maintenance specialist from a suburban Home Depot and tossed him into a van.

According to Uribe, the employee, whom she declined to name for publication, was flown to Texas and awaits a bond hearing. Uribe said that the employee has legal working papers. A message left with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement about the arrest was not returned. 

Other day care centers reported that employees are scared to show up for work and parents do not want to drop off their children because of ICE agents.

“People are terrified,” said Clare Sanford, chair of government relations for the Minnesota Child Care Association.

ICE, of course, has hit many areas of Minnesota’s economy. But day care centers face added challenges. 

Shirley, an independent content creator and self-described citizen journalist, purported to show nine different day care centers that collected public money without providing child care. 

But the Department of Children Youth and Families, the state agency that administers taxpayer money toward child care programs, responded that the daycare centers Shirley profiled are, in fact, caring for children. 

Nonetheless, child care operators have faced bomb threats and copycat videographers in front of their facilities. 

One operator claimed that a car circled their clinic, a man jumped out of the vehicle, defecated on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, and drove away. 

Some child care clinics have chafed at the use of Bureau of Criminal Apprehension site investigators, which they say has led to the spectacle of state agents brandishing firearms in a daycare as they comb through invoices and children’s attendance records. 

Mike Ernster, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said “that agents are armed as per BCA policy as a regular part of their duty as licensed police officers in Minnesota. However, our agents were there to interact with the business owners and staff supporting DCYF administrative inspections, not to interact with the children.”

What about the federal payment freeze?

Let’s first explain how this funding normally works. 

Minnesota gets a total of $467 million in yearly federal assistance toward child care, according to figures provided by DCYF.

The child care programs stemmed from President Bill Clinton and Congressional Republicans wanting to “end welfare as we know it” in the 1990s. The programs are meant to reward parents who demonstrate that they work or are in job training.

“Many of the families are experiencing significant hardships and challenges like fleeing domestic violence or facing eviction,” said Diana Azevedo-McCaffrey, senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal leaning think tank in Washington D.C. 

In Minnesota, DCYF and the state’s 87 counties run two child care assistance programs — family investment and sliding fee.

Families earning less than 67% of the state’s median income qualify for family investment, which is coupled with working with a job counselor on an employment plan. As of 2025, over 9,000 children and 4,800 families are enrolled in Minnesota family investment.

Families who make less than 47% of state median income can get a sliding fee, which may involve a co-payment. In 2025, a bit over 14,000 children and 7,000 families get assistance through sliding fee – with around 2,300 families on the waiting list. 

“We have a child care shortage,” Sanford said. “Infant and toddler spots are always hardest to find.”

Fifty-one percent of Minnesota families accessing these programs identify as Black, according to state figures, with 25% White and 6% Hispanic. 

Child care providers get more money from a parent paying out of pocket than from a parent enrolled in child care assistance. Still, over 4,000 child care providers across Minnesota are licensed to accept at least one family on assistance. 

For some, like Olu’s Beginnings in north Minneapolis, families on assistance reflect the day care’s surrounding community. Other providers, such as Mis Amigos, see setting aside a few slots for low-income parents part of their mission.

“We have always chosen to serve families who receive public support because we believe high-quality education should be accessible to all,” Uribe said. 

freezing affecting Minnesota child care right now?

Except for anticipation of what comes next, it is not. 

Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois and New York sued Jan. 8, right after the Trump administration announced it was shutting off child care funds. The states argue that the executive branch cannot cancel payments already appropriated by Congress. 

The New York federal judge on the case, Arun Subramanian, granted a stay until this Friday, which means states can draw down from the federal funds it has until then. Subramanian will hear arguments from both sides on Friday, at which point the judge may make a more lasting ruling or issue another temporary stay.

In the “vast majority” of Trump administration funding freeze cases, courts have ruled against the administration, said Peter Larsen, an assistant professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

However, Larsen added, the Trump administration could defy the court order as it has in cases involving National Institutes of Health grants and Consumer Finance Protection Bureau funding, among other subjects. 

If the court ruled for the Trump administration, Minnesota would surely appeal the decision, Larsen said, but the state would probably be out of federal child care funds in the interim. 

DCYF informed providers Jan. 9 that it can finance child care assistance for “several months” without additional federal funding. But DCYF has not answered weeks worth of questions from providers (and reporters) about when it last drew down from federal funds and how much reserves it has on hand. 

“We are just getting told to sit tight,” Herod said. 

Surprise medical bills have bludgeoned most Americans. In fact, about half of insured Americans face unexpected charges every year. In 2020, Congress passed the No Surprises Act, which banned out-of-network billing rates for some services. It also entitled patients who aren’t using health insurance to a “good faith estimate” of out-of-pocket costs before receiving care. But there’s a catch that stacks the deck against patients and taxpayers: final bills within $400 of the original estimate are legally collectible.

After stinging GOP losses in November, health care “affordability” is all the rage. Voters are frustrated that every other medical appointment brings another unexpected charge and an inevitable battle of wills and wits with the billing department. Christopher Jacobs recently opined in these pages that “Republicans should stop playing into Democrats’ hands and start … reducing the underlying cost of health care.” In that spirit, President Donald Trump should ensure that hospitals do not profit from “errors” with executive action.

In February, Trump issued an executive order building on a first-term order that required hospitals to post public prices for common, standardized procedures like CTs, MRIs, mammograms, etc. If hospitals must post prices rather than bill insurers and patients later, patients will price-shop and save money for themselves and their insurers (which, if they are on Medicare and Medicaid, is you, the taxpayer!). But the $400 wiggle room embedded in the No Surprises Act eliminates much of the intended benefit.

Imagine that two competing hospitals offer CTs. Hospital A knows its real cost to provide a CT is $400. Hospital B knows its real cost is $300. If both post prices and provide estimates that reflect real charges, Hospital B will have an advantage. But with a $400 allowed error, why wouldn’t Hospital A estimate its CT at $150 to undercut Hospital B, knowing the patient will pay more than double that in the end? Hospital A can attract more patients without any cost to itself. If the patient goes to Hospital A, he pays $400 instead of Hospital B’s $300, and his insurance company probably loses more. Hospital A wins and everyone else loses.

The financial incentives encourage all hospitals to consistently provide underestimates. While fraudulently botching an estimate is illegal, it would probably take a whistleblower to prove an estimate was not in “good faith,” since it would require proving “intent.” Potentially defrauded patients have no access to other patients’ records to ascertain whether a pattern exists. Current law shelters deceptive, anti-competitive behavior.

Of course, error by itself is not a sign of purposeful deception. But consistent errors in the same direction — errors that do not roughly average to zero over time — suggest the estimator is missing on purpose. In my industry (banking), we don’t fire a teller who’s off $10 on his daily count. A teller could have many small errors over the course of a year, but if his errors roughly average to zero, it’s almost certainly inadvertent. But if the teller’s drawer is consistently wrong in his favor, he is fired. Applying the same concept to health care estimates is straightforward and imposes minimal regulatory burden while protecting patients.

Hospitals should be required to record every estimate they give in a single document (probably a spreadsheet), along with the actual amount billed, and subtract the two to obtain an error amount.

For example: you get an estimate of $200 for a procedure and pay $275. The error is $75. The hospital tracks this for every patient, and provides the spreadsheet tracking their aggregate error to the Department of Health and Human Services at the end of the fiscal year. However much the hospital billed more than estimated amounts is then repaid to patients who were charged more than estimated amount (or taken off their bill if they have not yet paid), in proportion to their overpayments. The smaller the hospital’s overall error rate, the smaller the refunds owed.

This system would not punish honest errors. The average of honest errors is zero over time. If the hospital’s overestimates and underestimates cancel each other out, it doesn’t owe anything back to anyone. But if there is an aggregate error, it is refunded to the harmed patients. A hospital’s incentive to low-ball people to get them in the door is replaced by a powerful incentive to provide the most reliable estimates possible. This new rule could reduce overall administrative burden, lessening the need for time-consuming arbitration over individual estimate discrepancies.

This market-based approach does not require proving intent to deceive. A hospital that is bad at estimation but not doing it on purpose would be punished not for willful violation, but for incompetence and inefficiency. The burden of proof is taken off of individual patients to prove wrongdoing in this scheme. Such a rule, especially if framed as an executive order to buttress the price transparency action already taken in February, would prove much harder to challenge or evade than statutes requiring proof of intent.

President Trump is on the right track with pursuing greater price transparency in health care. His administration must continue to help lower health care costs and end the recurring nightmare of unexpected medical bills. American taxpayers now spend nearly $1 trillion on Medicare, and health care gobbles up 18 percent of GDP. Reducing inefficiencies is a national imperative, not a wonky side project — and eliminating hospitals’ incentive to provide incorrect estimates is a necessary part of this reform.

Nathan Richendollar, The Federalisst

Landlord who tipped off ICE about illegal alien gang members faces investigation.

The ‘sanctuary’ for illegal alien criminals movement began with radical activists harboring them in ‘churches’. That escalated to ordering law enforcement not to cooperate with immigration authorities. And from there sanctuary states like California began to penalize any law enforcement personnel who cooperated with ICE.

Then came the riots, systemic harassment of immigration law enforcement personnel being coordinated from the top down, and now, in the next step, legal threats against American citizens who cooperate with ICE.

Remember this massive raid on a hive of TdA gang members in Chicago?

Hundreds of federal agents carried out a “targeted immigration enforcement operation” early Tuesday in Chicago, Illinois, against suspected Tren de Aragua gang members.

The FBI confirmed the operation to FOX32 Chicago, noting that its agents assisted the U.S. Border Patrol in the city’s South Shore neighborhood. The operation — which involved almost 300 agents — targeted six people associated with the Venezuelan gang, according to Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin.

Footage captured overnight showed agents converging on an apartment building in the area. At one point, a helicopter dropped snipers down onto the building’s roof.

Two dozen people were taken into custody.

Here comes the payback.

The Illinois Department of Human Rights announced late Wednesday that it filed a formal housing discrimination charge and opened an investigation into the owners and managers of the building: 7500 Shore A LLC, Trinity Flood, and Strength in Management LLC.

In a statement, the agency said it is looking into claims the landlords let federal agents know of Venezuelan immigrants living in the building as part of an attempt to “intimidate and coerce the building’s Black and Hispanic tenants into leaving the building.”

Gov. JB Pritzker, in a statement, said the allegations “raise serious concerns for people struggling to maintain housing — and the communities that have been profiled and relentlessly targeted by the federal government during its violent immigration enforcement operations. State law prohibits discrimination, and that includes aiding or abetting conduct intended to interfere with housing and civil rights. Illinois will not tolerate conduct that puts anyone in Illinois at risk of discrimination or harm.”

To be clear about what’s going on here, the Pritzker regime in Illinois has decided to define cooperation with federal law enforcement as a form of illegal discriminatory conduct that it can penalize.

After demonstrating that landlords can be penalized for tipping off ICE, then it’ll be the turn of other small businesses, and then finally cooperating with ICE will be deemed a ‘hate crime’.

We can’t have sanctuary states and cities. We can’t have legal systems at war with each other in this way. States cannot criminalize cooperation with federal law enforcement. That was always in the treason and sedition range. We’re now blowing past that into a slow motion civil war in which states try to intimidate their citizens into refusing to cooperate with the federal government.

Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Magazine

Donald Trump’s desire for Greenland is not just about access to oil, minerals and control of the new strategic and commercial corridors opening in the region. It’s also about data. Specifically, the most important data in the world.

For decades, Pituffik Space Base – formerly Thule – in Greenland has been central to US space defense and Arctic strategy. It’s the US military’s only base above the Arctic Circle and their most northerly deep-water port and airstrip. It’s home to the 12th Space Warning Squadron. Its massive AN/FPS-132 radar has 240 degrees of coverage surveying the Arctic Ocean and Russia’s northern coast, especially the Kola peninsula where it has concentrated its strategic nuclear weapons.

The high north is on the approach route for Russia’s ballistic missiles as they head for the US mainland. When a Russian rocket blasts off, especially if unannounced, Pituffik reacts to data from the Air Force’s Space Based Infrared System, which detects the rocket’s heat signature from its engines during take-off.

It then reconfigures the radar to track it, sending real-time reports to the US Combined Space Operations Center at Vandenburg Air Force Base in California, as well as the Missile Warning Center in Colorado Springs. Every day, Pituffik also tracks hundreds of satellites: Russian, and the increasingly sophisticated orbital manoeuvres of the Chinese.

Donald Trump recently posted on social media that Greenland is “vital for the Golden Dome we are building” – referring to his enormous defense project against space weapons and ballistic weapons. Pituffik will be at the front line of the Dome and duly upgraded in the next few years. It will provide an outer shield and important extra time and data for ground and space-based interceptors.

In March last year, Vice President J.D. Vance, who two months before hosted the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers in Washington, visited Pituffik. Soon after his trip, the commander of the station, Colonel Susannah Meyers, was fired, reportedly for distancing herself from Vance’s criticisms of Denmark’s handling of Greenland’s security.

The base is run by the US, but the Danish flag flies over it. Visitors can see it is functional but run down. At the same time, China and Russia are currently refurbishing old oilfields and infrastructure, radars and sensors in the region. Pituffik used to be assigned to US European Command but was last year reassigned to US Northern Command, an indication that the island is seen as a growing part of homeland defense.

And Pituffik is not the only high-latitude space base that is vital to the US, and indeed the West. Svalbard is a Norwegian island chain 600 miles north of Norway’s most northernmost city Tromsø. It is the world’s most important space base, providing ground services to more satellites than any other facility on Earth. If you control space, you control the Earth, and this time Russia is already there. The US believes that nobody will fight them if they move on Greenland. Europe has said it will be the end of NATO. This is just what Russia wants, and it’s got its eyes on Svalbard.

Polar ground stations are the only places where satellites in certain vital orbits can downlink their data and receive commands on every lap of the Earth. They are important to gather data for science and weather forecasting, and internet traffic generally relies on the satellite infrastructure in Svalbard.

The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 between Norway and Russia gives sovereignty to Norway, but gives Russia rights to settlements there. The treaty bans military fortifications and activities on Svalbard, but satellite data of almost any kind can have dual use: for example, the weather over Ukraine and its internet traffic have military significance. While Svalbard doesn’t work directly with military satellites, other ground stations in northern Norway do, connecting with satellites that do military communications and missile warning.

In its early years such data had to be shipped out on magnetic tape, but since the early 2000s the island has been linked to mainland Norway with an undersea data cable that, along with a second cable, sends valuable data to the continent and provides the internet to the island.

In January 2022, one of the cables was cut. For 11 days the island ran on just one communications line. Some investigators suggest it was accidental, possibly due to a dragging anchor from a fishing boat, but inevitably suspicion turned on Russia. A Russian trawler passed over the cable’s path more than 20 times in the days before the cut. Svalbard has workarounds for such a situation, but it still resulted in delays of several hours which can affect weather predictions. Just last month, Finnish authorities accused Russian ships of severing a cable in the Baltic Sea.

Norway’s sovereignty over the archipelago allows people from other national signatories to live and work as full residents without visas. There are hundreds of Russian citizens among its population of 3,000.

In 2023, some Russian residents staged a military-style parade in two Svalbard settlements. Men in Army green flew in a Mi-8 helicopter after a “navy parade” in the waters off Svalbard the previous year. In 2023, a group led by a prominent Russian bishop erected a 20ft Orthodox cross, with a ribbon supporting the war in Ukraine. The subtle undermining of the treaty is underway. Russian officials have questioned Norway’s sovereignty over the island prompting the Norwegian government to increase its presence on the archipelago.

As it is in Greenland, so it is in the European Arctic. The US Space Force’s Space Development Agency is constructing a satellite ground station on the island of Andøya, alongside an existing Norwegian military installation, to communicate with and control a constellation of satellites carrying out missile tracking and weapons targeting. The US and Norway recently launched Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission to maintain contact with military facilities in the High North.

The scenario concerning analysts is what would happen if Russia made a move on Svalbard, citing a possible Trump military move on Greenland as justification to protect its own national assets. Moscow can clearly portray America’s activities as looking for provocation, while positioning itself as the defender of the Svalbard Treaty. It’s unlikely that Russia would occupy the main settlement, but it could start expanding its loss-making mining colony at Barentsburg and smuggling in equipment.

Russia would also be able to jam and spoof the satellites Svalbard maintains links with, and in so doing disrupt global communications. Given Russia’s stalemate in Ukraine, a move against Svalbard makes much more sense than moving against the Baltic States.

An invasion is not seen as militarily possible, and even without a NATO response the combined Scandinavian forces are impressive. But in many ways Svalbard is a modern-day Thermopylae – a vulnerable pinch point for information. It’s also been called NATO’s Achilles’ Heel.

The culture wars are taking their toll, and the nation could suffer irreparable damage.

The late Andrew Breitbart emphasized that “politics is downstream from culture,” meaning that culture shapes society’s values, which in turn determine its politics. Today, we are in the midst of a colossal culture war, with zealous radicals seeking to overturn our long-standing traditions and institutions.

One ongoing struggle that has received national attention is the absurd claim that a male who decides he’s a female has a constitutional right to compete in women’s sports. At this time, 27 states have laws or policies prohibiting the gender benders’ insane scheme, but appellate courts in Idaho and West Virginia say that’s wrong. Now the Supreme Court is dealing with the insanity.

On Jan. 13, SCOTUS heard appeals from the two states. Little v. Hecox concerns an adult biological male, Lindsay Hecox, who sought to compete on women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University. West Virginia v. B.P.J. involves a teenage track and cross-country athlete. Both states have barred biological males from women’s teams.

During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito pressed the attorney representing the transgender athletes, prompting a concession that a male simply declaring himself a woman is not sufficient to guarantee the right to compete on a girls’ sports team.

However, Justice Ketanji Jackson delivered a garbled message: “Is treating someone transgender but does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the same, uh, threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward—that’s actually a different class, says this individual. So you’re not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?” (This is the same justice who, when asked in 2022 whether she could define the word “woman,” replied that, because she wasn’t a biologist, she couldn’t.)

While the transitioning issue has harmed women, men are also in the crosshairs of culture warriors. For example, a Scientific American article describes how to fight “Toxic Masculinity.” Additionally, the American Psychological Association declares that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.” In fact, the APA is front and center in the war on men. The organization’s guidelines maintain, “Conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” Their guidelines also claim that “traditional masculinity leads to violence.”

Needless to say, the perverse culture warriors have a “Get ‘em while they’re young” mindset and thus target children.

A case in point is California, where in late 2024, AB 1955, the state’s so-called “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act,” took effect. This despicable law specifically prohibits schools from adopting any policies that require them to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person—including parents—without the pupil’s consent.”

The question is whether parents have a right not to be kept in the dark by a school if their child begins a gender transition.

A federal judge recently ruled in favor of the parents. Judge Roger Benitez writes that the California policies “are designed to create a zone of secrecy around a student who expresses gender incongruity.” Children as young as two years old are required to consent before teachers can talk to their parents about gender issues. Judge Benitez says this violates the Constitution on both sides: “Parents have a right to receive gender information and teachers have a right to provide to parents accurate information about a child’s gender identity.”

The state sought to defend its approach as necessary to prevent bullying. While the judge lauded that goal, he responded, “The problem is that the parent exclusion policies seem to presume that it is the parents who will be the harassers from whom students need to be protected. California state policymakers apparently do not trust parents to do the right thing for their child.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed his ruling for now, but this issue, too, could reach the Supreme Court.

Another area where culture warriors have had a significant impact is classroom indoctrination, and examples abound. One glaring example is in Pennsylvania, where public school teachers affiliated with “Philadelphia Educators for Palestine” were found to have violated school district policy by allowing students to join a Signal chat that celebrated anti-Israel terrorism, promoted Marxism, and advertised a “Rally for Rage and Resistance” on the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

Keziah Ridgeway, a Black Muslim educator at Northeast High School, was temporarily placed on administrative leave after she was accused of threatening Jewish parents who objected to her persistent intrusion of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda into the classroom. Ridgeway publicized the names of local Jewish leaders and implied that gun owners should target them. She is now, unfortunately, back in the classroom and suing the Philadelphia school district, alleging discrimination.

At the same time that students are learning to deny biological reality and hate Jews, basic parts of their education are neglected. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or above in math, and just 35% are proficient in reading—the lowest scores since NAEP began in 1969. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared with all previous assessments.

To reverse this alarming trend, we must return to a traditional education curriculum.

A good example is the Founders Classical Academy, a charter school in Lewisville, TX, that is part of a network of 23 “classical” schools, primarily in Texas and Arkansas. The Founders network is one of about 275 classical charter schools nationwide. Including private religious schools that call themselves classical, about 250,000 students now attend such schools.

Not surprisingly, classical education elicits howls from the radicals, who argue that these schools are “the thin edge of the wedge of cultural warfare.” A 2023 report by the left-wing Network for Public Education, an advocacy group, describes the terms “classical” and “traditional” as “dog whistles to attract conservative families with Christian nationalist identities anxious to place their children in schools that reflect early- and mid-20th-century values, pedagogy, and curriculum.”

There is no doubt that we are in the throes of a culture war that, if left unopposed, will obliterate traditional American values, leaving our nation 

The culture wars are taking their toll, and the nation could suffer irreparable damage.

The late Andrew Breitbart emphasized that “politics is downstream from culture,” meaning that culture shapes society’s values, which in turn determine its politics. Today, we are in the midst of a colossal culture war, with zealous radicals seeking to overturn our long-standing traditions and institutions.

One ongoing struggle that has received national attention is the absurd claim that a male who decides he’s a female has a constitutional right to compete in women’s sports. At this time, 27 states have laws or policies prohibiting the gender benders’ insane scheme, but appellate courts in Idaho and West Virginia say that’s wrong. Now the Supreme Court is dealing with the insanity.

On Jan. 13, SCOTUS heard appeals from the two states. Little v. Hecox concerns an adult biological male, Lindsay Hecox, who sought to compete on women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University. West Virginia v. B.P.J. involves a teenage track and cross-country athlete. Both states have barred biological males from women’s teams.

During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito pressed the attorney representing the transgender athletes, prompting a concession that a male simply declaring himself a woman is not sufficient to guarantee the right to compete on a girls’ sports team.

However, Justice Ketanji Jackson delivered a garbled message: “Is treating someone transgender but does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the same, uh, threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward—that’s actually a different class, says this individual. So you’re not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?” (This is the same justice who, when asked in 2022 whether she could define the word “woman,” replied that, because she wasn’t a biologist, she couldn’t.)

While the transitioning issue has harmed women, men are also in the crosshairs of culture warriors. For example, a Scientific American article describes how to fight “Toxic Masculinity.” Additionally, the American Psychological Association declares that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.” In fact, the APA is front and center in the war on men. The organization’s guidelines maintain, “Conforming to traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males’ psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict, and negatively influence mental health and physical health.” Their guidelines also claim that “traditional masculinity leads to violence.”

Needless to say, the perverse culture warriors have a “Get ‘em while they’re young” mindset and thus target children.

A case in point is California, where in late 2024, AB 1955, the state’s so-called “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth (SAFETY) Act,” took effect. This despicable law specifically prohibits schools from adopting any policies that require them to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person—including parents—without the pupil’s consent.”

The question is whether parents have a right not to be kept in the dark by a school if their child begins a gender transition.

A federal judge recently ruled in favor of the parents. Judge Roger Benitez writes that the California policies “are designed to create a zone of secrecy around a student who expresses gender incongruity.” Children as young as two years old are required to consent before teachers can talk to their parents about gender issues. Judge Benitez says this violates the Constitution on both sides: “Parents have a right to receive gender information and teachers have a right to provide to parents accurate information about a child’s gender identity.”

The state sought to defend its approach as necessary to prevent bullying. While the judge lauded that goal, he responded, “The problem is that the parent exclusion policies seem to presume that it is the parents who will be the harassers from whom students need to be protected. California state policymakers apparently do not trust parents to do the right thing for their child.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed his ruling for now, but this issue, too, could reach the Supreme Court.

Another area where culture warriors have had a significant impact is classroom indoctrination, and examples abound. One glaring example is in Pennsylvania, where public school teachers affiliated with “Philadelphia Educators for Palestine” were found to have violated school district policy by allowing students to join a Signal chat that celebrated anti-Israel terrorism, promoted Marxism, and advertised a “Rally for Rage and Resistance” on the second anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

Keziah Ridgeway, a Black Muslim educator at Northeast High School, was temporarily placed on administrative leave after she was accused of threatening Jewish parents who objected to her persistent intrusion of antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda into the classroom. Ridgeway publicized the names of local Jewish leaders and implied that gun owners should target them. She is now, unfortunately, back in the classroom and suing the Philadelphia school district, alleging discrimination.

At the same time that students are learning to deny biological reality and hate Jews, basic parts of their education are neglected. According to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress scores, only 22% of high school seniors are proficient or above in math, and just 35% are proficient in reading—the lowest scores since NAEP began in 1969. Also, a record-high percentage scored at “below basic” levels in both math and reading compared with all previous assessments.

To reverse this alarming trend, we must return to a traditional education curriculum.

There is no doubt that we are in the throes of a culture war that, if left unopposed, will obliterate traditional American values, leaving our nation 

A good example is the Founders Classical Academy, a charter school in Lewisville, TX, that is part of a network of 23 “classical” schools, primarily in Texas and Arkansas. The Founders network is one of about 275 classical charter schools nationwide. Including private religious schools that call themselves classical, about 250,000 students now attend such schools.

Not surprisingly, classical education elicits howls from the radicals, who argue that these schools are “the thin edge of the wedge of cultural warfare.” A 2023 report by the left-wing Network for Public Education, an advocacy group, describes the terms “classical” and “traditional” as “dog whistles to attract conservative families with Christian nationalist identities anxious to place their children in schools that reflect early- and mid-20th-century values, pedagogy, and curriculum.”

There is no doubt that we are in the throes of a culture war that, if left unopposed, will obliterate traditional American values, leaving our nation unrecognizable.

Larry Sand, American Greatness

Clearly, the totalitarians of today are using immigration as a means to secure votes and sustain majorities that will ensure their rule forever. They will fight to the death to ensure illegal immigration. They will get Democrat voters into the country by any means necessary. There’s nothing they won’t do to stoke up civil war, unrest and media-manipulated sympathy to their side. Latest example: Minneapolis. Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier — from the totalitarian point-of-view — simply to take over? Seize the military, consolidate control over the government, control free speech? They already have the corporate world, entertainment/sports, the media, and schools/universities almost universally on their side. Why invest the energy into manipulating elections to make it look like they’re “democrats” when, clearly, they are totalitarians? Why not just skip the middle man and finish the job they started under their puppet Biden regime?

*******

Democrats used to pass laws to make illegal anything they dislike. They were usually wrong; but they struggled. Now they just scream what they want, as an emotionally-based entitlement demanding immediate gratification. Trump is in power, and it makes them wild with rage. Not because he’s Trump; but because they feel entitled to have every wish fulfilled immediately and without equivocation. Yes, Democrats are totalitarians and tyrants. But they have the emotional maturity of three-year-olds. They will not sustain a nation or a civilization. They WILL fall, for the same reasons all insanity collapses. The only question: Will the sane permit these psychotic leftists to take us down with them?

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

BILLY BOB THORNTON: “Politically, I call myself a radical moderate… I just look at what makes sense and I think we need a common sense party in this country.”

Thornton on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast on Friday suggested that both political parties in America do not make sense, and that it should be “pretty easy to figure out.”

Rogan Responded by suggesting the country needs a “non ideologically captured party”.

Joe Rogan gets it wrong again. I don’t think the solution to our problems is to eradicate ideology. Why not? Because ideas are inescapable. Ideas are implicit in every thought, every emotion and every action. A government either bases its policies and legitimacy on the ideas of freedom, individual rights — or on the idea of controlling everyone. Think about it. Would you support a political party or candidate who states: “I have no ideas”? Of course not. The only question is: which ideas? Or whose ideas?

I will always support the candidate closer to the spirit and specifics of America’s founders: the Bill of Rights, due process, private property and individual rights. Today, President Trump and the better Republicans are the only people on earth, of those running for office, who stand for anything like those ideas. Democrats running for office are rabid, psychopathic totalitarians hellbent on implementing the worst ideas ever conceived by human beings. If you think you can escape ideas in politics (or any other realm of human significance), you’re fantasizing.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason