Our politicians will never agree, but we can dream...

 

My hat's off to President Milei of Argentina for his "Grillete Fiscal" proposal - literally, the "Fiscal Shackles".  He wants to make sure that no future Argentinian government commits the same economic errors that have doomed the nation to half a century or more of economic fluctuations, fiscal irresponsibility, and near-bankruptcy.

Milei first unveiled the proposal in his characteristically entertaining style during a televised address to the Argentine people. The bill must still be approved by Congress, where his party, La Libertad Avanza, is expected to secure the support of allied parliamentary factions in both chambers.

Although Milei lacks a parliamentary majority of his own, his alliances have thus far proved remarkably resilient.

If enacted, the legislation would break with one of modern politics' unwritten rules: the assumption that governments can always buy votes with higher spending, higher taxes, and ever more debt. The business of burdening future generations and taxpayers with politically manufactured credit expansion would, at least for the time being, come to an end.

Milei's idea is straightforward: future Argentine governments should have their wings clipped before they are even able to take flight on another debt-financed spending spree.

The mechanism is equally straightforward. Should the federal budget remain in deficit for several consecutive months, Congress would be given a deadline to restore fiscal balance. Failure to do so would automatically trigger a U.S.-style government shutdown. Non-essential government activities would be suspended automatically—without further parliamentary debate or political horse-trading. The President, Vice President, cabinet ministers, state secretaries, and every member of both houses of Congress would receive not a single peso in salary until the budget is balanced once again.

Furthermore, all new spending would be frozen. No new contracts could be awarded, and no additional public employees could be hired. Even more striking, discretionary transfers from the federal government to Argentina's provinces would also be suspended.

At the same time, the law deliberately protects the state's core responsibilities. Pension payments, healthcare services, unemployment benefits, as well as the salaries of police officers, members of the armed forces, and correctional staff would remain fully exempt from these austerity measures.

There's more at the link.

I'd dearly love to see similar principles enshrined in US law.  It would take years to achieve, because we'd have to pay down our enormous national debt first;  but it would shackle the hands of future politicians, and stop them buying votes by enacting legislation for massive handouts to attract supporters.  We'd also have to figure out how to keep essential functions (e.g. defense, etc.) going when we're savagely cutting back everywhere else.

There's also the question of what to do with the literally hundreds of millions of Americans (and others) who are dependent on government handouts to a greater or lesser extent.  They'd have to be "weaned" over a period of time, to allow them to grow accustomed to the idea that nobody's going to pay them to live at taxpayer expense any longer.  Expect civil unrest as a minimum;  possibly riots to make the George Floyd/BLM brouhaha look like a Sunday school picnic . . . but it's still an attractive idea.

All those difficulties notwithstanding, unless we can enact some form of President Milei's program here, I can't see how our present system of government can survive in the medium to long term.

Peter

The Saudi nuclear program: what else did anyone expect?

 

I'm cynically amused by the brouhaha over the US deal with Saudi Arabia to help that country develop a peaceful - underline, peaceful - nuclear energy program, including (it seems) enriching nuclear fuel.

Consider the facts of the current situation, in no particular order.

• Saudi Arabia bankrolled much of Pakistan's nuclear program, including its nuclear warheads and missiles.  It's long been rumored among "those in the know" that Pakistan has guaranteed Saudi Arabia that it can have nuclear warheads at twenty-four hours' notice, in an emergency.
• Saudi Arabia has bought Chinese ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.  By strange coincidence, they're the same type of ballistic missiles that Pakistan has in its nuclear silos.  Odd, that . . .
• Iran has launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabian territory from the north, using cruise and ballistic missiles.  Its Houthi allies have done the same from Yemen in the south.  That would be enough to make any nation a little paranoid.  What if the Iranian Revolutionary Islamic Guard, or whatever it calls itself these days, were to figure out how to put nuclear payloads on those missiles - either a full-blown nuke warhead, or a "dirty nuke" using conventional explosives to spread radioactive material around, say, Riyadh or a major military base?
• Israel has for decades maintained that it will neither confirm nor deny that it has nuclear weapons.  Anyone with two working brain cells to rub together is quite confident that they have more than a few, almost certainly including major thermonuclear weapons.  See my comments in these pages from time to time concerning the so-called "Vela incident".
• Given those various and sundry realities and threats, it was obvious that Saudi Arabia was going to go ahead and greatly expand its nuclear program(s).  It didn't really have any choice but to do so, if it was to survive in an environment like that.

That being the case, why is anybody surprised that President Trump would try to get involved with Saudi Arabia's plans and help them along?  Saudi was going to do it anyway.  We could have sat there and criticized, or expressed concern, or whatever - which would have bounced off Saudi's national interests like water off a duck's back.  This was a case of making the best of two very difficult and unpalatable choices, and I think the President acted wisely.  I'm sure he, and the US establishment, would rather not have made that choice, but as I said earlier, this was going to happen whether or not we were involved.

As for the fat-headed reports that the President was/is at odds with his Energy Secretary over what was done, and how it was done . . . yeah, right.  As if any Secretary in the President's cabinet is going to land a surprise like that on his boss's desk, without so much as a "by your leave"!  Sure, there may have been friction in the give-and-take between the White House and the Energy Department, but what else is new?  The very fact that the Energy Secretary still has his job is sufficient evidence that any such friction was relatively minor.

I'm also enjoying outraged suggestions from the left that the President is trying to stretch the agreement in new ways by pressuring Saudi Arabia to accept the Abraham Accords in exchange for US nuclear help.  There's nothing new in this:  President Trump has been trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to sign on to the Accords ever since he took office.  It might be a very useful talking point to mention that if Israel finds Saudi Arabia diplomatically cooperative, some of the former's nuclear warheads may no longer needed to be targeted at the Arabian peninsula.  In Saudi's position, I'd find that a very thought-provoking consideration . . .

Overall, I think America joining Saudi's nuclear program as a partner nation has far more positives than negatives.  It will also make Iran rethink its nuclear ambitions, given that the existing Saudi-Pakistan nuclear relationship might put them between two actinic fires, so to speak.

What's next in the Middle East?  Your guess is as good as mine . . . but it's likely to be "interesting", in the sense of the fabled ancient Chinese curse!

Peter

Brainwashed ideology runs headlong into common sense

 

I'm going to embed a video clip below.  It shows Gina Plata-Nino, the Director of SNAP Policy and Advocacy at the Food Research and Action Center, being questioned by Rep. Brandon Gill.  The topic of discussion is efforts to remove unhealthy food choices - in this particular case, sodas - from the list of items eligible to be bought using funds from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Ms. Plata-Nino is clearly left-wing and populist in her approach, defending peoples' right to use SNAP benefits in any way they please.  Notice how she avoids, evades and dodges any attempt to get her to admit that sugary sodas are in no way nutritional, and aren't really "food" as the SNAP program was originally intended to fund.  She literally can't be persuaded to acknowledge facts.  Instead, all she can do is repeat her pre-programmed talking points.

It's a bit like medical administrators and professionals who absolutely cannot admit that only biological women can become pregnant and give birth.  They daren't acknowledge that fact, because in doing so they would be forced to acknowledge that "trans" women are not, in fact, women at all - merely cosmetically adapted males.

Here's the video.  It's only about five minutes long, but I think it's worth watching.

That's what we're facing in every election in this country.  Districts dominated by people who use government benefits will listen to advocates and politicians like Ms. Plata-Nino, and vote in lockstep with those who promise them more benefits without cost to themselves.  Districts dominated by people whose taxes have to fund those benefits will be (legitimately) angry at how they're wasted, exploited and abused by the recipients.

Sadly, more and more districts are dominated by those who want something for nothing, and vote accordingly.  Many of those votes are, of course, illegitimate, as the widespread investigations into voter fraud and electoral register mismanagement are demonstrating.  Will that be enough to put things right?  Your guess is as good as mine . . .

Peter

Stories that developed during my absence

 

I've been following a number of stories in recent days, and some others popped up during my absence at LibertyCon.  I thought I'd put them all into a single post here, so you can decide which ones you'd like to investigate further.  Click the title to be taken to the post/article concerned.

1.  The Commies Mount An Across the Board Push: DSA targets local elections around the nation in a well-planned strategy.

Instapundit author Glenn Reynolds points out that "The DSA and its allies have targeted local elections because they can mobilize a small but decisive number of voters in low-turnout elections".  This thinly-disguised extreme Socialist/Communist movement is trying to take over the Democratic Party from the inside, working its way upward through the ranks.  It's a timely warning, IMHO.

2.  Income needed to afford a median-priced home has nearly doubled since 2020, report finds.

It's no wonder younger people today complain that they simply can't afford a home of their own.  The cost of the latter has almost doubled in six years, but salaries certainly haven't followed suit.  I'd hoped for a "price dividend" as illegal aliens were deported (or deported themselves), but their absence from the housing market hasn't yet made much of a difference.  Can things find a new balance?

3.  Everest hospital scrambles for antivenom as snakes migrate to high ground.

"Experts said venomous snakes, including king cobras, were heading up the mountains as the climate warmed, threatening tourists and climbers."  That's a new and unexpected danger in the Himalayas, which have been relatively snake-free until now due to their extremely cold ambient temperature.

4.  Try Not to Crack a Rib Laughing.

"Police say 41-year-old Leonard “Lil Riblet” Barksdale allegedly hopped a privacy fence in Southeast Memphis around 2:13 AM after spotting what he reportedly described as '“a lightly supervised gas grill'. According to neighbors, Lil Riblet moved through the backyard 'with the confidence of a man who’s never once considered consequences.' That confidence lasted approximately four seconds. Because waiting in the yard was Memphiszilla… a pit bull described by witnesses as 'Built like a refrigerator with childhood trauma'."

5.  AI helped diagnose 18 children whose rare diseases had stumped doctors.

"OpenAI’s o3 Deep Research model helped clarify 18 diagnoses for children who had struggled to find causes for their illnesses and symptoms. 'It’s a total game changer,' said one of the study’s lead researchers, Catherine Brownstein, the scientific director of the genetic investigations arm of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children’s Hospital."

6.  Pokémon Go Scans Quietly Trained the Navigation Tech Now Headed Into Military Drones.

"Hundreds of millions of Pokémon Go players spent years filming the streets, parks, and buildings around them to earn in-game rewards. Those roughly 30 billion environmental scans are now owned by Niantic Spatial, and they helped train a camera-based navigation model that a U.S. defense contractor is preparing to put into drones and other military robots. Most of the players had no idea."

I hope you found them as interesting as I did.

Peter

Who's behind the anti-ICE riots in New Jersey

 

The Twitter user known as DataRepublican, whom we've met in these pages before, has done another masterful job of analyzing the groups and individuals behind the out-of-control anti-ICE riots in New Jersey.  She condensed her findings into a lengthy post on X.  Here's how they begin.

ORG CHART EXPOSED: Which NGOs Are Organizing the Newark Protests, and How

How a six-word Signal message shut down a thousand-person protest.

On the night of June 1, 2026, journalist @NickSortor drove to Delaney Hall expecting what he'd seen for ten straight days: hundreds of protesters surrounding Newark's 1,000-bed ICE detention facility, human chains blocking federal vehicles, pepper balls and tear gas, helmets and gas masks distributed from organized supply stations, catered meals arriving on schedule. He found silence. The crowd — 200-plus the night before — was gone, with tens of thousands of dollars in pre-staged gear abandoned in place.

What happened between Sunday morning and Sunday night was a single message in an encrypted Signal group, as discovered by @bitchuneedsoap. A Cosecha NJ communicator posted a six-line announcement: "Cosecha is NOT mobilizing to Delaney Hall tonight. We are talking to strikers and their families to regroup." No negotiation, no vote, no gradual loss of enthusiasm. Some switch had been flipped off.

The natural question is how a protest of that size can be turned off with one message. The answer is that it was never a protest in the way most people understand the word. It was an operation — assembled, maintained, and disbanded through an organizational structure that looks, once you map it, like a military deployment with a nonprofit org chart.

The structure has four layers. Each answers a different question. Layer 1 decides whether to act. Layer 2 decides how many show up. Layer 3 decides what happens on the ground. Layer 4 keeps the whole thing running across days.

Understanding these layers is understanding how every major protest in America works, because the same people built the template.

There's much more at the link.  Follow it to learn precisely which organizations and individuals are funding and pre-planning all of the anti-Trump and anti-ICE demonstrations and other activities around the country.

We're going to see more and more "spontaneous" demonstrations and unrest as the mid-term elections draw closer.  Their objective will be to give the Democratic Party (and its further-left-wing supporters) a majority in both the House and the Senate, thereby stymie-ing President Trump as he tries to implement the rest of his agenda.  If they succeed in that, and in blaming all the country's problems at his feet, they're confident they can take back the Presidency in 2028.  Given a trifecta of President, House and Senate, they'll lock in their agenda so hard that it'll be impossible to root it out again.

I highly recommend reading all that DataRepublican has to say in the linked article.  I'm sure you'll see the pattern playing out in your own towns, cities and states.  As to what to do about it?  I'm sure you can come up with some useful ideas for yourselves . . .

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  The news has gone mainstream, with many additional details coming out.  Follow the link for more.

Why we're getting poorer, and they're getting richer, all the time

 

That's the essence of a lengthy and very informative essay by Quoth The Raven.  Here are some extended excerpts.  They may look dauntingly long, but they're right on the money (you should pardon the expression) and are well worth reading.  If you're finding it hard to make ends meet, this is why.

The widening wealth inequality gap is the political third rail nobody in power truly ever wants to touch.

Politicians will scream at each other all day over taxes, healthcare, immigration, tariffs, student loans, climate policy, or whatever outrage is currently driving engagement on cable news and social media. But the second the conversation turns toward monetary policy, toward the machinery of money creation itself, the room suddenly gets very quiet.

That’s because monetary policy has quietly become the single most powerful force reshaping wealth distribution in modern America. And unlike the endless partisan theater surrounding fiscal policy, monetary intervention oddly enjoys remarkable bipartisan support.

Republicans and Democrats may pretend to be existential enemies on television, but when it comes to flooding the financial system with dollars, both parties reliably fall into line. And that support is precisely why this topic is politically radioactive: once people understand how the system works, the illusion of two competing economic ideologies starts to collapse. Republicans want less spending, Democrats want higher taxes…but both parties want the Fed to keep printing dollars.

. . .

Now we operate inside a permanently distorted financial system where trillions of dollars can be electronically created and injected into markets whenever instability appears. The market is no longer primarily driven by productivity or efficient allocation of capital. It is driven by liquidity. Price discovery has been replaced by intervention dependency and risk has been socialized while gains remain privatized.

And every time markets threaten to correct naturally, policymakers intervene to ensure asset prices do not fall far enough to inflict meaningful pain on the people who own the overwhelming majority of financial assets. And the consequences of this have been staggering.

While both parties bitch and moan about affordability, protecting the middle and lower class, and “equity”, one of the clearest signs of this Fed-created distortion is the explosive growth of the ultrawealthy class. According to The Wall Street Journal, there are now roughly 430,000 American households worth more than $30 million, including approximately 74,000 households worth over $100 million. The growth of these groups has dramatically outpaced overall population growth over the past several decades.

In other words, Fed policy, blessed by both political parties, is widening the wealth inequality gap both political parties claim to fighting against ... When it comes to purchasing power, we are literally taking from the poor, and giving to the rich.

. . .

Beneath the culture war circus exists a deeper bipartisan consensus: financial markets must remain inflated at all costs.

And the lower and middle class gets absolutely brutalized in this arrangement.

Historically, middle-class wealth accumulation depended on disciplined saving, stable employment, affordable housing, and gradual investment appreciation over time. But inflationary monetary regimes destroy the reliability of all of those pathways. Savings become punishment, cash becomes a melting ice cube, young people are forced into speculative assets (or outright becoming gambling addicts) simply to attempt to preserve purchasing power. Conservative investing gets punished while reckless leverage gets rewarded.

Entire generations now feel compelled to try and make quick money in markets not because they are greedy, but because monetary debasement has made traditional financial prudence nonviable. This creates an economy built less on productivity and innovation and more on asset inflation, debt expansion and outright speculation.

. . .

A market that cannot survive without permanent monetary life support is no longer a healthy market, it is a managed dependency system. A patient on hospice care. And every bailout pushes the reckoning further into the future while making the eventual consequences even worse.

There's more at the link.  It's a long article, but well worth reading in full.

My take-away from this article is that if every American took the time to read and understand it, we'd have a Second American Revolution almost overnight.  It's precisely because most Americans don't understand what is being done in their name by their political leaders (who are enriching themselves in the process, at our expense) that our current miserable monetary situation has been allowed to develop.  I fear that unless and until we kick out those responsible, it'll just go on until it collapses . . . but such a collapse would take us with it, and punish everybody, not just the guilty.

What can we do about it?  Elect a better class of politician, on both sides of the political divide.  Will we do that?  I fear too few of us care enough to make the attempt . . . and that's what our current politicians rely on to keep their place in the sun.

Peter

Are we looking at a world-changing series of events?

 

I haven't posted much by Peter Zeihan in recent months, because much of his work has disappeared behind a paywall.  I know many readers disagree with his perspective on geopolitics and economics, but I think he brings out a demographic emphasis that many other analysts lack.

In this video interview, about an hour and twenty minutes long, he postulates that many things that we've taken for granted, or assumed to be true, are not certain any longer.  Change is accelerating, and our perspectives need to take that into account.  If you want to look for specific issues, this is how the video breaks down:

0:00 Is China Really on the Brink?
6:19 Has China Been Lying About Their Data?
11:08 Can AI Save Us From Population Decline?
17:21 Can We Survive Demographic Collapse?
25:19 How Politics is Impacting Population Data
34:23 The Future of Global Energy
41:03 Are Electric Vehicles Truly Sustainable?
51:24 Where the Green Movement is Really Headed
01:03:40 How Technology is Impacting Modern Warfare
01:08:40 Could China Ignite the Next Global Conflict?
01:15:09 The Power Alliances Reshaping the World
01:18:50 Where to Find Peter

The video loaded correctly when I tested this before publishing this post.  If it doesn't (as sometimes happens), you can find it on YouTube.  Highly recommended - in particular, the second segment mentioned above.

Do you agree with his points?  If you don't, where do you think he's going wrong?  Let us know in Comments, and let's discuss.

Peter

Is the AI threat to jobs also a threat to pensions, IRA's and 401(k)'s?

 

Last week we looked at how artificial intelligence (AI) was affecting the job market.  I've been trying to read more widely on the subject, in an effort to understand its implications for all of us over the next few years.  Jonathan Turley, well-known lawyer and legal scholar, offers these thoughts.

We are looking at one of the greatest job losses in history.

In a free-market system, such technological changes tend to offset losses with new jobs in emerging industries. And there will be such growth with the AI and robotic revolutions. But it is also likely that we are looking at a static class of unemployed and practically unemployable citizens as this new revolution unfolds.

. . .

The impact of AI is not confined to factory workers and truck drivers.

The danger is that politicians will react predictably and try to subsidize jobs that are no longer viable and industries that are being dramatically downsized. At the same time, they are likely to expand model programs in Democratic cities for universal basic or guaranteed income.

Democrats have moved forward with more than 60 bills creating such programs, and this week, Cook County, Ill. (the second-largest county in the U.S.) made permanent the universal basic income program it had originally launched with federal COVID-19 relief funds.

The problem is the creation of what I call a “kept citizenship” in a republic designed for people who are economically and politically independent from the government. That system is seriously undermined by a large percentage of citizens living off the government dole.

The solution cannot be an “arts-and-crafts” population kept entertained by government programs to learn glassblowing and pottery-making. A different type of citizen would emerge that is unlikely to be sufficiently free of the government to counter its excesses or failures.

. . .

All governments will face this existential crisis in the 21st Century. It will create growing instability globally. Although AI and robotics will make goods cheaper and more widely available, they are also likely to have a dramatic effect on populations. For example, as production costs drop with the new technology, there will be less advantage to moving factories to other countries with cheaper labor forces, such as China and Mexico.

Companies may choose to build near consumer markets to save on transportation costs while utilizing higher-skilled worker populations to maintain robotic and AI systems. That could produce massive unemployment in certain countries with low-educated, low-income populations. That in turn could destabilize governments and increase the chances of war in countries with large populations of unemployed young men.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

Mr. Turley outlines a very real constitutional issue for the United States.  Our federal government is specifically restricted by the constitution in what, and how much, it can do - even if much of those provisions are today observed more in the breach than in the observance.  Nevertheless, I think it's a valid argument that our system of government, and how we vote for it, are designed for citizens who are not dependent on that government.  They are able to vote as free men and women because they are not dependents.  The moment they cease being free - the moment they become financially dependent on the same government they're helping to elect - the greater becomes the danger that they will vote for their own financial advantage, rather than the good of the country.  As the Roman poet Juvenal satirically pointed out almost two millennia ago, people will vote for "bread and circuses" rather than what their country needs to remain viable.  The fall of Rome not too long afterwards tends to bear out his point.

So . . . if AI leads to increased unemployment (as appears likely at present), what will the newly unemployed do?  Can they, on their own initiative, figure out new ways to make a living and rebuild their society?  Or will they listen to the siren song of politicians who promise them all sorts of freebies and benefits in return for their vote?  (For that matter, any politician who promises to set up government programs to do the hard work for people, so that they don't have to think and work for themselves, is almost guaranteed electoral success.  See the universal basic income (UBI) scheme being pioneered by Chicago, and look for something similar in New York and other "blue" cities.)

The biggest threat posed by AI job replacement is one that Mr. Turley has not mentioned at all.  It's simply this:  if government is to provide a basic guaranteed income to every citizen, it can argue that private pension schemes, IRA's and 401(k)'s are now obsolete and unnecessary.  After all, if the state will provide our needs, why do we need to make provision for them ourselves?  That leads directly to the next and larger problem:  what if the state decides it can confiscate or "nationalize" our pensions, because with UBI we no longer need them?  There are many trillions of dollars saved by Americans in such pension systems, and a left-wing government will be frothing at the mouth over the temptation to seize them all.  It would wipe out a huge chunk of our national deficit (at least until such governments spend it all again!), and can be "sold" to the underfunded portion of the electorate as a "tax on the rich" who want to "hold on to money they don't need any more".  The massive population of "blue" cities and states can be expected to vote for it en masse, overwhelming the more conservative vote of those who've worked for their future income and want to keep it for themselves.

That will, in turn, beget a whole new series of arguments and confrontations over how much UBI should be, and whether "richer" people whose private pension funds were "nationalized" are entitled to a higher UBI payment as compensation, and a whole range of related issues.  What if housing were folded into the UBI arrangement, so that anyone receiving UBI was also guaranteed a place to live?  What quality of place?  In what sort of suburb?  Will everyone be forced into Cabrini-Green style housing, or will there be any freedom of choice?

I have no idea what may emerge from the current state of affairs, but I can foresee far more problems for society than are presently being discussed.  In days past, laissez-faire economists used to claim that "What's good for the banks is good for the country".  Well, AI may be good for business, but it may very well be "double-plus-ungood" for our jobs and for our society.  Right now, we just don't know . . . and that uncertainty is dangerous in itself.

Your thoughts, dear readers?

Peter

The algorithm is manipulating you

 

We've all read warnings and horror stories about how algorithms are analyzing our online behavior and trying to steer us to their products, their channels, their platforms.  Thing is, it's a very real danger, and it's getting worse.  EKO provides this perspective.  I highly recommend reading the whole of the excerpt below, and watching both video clips.

let’s start here with something seemingly innocent, the budweiser ad from the superbowl.

in the primary signalling sphere of “positioning and product” this represents a profound volte face from the recent bud light echo chamber brand self-immolation fiascos, a return to images of growth and aspiration and rippling pride.

it’s a great ad. if you have not encountered it, see for yourself. experience it.

ok. got that?

it’s practically cinema, right? a story of friendship and coming of age and of becoming.

it’s got it all.

it’s moving stuff.

but it also has something you probably did not see, a meta game beneath the game where the real magic trick is taking place at a deeper neurological level, a firmware level cheat code to which the human mind has very little access.

let’s explore:

now watch this video.  [The critical bit comes from about 1m. 40sec. onward;  skip ahead to that point if you wish.]

now watch the budweiser ad again. see how they took this exact fractionation strategy and amplified and optimized it took you up, down, up, down, rain, protect, strive, fail, leap, fly, power chords, free bird, aaaaaaaand beer ad.

they boiled this whole concatenation down to its most bare bones, essential elements and ran a whole suggestability enhancement procession in a one minute experience.

i would wager they knew that.

i will also bet you that it has sold absolute truckloads of beer.

but this is not the scary part.

we, as humans, are used to ads. we know what they are for and embed a certain skepticism. OK, so maybe we buy a few more brewskis, but whatever, this is hardly the stuff of civilizational threat.

but you have to start stepping back to see the rest of the picture.

social media has become a barrage of short form information, increasingly video driven and increasingly exposed to savagely intense evolutionary stressors. the currency of online is attention. it’s time. twitter speaks of "maximizing unregretted user-seconds." this is what that means. it means “how can i get you to watch more of this and to want to watch more of this?”

keep in mind that algorithms are psychopaths. they have no theory of your well being that factors into this sort of optimization. it’s just “keep the typewriter monkey happy and online.” and every outlet is locked in the same arms race so no one gets to opt out. those who do not play this way get left behind and the user seconds go somewhere else.

there’s a worrying parallel to what happened with US food companies. they did not set out to create travesties of sugar and salt and over-amped artificiality, but as they experimented with it, they saw that people bought more. the feedback loop of “people will eat more froot loops than fruit” was obvious on revenue lines and if you do that for too long, pretty soon customers basically cannot even taste wholesome food anymore. it’s not enough of a dopamine hit.

media is the same.

what started as an inevitable game to maximize user time and click through rates has becomes somehting altogether other, a monster in the depths that cannot be seen, only felt as its machinations twist minds and demolish perspective.

There's more at the link.

It's almost diabolically clever, isn't it?  The thing is, it works.  It works so well that every single major player in the news media, social media, advertising and the entertainment industry is using it against us every single day.  So are politicians, from both sides of the aisle and everywhere else in the public sector.  We aren't being respected as individuals.  We're sheep to be shorn, votes to be manipulated, suckers to be fed pablum in exchange for our dollars and unthinking loyalty.

Remember that.  We're all being manipulated daily.  It takes sustained effort and really hard work to break free from that cycle and recognize it for what it is.

Peter

"The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name."

 

That's the punch line to a recent article by Restricted Daily on X.  I think it makes good sense, although it doesn't offer solutions.  I think it's important enough that I'm going to re-publish it here in full, hoping that the author of Restricted Daily will permit that.

We keep pretending this is just another rough chapter in American politics, but deep down everyone knows that’s a lie. This isn’t disagreement anymore. This is disillusion. This is two completely different nations trapped inside the same borders, pretending we share values when we don’t. The Declaration of Independence was written when people finally admitted they could no longer coexist under a system that no longer represented them. That same feeling is back, whether people want to admit it or not.

We don’t argue over tax rates or road funding anymore. We argue over reality itself. Over biology. Over speech. Over history. Over whether borders matter. Over whether personal responsibility even exists. One side believes the country should be preserved, protected, and handed down stronger to the next generation. The other believes it should be dismantled, reprogrammed, and endlessly apologized for. You cannot reconcile those worldviews. You can only delay the inevitable by pretending compromise still exists.

Every election now feels like an existential threat, not a policy debate. Every law feels like an act of force instead of representation. People don’t feel governed anymore, they feel ruled. And when a large portion of the population feels that way for long enough, the social contract is already broken. You can wave flags and sing songs all you want, but unity doesn’t come from slogans. It comes from shared beliefs, and those are gone.

The truth nobody wants to say out loud is this: forcing people who fundamentally despise each other to live under one federal system is not unity. It’s pressure. And pressure always finds a release. History doesn’t care about feelings. Empires don’t fall because people stop loving them, they fall because they stop believing in them. When laws feel illegitimate and elections feel meaningless, separation stops sounding radical and starts sounding logical.

Maybe it’s not about hate. Maybe it’s about honesty. About admitting that the experiment has split into incompatible outcomes. About recognizing that peaceful separation is better than perpetual cultural warfare, political revenge cycles, and a federal government that half the country views as hostile. Coexistence requires mutual respect, and that left the room a long time ago.

You can call it the Declaration of Disillusion. You can call it dissolution. You can call it whatever you want. But pretending we can duct tape this together forever is the real fantasy. The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name. The only question left is whether we keep lying to ourselves, or finally have the courage to admit it.

I fear the author is correct.  I don't see how we can restore unity to a nation so far divided as ours has become.  It's a lot more difficult than during the American Civil War of the 19th century, because there are many issues dividing us, not just one central debate.  Furthermore, we don't have neatly divided states:  we have representatives from multiple perspectives in every state.  Big cities tend to be "blue", smaller towns and rural areas tend more towards "red", but overall the states are "purple" - and I don't see any practical way of satisfying all the blended colors in our present political melange.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Jesus Christ said that.  Abraham Lincoln made it the focus of his famous "house divided" speech almost two millennia later.  It's as true today as it's ever been.  Unless we find a way to bridge the gaps between us - and I have no idea what that way might be - our house, our nation, is probably going to fall.

Peter

Population collapse threatens China - perhaps much more, and much sooner, than we think

 

A few days ago, the New York Post published an article headlined "China is facing a demographic bomb— and it could handcuff Beijing’s ambitions".  Here's an excerpt.

Last week, Beijing’s release of China’s national birth count for 2025 left demographers stunned.

The national birth total plummeted by over 17% from 2024 to 2025, the PRC disclosed.

That sort of precipitous drop is almost never seen in stable modern societies, where births tend to inch up or down from one year to the next.

A decline of this magnitude qualifies as a demographic shock of the sort typically associated with dire calamities like famine or plague — a sign that a disaster or convulsion is taking place.

And these are only the latest readings from the astonishing birth crash that’s commenced under Xi Jinping’s rule: a drop by over half in just eight years that shows no sign as yet of abating.

Tumbling birth rates have already thrown China into depopulation, with over four deaths for every three births in 2025.

With fewer than 8 million new babies in 2025, China is not only down to the lowest level of natality since the Communists took power in 1949.

It’s actually back to birth levels last seen three centuries ago, in the early 1700s, when the national population may have been no more than 225 million — less than a sixth of China’s current 1.4 billion.

. . .

If this continues, the next generation of Chinese will be only be 44% as large as their parents’ cohort — and the following generation will be smaller still.

There's more at the link.  It's worth reading the article in full.

That news was bad enough, from China's perspective.  However, it may be a whole lot worse.  Yesterday I came across a Web site called "Lei's Real Talk".  She's a Chinese lady living in the USA who analyzes events and developments in China, and has developed quite a large following.  I know nothing more about her than what she says on her Web site, but she presents carefully thought out and cogent analysis of China's real population in the video clip below.  The kicker?

She thinks China's population might already be a third to a half less than what it officially claims.

If that's true, it makes the warnings in the article above even more ominous.  See for yourself.  This is well worth watching, and listening carefully.

If Lei's claims are true, they provide an entirely new perspective on China's aggressive words and policies directed against other countries and alliances.  They might be no more than bluff and bluster, demographically speaking . . . might.  We won't know for sure unless and until Lei's calculations can be confirmed in some way.

Nevertheless, it's enough to make one think, isn't it?

Peter

Minneapolis and Minnesota: a "color revolution" in the making

 

Some readers may not be familiar with the term "color revolution".  American Thinker outlined the concept in an article last December.

A“color revolution” ... is a modern form of orchestrated political upheaval designed to replace an existing government without traditional military invasion or civil war ... These operations follow a remarkably consistent playbook, refined over two decades by Western NGOs, intelligence-linked foundations, and State Department-affiliated entities (Open Society Foundations, USAID, etc.).

Authors describe seven stages of a color revolution. The stages include these tactics, which I’ll list in approximate chronological order:

• Portray the target government as illegitimate, authoritarian, corrupt, or “fascist.”
• Front-load allegations: accuse incumbent of planning the crimes the opposition intends to commit (rigging, regression, dictatorship).
• Fund and train NGOs, student groups, and opposition politicians to repeat a unified message.
• Create/amplify a unifying symbol or theme (e.g., Orange Man Bad).
• Manufacture an electoral crisis.
• Street mobilization.
• Public appeals to and moral blackmail of the military and police: “You’re with the people, not the regime.”
• Promises of immunity, future positions for defectors.
• Threats to those who support target government.
• Provoke a response, flood media with images of “peaceful protesters” being attacked.
• International legitimation as foreign governments and media recognizes opposition leaders as “legitimate” authority.
• Sanctions, frozen assets, diplomatic isolation applied to sitting government.
• New elections scheduled under international supervision.

There's more at the link.  Notable examples of color revolutions may be found in the so-called "Arab Spring" uprisings, the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004/5, and a number of others.  Not all of the factors listed above were present in all the color revolutions, but most of them made multiple appearances.

A noteworthy common factor is that external (i.e. foreign) non-governmental organizations (NGO's) were involved in organizing and supporting almost all color revolutions over the past two to three decades.  Most of those NGO's were left-wing or progressive in orientation, and appear again and again in multiple uprisings.  Keep that in mind as we consider the current uprisings in Minneapolis and Minnesota.

The situation in Minneapolis right now is clearly an organized uprising against the enforcement of US immigration law by ICE.  It shows many of the signs of a typical color revolution in the making.  It is not random or haphazard:  it is professionally planned and executed, and run very like a military operation by its organizers.  As evidence, consider:

• The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm's way, then made him a martyr
• "What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t 'protest'. It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook."
• "Look at the training 'MN Ice Watch' (which Renee Good belonged to) gives"
• Left-Wing Activists Run Shadow Police Force On Signal To Target ICE In Minneapolis
• What The Left Doesn't Want You To Know About Alex Pretti, The Man That Border Patrol Shot

I could post many similar links, but those above contain all the important information you'll need to make your own judgment.  If you're in any doubt about what I say here, follow them for yourself and learn the truth.

Next, keep in mind that violence against ICE is not widespread.  As Kevin Bass points out (his methodology is here), a mere nine counties (out of 3,143 in the entire USA!) have produced two-thirds of all such incidents over the past year.  Click the image below for a larger view.

That's hardly the widespread violence and unrest that the progressive left (and its lackeys in the mainstream news media) are trying to portray, is it?  That shows very clearly where the left is most organized and active.  However, they're bringing activists into those places from all over the country, not just to help their protests, but to learn from them how to do it and then "export" similar unrest to other cities around America.  Be prepared for that.

It's also clear that the anti-ICE demonstrations are attempting to divert attention away from the massive fraud uncovered in Minnesota's Somali community, and in which a large number of Minnesota's political figures are apparently implicated.  Prof. Glenn Reynolds says this.

The state’s Democratic political machine is reacting like a spooked squid to revelations that the machine and its clients are complicit in multi-billion-dollar frauds against the federal government.

And the “ink” being squirted is the not-at-all spontaneous wave of riots erupting against federal authorities in Minneapolis.

. . .

The House Oversight Committee this month found that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison were not innocent bystanders to the fraud, but actually took part in the cover-up, taking active steps to silence whistleblowers.

And it all centered on communities of illegal immigrants and refugees, some of whose members siphoned money from federal taxpayers and in turn gave campaign contributions and political support to state Democrats — a self-licking ice cream cone of graft.

. . .

These are not spontaneous uprisings of the aggrieved, but organized actions featuring out-of-state actors and organizations, detailed training programs for demonstrators, and large amounts of intentionally murky funding from organizations like Indivisible, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and others.

They’re coordinating their anti-ICE operations — identifying, chasing and blocking agents to keep them from arresting illegal-immigrant criminals — through highly organized chat groups on Signal, a secure communications platform, Fox News reported.

And Minnesota government officials are proudly touting their involvement in this coordination ... That’s making these often violent, deliberately obstructive demonstrations look less like a civil rights sit-in and more like a government-backed insurrection.

. . .

Whatever investigators determine about how Pretti’s death unfolded, the fact remains that a cynical and corrupt political machine has fostered for its own purposes a situation that’s dangerous for its own supporters, and for the political future of our nation.

There's more at the link.

As a human being, I'm deeply saddened by the deaths of Renée Good and Alexander Pretti in Minneapolis.  May their sins be forgiven them, and may they rest in peace:  and may their families receive what comfort is possible.

HOWEVER . . .

Let us not forget that both died while actively interfering with law enforcement personnel in the execution of their duties, in situations where tempers and emotions were running high, and where misunderstandings in the heat of the moment could readily be foreseen and expected.  In both shootings, it is possible that the law enforcement officers concerned over-reacted to visual stimuli that - under the stress and tension of the circumstances - they did not have time to adequately process.  On the other hand, the actions of the victims actively contributed to that stress and tension, and therefore they were at the very least not blameless in their deaths.

It is also possible - although yet to be determined by legal process - that the shootings were justifiable under the laws and jurisprudence governing the conduct of the law enforcement personnel concerned.  Until all the facts emerge, and can be evaluated by competent authorities and ruled upon in court, I won't attempt to assign blame.  I could wish that others would be slower to judge, and be willing to wait for all the facts to come out.  By failing to do so, they're inciting and inviting further violence and bloodshed - which is, of course, exactly what some of them appear to want.

What is now effectively beyond doubt is that both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti died as part of an uprising against the constitution and laws of the United States of America.  It's no good denying that - the evidence (as cited and provided above) is clear.  The ultimate responsibility for their deaths sits squarely at the door of those who planned, instigated and organized this unrest.  I can only hope that they will be called to account for it.

Peter

Quick post-storm update, and preliminary thoughts on Minneapolis unrest

 

The world outside is blanketed with a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain, which have combined to bed down into a 3" to 4" thick layer over everything.  One can walk on it if one's careful about one's balance, but put a foot wrong and it's slip slidin' away . . .

I won't go out today, because with my spine injury, balance is sometimes hard to maintain - and I don't want to have to call for an ambulance while lying in that icy, snowy blanket on the ground!  My wife has had to go to work, but it's only a couple of miles from here, and she's from Alaska!  She's been grinning broadly at all the complaints from locals about how snowed-in we are, and how difficult it is to drive, and so on.  Needless to say, her comparisons between here and Alaska have been great fun!  She should have no trouble driving to work and back.

I guess readers in the north-east are still getting the snow, sleet and freezing rain that left here a day or two ago.  Stay safe up there, please.  I know you're more used to this than we are, but Mother Nature is still a stone cold bitch who'll kill you at the drop of a hat (and sometimes drop it herself, if she's feeling that way inclined).

I've had a few e-mails asking me why I'm not commenting at greater length on the situation in Minneapolis right now.  Three points:

1. The 72-hour rule applies:  wait three days for the details to be established before you say something that might not be accurate.  I'll write about it tomorrow.
2. There's so much organization and purpose behind the civil unrest in Minneapolis that it qualifies as an insurrection, by any classical definition you choose.  This is not an angry public protesting - it's an organized militant group playing on public emotions and manipulating many (most?) of the protesters.  It's also a very clear attempt by the Minneapolis/Minnesota authorities to divert attention from the immense fraud perpetrated upon the people of Minnesota by criminal elements, including some of those authorities.  There's a lot more to come out about all that.
3. I am deeply, deeply concerned about the ruthlessness and purposefulness of the organizers behind these protests.  They remind me of the unrest in Southern states prior to the Civil war - think attacks on state militia troops passing through Baltimore, the Southern seizure of Federal property, and firing on a Federal installation.  As Divemedic (rightly, in my opinion) warns:  "At this point, we are closer to a Civil War than we have been in more than 60 years."

Pray for peace, but prepare for this uprising in case it spreads to your area.  If you live in a large city (particularly with left-wing politics) or anywhere nearby, that goes double for you.

Peter

The lighter side of ICE operations

 

Supporters of ICE operations against illegal aliens, and of President Trump's policies towards them, seem to be enjoying themselves.  Click the first or second link in this sentence to go to the social media posts concerned.

As my friend Lawdog would say, Gigglesnort!

Peter

Minnesota: Both sides are caught on the horns of a dilemma

 

Keep a careful eye on Minneapolis.  Things are getting bad enough there that they remind me of the virtual civil war that reigned for months in some of South Africa's worst-hit areas during the last years of apartheid.  The radicals on the left are trying to force the issue - and it can only be a matter of time before radicals on the right respond in kind.  As Rod Dreher points out:

Things are fast getting out of control in Minnesota. Leftist mobs are going after innocent people they think might be pro-ICE — including a tourist driving a rental car with Texas plates. The mob figured Texas plates surely must belong to an ICE agent. State and local authorities there have put themselves openly against federal law enforcement. It’s as if they’re all but begging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — and you know, if all this isn’t an insurrection, what is it?

What these fools don’t understand is that things like invading and disrupting a church service compels many Christians and others, who might have been doubtful about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, to rush towards Trump for protection from the mob. They are hardening sides. Frankly, I hope the feds swoop in with force and start mass arrests, starting with Don Lemon. Again: the protesters crossed a bright red line yesterday in going into that church.

This is how civil wars start. I’m serious. Here is a clip of an anti-ICE leftist standing on the streets of Minneapolis with a rifle in hand, ready for civil war. He says he’s standing on his block “to protect my people.” OK, but is he ready for Christian men to stand around the perimeter of their churches, with rifles, to protect their people?

There's more at the link.

The trouble is, the radical left wants that sort of confrontation.  They're doing all they can to provoke it.  They'd like nothing better than for President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, because then they could proclaim that it proves he was what they've called him all along - a fascist, a Nazi, another Hitler.  Eko explains:

January 15, 2026. Tore Says monitors document simultaneous Zoom calls across every major activist network in the United States. Sunrise Movement. Federal employee resistance groups. Military reservist networks. Senior Executive Service officials. Antifa organizers. Ideologically opposed groups, different platforms, never having worked together publicly.

Jake broadcasts intent to burn a Quran to provoke the left.

Pink broadcasts alerts about an “anti-Muslim rally” to mobilize the Left.

They both specify the exact time. They both name the location.

On the surface, they are enemies. In the intelligence chatter, they are the same network. One operative amplifies the threat. The other provides the violence. Two hands of the same foreign-funded clock.

Every Zoom call Tore documented discussed the same objective: create sufficient unrest that the president invokes the Insurrection Act.

Upper-level conversations revealed specific instructions.

    1. Stage provocations at mosques.
    2. Arm counter-protesters.
    3. Ensure cameras capture everything.
    4. Coordinate media amplification across all platforms.

Then further instructions surfaced:

Promote the Insurrection Act subversively through conservative outlets. Embed in right-wing media. Make supporters demand the mechanism that will remove Trump.

The Left creates chaos to force federal crackdown.

The Right demands emergency powers thinking they’ll crush the opposition.

The synthesis advances through the collision. The moment Trump invokes the Act to restore order, the narrative locks. He becomes the strongman they warned about for a decade. Every news chyron, every influencer post, every talking head will say the same thing: You see? He IS the dictator.

The truth is irrelevant. Perception is the verdict. The justification for his removal is written by his own signature.

. . .

The timeline

    Day 1: Deployment orders. Media goes 24/7 crisis mode.
    Day 3: First judicial injunction filed. International condemnation starts.
    Day 7: Cabinet members leaking concerns to press.
    Day 10: Congressional emergency hearings announced.
    Day 14: 25th Amendment whispers in mainstream coverage.
    Day 21: Politically radioactive. Legally cornered.

Three weeks. That’s the window from finally crushing them to removing him for instability.

There won’t be time to organize. To protest. To vote.

By the time we realize the mistake, he is gone and the emergency powers are permanent.

. . .

They have called us fascist for eight years. Violent insurrectionists. Threats to democracy.

Now they engineer the conditions where we demand authoritarian powers. Where we cheer military force. Where we justify emergency rule.

They are making us become the thing they accused us of being.

Take the bait and the soul of this movement is gone. We become their lie.

This is spiritual war.

Our grievances are legitimate. The solution being sold is our suicide.

Again, more at the link.  I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.

Friends, the radical Left is not interested in compromise (except as a short-term tactic while they prepare their next attack).  They aren't interested in placebos or palliatives or politicians' pablum.  They will gouge and chip away at the established order until they've disestablished it - which will be their excuse to mount an all-out takeover bid, probably invoking the 25th Amendment.  Democrat representatives in Congress and the Senate will be joined by RINO's, and even if they get only a razor-thin majority in both Houses, that's all they need.  If they do, it's a very short step to taking over both Houses in the November 2026 elections, and blocking the rest of the Trump agenda permanently.

Think it's impossible?  I don't.  There's a legal, legislative, judicial and constitutional minefield dead ahead.  Any knee-jerk reaction by the right (particularly an armed, violent reaction) will lead us right into it.  We have to emphasize the rule of law, while recognizing that some aspects of that might be more of a problem to us than a solution to the current situation.  It's a very fine line to walk.

Peter

I agree

 

As regular readers will know, I have literally decades of experience in environments of civil unrest, terrorism, and societal conflict, ranging from more-or-less peaceful demonstrations right through to the worst terrorist acts you can imagine.  I'm frequently astonished at the complacency and ignorance of people who think that "It can't happen here!"  I assure you, it most certainly can.

The expatriate American living in the Philippines, blogging at Come And Make It, appears to understand the reality of our situation, from a different-but-similar perspective.

There was a noticeable lag—roughly a year—[in Iraq after the war] between the collapse of central authority and the full emergence of widespread insurgency.

I see troubling parallels in the United States today. We're in that uneasy "lag" phase: deep instability is already here, with large numbers of people armed and ideologically primed for violence, yet most still hesitate to cross the line into open, sustained conflict. Instead, we see the precursors: fireworks thrown as provocations, screaming crowds, disruptive "stupid games," and tantrum-like escalations when people don't get their way. These are the behaviors of spoiled children testing boundaries.

So far, it's mostly individuals or small groups acting out. But the pattern is clear: one or two incidents beget more, then more still, until the tipping point arrives—and suddenly we have IEDs on interstate highways, coordinated attacks, and true insurgency.

A great deal of money—funneled from foreign governments, wealthy donors, and outside interests—has been poured into inflaming divisions, arming radicals, and eroding trust in institutions. These investments are designed to create exactly this kind of volatile tinderbox.

We are now one stray footstep away from triggering an avalanche of violence that could be very difficult to stop once it starts.

There's more at the link.

I warned earlier this month that the unrest being fomented over ICE and illegal aliens is reminiscent of the artificially-whipped-up demonstrations over George Floyd's death in 2020.  It seems many others agree.  See, for example:

• Minneapolis ICE Shooting Shows Left Wing's Protest Industrial Complex Wants Another 'George Floyd'-Type Riot
• The horns of the ICE dilemma (recommended reading)
• Stumbling Towards A New Civil War

See also the links provided in my earlier article.

El Gato Malo provides this succinct assessment.  Note:  he eschews capitals in his articles.

the "activists" they pay to run around trying to stop ICE are just upping the ante and taking even more unreasonable actions to try to protect the original incursions.

and they are creating incredibly dangerous situations.

on purpose and as a matter of policy.

and when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

this issue is being used to try to drive an irreconcilable social fracture.

it’s being managed like an insurgency in the same city that keeps spawning these (and whose governor and congressional rep (this took place in omar’s district) both look like they’re about to get indicted for massive corruption around immigrants they flooded the area with to sway voting.)

it’s more than a little curious how these folks were all so ready for this within hours.

there is coordination here.

. . .

there’s an actual insurgency being run here by the same political junta that caused the immigration mess.

but this is not going to be 2020. you can feel the national mood turning. people have had enough of being held hostage by these out of control hysteria cohorts.

and at a certain point, you stop trying to convince and realize that you’re basically just at war over a set of fully unreconcilable worldviews.

Again, more at the link.

Note the last sentence above.  It's true.  No reconciliation is possible between the two sides of the illegal alien debate.  One side sees it as a fundamental threat to what it has always meant to be an American.  The other side sees it as a wedge issue to redefine what it means to be an American.

Rudyard Kipling put it well, in a different context:

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

That's what we have here - and unless sanity and facts prevail over emotions and feelings, it's going to get much, much worse, more quickly than most of us can imagine.

Peter

Minneapolis has been planning its insurrection for a long time

 

Through a couple of links on the Internet, I came across this tweet from Insurrection Barbie.  I've checked out some of the references she gave, and they're legitimate.  I'm going to reproduce it in full here, because I think it deserves the widest circulation.

Minnesota has spent years building an infrastructure of ICE watch patrols, NGO backed rapid response teams, and politically wired nonprofits that can flip from ordinary life to street mobilization in minutes. 

The key to Minnesota’s rapid mobilization is not Twitter activism. It is an on the ground surveillance and response network that local reporters have already documented in detail. A Star Tribune investigation into the “organized resistance to ICE” in Minnesota reads like a field manual for modern grassroots intelligence operations.​

In south Minneapolis, volunteers spend hours driving what they openly call ICE patrols. Phones are mounted on dashboards. Every sighting of a suspicious SUV, every cluster of federal jackets, is recorded and dropped into Signal and WhatsApp groups that run silently in the background of daily life.​

Those chats are not small. A single Spanish language group described by local reporting grew from a few dozen members to hundreds as the federal crackdown began. One message that ICE is at a gas station, grocery store, or apartment complex can draw a crowd in minutes.​

Volunteers position themselves near schools, mosques, and high risk housing, phones ready. Their job is to film, warn, and, when they choose, physically interpose themselves between agents and targets.​

When roughly 2,000 federal agents arrive in a region that has spent years quietly building an anti enforcement machine, confrontation is not a question of if but when. 

The sequence looks like this:

• ICE surge and visible raids trigger heightened patrols and chat activity.
• A lethal incident happens. Video, rumors, and initial reports hit group chats and local media at the same time.
• ICE watch networks push urgent alerts, including locations such as the Whipple Federal Building and specific hotels.
• Within hours, local NGOs and national groups issue public calls to action. Protest times and locations spread across social media and encrypted channels simultaneously.

One organization appears repeatedly in any serious look at Minnesota’s anti ICE apparatus: COPAL, short for Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina. COPAL is not just another advocacy group. It runs a formal immigrant defense “rapid response” program that sits at the heart of Minnesota’s ICE watch system.

By late 2025, COPAL’s immigrant defense program had trained more than 10,000 people, a staggering number in a single state. Those trainees do not just sit at home. They plug directly into the Signal chats, patrol rotations, and rapid response networks that are now colliding with ICE in Minnesota’s streets.

The Vice President of COPAL is a DACA recipient who sits on the Board of Directors as well. His name is Edwin Torres DeSantiago and he has served on the leadership teams for the campaigns of:

    1. Tim Walz
    2. Peggy Flanagan
    3. Senator Tina Smith
    4. Senator Amy Klobuchar

He also sits on the Board of Trustees for the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, showing his integration into elite institutional circles as well as movement politics.

They have a direct earmark from leading Democrats. 

COPAL publicly credits Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Amy Klobuchar for securing federal funds for COPAL and partner ACER to develop the Primero de Mayo Workers Center in Minnesota’s 5th District.

COPAL’s own statement thanks Omar and Klobuchar for their leadership and notes that these federal dollars will be invested in worker organizing and community power on Lake Street.

That also explains why the anti-ICE demonstrations ramped up so sharply just as Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz was being pilloried for turning a blind eye to such mega-scale corruption and misuse of taxpayer funds over so many years.  ICE's activities provided a distraction around which left-wing opinion could mobilize, and use it as a smokescreen to divert attention to Federal and other investigations of the missing billions of dollars in entitlement and aid funding.  The news media has, in large measure, lapped it up.  Independent and social media appear to be continuing the investigation, but are battling to publicize what they're finding, because every major news outlet is "distracted" from the subject (and, since most of them are themselves left-wing or progressive in orientation, are likely grateful for the excuse).

Thanks to Insurrection Barbie for a very enlightening tweet.  I'll be following her on X from now on.

Peter

The organizers behind the anti-ICE protests

 

Following this morning's first article, in which I argue that we're seeing a deliberate attempt to turn illegal immigration into a cause célèbre like George Floyd's death in 2020, City Journal has this exposé of one of the driving forces behind that attempt.

The People’s Forum is a “movement incubator” and “a home” for over 200 left-wing groups. Its Manhattan location offers “co-working space, conference rooms, a theater for film screenings, a media laboratory, a lending library, and [the] People’s Café,” as well as an art space, “ideal for art builds, poster making, screen printing.” Part of what makes the organization so quick to respond is that outsourcing isn’t necessary—everything is in-house.

. . .

The group has drawn congressional scrutiny for its behavior and alleged Chinese connections. Last year, Senator Chuck Grassley contacted the Department of Justice about TPF’s “reported Chinese Communist Party ties.” Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, urged the IRS to revoke TPF’s tax-exempt status, citing its role in “inciting riots and violence, supporting illegal activity, and conducting other activity contrary to the public good.”

Elected officials are right to worry. One of TPF’s most radical allies is Nodutdol, a pro-North Korean organization that hosted its end-of-year fundraiser at TPF’s space. In April 2025, TPF hosted a Nodutdol-facilitated event on “Socialism and Sovereignty” in what it referred to simply as “Korea,” in which it denounced “the constant demonization of North Korea” and deemed “reunification” of the Koreas “a vital front in the global anti-imperialist struggle.”

Newer organizations also rely on The People’s Forum as a volunteer hub. That includes groups like ICE Out of New York, which has staged direct actions, such as a disruptive protest inside a Manhattan Home Depot over the corporation’s failure to condemn deportations occurring on its properties.

. . .

While TPF is based in Manhattan, its influence extends far beyond Gotham. Its classes use a hybrid format, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to participate. TPF’s in-house press and bookstore, 1804 Books, prints, publishes, and distributes all manner of “socialist literature and revolutionary theory.” And as it fundraises for a major renovation, the group’s reach and operational capacity appear poised to expand.

This weekend’s rapid, coordinated protests make one thing clear: the anti-capitalist movement is growing. The People’s Forum is just one node in a massive militant network that opposes the American experiment. Officials must keep watch—and when lawbreaking occurs, take action.

There's more at the link.

Friends, that's just one group, in one city.  There are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of smaller groups in most liberal left-wing cities, and they're all fed by "umbrella" organizations such as The People's Forum.  George Soros and his Open Society Foundations is another funder and coordinator of such activities, as is Hansjorg Wyss and his eponymous Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund.  There are many more like them.  They're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars every year into US politics in an attempt to derail the Trump administration's policies, and prepare to take back political power as quickly as possible.

They're all funding and organizing and coordinating the anti-ICE activities we're seeing on our streets.  They're all doing their best to make it impossible to control those activities, by any means necessary.  We haven't yet seen ICE officers ambushed and assassinated while doing their duty, but I think it's only a matter of time until we do.  After all, from their insular and blinkered perspective, ICE just killed one of their own protesters, so such a response would be no more than ICE deserves.

Tragically, such extremism is beginning to make its presence felt on the right, conservative wing of US politics as well.  Remember Newton's Third Law of Motion?  "Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction."  Extremism begets more extremism, swinging and see-sawing to and fro.  Most of the victims don't really care that much about the extremes - they just got in the way.  They're useful cannon fodder to be exploited for propaganda purposes.  The BBC went so far as to headline, "Two starkly opposed Americas laid bare by deadly ICE shooting".

We are not, repeat, not a United States at this time.  We're far from it.  We can't expect everyone to support common-sense courtesy and decency, because few extremists are willing to do so.  That puts every moderate in the cross-hairs of one or other (or both) sides.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Peter