Your First Look at Today's Top Stories

Having trouble viewing this email? View the web version.

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

DOJ Launches Investigation of Don Lemon and Minneapolis Church Invaders

The First Amendment does not protect a right to invade and disrupt a private assembly of worshippers. The SAVE Act pretty clearly criminalizes it. Joseph Chalfant at Townhall: The Department of Justice has announced that they will be arresting Don Lemon and open investigations into the storming of Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. AAG Harmeet Dhillon: “This heinous act that occurred in Minnesota yesterday is receiving the highest level of attention from The Justice Dept. @AGPamBondi & I are working around the clock, because no right in our Constitution is more sacred than the freedom to assemble & pray to God.” Lemon will reportedly be arrested by the Trump administration under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. “The Klan Act is one of the most important federal civil rights statutes,” said Civil Rights Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on The Benny Johnson Show. It’s a law that makes it illegal to terrorize and violate the civil rights of citizens. Whenever people conspire this, the Klan Act can be used” (Townhall). David Strom: Lemon seems to believe that this is First Amendment-protected activity because Don Lemon is a moron. In fact, aside from violating basic property rights and arguably being low-level terrorism, it is also a violation of several federal laws that have been prosecuted under both Republican and Democratic administrations (Hot Air). Don Lemon on the worshippers he disrupted: I think that they’re entitled. And that entitlement comes from a supremacy, a white supremacy. And they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country when actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom (End Wokeness).

Tensions Continue to Rise in Minneapolis; Chief of Police Fears ‘moment where it all explodes’

Culpability may well lie with Mayor Frey and Gov. Walz, but it’s difficult to argue that conservatives will win if, indeed, it explodes. The Hill: Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said he fears the “moment where it all explodes” amid tensions over the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown. “We’re in this 2020 moment where all these tensions have been building, and I’m afraid we’re going to have another moment where it all explodes,” O’Hara said in a “60 Minutes” segment aired on CBS News on Sunday (The Hill). Protestors have staged a “sit-in and occupy” at a local target: Demonstrators sat on the floor, sang chants, and demanded Target ban federal immigration agents from using its parking lots amid ongoing tensions over ICE operations in Minnesota (Sokoloff).

Minnesota Gov. Walz Says He Does Not Support Invading a House of Worship

Saying he doesn’t support it is quite a bit different than condemning it and saying he’ll prosecute. The governor’s statement: The Governor has repeatedly and unequivocally urged protesters to do so peacefully. While people have a right to speak out, he in no way supports interrupting a place of worship (Melugin). Late last year, he warned that ICE would be targeting churches: I would not put it past this administration to target midnight mass services amongst folks going to worship, because that’s who they are (WL).

Understanding the Church Invasion: ‘A page right out of the radical activist manuals of the 1960s’

More from Albert Mohler: What took place in St. Paul in that church yesterday is a page right out of the radical activist manuals of the 1960s. Agitators such as Saul Alinsky became leftist ideologues who basically set the agenda for how these kinds of protests would take place. Maximum media coverage, maximum impact, maximum disruption…. you also see liberal mayors like Mayor Jacob Frey there in Minneapolis seeing themselves as part of a national revolution, which is also, as we know now, a national soap opera. Let me just state a basic fact which we need to keep in mind, and that is that to be a nation, to be a nation in virtually any sense, is to have control over your own borders—a defined territory and control over who does and does not enter your own territory with legal permission. And citizenship is a category, particularly of the modern nation state, but the roots of citizenship go back into the ancient world (Mohler). Joe Rigney: This brazen invasion of a Christian worship gathering demonstrates the lawlessness of the modern left. Not content to disrupt lawful law enforcement activity, they have now resorted to targeting law enforcement officers, their families, and anyone connected to them, even in a house of worship. And they are breaking the law by invading a church in order to defend those who broke the law by invading our country (World).

Khamenei Admits to Slaughter, Betting the World Will Look the Other Way

We have looked the other way time and time again. The question is: Will this time be different? A Jerusalem Post editorial responds: on Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admitted that “several thousand deaths” had occurred during Iran’s latest wave of nationwide protests, while blaming the United States and Israel for the bloodshed…. For over four decades, the Islamic Republic has relied on a familiar formula for survival. It begins with repression at home, then blames foreign intervention, and waits for the world to hesitate…. Why is the world letting Khamenei get away with it? Khamenei himself bears the responsibility for this bloodshed. In previous rounds of demonstrations, he has had no qualms directing security forces to take blood in order to keep the ayatollahs in power. The real question is why the world is still allowing him to get away with it. The supreme leader can acknowledge thousands of deaths, threaten more, and still expect delay, division, and indecisiveness from abroad. Khamenei is not surviving because he is in a uniquely strong position as a leader. Rather, he is surviving because he takes the chance to crack down on any dissent, firm in the belief that outsiders will not call him to account for his crimes. After three and a half decades in power, he knows how to play the game. But this time, the rules should be different, and his gamble should not be allowed to pay off (JPost).

Josh Shapiro And the Anti-Semitic Tropes We’d Hoped Were Dead

The Pennsylvania governor was in the news after a portion of his new memoir came to light. New York Times: In Mr. Shapiro’s book, “Where We Keep the Light,” the governor is measured in describing his interactions with Ms. Harris herself. But Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, details a contentious vetting process in which Ms. Harris’s team focused intensely on his views on Israel — so much so that at one point, he wrote, he was asked if he had ever been an agent of the Israeli government. “Had I been a double agent for Israel?” wrote Mr. Shapiro, describing his incredulous response to a last-minute question from the vetting team. He responded that the question was offensive, he wrote, and was told, “Well, we have to ask.” “Have you ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel?” the questioner, Dana Remus, a former White House counsel, continued, according to Mr. Shapiro, who recounted, “If they were undercover, I responded, how the hell would I know?” (New York Times). Ed Morrissey: “Well, we have to ask,” Josh Shapiro recalls being told. No, you really didn’t…. This query relies on an old and bigoted trope about Jews being inherently disloyal to their own countries, a claim that long predates the establishment of the state of Israel. In Germany, political leaders blamed Jews for the collapse in World War I that led to their defeat, using the same ugly claim, which got amplified and then industrialized by the Nazis. No one asks that question about being an Israeli double-agent out of the blue without having bought into that anti-Semitic mindset…. Shapiro strips the mask off the Left with this revealing episode in the saga of Kamala Of The 107 Days. Let’s see whether the Protection Racket Media connects those dots, or simply refuses to acknowledge them. Kudos to the NYT for at least making it public (Hot Air).

Netanyahu Vows: No Qatari, No Turkish Troops in Gaza

The Israeli prime minister has good reason to distrust both nations. Times of Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Monday that Turkish and Qatari forces would not set foot in Gaza, days after the White House announced that officials from the countries would sit on a key committee set to oversee the Strip’s postwar management. He also acknowledged that Israel and the US had a “certain argument” about the issue. In a speech on Monday in the Knesset, the premier also claimed that the two countries, which are hostile to Israel, will not “have any authority or any influence” in the various bodies set up by US President Donald Trump’s administration to run postwar Gaza (Times of Israel). Mossad Commentary: Speaking in the Knesset, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out Israel’s position in unmistakable terms: • Turkish or Qatari soldiers will not set foot in Gaza • In phase two, Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza demilitarized, either the easy way or the hard way • If Iran attacks Israel, Israel will respond with a force it has never known • Iran will not return to what it once was (Mossad).

Democrats Expand Power in Virginia, Immediately Move to Prohibit Hand Counting of Ballots

Democrats in Virginia gained seats in the state Assembly, won the governor’s seat (Abigail Spanberger), the lieutenant lovernor’s seat (Ghazala Hashmi) as well as the attorney general (Jay Jones). They didn’t waste any time. Geiger Capital: Democrats have been in power in Virginia for ~48 hours and they’ve already introduced a bill to ban the hand-counting of election ballots… (Geiger). Quoting the legislation: Requires ballot scanner machines to be used to count machine-readable ballots and prohibits such ballots from being counted by hand for any reason or purpose not specifically authorized for by law (Virginia). Additional revealing priorities: Beyond typical legislative business, lawmakers held public hearings on four constitutional amendments covering abortion access, restoring felon voting rights, gay marriage, and allowing mid-decade redistricting of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts (WTKR). More revealing priorities: Democrats in Virginia have introduced a bill that discriminates against White men in government contracting. For discretionary contracts under $100K, White men are barred from even being considered unless there’s literally no competition (Heiens).

Are We Finally Seeing Reform at the UN?

Mike Waltz—our Ambassador to the UN—argues that we are. Waltz: For decades, reforming the UN was considered near impossible. Yet on Dec. 30, the United States led the United Nations General Assembly to do something it had never done in its 80-year history: Adopt a budget that actually cut its outlays, by $570 million, and eliminated thousands of posts from its bloated bureaucracy…. Our efforts showed that all 193 member nations support President Trump’s challenge to the UN to realize its potential. What did we achieve in those 100 days? For the first time in its 80-year history, the United Nations cut its budget substantially, by $570 million. We eliminated 2,900 unnecessary bureaucratic posts. We repatriated thousands of peacekeepers and cut hundreds of millions from the peacekeeping budget (New York Post).

10.

Today: Fifth Circuit Court to Hear Case on Ten Commandments in Public Schools

The question: Is it legal for a state to mandate posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools? Both Texas and Louisiana have laws requiring them. New York Times: It has been half a year since Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed legislation mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in his state’s public school classrooms. Since then, successive courts have blocked the law on grounds that it violated the U.S. Constitution. The ensuing confusion could soon be cleared up. On Tuesday, the 17 active judges on the generally conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will hear arguments over the Texas law and a similar Louisiana measure signed in 2024 (New York Times). Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton: “There is no legal reason to stop Texas from honoring a core ethical foundation of our law, especially not a bogus claim about the ‘separation of church and state,’ which is a phrase found nowhere in the Constitution,” Paxton said in a recent statement…. Attorney William Farrell from the attorney general’s office described SB 10’s requirement as a “passive display on the wall” that does not rise to the level of coercion because students can choose to ignore the posters if they wish (Houston Public Media). Observers are thinking the case may well end up before the Supreme Court.

SUBSCRIPTION INFO: This newsletter is never sent unsolicited. It is only sent to people who signed up from one of the Salem Media Group network of websites. We respect and value your time and privacy.
Unsubscribe from The Daybreak Insider
6400 N. Belt Line Rd., Suite 200, Irving, TX 75063
Copyright © 2026 Salem Media Group and its Content Providers. All rights reserved.