The people of Iran have been here before with mass protests, and the Iranian authorities have honed their playbook. There is a long way to go in terms of how much they could crack down, and they have shown no sign of relenting.

Diana Magnay

International correspondent @DiMagnaySky

Sunday 11 January 2026 04:

Mass protest is a long way from revolution.

The people of Iran have been here before. In 2009, over perceived electoral fraud; in 2019, over fuel prices; in 2022, over the abuses of the morality police.

The authorities have honed their playbook, through the thuggery of the revolutionary guard and the Basij militias, the killing of protesters, mass detentions, public executions and the shutting down of the internet.

That last point is hugely significant. It means that people don’t know if anyone else is going out.

They can’t connect. They won’t know whether it’s worth continuing to stick their heads above the parapet after the last two nights of protest, which had been signposted and communicated in advance.

The videos they’ll see are those on state TV where they’ll hear the threats to use the death penalty on protesters dubbed ‘vandals’ or ‘terrorists’ and see pro-government crowds, and tempered but still sinister crackdowns.

It is hard to keep momentum going across Iran’s 31 provinces, especially a protest with no apparent leader (at least within Iran itself), if people are left in an information black hole.

Reza Pahlavi, son of the former shah, clearly has some support on the streets, but he is in the US, and his calls for strikes and further protest may have problems filtering through.

And of course, the shutdown allows the authorities to crack down as they choose, without the visibility that connectivity would confer on them.

That’s what happened in 2019 when at least 1,500 protesters were killed. We are still a long way from those kinds of numbers, although given the scarcity of information, it is hard to tell.

The one barrier to the regime extending that blackout indefinitely is the economic toll it will take on an already gasping economy.

But there is a long way to go in terms of how much they could crack down, and they have shown no sign of relenting.

Revolutions would require elite buy-in – for elements of the security apparatus to decide that continuing to defer to the 86-year-old supreme leader no longer makes sense. That doesn’t look like it’s happening either.

The wild card is Donald Trump. He has promised to hit Iran hard if the regime opens fire on protesters. And then there is Israel, too, which might take the opportunity for another strike.

Iran’s Islamic theocracy is more vulnerable than it has ever been. But it was born of a revolution itself, and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not about to show weakness.

Rumours invariably become one of the main sources of public unrest. The line between news and speculation can become blurred quickly, and social media can aid in the quick spread of false narratives. Euronews takes a look at some of the most viral rumours surrounding the Iranian protests.

Rumours have been particularly widespread throughout the two weeks of mass protests across Iran. Many of those rumours originate from anonymous users on social media platforms, and are being covered by media outlets, purely for headline purposes.

And although some of these rumours carry an element of truth, they should, at large, be viewed with scepticism and investigated thoroughly for credibility.

This article will look at a few examples of rumours which have galvanised social media users and circulated heavily across the various platforms throughout the last couple of weeks.

‘Transfer of Gold Bars to Russia’

On 7 January, anonymous users on social media claimed that gold bars were transferred from the Islamic Republic of Iran to Russia, without providing any details, alleging that Iranian officials were preparing to flee the country.

The bars were meant to continue funding their ‘lavish’ lifestyles in Moscow, in the event that the protesters were successfully able to topple the theocratic government, whose been in power since 1979.

Tom Tugendhat, a UK lawmaker and former security minister, gave an explanation in Parliament regarding what he called “the Ayatollahs preparing to fight and flee”.

He requested Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to explain reports of the presence of a Russian aircraft in Tehran, which he says is there for “shaping of the security and operational environment”.

He also stated that reports had been published regarding the transfer of Iranian assets to various destinations, using it as an argument to support his hypothesis of an ongoing ouster.

Despite such reports, there is still no evidence to support that gold bars were actually transferred from Iran to Russia, nor has it been confirmed by any independent source.

Some of these reports are based on events that have previously occurred in countries with circumstances similar to Iran, where a “dictator” has fled the country after witnessing protests.

For example, it has been reported that Bashar al-Assad transferred large amounts of money and gold to Russia when he fled Syria, after a surprise rebellion, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled his government in early December 2024.

Furthermore, according to reports, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, took millions of dollars in cash and gold out of the country when he departed on 26 December 1978 during the Islamic Revolution.

‘Abbas Araghchi has fled to Lebanon with his family’ Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, had travelled to Lebanon as part of his regional tours. It was reported that on this trip, he had taken his wife and young child to Beirut, contrary to his usual practice.

This incident sparked a wave of speculation about the Iranian top diplomat’s preparations to flee the country.

Of course, given the current state of relations between Tehran and Beirut and the reception he received in Lebanon, it is unclear whether emigration to Lebanon would be a viable option for him should the regime be overthrown.

Nevertheless, Araghchi returned to Iran after the conclusion of his trip and on Saturday, where he received his Omani counterpart, Sayyid Badr Hamad Al Busaidi, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran, and held bilateral talks.

‘Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ready to flee to Russia’ Another piece of news that received a great deal of attention in recent days was the Times’ report about Khamenei’s escape.

The prestigious UK media outlet had reported in its article that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic would flee to Russia should domestic unrest intensify, to avoid capture.

The report, however, did not provide verifiable details, stating that should the Ayatollah sense a defection within the army, the Revolutionary Guard, or other security forces, he would leave the country for Russia, accompanied by a small circle of his close associates.

Although the report was published by a reputable publication, there is, for the time being at least, no sign of truth to that claim.

Additionally, Khamenei appeared in a speech to his supporters on Friday, where he insisted that he “won’t back down” in the face of protests.

The possibility and speculation that the Iranian leader might make such a decision should protests against the government intensify, seems unlikely.

An anonymous account on the social media platform X, also published a post with an image of Khamenei, claiming he had been wounded while fleeing to the airport.

This post caught the attention of those keen to hear such news. However, the reality is that there is no credible or reliable information to indicate that such an incident did in fact occur.

In recent years, the leaders of Ukraine and Syria, following domestic protests, decided to flee the country and seek refuge in the arms of Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia.

‘Ghalibaf’s family seeking French visas’

Emmanuel Rastegar, an Iranian-French journalist and writer, claimed on France’s Channel 1 broadcaster that the family of the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, are trying to obtain French visas. According to the journalist, these individuals are attempting to obtain visas for their families through an Iranian-French lawyer in Paris.

He, however, did not provide any details about his claim, citing only the country’s hosting of Ruhollah Khomeini – who founded the Islamic Republic – prior to the 1979 Iranian Revolution as the reason for choosing France.

This claim comes at a time when France is unlikely to be considered a safe host for senior Iranian officials.

Should a change occur in Iran, and the government is indeed toppled, it is unlikely that the EU member state would host the government leaders with whom it has had numerous problems over the last two decades.

In recent years, Canada has been a favoured destination for the families of Iranian officials, and a number of them, or their family members, have obtained Canadian residency.

However, as to whether Ghalibaf sought a French visa, no credible report has been issued by any French government body or reputable sources to confirm the validity of this claim to date.

A day after the publication of this report, the Media Centre of the Islamic Consultative Assembly described these reports as “fake and false” and slammed “foreign enemies” for exploiting the people’s legitimate demands, to incite chaos and unrest.

However, a mere denial by the Iranian parliament is not synonymous with such a report being false, and still requires further investigation and clarification from the relevant authorities.

Do rumours work with or against the protests? Although the spread of such rumours may be intended to encourage more protesters to take to the streets, some believe that a review of the protest movement over the past few decades has shown that such policies generally benefit the government and harm the protesters.

For example, during the 2009 protests, although the repressive forces killed many protesters, exaggerated reports about the deaths of certain individuals by some ill-intentioned users caused even some reputable media outlets to republish these stories without careful verification.

After a significant wave of news had formed, Iranian officials published documents showing that those particular reports were false.

This was an event that was likely a scenario fabricated by the government from the outset, with Iranian government officials deliberately creating spreading fake news for the media to process, so that after its falsity was revealed, they could discredit those media outlets publicly.

In this article, Euronews has merely reported on a few rumours that have recently been circulated on social media and in no way endorses them.

EURONEWS

Charity is no part of the legislative duty of government,” James Madison wrote at the founding of the United States.

Absolutely correct.

Charity is not the job of government. The moment you force people to pay for it, it’s not charity.

When billions of the “charity” goes to grifters and thieves, as with USAID and Minnesota, it’s surely not charity.

Separate charity and state. Just like church and state.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

It seems to me that if “affordability” is your primary goal, you would support steps such as: lower taxes (passed along by companies to individuals); lower inflation and lower gas prices (happening under Trump); less regulation (passing along lower prices to consumers); privatized healthcare, privatized education (enabling cost competition and price reduction); and the “accountability to customers” mentality of free markets rather than government monopolies with no price competition, no accountability to customers (think: post office, DMV).

Yet Mamdani, Sanders, AOC, and all the Democrats call for precisely the opposite. They will drive all prices up, making everything unaffordable and then still blame the capitalism they have outlawed.

Note that the ONLY people who support socialism are those who have never lived under it. If you live under socialism, you run for your life.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

January 09, 2026 / Luis Feliz Leon

The whistle blows in short bursts: PHWEEE! PHWEEE! PHWEEE! PHWEEE! Code: ICE is nearby. Then comes the long blast: PHWEEEEEEEEEEE! Code: ICE has taken someone.

These are the codes immigrant rapid responders are using to alert their neighbors and co-workers to ICE sightings and kidnappings.

Federal agents are armed with military-style weapons. Up against them, everyday people have whistles, boundless courage, and the acronym S.A.L.U.T.E. for information to gather: the size of deployments of federal agents, the actions they are taking, the specific location, the uniforms they are wearing, the time, and the equipment, or type of weapons.

At trainings across the country, rapid responders are role-playing how to show solidarity with immigrants, and overcoming their fear to defy the terror. They are continuing a proud American organizing tradition, stretching a history of struggles that abolished slavery, established our big unions, and won the democratic revolution in civil rights.

The 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good was a champion in that freedom struggle. Like legions of other Americans from all walks of life, she was acting as the eyes and ears of her Latino and Somali neighbors, alerting them to where ICE and other federal agents were deployed.

Good, a mother of three, was part of a loose ICE Watch rapid responder group made up of parents at her son’s charter school. She “was trained against these ICE agents—what to do, what not to do, it’s a very thorough training,” a parent told the New York Post, a conservative tabloid that tried to put a negative spin on her activism. “To listen to commands, to know your rights, to whistle when you see an ICE agent.”

‘THE LIVES OF OTHERS’

The Trump administration has portrayed her as a “domestic terrorist.” But people who knew Good described an avowed Christian, a widow to a veteran, a queer woman, a singer, and a poet. “What I saw in her work was a writer that was trying to illuminate the lives of others,” said a teacher, describing her interest in the lives of the elderly, veterans, and people from different countries and eras.

Like many of us who have busy lives but make time to show up for others, she had dropped her six-year-old child off at school shortly before ICE murdered her. Video footage analysis from three angles by the New York Times shows that Good appears to be steering her SUV away from federal officers as ICE agent Jonathan Ross walks in front of it. Then he fires three shots into the vehicle at point-blank range, killing her, in broad daylight, on video, not far from her home.

Her wife was on the scene with her. “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Rebecca Good said in a statement Friday. “We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

Last September, cook Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez was shot and killed at a traffic stop in Chicago, shortly after dropping off his two kids at childcare, while allegedly attempting to flee. Farmworker Jaime Alanís García broke his neck in July, when he fell from a greenhouse roof in Ventura County, California, while attempting to flee ICE agents on the hunt. He later died at a hospital. Thirty-two people died in ICE’s custody in 2025—the agency-turned-paramilitary force’s deadliest year since its founding in 2003.

Unlike Villegas-Gonzalez and Garcia, who were both Latino immigrant workers, Good was a white U.S. citizen. She wasn’t supposed to be on the target list of those people ICE has been brutalizing with impunity because of their racial and ethnic backgrounds, or immigration status. But she refused to be a bystander, looking out for her neighbors. She didn’t have to take sides, but she did. In fact, some family members would have preferred she didn’t.

I wish she would’ve minded her business and stayed out the way,” Joseph Macklin, Good’s former brother-in-law, told the Washington Post. “I know families are being broken apart… and it’s heartbreaking, but now it’s our family.”

We often say solidarity is a verb, and Good acted, by exercising the democratic rights we all have, regardless of immigration status, to document police activity and speak out.

Claude Cummings, Jr, president of the Communications Workers, tied her solidarity to labor struggles. “We have a tradition in our union of wearing red every Thursday to honor a very special CWA member, Gerry Horgan, who was killed while exercising his fundamental right to strike and walk a picket line,” said Cummings in a statement. “Just like Gerry, Renee Nicole Good was killed while exercising her constitutionally protected right to speak out and to stand in solidarity with her community.”

GOOD VS. ICE

We are what we do. If the choice we face is between Good and ICE, the people of Minneapolis are choosing Good. An estimated 10,000 people attended a candlelight vigil January 7 to honor her life. One of those people was Daniel Mendez-Moore, a union organizer with SEIU Local 26 in the Twin Cities.

“The only reason why this isn’t a picture of my blood is pure luck,” he said in a Facebook post, sharing a photo of the bloody seat of Good’s SUV. “I too live 3 blocks away from the murder site. I too bring my kids to school in the morning. I too stop my car to observe federal agents when they are in my neighborhood.

“I share this horrendous picture to urge any of you on the fence right now, that if you love me, the only way to protect my life is to get active,” he wrote. “It doesn’t even matter what you do… just take 2 steps more than what you are currently doing to stop this creeping [fascism]. This is in fact the only way to keep ourselves alive.”

One day after Good’s murder, news broke that ICE agents had shot and injured a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon. An ICE spokesperson accused them of weaponizing a vehicle to run over the law enforcement agents.

“There was a time when we could take them at their word. That time is long past,” said Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, calling on ICE to leave and for an independent investigation into the shootings.

What can stop all this? “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” an emboldened Trump told the New York Times, musing about his power, after the U.S.’s military attacks on Venezuela and kidnapping of the country’s president.

It’s up to us to stop him. Building the mass movement we need will take millions of people acting like Good, practicing good deeds, making good trouble

Normals know that you leave the cops alone when they’re making an arrest. Leftists, though, have created a new normal …

On Jan. 7, 2026, an extremist protester attempted to ram ICE agents in Minneapolis with her SUV, and subsequently died from gunshot wounds when agents appropriately responded to the threat.

She and her girlfriend had been on the scene for some time, objecting to the ongoing ICE action, harassing the agents as they were doing their job.

Leftists watch one video, from one perspective, and claim she was murdered; reasonable people watch an array of videos of the incident from several directions, and recognize it as self-defense on the part of the agents.

Many in the Left are understandably horrified, thinking, “that could have been me.” Some on the Left didn’t waste time mourning, knowing they can fundraise off this incident while the iron is hot.

Like all officer-involved deaths, there will be an internal investigation; the videos will be studied, witnesses will be interviewed, official determinations will be made. For now, at least, under the American system, the agent who fired at the charging vehicle is innocent until proven guilty.

But there are some things we can recognize from the incident right away, which should enlighten us about a nationwide problem.

These activists are not behaving rationally.

Normal people, when they see a police bust taking place, either leave the area or step back to watch from a safe distance. Whether it’s a mass arrest of a flash mob at a retail store, or police breaking up a late night brawl at a bar, even people who simply “can’t tear their eyes away from the train wreck,” at least manage to find the presence of mind to stay out of the policemen’s way.

But these activists, for nearly a year now, have often been getting close to the operations, as close as they can. We see them blowing whistles to warn criminals of the police presence. We see them jeering the agents, even throwing rocks or other projectiles at them, or just getting in their faces, trying to provoke a response.

In normal times, this would be recognized as insanity.

No matter whether you’re from a good law-abiding family or a mafia neighborhood, you are taught from childhood to always be deferential to law enforcement officers. Always.

You give them room, you stay out of their way, you don’t provoke them. If you’re stopped for a traffic ticket, you keep your hands where the police can see them so they don’t consider you a threat. If you see an arrest in progress, you cross the street so you don’t impede their work.

Everybody knows this.

From childhood.

But something has changed in recent years. As the BLM riots and the 1% riots — and the Antifa riots and the George Floyd riots — all spread and normalized violent demonstrations, the Left started giving their activist members a new kind of marching order:

The Left is now ordering its members to act up, to push the envelope with ICE and other forms of law enforcement. These foot soldiers of the radical Left aren’t thinking of blowing whistles and throwing hands, and blocking the street with their cars, all by themselves; they are following the precise instructions of their activist leadership.

Perhaps they aren’t bright enough to realize that when you interfere with law enforcement doing their job, it’s a crime.

Maybe they don’t have the sense to realize that visibly warning criminals that the police are after them can make them accomplices to those criminals, guilty of aiding and abetting an escape.

Or maybe they are bright enough to realize that what they’re doing is criminal – it’s not all that hard a concept to grasp – but they have been told they have nothing to fear, because the officials never prosecute these things.

Well, what these people are forgetting is that the American legal system is designed, as they say, not just for government and society, but also “for your own good.”

That is, we don’t just have laws against obstructing officers in the performance of their duty in order to help catch the criminals; we also have these laws because if you obstruct them in the pursuit of their job, you are also putting yourself in danger, and you’ll put other innocent bystanders in danger as well.

These protesters are the ones making these situations more dangerous, for all concerned. These protesters can claim all they want that federal law enforcement is “bringing chaos,” but they know it’s a lie. Leave them alone to do their job, and there would be no chaos.

It’s the protesters, getting in the way, blocking agents with their bodies or with their cars, alerting criminals that the police are after them, who make these situations volatile, increasing the odds of unnecessary injury or death, as just occurred in Minneapolis.

Watch the response by the Left in the days and weeks to come.

Clearly, the obvious reaction to today’s death should be for the Left to call on their members to stand down, to stop the harassment and provocation of ICE immediately. To cool both the rhetoric and the action right away, to prevent further bloodshed.

But what are the odds of that?

Watch the Left. You will see them fundraise off this unnecessary loss of one of their own. You will see them double down, and continue telling their members to blow their whistles, and position their vehicles, and do everything they can think of to be human obstacles.

Because the Left doesn’t really care about the safety of their own members (if they did, they wouldn’t have spent the past sixty years doing everything possible to stop the incarceration of street criminals). What they care about is disruption. Destruction. Lawlessness.

That’s what they campaign on. That’s what they fundraise on.

And when their members are injured or killed as a result of their own horrible advice, they can use these manufactured martyrdoms for PR.

Don’t believe me? Look at every other Marxist movement in history, from Lenin to Mao, from Castro to Pol Pot. The Left always devours its own. They have no more respect for the lives of their own members than they do for anyone else.

It’s just how Marxism works.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker. Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his biting political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his 2024 collection of public policy essays, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, exclusively on Amazon.

Image: Screen shot from X video

Related Topics: Leftists, Minnesota

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President Donald Trump’s renewed interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark fits into a long, little-known pattern in U.S. history. From quiet discussions after the Civil War to a $100 million offer in the wake of World War II, American leaders have repeatedly seen Greenland as a strategic prize.

Here’s a look:

1867–1868: Early US interest after the Alaska purchase

After the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia, officials under Secretary of State William Seward discussed acquiring Greenland as part of a broader push into the Arctic.

Seward noted the territory was rich in natural resources, including coal. But the idea never advanced to a formal offer, as Congress had little interest in pursuing another Arctic acquisition.

1910: Proposed land swap involving Greenland

Under President William Howard Taft, American diplomats floated a complex land-exchange plan that would have transferred Greenland to the United States in return for concessions elsewhere. Denmark rejected the proposal, and it quickly collapsed.

1946: Formal post–World War II purchase offer

At the outset of the Cold War, President Harry Truman’s administration formally offered Denmark $100 million in gold to buy Greenland, citing its strategic importance. During World War II, a U.S.-built airfield on the island had served as a major refueling point for military planes en route to Europe.

Denmark rejected Truman’s offer, though the U.S. retained military access. That presence continues today at the remote Pituffik Space Base, the U.S. Department of Defense’s northernmost installation.

R. J. Rico, CBN

…the Minnesota protests look less like a local eruption and more like the latest deployment of an international revolutionary machine.” —Insurrection Barbie on “X”

Chrump, Chrump Chrump. . . . He’s come to occupy the Left’s minds like an infestation of weevils chawing away the ligaments of civilized society. But, of course, the whole wicked, Cluster-B, anomie-driven, insurrectionist extravaganza is a made-for-video production bought and paid for by a tiny coterie of super-wealthy megalomaniacs untouched by consequence — George and Alex Soros (The Open Society Foundations), Shanghai-based American Neville Roy Singham (Codepink and more), Reid Hoffman (funder of Trump prosecutions and more), Lauren Powell Jobs (The Atlantic and the Emerson Collective), Hansjorg Wyss (Berger Action Fund), Bill Gates (of course). . . .

Their main client in all this mischief is the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party’s chief motivation, its raison d’être going on at least ten years now, has been to hide its multifarious crimes, its vast racketeering operations now garishly on display in the state of Minnesota, where the grift just went too far and was done right in America’s face.

Who can possibly fail to see how it works? Import a bunch of people from a foreign land. . . enable them to set up a vast network of social services frauds. . . organize them for ballot harvesting and election fraud. . . and kick-back bundles of money to Democratic Party politicians. If anybody notices, yell “racist!” Sound the klaxon to turn out a thousand LARPing protesters on the Soros payroll. Provide them with signs, banners, black-bloc outfits, cartoon costumes, pride flags, umbrellas, snacks, bullhorns, pallets of bricks, and hope that some of them get hurt so you can manufacture the next martyr.

The crescendo of this long-running seditious treason was the wide open border during the four-year fake presidency of “Joe Biden,” including the colossal coordinated scam of funding who-knows-how-many NGOs with additional US taxpayer money, funneled through the UN, to process, transport, and outfit with social security numbers and debit cards X-millions of alien mutts, professional terrorists, gang-bangers, mental patients, and actual soldiers from faraway lands, and sprinkle them into every cranny of the republic to queer the next election and otherwise cause as much disruption as possible to the everyday life of actual US citizens.

They flooded the country with millions dependent on the Democratic Party’s largess — your tax dollars — and now they are doing everything possible to prevent the removal of this riffraff back to their countries of origin. Starting a civil war over it, in fact, because that’s what it’s come to. The federal agents tasked with the removal operation are apparenty not allowed to defend themselves when the LARPing street cadres attack them. There have been 66 car attacks against ICE officers since January, 2025. State and local officials in Minneapolis have behaved so dishonestly that federal investigators kicked them off what is now a federal case in the matter of “ICE-tracker” Renee Nicole Good, shot dead at the scene in her car. Minnesota will not be permitted to turn ICE agent Jonathan Ross into another Derek Chauvin. That sort of hustle is over.

What you can now discern in the winter darkness through fog of tear gas is that the Democratic Party will choose to destroy the country rather than face the consequences of its long-running crimes. Everybody knows now that the sort of social services grifts uncovered in Minnesota, with the kickbacks to Democratic politicians, have been going on all over America. The president has ordered an “all-of-government” effort to find the fraud and prosecute it, and you can assume the effort will tend to concentrate on the very states and cities where the Democratic Party dominates. Expect election fraud to bubble up in this cauldron. The evidence of a stolen 2020 election is finally emerging and converging with the larger illegal immigrant story.

It’s also clear now, that the NGO racket associated with all that is going to be dismantled — the money-stream from the likes of Soros & friends. They are going to get RICOed, their assets could be seized, and the public will learn a whole lot more about the damage they have done to the country. The Left’s NGOs not only support the on-the-ground street action, they also provide thousands of “executive” jobs and salaries to the Maoist nose-rings and transy-boys churned out of the higher ed diploma mills who are otherwise unemployable in any real economy with their race-and-gender studies diplomas.

The Democratic Party apparently realizes that the latest round of scandals and crimes might be its last rodeo. After a day of hearings this week, featuring several Minnesota politicos who testified about sketchy goings-on in the state, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FLA) launched criminal referrals against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and MN Attorney General Keith Ellison. That’s apart from whatever the DOJ has already been working on, and it is probably the beginning of a nation-wide web of prosecutions moving toward the midterm election that will drag in many other big dawgs of the party, including 2028 front-runner Gavin Newsom. The suicide of the Democratic Party has gone live, Donald Trump assisting.

James Howard Kunstler

Plus: A Venezuelan beauty queen, a Minnesota knucklehead, and a crying communist

Andrew Stiles

Friday, January 9, 2026.

Dr. Oz, the senior government health official, wants Americans to stop drinking alcohol for breakfast. With all due respect, man, maybe next week.

2026 has barely gotten out of bed, and it’s already too sloshed to drive. We’re all just trying to keep up. If you’re not already drunk by the time you read this—what are you even doing? You’re clearly not spending enough time on social media. Stop playing with your kids or pretending to work, go inside, pour yourself a pint of cheap gin, and scroll until you’re too angry or depressed to get off the toilet. The world’s problems aren’t going to solve themselves. We need you on the front lines.

Let’s start with the good news: Americans are coming together to denounce the unfortunate yet justified execution-style murder of an innocent agitator who accidentally made the poor decision of trying to vehicularly manslaughter a heartless law-abiding ICE agent who feared for his life in Minneapolis, of all places. Schools are canceled today due to “safety concerns.” What’s the worst that could happen?

Even better news: American special forces apprehended Nicolás Maduro on the sixth anniversary of the drone strike that killed Iranian terror boss Qassem Soleimani, may he rest in pieces. Liberals were outraged, for obvious reasons. They scolded Venezuelan refugees for celebrating. They mourned the Cuban mercenaries who died defending a dictator. They published one of the most amusing fact-checks we’ve ever seen.

What they’re saying: “It looks weak,” a Democrat told Axios while refusing to go on the record for fear of being branded an anti-communist. We’re curious to know if this anonymous Democrat joined his colleagues to commemorate the Jan. 6 Capitol tour by singing “God Bless America” at a candlelight vigil. That was awesome.

The correct take: Neocons were overjoyed because—as Tucker Carlson revealed in October—Maduro’s ouster meant the Jewish cabal could finally realize its dream of Making Venezuela Gay Again. And, honestly, using Delta Force was a lot more efficient than the old way of doing things: sending Oberlin grads in USAID uniforms to lecture impoverished children about eco-friendly dildos. Embarrassing the Russians, bombing Hugo Chávez’s tomb, and seizing the oil supply was just a tasty bonus. Stay gay out there!

Meanwhile, in Iran: Anti-regime protesters across the country are destroying statues of Soleimani and chanting “Death to Khamenei” as the punk-ass supreme leader cowers in his bunker and draws up plans to flee to Russia if things get out of control. You might have noticed that the “Globalize the Intifada” crowd could not be more indifferent to the courage of Iranians risking their lives to bring down a fascist theocracy—which is odd, because everyone knows “intifada” is just a harmless rallying cry for all who struggle against oppression. It has nothing to do with hating Jews.

Crucial context: The Iranian uprising comes amid the country’s worst drought in more than 50 years, which has exacerbated the economic and social tensions. How has the regime tried to address the problem? If you guessed “blame Israel for manipulating the weather,” then you’d be correct.

AMBER Alert: Speaking of anti-Semitic climate hysterics, where’s Greta Thunberg? We can’t wait to follow her forthcoming yacht trip to Iran to document the regime’s atrocities. The adult child activist is probably just sorting out some legal issues after being banned from Venice for one of her latest stunts—dumping green dye in the Grand Canal to protest climate change. Then she’ll be off to Tehran. Bon voyage!

Bottom line: If the Iranian regime collapses in the next couple of weeks, or if Greenland becomes a U.S. colony, we’ll have no choice but to rename the month of January after Donald Trump. No figure in American history can match the accomplishments he’s racked up during his presidency in the first month of the year. “Donuary,” “Trumpuary,” or just “Trump.” Credit where credit is due.

The Donroe Doctrine: As far as Greenland is concerned, overwhelming military force should always be the first option for acquiring new territory. But that doesn’t mean Trump shouldn’t explore a less aggressive option that often succeeded in settling international disputes until the feminists started complaining.

Tampon Tim pulls out: Tim Walz ended his reelection campaign for governor of Minnesota amid growing frustration over his handling of a welfare fraud scandal involving billions of taxpayer dollars. “I will fight back with everything that I have,” Walz said at a press conference explaining his decision to quit. He followed that up by suggesting that Minnesota was “at war with the federal government.” Look, just secede and join Canada already. No one is going to miss you.

Walz is best known as the prancing moron who made Kamala Harris seem shrewd and insightful by comparison. Why else would she have picked him as a running mate? Doing what comes naturally, the mainstream media incessantly praised Walz as a paragon of modern masculinity. Owning a flannel shirt and being an asshole were cited as evidence of his working-class appeal. He was supposed to help the campaign attract male voters, but he only ever looked comfortable gabbing with the ladies of the View.

Make communists cry again: Zohran Mamdani is staffing the New York City mayor’s office with like-minded radicals. His press shop includes a number of pampered socialists who cultivated their disdain for capitalism while attending some of the most exclusive and expensive prep schools in the country. Mamdani’s communications director, Anna Bahr, is a former Rachel Maddow intern and Bernie Sanders aide who graduated from Oakwood School in Los Angeles (annual tuition: $55,000). Julian Gerson, the mayor’s top speechwriter who crafted the bone-chilling line about replacing the “frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” went to the Dalton School in Manhattan (annual tuition: $67,000).

Then there’s Cea Weaver, the newly appointed director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants. An obnoxious white woman who holds degrees from Bryn Mawr and NYU, Weaver has come under fire for stating her insane beliefs on social media. She’s denounced homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy,” argued that public policy should be engineered to “impoverish the white middle class,” and expressed a desire to abolish private homes and replace them with “public housing for everyone.” The New York Times called her a “firebrand.”

Weaver broke down in tears this week when reporters peppered her with questions outside her apartment (in gentrified Brooklyn). She ran back inside after being asked to defend the structurally racist $1.6 million house her mother owns in Tennessee. Mamdani supporters were furious. They condemned the free press—a pillar of our cherished democracy—for bothering a “young woman attempting to make the world a better place.” (Weaver is a 37-year-old public official.) Making communists cry was once considered a basic civic obligation, a time-honored American pastime.

We used to be a proper country.

After Renee Nicole Good died trying to kill an ICE agent, the left is lusting after a blood-and-thunder civil war, but it doesn’t have to end this way.

Allan J. Feifer | January 9, 2026

On Wednesday, Renee Nicole Good died in Minneapolis after being shot in a defensive shooting by an ICE agent who had previously been hit by a car in a similar situation. Almost everyone is focused on the specific events of that day rather than what is clearly an escalatory spiral with no endpoint in sight.

Andrea Widburg wrote an excellent post the other day that correctly redirected us to the growing schism between leftists’ grasp on reality and their actions. Not highlighted in this article are the special circumstances that the left has cultivated over the last generation, which have set the country up for an eventual reckoning that increasingly looks like a war between the states.

The Founders always understood that regional differences in taste, culture, society, economics, and more would continue under the framework of a united country. That is one of the principal reasons we have independent states, governed by a system of governors and individual legislatures, rather than an all-powerful federal system. It was believed that common interests would ensure harmonious relations between the states, as their basic proclivities would always align. The Founders never foresaw that artificial constructs would change that commonality of interests. But it has happened!

Democrats can be very crafty. The history of sanctuary cities shows that, while they began in the 80s, it was only in this century that the movement grew and became radicalized, eventually thwarting federal laws and enforcement efforts.

Americans, even law-and-order Americans, don’t like heavy-handed enforcement against citizens. Additionally, America has a history of diverse political thought, giving rise to the current schism between the left and the right.

While the right has generally been more law-abiding, especially in the last fifty years, the left has become more activist. Bolstered by left-leaning politicians, attorneys general and district attorneys, violent rhetoric of all kinds has found a willing home in Blue States and cities.

Yesterday’s shooting is a direct result of these policies that are encouraging the crazies to act out their fantasy of being radicals without (they believe) the risk of getting hit over the head, arrested, jailed, and ultimately shot. Politicians are responsible for all this Blue State violence and have created a dangerous situation for law enforcement.

They issued these statements after Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the ICE narrative “bullshit” and told ICE to “get the f*** out of Minneapolis.”

A credible case can be made that in Blue States with strong anti-authority laws, attitudes, and an energized, protected base of leftists, the inevitable clashes will snowball into dangerous territory requiring the federal government to intervene, leading to an escalatory spiral that may not stop.

These governors are playing with fire. This is how relatively minor internal divisions can turn into civil wars. Today’s permissive environment is going to lead to more cities being burned down and many injuries and deaths. The left believes that ultimately the federal government will back down and look the other way on myriad issues, giving them the win.

I don’t believe that’s going to happen. They’ve been miscalculating for a long time. At a certain point, we’re going to have to push back—hard. If we don’t, events will explode, and only the most ardent leftists and nihilists are pushing for that.

God Bless America!

Allan Feifer. Author, Businessman, Thinker, and Strategist. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.