The New European Surveillance State

American Thinker 

EU Europe is increasingly abandoning a civilized approach to dissenting opinions. The raid on the Paris offices of Elon Musk’s company X appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. Today, those who resist are being attacked on multiple levels, while those who submit are largely spared. It is time to increase pressure on Brussels.

Elon Musk’s communications platform X has become caught between systemic fronts. On one side stands the American understanding of free speech, which has experienced a political revival under Donald Trump’s new presidency. On the other, an increasingly repressive EU control regime is eroding the balance of power between state apparatus and citizen. Given the openly visible economic decline of the European economic model and growing criticism of the long-derailed Ukraine engagement, open confrontations were foreseeable. Defeats and personal accountability are unknown concepts in the EU power circle.

Citizen sovereignty, anchored in the principle of free speech, inevitably triggers resistance among those whose influence rests on controlling public discourse and economic interests.

Against this backdrop, the allegations against X are easy to see through. Once again, they revolve around depictions of sexualized violence against children or image manipulation using artificial intelligence, specifically the integration of the platform application Grok. 

To crown it all, the European Union, in this case via France as executor of Brussels’ interests, is even attempting to accuse Elon Musk of Holocaust denial. This is explicitly not about relativizing the most reprehensible behavior. Prosecuting such crimes is the task of prosecutors, police investigations, and the application of existing criminal law.

But the Europeans’ vector of attack is different. It is clearly politically motivated. The detention of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France last year points in the same direction. Free communication spaces are no longer to exist where European citizens can exchange ideas unchecked, coordinate opposition positions, and publicly organize against the Brussels central apparatus.

France’s president Emmanuel Macron, whose presidency is widely seen as bloodless and politically exhausted, throws up a smokescreen in this situation, attempting with the attack on X to kill two birds with one stone. The maneuver is transparent.

Double Standards in the Name of Free Speech

How openly European actors have positioned themselves against free speech was shown by the travel ban imposed last year by the Americans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. Breton had publicly called for restrictions on communication freedom, seeing it as a risk to European elections. 

In doing so, Breton naïvely described the tactics and background of Brussels’ repression policy and confirmed suspicions of manipulation of free elections in the EU. He repeatedly invoked the now-worn argument of protection against disinformation, hate, and incitement -- a long-exhausted and transparent maneuver. In this logic, disinformation ultimately includes anything that critically challenges Brussels’ centralist course.

It is noteworthy that X now faces multiple heavy fines from the EU Commission for these allegations, while comparable cases are treated with obvious inequality. The attacks are orchestrated on multiple levels, both financially and morally.

In the case of Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, Brussels has been considerably more lenient, even though phenomena such as grooming for child sexual abuse and fraudulent advertising are clearly systemic. 

Meta broadly aligns with European rules, as does LinkedIn. Accordingly, Brussels sometimes turns a blind eye when things get tricky. The company has adapted to digital regulations, aligned its moderation, reporting, and risk management structures closely with EU requirements, works intensively with European supervisory authorities, proactively implements DSA obligations, and has repeatedly tightened its community standards in accordance with European regulation.

Here, the full hypocrisy of European authorities becomes apparent. Their aim is not the systematic prosecution of criminals on digital platforms. The goal is to cut off the peak of criticism of their own regime -- essentially beheading the most prominent voices before a genuine opposition can form online.

The irony: European censorship policy must have seemed like a new form of colonialism to Americans. During President Joe Biden’s years in office, Washington submitted almost willingly. The result was that European censorship and compliance rules suddenly applied to American users as well.

The new leadership in Washington demonstrates independence from European influence and confronts the conflict with Brussels openly -- no matter how unfairly it is conducted. From an American perspective, Macron’s defiance and Brussels’ frantic countermeasures increasingly appear grotesque.

Reactance as a Driver of European Power Politics

Psychologist J. W. Brehm called this marked defiance in individuals “reactance.” Given the EU’s geopolitical and economic inferiority, its representatives, including Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron, act less rationally than instinctively. At its core, it is about restoring an illusion of autonomy and preserving public dignity. This impulse intensifies the more the limits of their political actions are exposed.

The protagonists of the European control and censorship apparatus, often after hermetically closed political careers, are encountering open resistance for the first time. Accordingly, they seize almost any opportunity to personalize this resistance in the figure of U.S. president Donald Trump and demonize him in the media.

The chronology of escalation can be traced clearly since U.S. vice president J. D. Vance’s appearance last year at the Munich Security Conference. Vance spoke unusually bluntly, accusing the EU of waging an open battle against the free speech of its citizens. Subsequently, the U.S. government-imposed tariffs for the first time in an economic dispute with the EU. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then activated diplomatic initiatives against what Washington considers European censorship policy. The confrontation culminated last fall in a trade deal perceived by Europeans as the maximum humiliation of an entirely incompetent political leadership.

Brussels has repeatedly responded with the described reactance pattern -- in an attempt to assert itself before its own public, without realizing that a political system increasingly pressuring its own citizens loses trust and legitimacy in the long term.

On the side of resistance, Europe has grown conspicuously quiet. Even former champions of freedom are falling silent in the face of increasingly open repression, which in the UK can lead to politically inconvenient comments in online forums resulting in criminal charges or even arrests.

By embedding a deliberately vague gray zone under the labels of “hate and incitement,” censors have shown remarkable creativity. Under this interpretive framework, nearly anything can be subsumed that does not fit the rigged cards of Brussels and European capitals.

Against this backdrop, it seems logical that voices in the United States are calling for the open conflict with the EU -- or with individual nation-states like France -- over free speech issues to be met with an even harsher tariff regime. Learning through pain.

The citizens of the European Union pay a high price for a regime that suffocates dissent. Those insisting on free exchange encounter Brussels’ resistance -- and must realize: in this game, it is no longer about protecting children, but about establishing a surveillance state.

Podcast thread for Feb 12

 

It's not worth worrying each day of what the rest of the year or even what 2028 could look like.

Only thing you can do is just let the pieces fall wherever they are meant to fall.

A Double Agent

 

James Armistead Lafayette’s espionage reminds us that American history thrives on complexity, not caricature.

Ian Oxnevad

Minding the campus

February 10, 2026

History reminds us who we are and how we came to be. It is for these reasons that the woke left, seeking to craft a narrative that demonizes America by reducing it to simplicity, so often omits the very things that make the nation distinctive—and its history worth reading. Educators who divide and dilute the American story into warring identity groups lie as much through silence and omission as they do through demonization. You won’t find stories of patriotic American diversity in works like The 1619 Project, or even in most mainstream textbooks on the American Founding. What is omitted is not only unity, but complexity—including the men and women who worked in secrecy rather than on the battlefield. Patriot spies of the American founding are too often eclipsed by the era’s battles and its most celebrated statesmen. Figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams dominate the story for their leadership in war and words, while those who shaped events from the shadows remained overlooked for generations. Even Washington’s intelligence network was not firmly documented by historians until the 20th century, and Nathan Hale’s sacrifice was formally commemorated only decades ago. For America’s 250th anniversary (read The Road to the American Revolution) and Black History Month, it is worth breaking the silence—and what better than a story of a spy?

When exactly James Armistead Lafayette was born is unknown. The best historians can do is disagree by twelve years, dating his birth to either 1748 or 1760. Born into the Armistead family, a prominent Virginia family that included later figures like the Confederate General Lewis Armistead. James was educated and learned how to read and write both English and French alongside his master, William Armistead Jr. 

A quarter of a millennium can give the impression that America’s Founding and success were inevitable. It was not. When James entered the Patriot cause, the end of the Revolution was anything but certain. The year 1780 was a disaster. In May that year, the Siege of Charleston led to the surrender of over 5,000 American soldiers to the British, virtually wiping out the Continental Army’s southern command that had been tasked with defending the entirety of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Many of the American troops taken at Charleston died on British prison ships. Three signers of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Heyward Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edmund Rutledge, were also captured. That same month in South Carolina, the Battle of Waxhaws ended with a British massacre of surrendered Patriot prisoners. In August, despite being outnumbered nearly two-to-one, the British smashed the reconstituted Continental Army again at the Battle of Camden. Weeks later, Continental Army general Benedict Arnold defected.

The threat of oblivion has a way of breeding courage, and British successes in 1780 provoked an American resistance in the South that was as unorthodox as it was innovative. The British actions at the Battle of Waxhaws helped catalyze Francis Marion’s American irregular warfare campaign, known as the “Swamp Fox.” Seeing the situation as dire, the French nobleman, diplomat, and Continental Army Major-General, the Marquis de Lafayette, turned his personal attention to bolstering intelligence operations against the British. While the Patriot cause disintegrated farther south, James and William Armistead Jr. moved from Williamsburg to Virginia’s new capital of Richmond. It was there that James asked for permission to join the Continental Army.

The position of black Americans during the Revolution defies refinement to a simple narrative. A condemnation of slavery was originally included in Thomas Jefferson’s early draft of the Declaration of Independence. This was removed to help ensure the Continental Congress approved independence. Black Americans were part of the Patriot cause from the beginning. Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave-turned sailor, was one of the Americans killed in the Boston Massacre. Attucks, along with the other Massacre victims, were buried together in a common grave despite racial differences. At the end of their lives, Sam Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock were buried in the same cemetery. Around 150 black and Native American Patriots fought against the British at Bunker Hill. Nearly four percent of Continental Army veterans were black. 

Initially, the Continental Army restricted black enlistment, and multiple states, including Virginia, barred slaves from fighting. In January 1776, Washington began expanding opportunities for blacks in the military. In 1778, the 1^st Rhode Island Regiment, which was segregated, fought so ferociously against the British at the Battle of Newport that one Hessian officer resigned to avoid fighting them again. Some served to secure their personal freedom, such as Continental Army surgeon Cuffee Wells. In a variety of circumstances and roles, thousands of black Americans fought for the Patriot cause. The Marquis de Lafayette was one of the most ardent advocates for including black Americans in the Continental Army; indeed, he advocated for its abolition until he died in 1834.

When James enlisted under the Marquis in Virginia, he entered a war in which the Patriot cause was already riddled with betrayal. While Benjamin Franklin served as America’s chief ambassador to France, his personal secretary, Edward Bancroft, was secretly a British agent, passing information under the guise of letters to a mistress. Benedict Arnold’s defection further poisoned the intelligence environment.

Marquis immediately recognized an opportunity in the young James. Fluent in French and intimately familiar with Virginia’s terrain, James was assigned the cover of a runaway slave and sent into British lines. He successfully infiltrated the command of Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis, convincing British officers of his loyalty. In reality, James fed Cornwallis false information and carefully recorded conversations for Lafayette’s benefit. Once embedded, he was even assigned to work under the now-thoroughly British Benedict Arnold. James had become a double agent.

As a spy, James’s work helped shift the landscape of the war. 

Perhaps karmically, Arnold viewed James as an incredible asset and tasked him with guiding British soldiers through the Virginia backwoods. Eventually, Gen. Cornwallis took James onto his own personal staff at British headquarters, where he unsuspectedly eavesdropped on officers planning strategy and troop movements. When Washington asked the Marquis for an intelligence report of Cornwallis’s plans, the Marquis delivered James’s reports. Marquis, in turn, delivered to James a fake order addressed to General Daniel Morgan about troop movements. The counterfeit order, torn and damaged, was given to the British, claiming an inability to read, and stated that he personally saw no changes in the countryside and had simply found the note by the roadside. James’s intelligence work proved so valuable that Continental troops successfully blocked the British from reinforcing Yorktown by land while the Patriots awaited the arrival of the French navy. After the British surrender, when Cornwallis met Marquis in person, he personally saw that James had been on Marquis’s staff and understood the betrayal firsthand.

As a spy, James was exempted from the law that emancipated slaves who served in the Revolutionary War in 1783, and returned to his life as a slave. In 1787, Marquis learned of James’s situation, wrote openly to Congress, and successfully petitioned for his release. James took the name Lafayette as his own and retired to a 40-acre farm in New Kent County, Virginia, where he raised a family and lived free the rest of his life. In 1824, the then-elderly James and Marquis reunited at a commemoration of the victory in Yorktown and openly hugged in public. An October 1824 article from the Richmond Compiler described as: “A black man even, who had rendered him services by way of information as a spy, for which he was liberated by the State, was recognized by him in the crowd, called to him by name, and taken in his embrace.”

A portrait of James was commissioned shortly after this, as well as a play.

Two takeaways are to be had from James Lafayette’s story. The first is that real spies rely on intrigue and intuition in history far more often than on gadgets and gunfights in fiction. It is partly the work of spies like James, who ensured that the American Revolution was our singular starting point rather than simply a footnote in European history.

The second reason is deeper. While Americans spend the year celebrating the country’s 250^th birthday, the Constitution’s freedoms, the country’s history, and our military, it is worth remembering what James’s story represents. History defies narrative just as much as America itself defies the norms of world history. James’s history defies the revisionism and identity politics of the woke left as much as it reveals the gritty rawness of the American story.

As we look back on 250 years, it is precisely this kind of rawness that made us possible.

“Engraved portrait of James Armistead Lafayette (c. 1759-1830). After the painting by John B. Martin, ca. 1824.” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Armistead_Lafayette#/media/File:James_Armistead_Lafayette.jpg

For Epstein Victims and Members of Congress, It’s Time to Put Up or Shut Up

Townhall 

I don’t want to be that guy who throws the red challenge flag on the victims of child sex trafficking at the hands of Democrat Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator and fellow Democrat Ghislaine Maxwell, but someone has to. Someone has to because the “justice” these women are demanding, or are claiming to demand, is fully and completely within their grasp, and their grasp alone. Yet, they don’t seem willing to take it. Sooner or later, they have to put up, or shut up, don’t they?

There comes a point at which you either put your money where your mouth is or you stop talking trash. People who talk about how tough they are, or how good they are at something, often get really quiet when challenged to a fight or a game. If I didn’t hate basketball, if I loved it and thought I was a really, really good free-throw shooter and told everyone how I was the best at it, it’d look pretty bad if I passed on every $20 shoot-off I was challenged to.

I’m not trying to belittle the abuse the accusers of Epstein suffered, but some of them have come out and admitted to being escorts or adults when their entanglement started. If you were an adult, even if you were only 21, you’re a consenting adult. When I was 21, I was pretty stupid, but I was still an adult. It’s not any different for anyone else. When a handful of these women are demanding something – in this case, the names of abusers – that, at least theoretically, is fully within their ability to provide…and then they don’t, I have questions.

They know who abused them. If those men are out there, living their lives and likely abusing more women (because I can’t imagine a pedo stopping), then the refusal to name and charge them becomes something akin to enabling further abuse, doesn’t it?

But we don’t get those questions; we don’t get any real questions at all. People in the media are afraid to press these women on anything for fear of being accused of being insensitive. Personally, I’ll happily be insensitive if it gets monsters off the streets. I’ll also happily be insensitive if it helps expose fraud.

I don’t know which is the case here; all I know is that Epstein is in Hell, so he can’t refute anything. Maxwell is trying to avoid spending the rest of her life in prison, so she’s not going to talk. The only direct source for information is the accusers, so I want them to talk.

I’m not referring to the women who have not come forward – everyone has the right to privacy and keep their personal torment to themselves, should they so choose – I’m talking about the women who hold press conferences regularly in Washington, DC. They aren’t shy about accusing the Trump administration of “covering up” things they could easily “uncover” by simply talking, yet they don’t. I just find it odd.

Just like I find it odd that Democrats seem to be coordinating with them at hearings, or maybe it’s just a major coincidence.

And then there are Congressmen Ro Khanna, D-CA and Thomas Massie, R-KY, who keep promising to release “names” if the Justice Department won’t un-redact them in the files. These two have absolute immunity for anything they say on the Floor of the House, thanks to the speech or debate clause of the Constitution. They can’t be criminally prosecuted for revealing top secret information, and they can’t be sued civilly for slandering anyone at all, even in the most heinous and deliberate way. There’s a reason Congresswoman Nancy Mace only accused her ex-fiancé and some of his friends of horrible sexual abuse against her on the House Floor and not anywhere else, including a criminal complaint. 

Khanna and Massie can expose monsters, if they exist, and save more victims…but they aren’t. Why the hell not?

I would never presume to tell anyone how to grieve, nor would I tell anyone how to deal with trauma. But if you enter the public arena and make allegations, wild or not, I will question you, even if it’s considered politically incorrect to do so. I’m sympathetic to the cause – as a father of 2 girls, I want all sexual predators sunk to the bottom of the ocean – but that sympathy will not override my logic. I have a question, and first among them is why are these people demanding someone else release information they have themselves?

The reluctance to simply do it themselves, what they insist they want, has me wondering why. No one will sue – you can’t enforce a non-disclosure agreement to cover up a crime and even if someone sued them, how do you think that would work out for them? Could you imagine? Anyone accused would immediately be assumed guilty in the court of public opinion and all the sympathy would remain with the accusers.

The only things stopping them from talking – from the women who regularly attend press conferences demanding things to Members of Congress demanding things – is them. It’s time to put up, I think.

The Moral Obsession that Drives Anti-ICE Protests

American Thinker 

As ICE agents continue to enforce immigration law in America, the radical Left continues to organise and inspire anti-ICE protestors who block streets, vandalize property, and harass law enforcement agents. The problem is that these protestors don’t see themselves obstructing justice and undermining democratic rule. To the contrary, they’ve been led to believe that they are heroes, good empathetic people bringing justice back to our world, standing up to Trump administration -- evil “revolting monsters” -- and ICE agents -- “thugs who terrorise” illegal immigrants.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey stated “the moral imperative” as the first reason why the city won’t cooperate with ICE. This interpretation of moral lawguiding righteous struggle of good people against evil ones is not unique to progressive radicals, but rather a hallmark of all extremist radical movements appealing to people’s good nature and empathy towards the “downtrodden,” and aimed at bringing down western egalitarian law and order: firstly, to elevate and codify in law hierarchical privileges of “oppressed” and “undervalued” identity groups, secondly, to discriminate, downgrade, or execute the group identified as “oppressors,” thirdly, to hunt down, cancel or prosecute all “evil enemies” who disagree with extremist politics, and, most importantly, to reserve the pinnacle of the totalitarian hierarchy -- positions of authority, political decision making and ideological influence -- for the radical elite to run the show. This way communists were liberating the exploited proletariat from the shackles of greedy capitalists. Nazis were advancing supremacy of the Aryan race and exterminating Jews. Islamists aim to take over political power, introduce Sharia law and subdue infidels. Progressives seek to expand rights of variety of “marginalized” minorities and women, while discriminating against white men.

Empathy towards the “downtrodden” and participation in the struggle for their salvation is the highest virtue in the moral law of extremism. This empathetic devotion is expected to override all other empathies, personal interests and responsibilities. Martyrdom is glorified, snitching on family members encouraged. 

In order to defeat the “forces of evil” and achieve “righteous ends,” this moral law justifies the use of all sorts of antisocial, unethical means: from leftist violence and election fraud subverting democratic order to the mass incarnations and mass murders by fascists, communists, and Islamists sustaining their totalitarian states.

In Stalin’s Russia, Igor Guberman writes:

Epidemic of the secular variety of religious insanity swept the country dividing everything in the world into the forces of good and evil, embodiments of light and darkness. Absolute, pure goodness was shining in the triumph of the revolution and in all its slogans, without exception, bestowing its supporters the right to execute and pardon, to destroy and rebuild, to take away and distribute, to elevate and overthrow, to abolish and establish. The very participation in the goodness granted mandate and indulgence. And for the same reason, everything in the world that interfered with the bearers of good belonged to the forces of evil… Commissars of good could burn, rape, persecute; and even a slight doubt in their right and righteousness meant involvement of such person in the forces of darkness and the righteous need to destroy him.

Another prominent feature shared by all successful extremist movements is their focus on indoctrination of the young to secure a grip on power and make sure future generations see the world through the lens of the moral law that supports extremist politics.

The increasing power of college diversity bureaucrats over academic affairs since the 1990s has been stunning… Chief inclusion officers track departmental race and sex demographics, pressuring department chairs to correct diversity deficits. Associate provosts for diversity coordinate campaigns for required courses on identity and grievance within the curriculum… Vice presidents for equity monitor campus speech, on the lookout for punishable microaggressions.

From kindergarten age, children are taught tenets of progressive doctrine: ‘“whiteness is a bad deal …and color-blindness is racist.” As part of the anti-government activism training taxpayer-funded schools escort kids to anti-ICE protests.

In the article “MAGA’s War on Empathy” Hillary Clinton takes the reasoning supporting anti-ICE protests even further talking about their roots in Christianity and highlighting “the contrast between traditional Christian morality and Trumpian amorality”: ‘MAGA  rejects the teachings of Jesus to “love thy neighbor.”’

This is a masterpiece of a radical gaslighting. Love thy neighbour does not teach us to treat our neighbors as above the law. Endorsed by religious sages from ancient times “as expressing the essence of the moral life” the reading of Love thy neighbor as thyself is Whatever is hateful unto thee, do it not unto thy fellow. In other words, Don’t do to others what you don’t want others do to yourself.

Paul writes in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” 

It is one of the main principles of Judeo-Christian morality -- Western moral law. This principle takes down hierarchy of dominance. As we don’t like being dominated, manipulated, or coerced into submission, so we won’t do it to others. It also stops unethical, criminal behaviours -- instrumental in power struggles. Appealing to our self-conciseness and then shifting focus to the victims of our possible wrongdoings this rule leads us to develop self-control, conscience and empathy. Furthermore, it reinforces and protects personal agency, leaving decision-making to the individual.

Judeo-Christian morality is profoundly egalitarian by nature. Biblical maxim “the last will be first, and the first will be last” does not endorse rearrangement of the dominance hierarchy. In political context it commands transformation of dominance hierarchy into hierarchy of duties and responsibilities, turning political leaders and government officials into public servants: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave…” (Mathew 20:25-27)

Alongside the Ten Commandments, family values, respect for hard work, entrepreneurship and meritocracy, there is the principle Don’t do to others what you don’t want others do to yourself as a bedrock of Judeo-Christian morality -- the moral law of the western world; the moral law that underpins our egalitarian democratic order, our legal system whereby everyone is equal before the law and nobody is above the law; the moral law that draws the line separating good and evil not between identity groups but between every person’s actions and intentions, between whatever you do to your fellow.

If we want to safeguard this legacy, it is imperative to cancel “required courses on identity and grievance” in schools and universities, to introduce studies of Judeo-Christian morality and to explain the difference between these two moral laws in order to give younger generations moral clarity which is supportive -- not destructive -- to our democratic order, to make sure they won’t fall under the sway of radical ideas joining BLM, anti-ICE and other extremist movements in growing numbers.

Ilhan Omar eviscerated for suggesting Trump is a pedophile — and should be executed: ‘Keep her mouth shut’

 The powerful House Oversight Committee chairman, James Comer, tore into Rep. Ilhan Omar after the far-left pol astonishingly suggested that President Trump is a pedophile — and should be executed.

Omar (D-Minn.), a fierce critic of the president, threw the demented tantrum after Trump appeared on Fox Business to discuss fraud in her home state of Minnesota, in which he claimed that the theft exceeds $19 billion.

“The leader of the Pedophile Protection Party is trying to deflect attention from his name being all over the Epstein files,” she wrote on X, alongside a clip of the interview, in which Trump also criticized her.

“At least in Somalia they execute pedophiles not elect them.”

Comer (R-Ky.) swiftly clapped back, saying that the “Squad” member needs to “keep her mouth shut” unless she is explaining her husband’s sudden surge in net worth.

“Of all the people to make any comment, Ilhan Omar is the one person in Congress who probably needs to keep her mouth shut,” Comer raged on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight” Wednesday night.

“If she’s going to tweet anything, she needs to explain to the American people how her net worth went from zero to $10 million in one year, and explain why the Biden Department of Justice was investigating her husband’s financial activities over the course of that year, where her net worth ballooned up.”

While Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files multiple times, there is no credible evidence that he engaged in anything nefarious.

The president has frequently singled out Omar’s ties to Somalia in the wake of a fraud scandal roiling Minnesota that has centered around the Somali population there.

“If she likes Somalia so much, she should go back to Somalia, and I can tell you, with what we’re investigating in Minnesota and the depositions and transcribed interviews that we’re getting right now as we speak,” Comer added.

Ilhan Omar eviscerated for suggesting Trump is a pedophile — and should be executed: ‘Keep her mouth shut’t/

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Foreign-Born Member Of Congress Threatens Republicans With Prison When Democrats Regain Power

The Federalist 

Foreign-born Rep. Shri Thanedar openly threatened to prosecute his political enemies this week — a reminder of what Democrats plan to do if they get power back.

During a committee hearing Tuesday, Thanedar — struggling to speak English — threatened to prosecute Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott when President Donald Trump is out of office.

“You better hope you get pardoned because you will be held accountable for the absolute disregard of the law your agencies have shown over the past year,” Thanedar threatened.

“Your agencies have lost the trust of the American people, with millions taking to the streets to protect the illegal actions of your agencies. And that’s why I introduce a bill in the United States Congress to abolish ICE. ICE must be abolished,” he continued.

Putting aside the irony of a congressman accusing ICE and Border Patrol of “disregarding” the law while ignoring the millions of illegal aliens who have done exactly that, something far more disturbing is happening. Democrats are explicitly threatening to imprison political opponents for enforcing duly enacted law — resurrecting their 2024 playbook.

And Thanedar is hardly an outlier.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries previously warned on CNN that Democrats would target Trump and other Trump-related people.

“One thing to understand as people who are flirting with the Trump administration, or doing the bidding of the Trump administration, or engaging in the pay-to-play schemes of the Trump administration: The statute of limitations is five years. Donald Trump and this toxic administration will be long gone, but there will still be accountability to be had.”

During a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing with lawfare specialist Jack Smith, Democrat Hank Johnson asked whether the indictments against Trump can be “re-brought or resurrected after … Trump leaves office.”

Smith said the indictments were “dismissed without prejudice,” to which Johnson pressed: “So they can be re-filed, and he can be prosecuted after he leaves office. Is that correct?”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, D-Ill., said Trump is “not going to be president forever,” and prosecutions can come in the future.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, said as long as Democrats get a House majority back, they intend to go after Trump’s family as well.

Left-wing commentators have also suggested as much, with Pivot podcast co-host Scott Galloway arguing that “there should be something equivalent to the Nuremberg Trials once this is all over.”

“And to make it clear: once we’re back in power — which we will be — this is going to happen. And the statute of limitations on murder is never,” he continued.

Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings said: “The ‘prosecute the former regime at every level’ candidate has my vote in 2028.”

Taken together, these threats make clear Democrats will use political power not to govern, but to punish those who tried to govern, just as they did in 2024. The only difference is this time, they’d know how to succeed in areas where they failed in the past.

Steve Bannon Text Messages About Trump Included in the Epstein File Release

Conservative Treehouse 

Apparently, Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein had a considerable relationship together.  Bannon is cited frequently in the 3 million+ Epstein files that were released by the DOJ.

Unfortunately, part of the document production includes text messages between Steve Bannon and an unknown individual.  Within a segment of the text messages Bannon calls Jared Kusher “the idiot son-in-law,” and frames himself as more important that President Donald Trump who Bannon sees as “transitory.”

[DOJ Source File]

STEVE BANNON (SB) – “To do that shows that [Trump] is center of gravity of this movement and not me — will never do — they are transitory figures — the dc game is to succumb to that — it’s why I never did before joining campaign — I could have been the trump whisperer years ago — avoided on purpose”

This rather elevated sense of self-importance likely explains why Bannon was the source for Michael Wolf via leaks, and why President Trump seems to have kept distance from Mr. Bannon.  However, people who walk the deep weeds of U.S. politics will also remember when Steve Bannon was the editor of Breitbart and together with financial owner Robert Mercer in 2015/2016 was backing Ted Cruz in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Both Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway were original political consultants and financial beneficiaries connected to the failed Ted Cruz presidential effort, before they abandoned the Cruz Crew and jumped aboard the MAGA movement.

The Cruz Crew has essentially morphed into the Ron DeSantis coalition and this superiority attitude expressed by Bannon is one of the key characteristics of the group we affectionately call the “alligator emojis.”

Perhaps the best two words to describe the brilliant political strategies of Steve Bannon are ‘Roy – Moore’.

I digress.

Trust your instincts folks, and always remember…. It’s ALWAYS about the money!