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Monday, January 26, 2026

Fatal Shooting of Armed Protestor Exacerbates Tensions in Minneapolis; Protestor Bites Off Portion of Finger of Officer

Washington Times: The second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen in Minnesota by federal immigration officers has sparked a national uproar, widening the divide over President Trump’s immigration crackdown and intensifying scrutiny of the administration’s tactics. The incident has triggered a confrontation between Trump administration officials and state and local leaders. On Sunday, both sides offered sharply conflicting accounts of the on‑camera shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37‑year‑old nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital with no criminal record and a license to carry the handgun he had on him (Washington Times). Catherine Salgado at PJ Media: [Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin] explained, “In Minneapolis, these rioters attacked our law enforcement officer and one of them bit off our HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] officer’s finger. He will lose his finger.” What a proud victory for Walz and co.! They managed to ruin a brave officer’s life. Just ponder how deranged and bestial you have to be to seek out a federal law enforcement officer for the express purpose of assaulting him, and then deliberately bite off his finger (PJ Media). Attorney General Pam Bondi: The suspect who allegedly bit the finger off of an HSI agent in Minnesota today has been arrested and is in custody. I have directed my federal prosecutors to file charges for this HEINOUS assault on our brave law enforcement officer (Bondi). Fox News: Minnesota ICE official Sam Olson urged demonstrators in the Twin Cities on Sunday to keep protests peaceful following recent fatal federal agent-involved shootings in Minneapolis — unrest he described as “like nothing I’ve ever seen before” (Fox News).

Minnesota Governor, AG Ellison Throw Fuel on Fire as Unrest Grows

The rhetoric from Democrat governor is flagrantly irresponsible. Nick Arama at RedState: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison made further remarks on Sunday about the shooting of Alex Pretti by the Border Patrol after a struggle in Minneapolis. Walz’s remarks were full-on disgraceful, and he was definitely trying to whip people up against the federal enforcement. He claimed that Pretti was “murdered in front of the world.” So much for waiting for the facts. He’s tainted any investigation in his state. While he praised Pretti, Walz didn’t take any responsibility for encouraging him and others against ICE. It is that “resistance” that has led to these confrontations and put people, activists, and agents in danger…. Walz asked what side people wanted to be on: the side of an “all-powerful federal gov’t that can kill and kidnap its citizens” or the side of peaceful citizens. He even termed it an “occupation.” He was truly living in an alternate reality. No one is being “kidnapped,” and if you are hitting agents with your car, obstructing their operations, or biting off their fingers, you are not peaceful. The only “occupation” here is their occupation with trying to resist federal law enforcement and defend illegal aliens. He claimed it wasn’t a “political debate” anymore, that it’s become a “moral debate” (RedState).

Lindsey Graham to Introduce Legislation to End Sanctuary City and State Policies

The situation on the ground in Minneapolis is incredibly tense and so clearly dangerous. The sanctuary policies of Minneapolis set the stage. Governor Walz, Mayor Frey and AG Ellison continue to re-light the match at every created opportunity. Sen. Graham (R-SC) Sunday: These cities have willfully ignored federal law, creating massive fraud of benefits, a constant magnet for illegal immigration and a breakdown of law and order. I will be introducing legislation to end sanctuary state and city polices once and for all because they rip off the taxpayer and cause extreme danger for those trying to clean up the mess in these liberal cities (Graham).

A Formal Request From Trump: ‘Cooperate … to enforce our Nation’s Laws’

President Trump on Sunday afternoon: I am hereby calling on Governor Walz, Mayor Frey, and EVERY Democrat Governor and Mayor in the United States of America to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence: 1. Governor Walz and Mayor Frey should turn over all Criminal Illegal Aliens that are currently incarcerated in their State Prisons and Jails to Federal Authorities, along with all Illegal Criminals with an active warrant or known Criminal History, for Immediate Deportation. 2. State and Local Law Enforcement must agree to turn over all Illegal Aliens arrested by Local Police…. In addition, I am hereby calling on the United States Congress to immediately pass Legislation to END Sanctuary Cities, which is the root cause of all of these problems. American Cities should be Safe Sanctuaries for Law Abiding American Citizens ONLY, not Illegal Alien Criminals who broke our Nation’s Laws (Truth). Reminder: On January 15, Trump threatened invocation of Insurrection Act if Minneapolis and Minnesota officials continued to refuse to cooperate: If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT… (Truth). Wall Street Journal spoke with Trump on Sunday evening: In a five-minute telephone interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump didn’t directly answer when asked twice whether the officer who shot Alex Pretti had done the right thing. Pressed further, the president said, “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination” (Wall Street Journal).

Khamenei’s ‘Show No Mercy’ Order Leads to Unspeakable Slaughter of Innocents

We were aware of the fact that the death toll in Iran, initiated by an order from Khamenei early this month, was brutal. Just how brutal, how macabre, we’re just beginning to learn. Amit Segal: on the night of January 8—when the internet was shut off—the streets of Iran saw the worst massacre in the history of the Islamic Republic, and among the deadliest days worldwide in a generation. The regime opened fire on thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of their own citizens. Morgues overflowed, bodies lay in the streets, and families were torn apart. Some estimates place casualties from the protests as high as 20,000; I suspect it could be higher. It was a crime on an almost unimaginable scale—and it will be answered (Segal). And now—the consequences. New York Times: On Friday, Jan. 9, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the Supreme National Security Council, the body tasked with safeguarding the country, to crush the protests by any means necessary, according to two Iranian officials briefed on the ayatollah’s directive. Security forces were deployed with orders to shoot to kill and to show no mercy, the officials said. The death toll surged (New York Times).

Human Rights Lawyer on Iran: ‘our beautiful country has become a cemetery’

Veteran Human Rights lawyer Dr. Payam Akhavan gives perspective on the horrors in Iran: We may not know the exact number [of casualties] because of the internet blackout, but by any plausible estimate, this is the worst mass murder In the contemporary history of Iran, our beautiful country has become a cemetery in which the hopes of our youth are buried. I began my career as a UN human rights officer here in Geneva in 1993. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, I went on to serve as a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. I helped draft the indictment for the Reza and Genocide, in which some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were massacred during July of 1995. By comparison, at least twice, that number has been killed in Iran in half the time. This is an extermination, and unlike Bosnia, there is no war between military forces. There is only a war by the Islamic Republic against unarmed youth, crying for a better future (Akhavan). More on Akhavan (Massey).

Trump Administration Eyeing Regime Change in Cuba by Year’s End

The island has long been impoverished. Once denied the oil from Venezuela, the nation is desperate. Wall Street Journal: Emboldened by the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration is searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out the Communist regime by the end of the year, people familiar with the matter said. The Trump administration has assessed that Cuba’s economy is close to collapse and that the government has never been this fragile after losing a vital benefactor in Maduro, these people said. Officials don’t have a concrete plan to end the Communist government that has held power on the Caribbean island for almost seven decades, but they see Maduro’s capture and subsequent concessions from his allies left behind as a blueprint and a warning for Cuba, senior U.S. officials said. “I strongly suggest they make a deal. BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” President Trump stated in a Jan. 11 social-media post in which he said “NO MORE OIL OR MONEY” would be going to Cuba (Wall Street Journal). Secretary of State Marco Rubio: The fundamental problem in Cuba is that it’s run by incompetent people that don’t know what an economy looks like, much less a functioning one. They’ve made a choice, and that is they would rather have political control over their people than they would to have an economy that functions, and they’ve gotten away with it for 60-something years because they’ve had donors, the Soviet Union, and now most recently Venezuela, but that’s now gone (Clash).

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Pivots Towards China

That was his clear signal in his speech and Q-and-A at Davos. Carney at Davos says he’s done with the rules-based international order, pointing at us, though not naming us: This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs leveraged. Carney’s full speech (You Tube). Hugh Hewitt: It is quietly but quite definitely anti-American. Thoroughly so, though cowardly in its avoidance of naming us or President Trump…. Carney purports to speak for the “Middle Powers” —a variant of the non-aligned nations of the Cold War. Which is odd since Canada depends almost entirely on America for its national defense and for freedom of the seas that allows it to sell its oil. In short, it is a cowardly bit of theater by a banker for bankers, an anti-Trump speech by the fellow who just got back from warmly embracing Xi…. The truth —the real, hard facts of the world— is that Canada is not a “middle power.” It’s a small power blessed to live under the security umbrella provided for the past 80 years by the U.S., and to earn its excellent standard of living because of the freedom of the seas guaranteed by the U.S. When you hear Carney declare Canada to be an “energy superpower,” ask yourself to which countries does it sell its oil and to which countries could its oil be sold should freedom of the seas be contested? Justin Trudeau was a clown. Mark Carney appears to be a vain banker from Tom Wolff’s Bonfire of the Vanities —a “master of the universe” in an imaginary world (Hewitt). The Wall Street Journal looks at the pivot from Carney away from Trump (Wall Street Journal).

Xi Purges Top General

Chinese President Xi Jinping has been hollowing out his entire senior military leadership. The question is why?—is it a question of loyalty?—or ever-elusive military competence? First who’s gone: The general, Zhang Youxia, is a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the Communist Party body that controls China’s armed forces. Another member of the commission, Gen. Liu Zhenli, who leads the military’s Joint Staff Department, is also under investigation, the Defense Ministry said (New York Times). Economist reports: The latest probes are the most striking evidence yet of the scale of the problems that Mr Xi still faces in trying to transform the PLA into a fully modern fighting force. Soon after taking power, he began tackling pervasive corruption and a lack of focus on real combat by axing dozens of generals and launching a big overhaul of the structure of the PLA. A new wave of purges started around 2023 with the Rocket Force, which handles China’s nuclear arsenal, and later spread to other services as well as the PLA’s equipment-development and political departments. Yet corruption endures and Mr Xi’s structural reforms are incomplete. He may now be showing his frustration with General Zhang’s failure to deliver better results ahead of next year’s deadline, set by Mr Xi, for the PLA to be capable of taking Taiwan (Economist).

10.

Trump at Davos: ‘not only did he win it; he owned it’

Niall Ferguson captures well what we saw unfold last week at the World Economic Forum: The reality is that Trump won Davos, hands down. And not only did he win it; he owned it. I have never before seen a single individual so completely dominate this vast bazaar of the powerful, the wealthy, the famous, and the self-important…. The reason Trump forced Greenland to be the No. 1 topic at Davos, I suspect, was to keep European leaders from meddling in America’s Middle Eastern and Eastern European policy. It was notable on Wednesday how little the president said about Iran and Ukraine. That is because his administration has plans afoot for both countries. I therefore offer the hypothesis that all the fuss about Greenland was a classic example of Trumpian maskirovka—a distraction similar to his claim that peace negotiations with Iran were continuing, just one day before the U.S. air strike on the Fordow nuclear facility (Free Press). More on that word maskirovka: “A little masquerade” is the literal English translation of the Russian maskirovka. Synonymous with deception, maskirovka is a complex Russian cultural phenomenon that defies easy definition (DTIC).

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