“Over the past several weeks, protests have once again erupted across Iran, driven by a deepening economic crisis and broader demands for political accountability. In response, the Trump administration has issued strong rhetorical support for Iranian protesters and sharply criticized Tehran’s heavy-handed repression. President Trump and senior officials have repeatedly framed the demonstrations as evidence of the regime’s illegitimacy and brutality toward its own people. Yet there is a striking contradiction at the heart of the U.S. response. Even as the administration condemns Iran’s treatment of its citizens, it has suspended asylum hearings, maintained sweeping travel restrictions, and deported Iranian nationals from the United States. These actions undercut Washington’s professed concern for human rights and weaken the credibility of its support for protesters inside Iran.” (01/21/26)
“Imagine this …. You’re minding your own business, or maybe picking up your kid at their school, when suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a platoon of masked, armed, camouflaged government agents. One thing leads to another, and in a flash, an agent has wrestled you to the ground, and is brandishing a weapon — maybe a Taser if you’re lucky. But what if I told you that lawmakers on Capitol Hill have a solution? They are proposing a brave new world, where now (flat on your back and gasping for air, and perhaps able to bravely manage to free your phone from your pocket) you could scan a federally mandated QR code on the agent’s uniform and find out the identity of the man who is currently pummeling you to within an inch of your life.” (01/21/25)
“Donald Trump is taking his demented dreams to a new level in his quest to take over Greenland. The man who whined over not getting a Nobel Prize and then followed Hitler propagandist Joseph Goebbels lead in accepting a prize awarded to someone else, has now decided he wants Greenland. Trump is now proposing to whack us with a $75 billion tax increase to put pressure on Denmark and the rest of the EU to give him Greenland. … Well over 90 percent of the cost of a Trump tariff is borne by consumers or importers in the United States, not by the exporting countries. When Trump starts yelling ‘tariff, tariff, tariff,’ he is yelling ‘tax, tax, tax,’ and we’re the ones paying it.” (01/21/26)
“Across the nation, states are fiercely competing for companies and population by slashing taxes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is dooming her state to be the loser. In 2026, eight states are cutting their income taxes, and four others are reducing corporate tax rates. South Carolina is pushing ahead on legislation to phase out its income tax entirely over the next few years, joining nine other income-tax-free states. That’s bad news for New York. Saddled with a spendaholic governor and state legislature, New York is becoming increasingly unattractive to newcomers and businesses alike. On Tuesday, Hochul unveiled a record-breaking $260 billion state budget — two and a half times the size of Florida’s, despite Florida’s larger population.” (01/21/25)
“Federal prosecutors on January 9 charged Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, an IT specialist for an unnamed government contractor, with ‘the offense of unlawful retention of national defense information,’ according to an FBI affidavit. The case attracted national attention after federal agents investigating Perez-Lugones searched the home of a Washington Post reporter. But overlooked so far in the media coverage is the fact that a surprising surveillance tool pointed investigators toward Perez-Lugones: an office printer with a photographic memory.” (01/21/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Eldar Mamedov
“ollowing the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown on protests this past week, an air of inevitability continues to surround the possibility of American military intervention. But what would such an intervention look like? Voices in U.S. and Israeli media are once again floating the idea of breaking Iran apart along ethnic lines. … This is dangerous nonsense, and America First advocates of realism and restraint in U.S. foreign policy must unambiguously reject it. It is also déjà vu, reminiscent of the political atmosphere that preceded the Iraq debacle — and it promises an even more catastrophic failure in a country four times the size of Iraq.” (01/21/26)
“On a September morning, armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents broke in and raided the home of 15-year-old Marie Justeen Mancha while her mother was running an errand. They blocked the door, accused her of being ‘an illegal,’ and questioned Marie about her and her mother’s legal status. They are both US citizens. This break-in was part of a widespread sweep targeting Hispanic communities in southeast Georgia. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) accused ICE of using ‘Gestapo-like’ tactics to trample ‘on the constitutional rights of every person of Hispanic descent who was unfortunate to be in their way.’ SPLC filed a class-action lawsuit against ICE on behalf of five US citizens. In addition to compensation for property damages, the lawsuit sought a court order to stop ICE from conducting similar raids in the future. Sound familiar? That occurred in 2006, 20 years ago.” (01/21/25)
“During the age of Trump, conservative thinkers have had a recurring tendency to daydream about what might be possible now that the old verities of the right have been unsettled. After Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, two intellectuals hoped for ‘a conservative politics that stresses the national interest abroad and national solidarity at home.’ They went on to outline how Republicans could synthesize the best of pre-Trump conservatism with Trump’s most defensible impulses. I’ve advocated a similar version of nationalism and so find this vision appealing. But as Trump enters the second year of his second term, it is fair to say that it is still only a vision — and not one that has gotten much closer to materializing.” (01/21/26)
