Flashpoints in the Public Square: Jan 10-16

Pondering Public Square

Flashpoints in the Public Square: Jan 10-16

This week’s reflections on several political and social events, aiming to provide a thoughtful and politically conservative perspective on current developments. Readers are encouraged to engage with the ideas presented and share their own views.

The Role of Projection in Political Discourse

Political debate increasingly relies on labels and slogans, which can hinder constructive dialogue. An example on the Left is to accuse others of exactly what they are doing themselves. Fascism, hatred, authoritarianism, extremism. None of these labels originate from observation. They originate from internal guilt and ideological insecurity. When beliefs become closely tied to personal identity, disagreement may be perceived as a personal attack, making reasoned discussion difficult. The individual dissolves into the group, and the group demands constant reinforcement. This dynamic, visible across the political spectrum, can foster groupthink and reinforce ideological divides. Here is an example that both Left and Right have used, although today it is used mostly by the Left. By calling everyone else Nazis, they avoid confronting their own authoritarian instincts. By labeling dissent as dangerous, they justify silencing it. History shows that movements rooted in moral certainty often escalate, sometimes with dangerous consequences. It is important for society to remain vigilant against the replacement of reasoned debate with outrage and moral panic.

I will now shift to some news events for the week. These events test principles of liberty, rule of law, and moral consistency across borders.

         First, Venezuela and the pursuit of freedom. some good news. Maria Corina Machado: “ I am very proud to be part of these generations of Venezuelans. Most of them have never known what it means to live in freedom or what it means to be part of democratic society, but they have risked their lives, their loved ones, everything they have, because they share that dream to live in a free country.”

         Second, U. S. Immigration policy and debate. Recent commentary by Stephen Miller suggests that current border policies are designed to facilitate access to government benefits and voting rights for undocumented immigrants. This perspective is part of an ongoing debate about the intentions and impacts of immigration policy. 

Additionally, a federal court ruling supported the Trump administration’s efforts to deport certain individuals, illustrating the contentious nature of immigration enforcement.

         Third, Rising Concerns about Antisemitism. The destruction of Mississippi’s largest synagogue, Beth Israel Congregation, in Jackson, Mississippi, in an arson attack is a troubling event. The limited media coverage raises questions about the normalization of anti-Semitic actions and the need for greater public awareness and condemnation.

         Fourth, Women’s Rights and Protests in Iran.

         Iran is witnessing a significant women’s liberation movement, with “Woman, Life, Freedom” (“Zan, Zendegi, Azadi”) as a rallying cry. The protests reflect a widespread desire for basic human rights and liberty. Reports indicate a violent crackdown by authorities, with hundreds of protesters killed. The international community, including technology initiatives like Starlink, may play a role in supporting communication and advocacy for change. Historical context reminds us that early optimism about Iran’s revolutionary government was misplaced, and current silence from some Western groups may reflect ideological biases.

If there was any proper ordering of the news of this week, the top news would be Iran. As one X post put it, We are witnessing the most meaningful and long deserved women’s liberation movements ever of all time right now in Iran. Anyone choosing to ignore this historical moment is due to politics. We should all be standing behind these baddies of freedom 1000x. A free Iran would mean a better world for us all!  “Woman, Life, Freedom” (chanted as “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” in Persian) is a prominent part of ongoing protests in Iran. This is about women’s rights and basic human liberty. Any lover of women can see the urgency of this movement. Every person deserves the right to freedom and expression. These are possibly the bravest women of our time. Raise your voice and scream for them! They need each and every one of us right now. 

         James Woods has said it well. The freedom uprising in Iran will change the world. We must support our heroes fighting for a free Iran. This should be the one time all Americans can stand together for a just cause. Because the terrorist regime is jamming communications, Elon Musk’s Starlink may save them.

         Here is some history. In The New York Times on February 16, 1979, the Princeton professor Richard Falk confidently asserted: “The depiction of [the Ayatollah Khomeini] as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false. What is also encouraging is that his entourage of close advisers is uniformly composed of moderate, progressive individuals.” Moreover, “the key appointees” in the new revolutionary government had “a notable record of concern for human rights and seem eager to achieve economic development that results in a modern society oriented on satisfying the whole population’s basic needs.” “Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics,” Falk gushed, “Iran may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.” This would be a typical view of the elite, and I imagine that of Jimmy Carter. It was wrong, as academics often are.

         Further, the silence of the left in Europe, and in America about this revolt against the Iranian regime is an ideological silence. It is ideological because in their minds, the west and America are the source of evil, and therefore they support Hamas terrorist and various forms of Islamic militancy. It is not that they support their policies, but they support the opposition to the West. In other words, revolting against the Iranian regime does not fit a narrative that they preferred to tell. 

         Instead, the Left protests Israel and the US, mostly out of antisemitism and sympathy for Islamic militants, have suddenly gone quiet about what is happening in Iran.

         The Hudson institute identifies 7 failures that will end Khamenei's rule: 

1. Water management incompetence

2. Taking proxies for granted

3. Misreading Israel's military achievements

4. Misreading Trump

5. Betting on China

6. Alienating the next generation

7. Overestimating the coercive state

Steve Daines is right. This is a Berlin Wall moment for the Middle East. America stands with the people of Iran as they fight to restore their freedom & liberty. Yet, White Pro-Hamas liberals harass Iranians at an anti-Islamic Regime rally in Washington State. Because nothing says moral self-righteousness like a white woman telling Iranian refugees that opposing the terrorist Islamic Regime is “Islamophobic.”

A good statement on what is happening in Iran from @HudsonInstitute @MollyLineFNC

-This rebellion against the regime is organic, nation-wide, and spans demographics within Iranian society. 

-The US can affect the protests by supporting the civilians, encouraging armed security to side with the civilians, and keeping internet access running

- Reza Pahlavi is the son of the last shah, an Iranian dissident and wants to return to Iran. Maybe that will work? I do not know. The replacement govt must have support from the ppl because chaos and civil war is the worst scenario. 

         Putting Iran and Minneapolis together: In Iran, protesters are risking death fighting for freedom from a brutal Islamic terrorist regime. In Minneapolis, Radical Left protestors are melting down over law enforcement.

         Fifth, ICE Operations and Law Enforcement.

         I offer a reminder: “E” in ICE is enforcement, which means Congress has made laws supported in a bipartisan way since its founding under the Clinton administration, and these agents are enforcing those laws. If one must protest, go to Congress and harass those who made the laws you do not like, not the officers who are enforcing them.

I begin with something new I have learned from JD Vance. In the Obama administration, they counted being turned away at the border as a deportation. A person would show up, be sent back, and counted as a deportation. At the same time, Clinton and Obama emphasized ICE and its work, and CNN and other news outlets went on ICE missions to accompany their efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens during those administrations. 

Before I offer some updates on Minneapolis, ICE has been active elsewhere as well. Authorities have arrested 54 individuals in New York City under Operation Salvo, an immigrant enforcement operation that was launched in July 2025 following the shooting of a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement on Jan. 9. Among the individuals arrested under Operation Salvo are criminal illegal immigrants, including one who has committed assault with intent to cause serious physical injury, one who has acted in a manner to injure a child younger than 17 years old, and a third who has a criminal history of being charged with assault in the third degree, according to the DHS. All three are from the Dominican Republic.

         .@Sec_Noem said this about the media: "We had an officer last night viciously attacked with weapons—3-on-1—where his life was in danger, and he defended himself, and you see a lot of news reports out there that it was 'another ICE shooting.' They didn't report anything about the weapons..."

         Some Americans (and more than a few non-Americans) on the Left have decided that losing an election is intolerable and that a federal government enforcing immigration laws they do not like is somehow illegitimate.

The shooting in Minneapolis.

         The facts of what happened in Minneapolis on Jan 7 matter: at 10:25 AM CT the individual in question was using her vehicle to block-in law enforcement officers and obstruct lawful operations—a felony. Throughout the course of the morning, the individual and her partner had been stalking, harassing and impeding law enforcement.

         ICE law enforcement approached the individual in question and gave repeated lawful commands to stop obstructing operations and then ordered her out of her vehicle for arrest. She refused to comply. She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle, a deadly weapon, and hit a federal law enforcement officer. The ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement, and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots. The ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.

         Here is a reminder from the Supreme Court: “if an officer has an objectively reasonable belief that someone’s actions put the officer or others at risk of death or any serious bodily injury, the law empowers that officer to use deadly force to stop that threat."

         Analyzing the video is not helpful. I am sure that if either the officer or Rebecca had another second or two they would have made different decisions. I pray for the officer and the family and friends of Rebecca, which JD Vance, contrary to the liberal meme that he thinks she did not have the right to live, also suggested.

         Peaceful protest is a sacred First Amendment right. This was not that. If you obstruct law enforcement operations, ignore lawful commands, and use a deadly weapon to kill or cause bodily harm to a federal law enforcement office there are dangerous, and in this case deadly, consequences. This was entirely preventable.

         I noticed how Governor Walz and the mayor are claiming that Trump wants violence on the streets. I noticed one liberal meme promoted by a UM pastor no less that Trump supports protestors in Iran and wants to kill protestors here. It is clear to me that the Left are the ones who want it. Reality is that if they cooperated with these federal agents and turned over criminal illegal immigrants there would be no violence if they would hold them in custody until they were retrieved there would be no violence. This is what is happening in other states, some of which are Democrat run cities. They want the chaos because this is how they were able to move toward the election of Biden. Now they want the chaos to see if they can move the midterm elections toward the Democrat party. As a political strategy, it is working, regardless of how dangerous all this is to the American political system.

         It has not helped that many prominent Democrat politicians and lawmakers signal it is fine to impede law enforcement, creating the deadly situation leading to the ICE shooting of Renee Good.

Simon Hankinson has said something about all this that I think is right. “Those who oppose the Trump administration in everything it does, but particularly immigration, wanted something like this to happen. They needed a martyr, and they created circumstances to make one. America is fiercely divided between Left and Right. Between those who want laws enforced, and those who want them abolished or ignored. Between open borders and nationhood. Between socialism and free markets. On immigration, the Left does not believe any alien in the U.S. should be deported, for any reason. Impotent politically, they turned to the streets. They mobilized their army of omni-cause warriors: Antifa, anti-capitalists, Palestinian activists, gender ideologues, socialists, and law enforcement abolitionists.”

         Now, thanks to the mayor and governor, there could be more violence. Both men are deep in the fraud discovered in Minnesota, so my presumption is that they have a vested interest in shifting attention to this killing. Given how quickly all this happened, which is the problem with slowing down videos that makes it look like the agent had forever to decide, I do not want to get into those debates. Everyone made decisions in seconds.

         CNN Rebecca Good's father appeared for his first interview to discuss Renee's death.The host repeatedly probed for answers that would condemn President Trump, but his answer even took the host back. He manages to LOVINGLY say that "the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience." I don't blame ICE, I don't blame Rebecca, I don't blame Renee. I just, you know, I just wish that, you know, if- if we are walking the spirit of God, I do not think she would have been there. That's- that's the way I look at it." 

         When the public needed political leaders to be adults and urge calm, Minnesota has had adolescents in in both Walz and Frey. They have said they want criminals off the street. That is a lie. FALSE. @MayorFrey and @GovTimWalz REFUSE to cooperate with ICE and federal law enforcement to remove the murders and criminal illegal aliens from Minnesota. Since President Trump took office, Minnesota sanctuary politicians have released nearly 470 criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets of Minnesota. Further, Frey wondered why there were not deportations in Red states. As JD Vance said, In the cities that are not sanctuary cities, the deportation process is orderly and normal--like most law enforcement. In Minneapolis and a few other sanctuary jurisdictions, local jurisdictions and a few leftwing agitators have decided to wage war on all immigration enforcement officers. Reality: if Democrat cities and states would cooperate with the specific orders that ICE has because of the violence done by these illegal immigrants deportation process would be simple, clean and safe. 

         Some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens released in Minnesota include:

         @SBAgov Since Day One, I have been clear that SBA will not continue to surge resources to communities that refuse to protect their small business owners by impeding this Administration’s efforts to deport and detain criminal illegal aliens. We will relocate our offices to cities that comply with federal law - and take seriously their responsibility to promote public safety on Main Street.

         Who have they captured? The reality is if the sanctuary cities would simply turn over their violent illegal immigrants to ice it would be safer for everybody. The mayor and the governor have created this problem by policy. @FoxNews has a list of the most egregious criminal aliens they have arrested during their surge in the sanctuary state of Minnesota, & it's the most disturbing list I've ever seen, including numerous convicted child rapists/sodomizers & ten convicted killers, most with deportation orders going back many years. Several from Laos, Somalia, and Sudan. 

·      Sriudorn Phaivan, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of strong-arm sodomy of a boy & strong-arm sodomy of a girl with a deportation order since 2018.

·      Tou Vang, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of sexual assault and sodomy of a girl under age 13 and procuring a child for prostitution with a deportation order since 2006.

·      Chong Vue, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of the strong-arm rape of a 12-year-old girl and kidnapping a child with intent to sexually assault her, with a deportation order since 2004,

·      Ge Yang, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of strong-arm rape, aggravated assault with a weapon, and strangulation with a deportation order since 2012.

·      Pao Choua Xiong, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of rape and child fondling with a deportation order since 2003.

·      Kou Lor, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of rape, rape with a weapon, and sexual assault with a deportation order since 1996.

·      Hernan Cortes-Valencia, Mexican illegal alien convicted of sexual assault of a child and DUI with a deportation order since 2016.

·      Abdirashid Adosh Elmi, a Somalian illegal alien convicted of homicide.

·      Gilberto Salguero Landaverde, a Salvadoran illegal alien convicted of three counts of homicide with a deportation order since June 2025.

·      Gabriel Figueroa Gama, a Mexican illegal convicted of homicide who has been previously deported in 2002.

·      Galuak Michael Rotgai, a Sudanese illegal alien convicted of homicide.

·      Thai Lor, a Laotian illegal alien convicted of two counts of homicide with a deportation order since 2009.

·      Mariana Sia Kanu, an illegal alien from Sierra Leone convicted of two counts of homicide with a deportation order since 2022.

·      Aldrin Guerrero Munoz, a Mexican illegal alien convicted of homicide with a deportation order since 2015.

·      Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed, a Somalian illegal alien convicted of manslaughter with a deportation order since 2022.

·      Mongong Dual Maniang Deng, a Sudanese illegal alien convicted of attempt to commit homicide, weapon possession, and DUI.

·      Aler Gomez Lucas, a Guatemalan illegal alien convicted of negligent homicide with a vehicle and DUI with a deportation order since 2022.

·      Shwe Htoo, a Burmese illegal alien convicted of negligent homicide.

         ICE says all these criminal aliens were roaming freely in the sanctuary state of Minnesota prior to arrest, and that these are the type of people that politicians and activists are referring to as their “neighbors” as they attempt to interfere with ICE. This shows the lie to what Mayor Frey said on Fox and Friends.

         Sixth, Fraud and Misue of Public Funds. These are state government funds to NGOs. The potential for fraud is massive.

California NGOs:

213,720

$593.4 billion/year

New York NGOs:

132,097

$445.8 billion/year

Minnesota NGOs:

41,267

$124.2 billion/year

New Jersey NGOs:

56,332

$113 billion/year

Washington NGOs:

44,332

$139.5 billion/year

         Scott Bessent announced the Internal Revenue Service is launching MASSIVE AUDITS of financial institutions that facilitated the laundering of Minnesota funds.

         .@Sec_Noem on @GovTimWalz: "He's had the greatest fraud in American history happening right under his nose. He didn't just allow it to happen, we believe, from all indications, that he was complicit in it — that he knew all about this Somalian fraud that was happening."

         Seventh, Greenland Strategic Importance

         I am not paying much attention to the Greenland matter. The Hudson Institute is correct. Greenland is strategically important to American national security. But rather than threatening its NATO allies, the White House should seek to establish a US-Greenland investment fund tied to American security needs. Trump is using his well-worn tactics as a negotiator to secure a long-term goal of the U.S.  He has made it plain from the beginning that he intends to buy Greenland from Denmark. I would hazard to guess Trump’s reason for potentially using the military is because he virtually always says as much. It is an option, one that he would certainly never take. What he wants is to create maximum urgency on the part of a negotiating partner to get a deal done. And that is what he has done in the Greenland case. We are closer to acquiring the territory than any time since World War II despite Danish and European protests. And that is a good thing. China has already made overtures to Greenland to control and mine its rare earths mineral deposits. 

         I repeat that I invite comments.