I'm gonna free fall out into nothing, gonna close these tabs for a while ...
.@realDonaldTrump gave a forceful no for any antisemites claiming to be part of the Republican Party or the MAGA movement.
— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) January 14, 2026
“I think we don’t need them,” he told the @nytimes. “I think we don’t like them.”
His comments came after a series of high profile ultra-conservative figures… pic.twitter.com/PguPOH1iHj
His comments came after a series of high profile ultra-conservative figures have made controversial comments about the Jewish people and antisemitic speech.
Trump said emphatically: “I condemn” antisemitism.
Good.
Ed: Definitely good. I missed this yesterday, and it deserves a lot more circulation. Time for more leaders to stand up against the anti-Semites on both sides of the aisle.
===
John Ondrasik in the WSJ: In recent days the tyrannical Iranian regime has shut down the internet and phone service in the country, conducted mass arrests and massacred thousands—if not many thousands—of protesters.
Yet American college campuses, so recently the site of passionate encampments in support of the Palestinian people, are eerily quiet about what’s happening in Iran. The congressional microcaucus known as the Squad, so quick to decry the suffering of women and children in Gaza, are oddly mum about the suffering of women and children in Iran. And Greta Thunberg’s flotilla of humanity has yet to set sail for the Persian Gulf. ...
The Iranian people are fighting to end a 46-year reign of murder, oppression and brutal submission of women. The media is downplaying the protests or ignoring them outright. Why?
Ed: I call it the Silence of the 'Free Palestine' Shams. They are not opposed to genocide. They are opposed to the Jews, and to Western Civilization. I may write more about this tomorrow, and John and I may do a podcast interview to discuss it soon.
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Holy sh*t.
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) January 14, 2026
I’ve been banned from traveling to the UK. They revoked my ETA.
"Your presence in the UK is not considered to be conductive to the public good."
3 days after posting this about Starmer. https://t.co/NqWBtaTkZe pic.twitter.com/lm5lZgL2i7
Ed: Censors and fascism were always the passion at the Copa Brussels-ah ...
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Politico: Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, finally had their chance to try to turn down the temperature at the White House after more than a year of aggressive internet trolling, statements and demands from the U.S. Their conversation did little to dissuade Trump and his team from their hold on Greenland.
“We didn’t manage to change the American position,” Rasmussen said. “It’s clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland. We made it very, very clear that this is not in the interest of the Kingdom.”
Rasmussen and Motzfeldt took pains to describe the session as respectful, but their frustration that their longtime ally would not cooperate was clear.
Ed: I get the strategic interest in Greenland; you can't look at a map and miss it. I do question the strategy of alienating the Danes and the Greenlanders in protecting our strategic interests, though. However, when one sees the drift toward authoritarianism and censorship in the EU, as Eva notes in her tweet, it raises questions about just how closely our strategic and cultural interests align with those of Europe.
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OMG. Doctor REFUSES To Admit Men Can’t Get Pregnant
— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) January 14, 2026
Sen @HawleyMO: Do you think that men can get pregnant?
Dr. Nisha Verma: I hesitated there because I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or what the goal was…
Hawley: Let me just remind you, you testified a moment… pic.twitter.com/HKtXMzjfA4
Hawley: Let me just remind you, you testified a moment ago that science and evidence should control, not politics. So can men get pregnant? And you're a doctor of science. Evidence should guide medicine.
Verma: I also think yes/no questions like this are a political tool
Hawley: For the record, it is women who get pregnant, not men.
Ed: The Follow the Science® brigade has always had a problem with their transgender radicalism. It has corrupted the scientific establishment and exposed them as nothing more than transactional power brokers with lab coats.
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Matt Margolis at PJ Media: “You have the overarching classification, you know, everybody has to be, um, uh, uh, play on the team that is the same as their sex at birth. Um, but then you have a gender identity definition that is operating within that. Meaning, a distinction, meaning that, um, for, uh, cisginger [sic] girls they can play consistent with their gender identity, w- for transgender girls, they can’t.”
It’s hilarious that Jackson stumbled over the pronunciation of one of the left’s favorite made-up words, all while failing to understand the difference between real girls and boys who pretend to be girls. ...
She fumbled on: “So you’re not treating the class the same, and you’re not…. Uh, how do you respond to that? In other words, the as-applied challenge essentially redefines the class, or one could think of it as that. And so, what’s wrong with that, number one, and how do you square that with our, uh, holdings in Caban, uh, which Laher later described in this way? In other words, Laher suggested that Caban was establishing that as-applied challenges of this nature do exist.”
The argument was a dizzying tangle of “uhs” and qualifying phrases, leaving Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst unable to understand what she was even asking.
That makes all of us.
Ed: The legal brigade isn't faring much better than the science brigade these days. Cisgingers?
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Five-Year-Old Brought In To Explain Difference Between Boys And Girls To Supreme Court https://t.co/FBBtE5lVm5 pic.twitter.com/8seIkmPftH
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 14, 2026
Ed: I hear Ketanji Brown Jackson needed the entire argument made out in crayon.
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Bob Graboyes at Bastiat's Window: In 1919, a group of young, angry, incompetent communists and anarchists established the Bavarian Soviet Republic in southern Germany and, in doing so, created one of the most unhinged and economically illiterate political entities of the 20th century. Among other things, they:
promised free money for everyone;
declared war on Switzerland;
decreed that no house could have more than three rooms (with a legal mandate that the living room must always be above the bedroom and kitchen);
formed a cabinet that included at least one convicted criminal (moral turpitude) and one mental patient; and
sent telegrams informing Vladimir Lenin and Pope Benedict XV that the ousted leader of Bavaria had stolen the key to the restroom when he fled.
In 2026, New York City voters have decided to replicate the Bavarian experience by electing Zohran Mamdani as mayor. Only time will tell whether Mamdani and his friends outdo the Bavarians in their lunacy.
Ed: Bob's returning to his Substack after mourning the loss of his wife last June. Keep checking in; this upcoming article should be especially interesting.
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Fox’s @willcain highlights a year of massive Trump wins:
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) January 14, 2026
• 2 MILLION+ native-born job gains
• Opioid death rates plummeting sharply
• Nearly 2 MILLION self-deportations
• First net-NEGATIVE migration in 50+ YEARS
pic.twitter.com/zctOTduVvF
Ed: It's an impressive first year. Trump spent his first term trying the incremental strategy, and ended up hamstrung. This time around, he's opting for 'consequential.' And because of that choice, he's succeeding.
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Glenn Reynolds at the NY Post: Trump just cut the knot.
That’s a terrible blow to the managerial class.
If the public realizes you can actually solve problems, there will be more pressure to do that — rather than just manage them endlessly.
That’s unforgivable. No wonder Trump is the villain in their eyes.
Ed: That is why the Left is shrieking over Trump's policies and actions. He's not playing the game of wordplay. He wants to accomplish real change, both at home and around the world.
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How CNN frames 6% inflation under Joe Biden vs. 2.7% inflation under Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/aei8JnQEl5
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) January 13, 2026
Ed: When I say "the Left," that very clearly includes the Protection Racket Media. The current level of inflation isn't optimal – the traditional 2% target is much better for savings and fixed income management – but it's far better than anything seen during the Biden Regency after April 2021. The media wants to amplify inflation anxiety to drive their "affordability" narratives in the midterm cycle.
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Matt Taibbi at Racket News: NATO is history’s most expensive self-licking ice cream cone. Proponents spent much of the last three decades taking bold, often destructive policy actions to convince taxpayers of member nations the alliance needs to keep existing. We’ve redrawn the world map multiple times and even invented new forms of war just to give it something to do. It’s madness, but few have been willing to say so.
Now we’re told the issue with Trump possibly occupying Greenland isn’t that it might be crazy or bad for Greenland, but that it might hurt the “trans-Atlantic security alliance.” Unless it’s the good part? ...
The Times is right that NATO has “widespread public support” in the United States, though the favorability gap (60%-37%) is due mostly to positive feelings among Democrats, who used to have opposite feelings. Why any American should care about NATO is a more elusive question. The ostensible reason for the alliance ended decades ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union, while the real reasons for maintaining NATO have rarely been articulated, and for good reason. If the world grasped the true dynamics of the Atlanticist dream, the citizens of member countries would demand it be taken behind a shed and shot.
Ed: I am nowhere near as NATO-skeptical as Matt, but it's still an interesting analysis. My issue with NATO is that American security is being used to protect a Europe that has once again mainly turned its back on American ideas of liberty in favor of hierarchical-elite structures of control, especially in speech and commerce. What interests are we protecting with the very expensive umbrella we provide to Brussels? That question is worth exploring.
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Elizabeth "The Anchoress" Scalia at OSV News: Given that his “Dilbert” cartoon spoofed corporate life, it seems fitting Adams approached the idea of religious conversion as a dryly analytical risk-return computation. To some his thinking recalled “Pascal’s wager,” in which 17th-century mathematician Blaise Pascal reasoned that a 50% probability of God’s existence represented a bet worth making.
The question for many — offered in Dilbert-speak — is: Can such a calculated conversion, so full of risk management, “close the deal” and bring a heavenly reward? Some consider his action insufficient, lacking a true encounter with Christ. Others argue that simply saying the words is enough to provide an opening for divine mercy.
Two books can help us with these questions. In the Gospel according to Luke we read of a prodigal son who demands his inheritance and, after wasting it, reasons that a return to his father will fill his belly and serve his needs: “I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.'”
Even if they were not heartfelt, the self-interested son’s words met the formula of apology. We may consider it an inadequate confession, and yet Luke tells us, “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him” (Lk 15:20).
Ed: This is lovely and hope-filled. Please read it all.
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They can call it The Rockford Files, but without James Garner, it won't be the Rockford Files.
— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) January 14, 2026
There was only one James Garner. https://t.co/1VY7vDyaUx
Ed: My Final Word on this is ... NO.
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