Here I am, tabbing like a hurricane ...
Madonna speaking up for Iran, while so many of her colleagues remain silence.
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 15, 2026
Thank you for the moral courage! #FreeIran pic.twitter.com/sPk1TK8IFQ
Ed: This was unexpected, and a very good surprise. Perhaps the corner has been turned with the entertainment industry when it comes to the Iranian regime and the industry elites' silence. Kudos to Madonna, and those are words I would not have predicted having to type.
===
Haviv Rettig Gur at The Free Press: The Islamic Republic survives not because it’s popular but because it’s built to survive. It has an ideological story that gives it an enormous advantage in moments like these, and a security apparatus specifically designed for domestic war against its own people. Indeed, it has failed at just about everything it has tried, or claimed to be trying, for 47 years: destroying Israel, delivering prosperity. Everything except the construction of an expansive and capable domestic architecture of oppression: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the intelligence services, the paramilitary Basij Resistance Force, the police—the whole vast and overlapping architecture of coercion.
And it has repeatedly shown its willingness to spill as much blood as it takes to stay in power.
The question isn’t whether Iranians want change. We know they do. The question is: What kind of pressure actually works on a regime that is willing to destroy its own society rather than lose control of it? So what would it take to actually bring this regime down?
The Iranian regime has more sticking power than Westerners think because its Islamist ideology is, in a certain sense, zero sum.
Ed: This is a sobering essay, and yet another reminder that Westerners keep making a key mistake when assessing the mullahs. Liberals approach it in rational cost-benefit terms, while conservatives view it as irrational altogether. Both are in error. This is a rational tyranny pursuing a non-rational purpose: the delivery of the twelfth-imam prophecy and world control through it. They can justify nearly anything and everything for it, including going down like Wotan in Valhalla. Gur helpfully adds advice on what can truly collapse a regime that has catastrophe tolerance built into its DNA.
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This is why you enforce redlines.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) January 16, 2026
If you don't, and we may already be past the point of it mattering because so many have been murdered, your adversaries take notice.
The consequences of that extend far past Iran. https://t.co/vPom0BSLi8
Ed: Perhaps even better – this is why you wait to draw red lines in the first place. But we're not yet done with this conflict, and Trump may have something in mind yet.
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Politico: President Donald Trump said Friday that he doesn’t see a “reason right now” to invoke the Insurrection Act.
But he could still change his mind.
“It’s been used a lot, and if I needed it, I’d use it,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Mar-a-Lago. “It’s very powerful.”
Trump’s remarks come after he threatened Thursday to use the Insurrection Act to send the military into Minneapolis amid widespread protests over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.
Ed: Maybe this is an example of a judicious use of a red line. Everyone, including Trump, Walz, and Newsom (but not Frey) seems to be retreating from maximalism after Trump threatened it yesterday. The clash in the Twin Cities won't do anyone any favors over the long run, and the point has been made.
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You have the Governor of MN saying they're at "war" with the federal gov't. The Minneapolis Mayor is telling police to "fight ICE on the street."
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 16, 2026
You have ICE agents being assaulted for enforcing federal law.
If this isn't insurrection, then what is?! pic.twitter.com/XtLo9lBG00
Ed: You know what would dial down the tension and keep ICE from conducting sweeps for criminal illegal aliens? Having law enforcement cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement. If Walz wants to "turn down the temperature," that's the most direct and complete way to do it.
===
Mediaite: In a Thursday episode of Politics War Room, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville offered a warning to fellow Democrats against any ‘abolish ICE’ messaging, saying matter-of-factly that “the left is universally wrong about everything.”
Carville’s co-host, Al Hunt, initiated the conversation, saying, “I don’t want any Democrats out there talking about abolishing ICE,” in reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “You talk about reforming ICE. You talk about making ICE work.”
“Defund the police are the three stupidest words in the history of the English language,” responded Carville. “The left is universally wrong about everything… [American people] want to have some type of immigration and customs control.”
Ed: I think it's finally sinking into heads across the political spectrum that no one's winning in this standoff. The first side that starts acting with equanimity wins. And Carville's right about the popularity of immigration control; we have consistent polling on that point, not to mention that Trump won the 2024 election mainly on that issue.
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JUST IN: The White House confirms the U.S. and Denmark will hold regular talks on a potential U.S. acquisition of Greenland, with a joint working group meeting every 2–3 weeks. pic.twitter.com/yZeGiGe6RW
— Salem News Channel (@WatchSalemNews) January 16, 2026
Ed: Well ... we'll discuss a potential acquisition. The Danes will be discussing anything else but a sale. I wonder if the real solution here isn't going to be a 99-year lease on the island except for its populated areas. Do we really want to make them Americans, or are we just concerned about the security implications of the land rather than the people?
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Daily Wire: Vice President JD Vance will headline the March for Life next Friday in Washington, D.C., this year, The Daily Wire can first report.
Vance will speak Friday, January 23, at one of the largest human rights demonstrations in the world, which is held every year on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in defense of the hundreds of thousands of unborn babies whose lives are ended through abortion every year in the United States.
“Vice President Vance is grateful to the tens of thousands of Americans who travel to the National Mall each year to speak out in support of life, and looks forward to joining them for the second consecutive year,” a spokesman for the vice president told The Daily Wire.
Ed: I'm delighted to see this, although I do wonder whether Trump will want one of these slots in his four-year term. Maybe Trump will line up for 2028's March for Life as a valedictory visit.
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Can't give them away and also can't afford to get caught throwing them away. Tough situation. https://t.co/MxUf2w2SMd
— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) January 16, 2026
Ed: Maybe they can give away a free wiping cloth to go with them? Or maybe the Clintons will explain the real reasons they won't testify at the House committee investigating the Epstein files, after Democrats made it into a national crusade?
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Fox News: Rep. Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign recently received almost $10,000 from the California-based office of a top Beijing law firm that has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a Fox News Digital investigation found.
A filing that was released this week reveals that Swalwell’s campaign received $9,999 from the DeHeng Law Offices PC on Dec. 30 and said that the office is based in Pleasanton, Calif. The law firm’s website reveals that this office is their "Silicon Valley Office" and appears to only have one lawyer who works there.
Keliang "Clay" Zhu, who donated $5,000 to Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign this past November and previously donated over $10,000 to his House campaigns, is a partner at the law firm and is the only name listed for the "Silicon Valley Office," according to their website.
Ed: What is it with Swalwell and China? Fang Fang could not be reached for comment.
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Women have the right not to undress in front of men at work.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) January 16, 2026
Twenty years ago, that sentence would have been a statement of such obviousness that people would have laughed at you for saying it aloud. Now it's a matter for celebration. Congratulations, you heroines 🎉😘👏 https://t.co/eDXtbv1Xfx
Ed: Indeed, congratulations ... for winning a battle that common sense should have prevented in the first place.
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WSJ: Josh Keene was feeling pretty good about his health and fitness. Over the past few years, Keene, 40, had figured out a weightlifting routine that worked for him, and had made a concerted effort to eat more natural foods—“Really, just trying to avoid things whose names were long or hard to pronounce,” said Keene, who lives in Auburn, Calif., and works for a utility company. He realized he could apply the same logic elsewhere in his life, too: “I was like, well, what about what I put on my body?” ...
Keene is one of a growing number of men who share concerns that polyester-based shorts and underwear could be harming their fertility, hormones and general health, and who are looking to clothe their most sensitive areas in natural fibers in response.
Though natural-fiber undergarments have been around for years—big-box brands such as Hanes and Calvin Klein sell boxers and briefs marketed as 100% cotton—new companies including Ryker are upping the ante, eagerly marketing their products to men increasingly interested in self-optimization.
Ed: Only "health bros" could feel like they invented cotton briefs and boxers. I'm about to launch a new company called Special Forces to sell 'commando' underwear to health bros. The material costs are dirt cheap.
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I am a woman from a small village in northern Iran.
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 16, 2026
Jailed for protesting.
Beaten for showing my hair.
Expelled from parliament for exposing their corruption.
Forced into exile.
My sister was paraded on state TV to publicly disown me.
My brother was imprisoned as punishment.
My… pic.twitter.com/jJHuunjLOh
My brother was imprisoned as punishment.
My mother was interrogated to stop her from expressing love for me.
Assassins were sent to New York, three times, to kill me.
And now I’m supposed to sit next to them at the U.N. Security Council.
Thanks @USAmbUN for finally giving me a seat, so I can call out the regime, and the U.N. leadership that still legitimizes it.
This is my full address to the UN Security Council about #IranRevoIution2026 and a massacre unfolding in Iran.
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