A Manufacturing Bump

U.S. manufacturing activity unexpectedly expanded in January at the fastest pace since 2022, energized by solid growth from customers’ orders and production. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index rose to 52.6 from 47.9, according to data released in early February. Readings greater than 50 indicate expansion, and the latest figure topped all projections according to Bloomberg News. Following nearly a year of contraction, the demand-related spike in factory activity is welcome news. Sustained growth would help provide reassurance that manufacturing is on the mend after languishing for the past three years and more.

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Not Good News

Now for the bad news on the U.S. economy. U.S.-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, a threefold increase from layoff announcements in December and more than double what was tallied in January 2025, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas’ latest monthly report.

Mostly Not “the Worst”

CBS News is reporting that an internal Homeland Security Department memo shows that only about 14% of the nearly 400,000 individuals arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Donald Trump’s first year back in power had violent criminal records.

Free Seamus

Seamus Culleton of Ireland’s County Kilkenny has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years. He has no criminal record and is married to an American citizen. He even has an up-to-date work visa. That’s why it makes no sense why Culleton was arrested by U.S. immigration officials last summer when he was driving home from work and then left in a cell in El Paso, Texas, with hundreds of illegal immigrants. Bizarrely, Culleton is still stuck in the detention center to this day, but he was able to give an interview recently to an Irish news outlet. “The best way I could describe it is probably like a modern-day concentration camp,” he told the news agency. “It’s a bunch of temporary tents. There’s probably room for a thousand detainees in each tent. I believe there’s like five tents. I’ve been locked in the same room now for four and a half months. … I could probably count on both hands the amount of times I’ve been outside. … We get three meals a day, very, very small meals, kid-sized meals. So everybody’s hungry. Everybody’s tired. We’ve no commissary. We’ve got no options to get extra food or anything like that. The conditions here are filthy. The toilets, the showers, completely nasty, very rarely cleaned.”

MAGA Is a Lie

In a recent interview, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told popular conservative radio personality Kim Iversen that the “Make America Great Again” slogan is a “lie,” saying the president’s first year back in office has mostly been about paying back his wealthy supporters. “I think people are realizing it was all a lie,” she said. “It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors. … The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom. It’s the foreign countries. They are running the show here. It’s the major big corporations and what is best for the world. That’s really what MAGA is. We are seeing war on behalf of Israel. We are seeing the people in Gaza—innocent people in Gaza—hundreds of thousands of them completely murdered so that they can build some new real estate development. Money can pour in and everybody can get rich there in the new Gaza.”

Bizarre, Unnecessary Attack

In a Feb. 2 post to his social media website “Truth Social,” President Donald Trump bizarrely attacked the wife of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), accusing the conservative congressman of disloyalty and alleging that his “liberal” wife was influencing him. The problem is, Massie’s wife, Carolyn, has a long career in conservative activism and even worked for former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. She also says she voted for Trump in all three of the past elections. Trump is reportedly angry that Massie worked with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force the Justice Department to release millions of files the agency was holding on dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Trump has been named thousands of times in the documents along with billionaires and many other Republican and Democrat elites. Greene defended Massie, saying, “Massie votes with the president 91% of the time, but won’t vote to protect Epstein’s sick pedophile and rapists friends or send Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars to Israel’s wars or any other foreign country. The president should be more concerned with voters, who put him in office, like Thomas Massie’s wife, not super rich donors and their favorite foreign countries and business demands.”

Fake Robot Cars

A week after a Waymo robot taxi struck and injured a child near a Santa Monica, Calif. elementary school, Waymo officials have been forced to admit that humans operating out of the Philippines have to step in at times to remotely take over the supposedly automated robot taxi cabs, reports news and commentary website “Business Insider.” During a recent congressional hearing, Waymo Chief Safety Officer Mauricio Peña was grilled over the company’s use of Chinese-made vehicles and reliance on overseas workers. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) blasted the company, accusing them of destroying jobs in the United States. and lying that their cars are completely automated. “We don’t know if these people have U.S. driver’s licenses,” said Markey.

Voter ID

According to polling firm Pew, 83% of Americans are in favor of having to show photo ID to vote. This includes 70% of Democrats and Republicans, as well as 75% of Americans across races.

Ignoring Protocols

In early February, the State Department tried to bypass Congress and secretly send Israel $6.5 billion in taxpayer money and weapons. The deal included Apache attack helicopters and other combat vehicles. The foreign aid had been under review by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but State officials chose to simply ignore standard procedure and just give all the freebies to the tiny Zionist state. The move marks the third time the Trump administration has simply ignored standard protocols and sent taxpayer aid directly to Israel.

Liberty Litmus Test

On Feb. 8, The New York Times published a lengthy article headlined, “MAGA’s Split Over Israel Extends to a Ship Attacked 58 Years Ago.” The article went on to make the debunked claim that the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967 was most likely a case of mistaken identity—it wasn’t—and then accused the entire surviving veteran crew of the Liberty of being liars and anti-Semites—they aren’t. “Conservatives are split between those who are adamant supporters of [Israel] and those critical of the Jewish state who sometimes employ openly anti-Semitic views to make their case,” wrote the Times.

Weasel Visit

Donald Trump has been president only for 12 months, yet, somehow, on Feb. 11, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to weasel his way into the White House for his seventh visit with the chief executive in the last year. This time, Netanyahu seems to be begging the United States to expand nuclear weapons talks to include pushing Iran to get rid of any missiles that can hit Israel—a demand Iranian officials have already rejected. If the Iranians won’t surrender, the Israelis are pressing for the United States to attack Iran for a second time. Hopefully, Trump resists the pressure. The Iranians have already said they will not hold back if the United States bombs them again.

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By Paul Angel

 Robert Southey (1774–1843) was an English author and poet. His biographies included ones on El Cid, Lord Nelson and Robespierre. His vast poetry collection contained  Madoc, The Curse of Kehama and Roderick: The Last of the Goths. Southey was also a scholar, writing books on Brazil  and the Peninsular War.

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His most famous work was none of these, but instead a lengthy poem published in 1837 in a collection called The Doctor. The original piece was titled “The Story of the Three Bears.” After decades of editing, we now know it in its modern incarnation as “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

In the updated version of the tale (1849), a young girl wanders into a cabin inhabited by a family of bears—Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear. Fortuitously for the little girl, the small “sloth” of Ursus arctos living there was out for a short stroll while their piping-hot porridge cooled.

In addition, not living in an area of the woods run by soft-on-crime politicians, the Three Bears left their door unlocked, fortuitous for Goldilocks.

Once inside, as you well know, the pushy little girl helped herself to the Three Bears’ breakfast, testing all the bowls of porridge, looking for one that was “just right.” Goldilocks, you see, liked everything “just right.”

Not wanting to be uncomfortable while she stole the Bear’s food, the tenacious trespasser tested the chairs for one that was “just right,” bursting straight through the caning of the smallest, destroying it.

The juvenile delinquent then barged into the Bear family’s bedrooms and, with unmeasured chutzpah, started testing out the mattresses.

Papa Bear’s Sealy Tempur-Pedic was too hard. Mama’s Simmons Beautyrest was too soft. But Baby Bear’s Stearns & Foster was “just right.” One hopes Goldilocks took off her shoes for, as the story tells us, “she was not at all a well-brought-up little girl.”

When the Bear family returned home, they realized someone had been in the house. The author tells us: “The Three Bears thought they had better make further search in case it was a burglar, so they went upstairs into their bedchamber.”

Papa Bear, with AR-15  in hand, and nervous Mama and Baby Bear following closely behind, opened the door to the cub’s bedroom. There was the blond squatter, fast asleep. She woke up quickly, however, when Papa Bear let out a massive roar.  Goldie then lept out the open window:

So naughty, frightened little Goldilocks jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall, or ran into the wood and was lost there, or found her way out of the wood and got whipped for being a bad girl and playing truant, no one can say. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her.

That ends the most famous portion of the iconic tale. But let me relate to you the part you never heard. You see, Papa Bear was the managing editor of an independent newspaper. He had been working there for 30 years. Part of his job was to read the letters the paper received every week.

He looked forward to it, even though not all of the letters were  complimentary. He thus learned to keep the letters in two folders. One he called “fan mail,” containing encouraging, friendly letters, and the other he labeled “hate mail,” some of which contained words he could not repeat in the pages of his newspaper.

Over the decades, the “fan mail” folder was always significantly thicker than the “hate mail” folder. After all, readers of his newspaper, The Bare Truth, were intelligent, mostly middle-class American bears who appreciated the paper’s pledge “to report on events vital to your welfare but which are hushed up or distorted by the controlled press.”

That meant Papa Bear was obliged to give the good news and the bad, no matter who the subject of the story was. He fortified himself by remembering the words of one of his favorite human orators, Thomas Jefferson:

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

But Papa Bear noticed something inexplicable. After the re-election of President Orange Bear, the “hate mail” file started getting thicker than the “fan mail” file. And the emails (the way that Papa Bear prefers to receive letters because it makes his life so much easier) started getting longer and more critical of his paper’s coverage of President Orange Bear.

That all comes as no surprise, as this Orange Bear character is a complicated animal, capable of moments of true compassion but susceptible to frenetic episodes of umbrageous behavior—a beast who elicits a wide range of emotions from hate to love.

But here’s what was a surprise to Papa Bear: His readers, who had, over the decades, been in total agreement with one another on almost all the biggest topics, were on Polar Bear opposites of this Orange Bear issue.

In fact, in one week, Papa Bear received letters from two longtime subscribers who were cancelling their subscriptions—one because the paper was unforgiveably soft on Orange Bear and the other because his newspaper was being too anti-Orange Bear. They wanted all of the reporting on Orange Bear to mirror their conceived notion of “just right.”

After puzzling over it for a while, Papa Bear realized that there is no such thing as a “just right” newspaper. The “news” isn’t “just right.” Facts are. The only course to take was to keep telling the truth, no matter what bears (or humans) his paper gored.

By the way, the original ending of the story wasn’t too bright. The bears were originally a trio of bachelors, and the intruder was a “nasty old woman.” In some renditions the hag is jailed. In others she is lost forever in the woods. (Had she been 13,  I’d have told them to look on Epstein Island.)

Fair warning: In  the even older oral folk versions of the story, the complaining nag is impaled on the spire of a local edifice by Papa Bear.

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By the  Staff of AFP

After a series of high-profile blunders, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)  has done something that all Americans—except for the most radical activists on the left—can agree is positive. DHS officials have created a searchable website that documents the thousands of violent criminal illegal aliens who have been rounded up in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration program.

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DHS’s extensive website is thousands of pages long and features at least five criminal illegal aliens on each page. Each of them has a short profile listed, and each has been convicted or implicated in heinous crimes that include child rape, sexual assault, murder, and illicit drug dealing.

Since Donald Trump took office for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025, it has not always been smooth sailing in regard to his deportation policy.

For example, on June 12, 2025, Trump was widely criticized after he announced a pause on immigration arrests for illegal immigrants who work in the hotel, gambling, and construction industries—all businesses that exploit cheap illegal labor over American workers.

Shortly before that, the Trump administration had received serious criticism—including from this populist newspaper—after his immigration officials began arresting and jailing legal immigrants for the crimes of criticizing Israel and its genocidal war across Palestine.

Finally, there have been multiple reports that innocent individuals who are legally in the United States have been caught up in immigration raids and forced to spend months in detention camps around the United States. On page two in this week’s issue, AFP profiles one such man, Seamus Culleton, an Irish citizen who is currently languishing in an immigration detention site in El Paso, Texas, despite having lived and worked here for the last 20 years.

After these missteps, the Trump administration needed to refocus attention on what matters: removing violent illegal immigrants, who the Biden administration had allowed to remain in the United States despite their convictions. DHS’s website does this.

Some of the worst of the worst, taken off U.S. streets, include:

This is just a tiny sample of the illegal criminal aliens, who had been convicted of vicious, violent crimes in the United States but had been idling in a jail cell at U.S. taxpayers’ expense or still walking the streets. Thanks to immigration authorities, these men are now either locked up in detention centers, awaiting deportation orders, or have been put on a plane and sent back to their home countries—much to the relief of all of the Americans who had to live next door to them.

DHS’s website is available for free to the public and can be found on the web at DHS.gov/wow.

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What follows is an exclusive interview conducted by AFP’s James Edwards with retired police officer Jim Lancia, author of Downtown White Police: Demonizing the Alpha Cop, Glorifying Thugs, and Militarizing Law Enforcement. Lancia’s book is a warning, he says, about the “corruption of authentic street law enforcement. “ He says, “This country is getting ugly, and it’s going to get uglier unless we have an extreme course correction.” Let us know if you agree or disagree with Lancia.—Ed. 

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American Free Press: You were only 18 years old when you were hired by the Bridgeport Police Department in Connecticut and patrolled one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America during the height of the crack epidemic in the 1980s. What are the things you remember most when looking back on your career?

Jim Lancia: I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I appreciated the camaraderie, the action, the danger, and the sense of contributing to society by fighting violent crime. In my view, violent crime represents a significant existential threat to the well-being of all Americans.

AFP: You once carried out seven felony arrests in a single week and executed search warrants with only a billy club and a six-shooter. How has policing changed since your time on the beat, and what has happened to the archetypal alpha cop?

Lancia: I had the unique experience of working in some of the most violent areas in the United States. One particular housing project was rated as the No. 1 most violent in the nation by FBI crime statistics. Felony arrests were frequent because my patrols took place in urban war zones. However, we managed to do our jobs without acting like military occupying forces, even though we were essentially fighting a war by any definition.

In my book, I define the “alpha cop” as an officer who fulfills his duty regardless of the dangers involved. Unfortunately, many officers in large police departments are shirkers and pretenders. What has happened? It’s easy to wear the uniform and pretend to be a cop, but the real alpha cops are often demonized as racist and viewed as obsolete relics of America’s past.

AFP: You have the experience and insight that journalists, politicians, attorneys, race hucksters, and even politically enslaved police spokespersons can never have. Generally speaking, what was your reaction to watching the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots after George Floyd’s death, in Minneapolis and nationwide?

Lancia: The civil unrest associated with BLM protests resulted from weakened police departments, officers kneeling, retreating, designating certain areas as no-go zones, and permitting lawlessness to prevail. This troubling conduct by police and their failure to uphold their duty would not have been tolerated 30 years ago.

AFP: We all watched the footage of the ICE officer shooting activist Renee Good, which also occurred in Minneapolis. As a trained law enforcement officer, what is your opinion about what happened that day?

Lancia: I discussed this in detail during my recent interview on your radio program. I never like to judge another law enforcement officer’s actions, but, in my view, it could have been handled without lethal force. From some angles, it looks like he wasn’t hit by the car.

He’s claiming internal injuries, and, if he does have internal injuries, then his claim might be validated. But it’s ultimately going to come down to where it’s going to be tried and what kind of jury they have.

To be honest, I wouldn’t have stood in front of a car with other officers telling her to move. They took too long to control the situation. If you want someone to get out of a car and they don’t comply, just break the window and drag them out.

I know that sounds brutal, but it would have saved her life and prevented the injuries the officer is claiming. I dragged drunks out of cars. I’ve taken them right out of the window, but you need a strong guy to do that. But that’s why you need to pick the right guy for the job.

AFP: Since that day, there have been numerous videos that can be found on social media showing ICE officers being surrounded by gangs of Somalians and other “protestors” and forced to retreat. What is it like for you to see that?

Lancia: There can be no retreat. You face the threat and deal with it. Surely, being surrounded by menacing thugs who outnumber you is more dangerous than an unarmed woman in a vehicle. This situation seems like selective enforcement.

I have a story to share. I arrested a drug dealer who was planning to assassinate another drug dealer in the projects. After a chase, I managed to save the life of the targeted dealer.

I was alone during this pursuit and ran through the entire area until I finally caught up with the suspect. I knocked him down and arrested him, but while I was securing him in handcuffs, a crowd of 50 to 60 people surrounded me, throwing bricks and yelling threats like “kill the white cop!” They wanted to take my prisoner away from me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I pulled out my weapon and warned them, “You better back off, or I will use this.” And they kept their distance until backup arrived. In situations like this, you can defend yourself. Cops don’t run away. They don’t kneel or back down, and there are no “no-go” zones. This country is emasculated, and so is law enforcement.

I did my job, and they don’t like officers like me anymore. But that’s how you handle a situation. You don’t run away from 50 Somalians. That’s how you lose control of a situation. I would rather die than run.

AFP: If you were advising the Trump administration on how to arrest the situation, so to speak, what would your recommendations be?

Lancia: Well, if I had carte blanche to do something, I would reverse the Hart-Celler Act, the Immigration Act of 1965, first. Then I would arrest all the people involved in allowing this recent immigration invasion. Everybody involved in that would be brought to trial for allowing this.

But Minneapolis is out of control. ICE has got to get back to going after the gangs, and these Somali fraudsters should all be arrested and deported.

If these ICE guys went after violent people and hardcore criminals, they’d be looked at as heroes. But they’re often going after soft targets. We in the law enforcement community don’t respect that. That’s why I was in elite units, because I wanted to go after the really bad, violent guys. And I loved it. And that’s what you need. You need guys who are willing to go after the violent criminals and overpower them.

Also, law enforcement personnel need to do their jobs and then leave the scene. Once an arrest is made, they should move on rather than linger and wait for the crowd to disperse. Urban cops know this.

This lack of proper procedure is concerning. Officers seem unsure how to do their jobs, and it’s clear they aren’t receiving the guidance they need from their superiors.

AFP: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz are openly supporting the criminal actors in their city and state, which is fomenting an atmosphere of lawlessness and violence. There is footage online of the Minneapolis police, including Chief Brian O’Hara, who defended the anti-ICE rioters, being chased by protestors. Would you like to comment on that?

Lancia: If all elected officials obeyed and enforced existing laws, we would not be in this perilous situation. If Trump really wanted to take action, these mayors could be arrested for interfering, but he won’t do it.

I’ve always said that I’ve worked with many three-letter agencies—such as the ATF, DEA, and FBI. They would request my assistance when they had warrants, and we would go after the bad guys.

However, we could never refuse to back them up simply because we didn’t like them or disagreed with their politics. If they had a legal warrant or a valid reason, we had to support their efforts. We had to fulfill that obligation.

If there were no ulterior motives from Donald Trump or anyone else, and the only aim was to remove illegal aliens and improve America, I’d support him invoking the Insurrection Act. Minnesota could serve as an example or testing ground for this, but you’ve got to make big-time arrests, including high-profile people.

If the Trump folks really want to remove illegal immigrants and are facing pushback from the governor and the mayor, then I believe they should take decisive action to set an example and effectively address the situation. That’s how you handle it, and then everyone else will start falling in line.

But Trump is all over the place. He overpromises and under-delivers in these situations. He also needs to get off the Zion train, by the way.

AFP: If topics like this are of interest to our readers, and I’m sure that they are, more information can be found in your book. Give us a plug.

Lancia: My book will reveal the final days of real cops, genuine policing, and what law enforcement has devolved into today. Every American is negatively impacted by this corruption of authentic street law enforcement. This country is getting ugly, and it’s going to get uglier unless we have an extreme course correction.

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By José Niño

When President Donald Trump unveiled his Board of Peace at a signing ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, the initiative promised a new framework for resolving the Gaza conflict. Yet the document establishing this international organization makes no mention of Gaza, Palestine, or the specific mandate outlined in the United Nations Security Council resolution that authorized it.

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Instead, critics warn, the Board represents an unprecedented concentration of power in one individual’s hands, a pay to play system requiring billion-dollar contributions for permanent membership, and a governance structure that excludes the very people it purports to help.

The board emerged from Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza conflict, endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803 in November 2025. However, the actual charter circulated to national capitals describes the board as “an international organization” seeking to “secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” Its preamble asserts that “durable peace” requires “courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed.”

Most troubling is the governance structure itself. The Guardian reported:

Most of the text is devoted to the club rules, which make the chairman (Trump himself—the only person mentioned by name) all-powerful. All other members are selected by him and can be terminated by him. The chairman (mentioned 35 times in the document) can choose when the board meets and what it discusses. He can issue resolutions off his own bat.

Even permanent membership can be terminated by Trump, despite countries paying $1 billion “in cash funds” for that status.

According to the charter, Trump holds authority to veto any decision, approve or reject meeting agendas, invite or exclude member countries at his discretion, dissolve the entire board, select his successor, and maintain the chairmanship indefinitely, potentially beyond his presidency.

The board’s membership has raised eyebrows for both who joined and who declined.

Countries that agreed to participate include Argentina, Belarus, Morocco, Vietnam, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kosovo, Hungary, Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia. Notably absent are major European democracies.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban emerged as the board’s most enthusiastic supporter, declaring on social media: “If Trump, then peace. We have, of course, accepted this honorable invitation.” Orban characterized the board as “one of the first institutions of the new world order.”

The billion-dollar membership fee has drawn particularly sharp criticism. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Ca.) delivered one of the most pointed critiques at Davos:

I am not ignorant of the unprecedented corruption and graft we are witnessing in American history. I recognize that billion-dollar checks are being written to [Steven] Witkoff and Jared Kushner for the new peace agreement being announced today.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Ma.) posted simply: “This isn’t a Board of Peace, it’s Cash for Trump.”

Aaron Miller, a former U.S. diplomat, characterized the fee as fundamentally unserious:

Adding a billion-dollar entry fee as if this is getting a seasonal membership at Mar-a-Lago has created the sense that this is not serious.

Perhaps most controversial is the board’s composition. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Trump’s invitation despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant charging him with “war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare” and “crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts” in Gaza.

The executive board includes several figures who have sparked controversy. Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management and a Peace Board member, “led a campaign to defund UPenn after it hosted a Palestinian literary festival. Told donors to ‘close their checkbooks’.”

Another Gaza Executive Board member, Yakir Gabay, an Israeli-Cypriot billionaire, “was part of a group chat with U.S. business leaders strategizing how to ‘change the narrative’ in favor of Israel after Oct. 7.”

Tony Blair’s involvement has proven particularly contentious. As former UK Prime Minister, Blair’s legacy includes the 2003 Iraq invasion and a tenure as Quartet envoy to the Middle East marked by failure to achieve a two-state solution.

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese captured the outrage, posting: “Tony Blair? Hell no. Hands off Palestine. Shall we meet in the Hague perhaps?”

Palestinians themselves are conspicuously absent from both the main Peace Board and the Gaza Executive board. Instead, they are relegated to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a subordinate body tasked with managing municipal services under foreign supervision.

Independent journalist Ahmed Eldin described the hierarchical structure bluntly:

You have the Board of Peace. You have Trump as emperor of it. You have this founding [Gaza] Executive Committee. And then, you know, they’re under that. They have absolutely no sovereignty, no control and no real say over the decisions of the lives of Palestinians in Gaza.

Marc Weller, director of the international law program at Chatham House, offered a stark assessment:

In opting out of this consensus, the United States risks assuming the position of a rogue state within the international system.

The implications extend far beyond Gaza. Trump told reporters that the board might replace the UN, which “just hasn’t been very helpful.” Foreign Policy warned

Trump’s “Board of Peace” is neither an alternative to the UN nor a harmless vanity project but a threat to international cooperation.

Whether the board will achieve lasting peace remains deeply uncertain. What is clear is that its establishment marks a significant departure from seven decades of American leadership in multilateral institutions, concentrating unprecedented power in one individual while sidelining the people most affected by the conflict it claims to resolve.

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By José Niño

The doorbell rang at Raquel Pacheco’s Miami Beach home on a January afternoon. When she answered, two detectives were standing there with questions about her Facebook posts.

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A few months earlier, halfway across the country, Adam Pyres would receive a similar visit from Texas law enforcement at his home near Temple. Both encounters, recorded on video and shared widely online, have ignited a national debate about whether American police are using concerns about “hate speech” and public safety as a pretext to suppress political criticism.

“Free speech died at my door on Monday afternoon at 2 p.m.,” Pacheco told The Advocate after the Jan. 12, 2026 encounter. “That’s what it felt like.”

The two cases share a troubling pattern. In both instances, law enforcement officials appeared at private residences to question citizens about social media posts criticizing Israeli policies or public officials connected to Israel policy debates. In both cases, no arrests were made and no charges filed. Yet civil liberties organizations warn that these “voluntary conversations” may represent government intimidation of protected political speech.

Pacheco, a 51-year-old military veteran and small business owner, had posted a Facebook comment criticizing Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner’s record on Palestinian rights and LGBTQ+ issues. When the detectives arrived, she immediately invoked her constitutional rights. “I refuse to answer questions without my lawyer present,” she said in the video.

The officers assured her she was not going to jail and claimed they were simply there “to have a conversation.” But their explanation revealed a troubling rationale. “The concerning part, not concerning for the person who’s posting it,” one officer told Pa­checo, “is when we’re just trying to prevent somebody else getting agitated or agreeing with the statement.”

The detective went on to say that language in the post “can probably incite somebody to do something radical,” though he acknowledged “we are not saying it’s true or not.” He advised Pacheco to “refrain from posting things like that” because it “could get something instigated.”

“What really stood out to me was that they said people might agree with it,” Pacheco said later. “Since when is agreement grounds for police intervention?”

Miami Beach Police Chief Wayne Jones defended the visit in a Jan. 15 statement. Jones said:

Given the real, ongoing national and international concerns surrounding anti-Semitic attacks and recent rhetoric that has led to violence against political figures, I directed two of my detectives to initiate a brief, voluntary conversation regarding certain inflammatory, potentially inciteful false remarks made by a resident.

Yet The Miami Herald reported that Meiner’s office was first to flag Pacheco’s comment to police, contradicting the narrative of independent police action.

In Texas, Adam Pyres faced a similar encounter on Oct. 29, 2025. Officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety and Bell County Sheriff’s Office appeared at his home after an anonymous tip flagged his social media posts about Israel.

In video Pyres recorded, an officer stated simply, “We’re here because of the comments you made online about Israel.” No charges were filed.

Civil liberties advocates see both incidents as constitutional violations dressed up as public safety measures. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sent a letter to Miami Beach police on Jan. 16 calling the Pacheco visit “an egregious abuse of power” and a clear First Amendment violation. FIRE wrote:

Law enforcement officers making a surprise appearance on an individual’s doorstep to convey official disapproval of her protected expression chills the exercise of First Amendment rights.

The organization noted that the officers’ own words showed they were attempting to pressure Pacheco to stop engaging in protected political speech out of concern that others might react to or agree with it. “That is not a lawful basis for police intervention,” FIRE stated.

The pattern extends beyond individual cases. Politicians and public officials are increasingly exploiting concerns about anti-Semitism and “hate speech” to justify actions against political critics.

Constitutional law provides clear boundaries. Under the Brandenburg test established by the Supreme Court in 1969 in the Brandenburg v. Ohio case, speech can be restricted only if it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action. Criticism of public officials receives the highest level of First Amendment protection, even when harsh or vehement.

Yet the gap between constitutional principle and police practice appears to be widening. When officers tell a citizen they want to prevent people from “agreeing” with her criticism of an elected official, they cross a fundamental line. That is viewpoint discrimination, the most constitutionally suspect form of speech suppression.

“If the police can show up because someone might agree with you, then none of us are safe to speak,” Pacheco said.

For Pacheco, who served in the Connecticut Army National Guard from 1993 to 1999, the encounter echoed repression she thought she had left behind. “My overwhelming feeling was that freedom of speech as I know it died at my front step yesterday,” she told CBS News Miami.

When government officials dispatch police to citizens’ homes because their political opinions might persuade others, they abandon core democratic principles. As FIRE warned:

A person of ordinary firmness would likely self-censor based on a reasonable belief that continuing to post similar content would invite further law enforcement scrutiny.

That chilling effect operates regardless of whether arrests occur. The presence of police at the door is deterrent enough for people to stop speaking their minds.

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Weaponizing Banks

On Jan. 22, President Donald Trump announced that he personally was suing JPMorgan Chase and its longtime CEO Jamie Dimon over charges that the company “debanked” him by closing his accounts in 2021 and putting him on a blacklist. The 26-page complaint, filed in Florida state court, seeks at least $5 billion in damages from JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank. His new lawsuit centers on JP Morgan Chase’s decision to close several bank accounts affiliated with Trump in February 2021, weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol protest. JP Morgan Chase is only one of many top banks in the West that weaponized the financial system against conservatives in the last decade.

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Outright Thievery

According to independent news website “Drop Site,” President Trump said the United States has “taken control of Venezuela’s oil,” but so far the United States has only completed an initial sale worth about $500 million. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez of Venezuela said $300 million from that sale has been transferred to Venezuelan banks from a bank account in Qatar, where the proceeds are reportedly being held under U.S. oversight. Neither the United States nor the Venezuelan government has fully explained how the remaining $200 million from the initial $500 million sale will be distributed or used.

Only Congress …

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has been openly critical of the way the Trump administration has been managing the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. “Selling stolen oil and putting billions of dollars in a bank in Qatar to be spent without congressional approval is not constitutional,” said Massie. “Only Congress can appropriate money.”

Paid to  Burn Crops?

American farmers have always had it tough, but the current trade wars going on between major powers are making matters worse. “Prices for nearly every major crop are below what it costs to grow them,” reported The New York Times on Jan. 27. Soybean growers made the news during the fall harvest, but the Times recently featured the plight of rice growers in the South who have also been hit hard because no one is buying their product. “Farmers in Mississippi are perhaps worse off than farmers in the rest of the country,” reported the Times. “Things feel so hopeless that at a recent Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation meeting, a group representing farmers floated the idea of a government program that would pay producers to destroy the harvested rice sitting in their bins.” That is not what farmers want. They want a fair price for all their hard work, not handouts. As a result, many aging farmers are thinking of selling their land and cashing out. “There are a lot of people getting out or thinking about it,” a Mississippi real estate broker confided to the Times.

Tariffs Just Another Tax

News and commentary website “Business Insider” recently reported on a new study by the German think tank, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which found that, in the last year, 96% of U.S. tariffs have been paid by U.S. buyers while only about 4% of the tariff burden was paid by foreign exporters. “American importers and consumers bear nearly all the cost,” the researchers said of the tariffs. The study, published in early January, said that the $200 billion increase in customs revenue that the U.S. government raised in 2025 was a “tax paid almost entirely by Americans.”

Biggest Scammers

AFP has reported on the Medicare scams carried out by immigrant groups in Minnesota totaling in excess of a billion dollars. What has not been detailed, however, is that private insurance companies have scammed taxpayers out of nearly 10 times the amount perpetrated by individual fraudsters. According to a recent report released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission found that private insurers like UnitedHealth and Kaiser regularly fudge and inflate costs to the tune of nearly $40 billion annually. “These payments flow from taxpayers, including beneficiaries who are then hit twice,” reported the committee. These are nationwide issues, but because the private insurers are exploiting a cumbersome, clumsy system with little oversight rather than outright scamming, they get away with it.

Medical Fraud

A California woman is making waves in the news. Beth Bourne recently documented how she exposed so-called “gender affirming care” for the fraud that it is. “After my daughter’s pediatrician at Kaiser Permanente tried to put her on puberty blockers and wrong-sex hormones when she was only 14, I did an undercover story where I pretended to be ‘nonbinary’,’” wrote Bourne. She went on to explain that, in multiple internet video calls over the course of nine months, health insurer Kaiser approved her for radical surgeries that included a double mastectomy and even multiple sex-change surgeries. “It was only a $100 co-pay for my elective mastectomy and $200 co-pay for my ‘phalloplasty,’ yet the surgeons would bill $25,000 for mastectomy and $135,000 for the ‘phalloplasty’, ” she noted.

Bankrupt AI

A new article that predicts the downfall of artificial intelligence company OpenAI by independent journalist Will Lockett is getting a lot of attention online. Writes Lockett: “It turns out no one wants to pay for this crap, and recent investigations show that less than 5% of ChatGPT users pay for it.” He continued: “Like the first wisps of smoke drifting away from the Hindenburg, the early warning signs of OpenAI’s imminent and inevitable catastrophic destruction are now undeniable. This is a problem, as unlike, the Hindenburg, which carried a cargo of rich elites, OpenAI’s cargo is the U.S. economy. We can all see the smoke. Yet the crew of OpenAI’s airship, its fanatical passengers and the dimwits charged with looking after its precious cargo have reached mass hysteria levels of delusional denial and are claiming everything is fine and that they are in fact on course to land in paradise.”

Judge and Jury

A federal law passed in 2021 by Congress mandates that new cars built after 2026 in the United States must be able to monitor drivers and shut down the car if the system disapproves of their driving. Essentially, the computer inside your car will be your judge and jury, and you will have no recourse over it as it kills the engine and forces you off the road, perhaps for going a few miles over the speed limit. The law was passed as part of the “HALT Drunk Driving Act,” and was part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The measure was sold as only applying to drunk driving, but critics are concerned that the vague language in the law will allow it to be applied to anything a driver does that the car does not like.

Surge in Wealth

The personal wealth of members of Congress has long been a matter of public concern. Recently, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) finances have come under scrutiny—especially following reports that even the Biden administration was investigating the meteoric rise in her wealth in the past few years. Conservative publications have focused on Omar’s most recent financial disclosure. Several outlets, starting with the “Washington Free Beacon,” among others, reported that Omar’s net worth had surged to as much as $30 million. The outlets pointed to two assets Omar cited on her form: a winery business valued between $1 million and $5 million, and Rose Lake Capital LLC, a venture capital firm, valued between $5 million and $25 million. Omar has tried to defend herself, saying that both of those assets are owned by her husband, Mark Mynett: “The value range listed for the assets reflects the full cost assessment of the businesses, in which my husband is one of several partners and does not reflect his individual share.”

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By Paul Angel

Virginia is a lovely state. We have the Blue Ridge Mountains, beautiful rivers, a long coastline on the Chesapeake Bay, and lots of American history, from Revolutionary War-era mansions and famed battlefields to omnipresent Civil War memorials, and more. Upon the exit of conservative Gov. Glen Youngkin, Virginia also had a $2.7 billion budget surplus. That is not going to last long.

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On Jan. 17, 2026, Democrat “centrist” and “moderate” Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as governor of the Old Dominion.

Over and again people told me that “Abigail is a moderate. You don’t have to worry about her.” They chose to ignore my critiques. Unfortunately, I was right. Upon entering office, Gov. Spanberger began issuing every kind of far-left executive order (EO) imaginable, undoing the previous gov­ernor’s excellent work in trying to de-wokify Virginia.

Mike Gonzalez, in an article in The Washington Examiner headlined “Virginia’s New ‘Centrist’ Governor Goes Full California on Day One,” gives us the bad news:

What a difference four years makes. Now that she has been sworn in as governor of the Old Dominion herself, after running as a “centrist” and being portrayed by the media as such, Abigail Spanberger is pulling a “Joe Biden” on everything from abortion to anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

Her far-leftist playbook has conservatives shaking their heads and saying, “Told ya so.”

Spanberger, a former CIA officer (that should have been a red flag) adept at propaganda, had been smart enough during the campaign to make sure she didn’t repeat the same mistake as Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Terry McAuliffe did in his debates with Youngkin in 2021: Tell how he really felt about the hot-button issues.

In those debates, McAuliffe defended his position on full-term abortion as a woman’s right and also insisted that parents really shouldn’t have any say in their child’s public school curriculum. Those comments cost him the election in a state Joe Biden won by 10 points in 2020.

As an example of her practiced duplicity, when asked by GOP gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears at the 2025 debate if Spanberger would object to one of her teenaged daughters having to dress and undress with a transsexual man in a sports locker room or share a bathroom with a grown man, Spanberger knew to avoid that kind of campaign landmine by remaining completely silent.

I have no doubt Spanberger is revulsed by the idea of her partially unclothed teenaged daughters spending time in any enclosed space with a man who says he is a woman, but she is a devout Democrat and, hence, must support what the party tells her to. There really is no debate about that. If you are a Democrat politician in America today, you have to like weird things—or at least pretend to.

Cleverly, Spanberger instead left it to her boosters in the left-wing media to continue to speak for her without revealing her truly radical bent.

Faithfully, her allies in the media did their job. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post threw in the word “moderate” in any headline about Spanberger (or, for that matter, New Jersey’s new female Gov. Mikie Sherrill). “Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Sherrill are moderate women,” chimed the Times “The two congresswomen, both moderates, have shared a Capitol Hill apartment for the past four years,” the Post echoed.

So, what has the “moderate centrist” Spanber­ger done since she assumed the office of governor a month ago? According to Americans for Tax Reform, she will (or has already):

Her executive orders have also:

Power will go back to a professoriate that has been totally captured by the left, and which will soon go back to running diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that run afoul of … the Constitution.

As for abortion, Spanberger—as did former Govs. Ralph Nor­tham and McAuliffe—is now openly supporting a Virginia constitutional amendment that would permit abortion-on-demand until birth.

I enjoyed Youngkin’s stint as governor. Most Virginians are better off. Unfortunately, Donald Trump’s firing of so many Northern Virginians by DOGE had tens of thousands of voting families fuming—and motivated. Earle-Sears didn’t stand a chance.

I hope Spanberger—this wolf in ewe’s clothing—doesn’t shear us all.

But beware: There are more members of this hair-raising genus, Lupus spanbergis, hiding in the political woods, ready to pounce and turn your state into California, too!

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By the Staff of AFP

The United States appears to be on the precipice of yet another costly, unnecessary war in the Middle East—this time with Iran—as the self-described “peace president” takes to the internet to threaten even more bombings.

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On Jan. 28, President Donald Trump posted on his social media “Truth Social” platform:

A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose. It is a larger fleet, headed by the great aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, than that sent to Vene­zuela. Like with Venezuela, it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.

Trump concluded his missive that he hoped Iran would come to the table, because it cannot have nuclear weapons—despite Trump claiming last June that the first round of bombs he ordered to be dropped on Iran’s nuclear sites on June 22 had “completely and totally obliterated” the Persian state’s nuclear capabilities.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would “stop the chaos in the Middle East.” He claimed he wanted to be remembered as a “peacemaker.” The United States, however, remains firmly mired in that bloody region, working closely with the Israelis on a genocide in Gaza as well as multiple regime-change wars throughout the region.

Why should the Iranians trust anything Trump has to say given his past statements?

On June 12, Trump posted a message on his social media site that the United States remains “committed to a diplomatic resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”

On June 15, while negotiations were scheduled to take place in Oman, Israel began bombing Iran, killing Iranian military officials and scientists and their families in their beds.

Ten days after that, the United States dropped more than a dozen bunker-busting “mother of all bombs” on Iran’s three nuclear facilities.

At that time, Trump openly bragged that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had misled Iran to achieve the element of surprise. He even admitted that he ordered the U.S. bombing while his own negotiators were working on a deal with Iranian officials, effectively exploiting the talks as a ruse for a sneak attack.

In a speech in Turkey on June 22, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi slammed the president:

Trump has betrayed not only Iran by abusing our commitment to diplomacy, but also his own voters by submitting to the wishes of wanted war criminal Netanyahu who has grown accustomed to exploiting the lives and wealth of American citizens.

On Jan. 28, Iranian officials at the New York consulate fired back on social media site “X,” rightly pointing out:

Last time the United States blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives.

The Iranians then concluded:

Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—but if pushed, it will defend itself and respond like never before.

The latest figures for the U.S. national debt has it topped out at nearly $40 trillion. This is largely the result of repeated federal budget deficits, driven largely by unprecedented military spending, that is bankrupting this nation. U.S. debt is expected to reach $50 trillion in the next four years, as it grows by around $1 trillion every three months.

The United States simply cannot afford another war—especially with a country like Iran that has never really threatened the United States.

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Going to War

Shortly after Jan. 1, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. military budget was being increased from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, leading popular conservative commentator Tucker Carlson to claim that this can only indicate one thing: the United States will be going to war yet again.

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End Foreign Aid

As Congress negotiates a new bill to fund the entire federal government for the next few months, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) offered this suggestion: “This week I could save taxpayers $6.9 billion with three amendments I have submitted to cut foreign aid from the spending bill. One saves $3.3 billion from Israel. One saves $2.1 billion from Jordan. One saves $1.5 billion from Egypt.”

Affordable Meat?

State legislation (H.B. 396) recently passed the New Hampshire state House which allows small farms to process animals on site rather than having to trek all the way to USDA-run slaughterhouses. This will ease the burden for farmers struggling to find butchers and should make red meat much more affordable for Americans.

Manufacturing Struggles

U.S. manufacturing contracted for a 10th straight month in December, pointing to a continued drag in sentiment from tariffs and trade policy uncertainty, reports economic news outlet Barrons. The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing index fell to 47.9 from November’s 48.2 reading, the lowest of 2025 despite modest improvements in employment and some other categories. A transportation company told Barrons, “The general mood of the industry is that the first half of 2026 will be another bust, and we’re now hoping things pick up in the second half, even as the North American truck fleet continues to age.”

Mossad in Iran

Many Iranians protesting in their country have legitimate grievances, but former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo may have inadvertently clued the world into who is behind violent protests spreading across the Persian country, writing on social media platform “X” on Jan. 2: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

Mossad in Iran, Part II

On Dec. 29, one day after demonstrations kicked off in Iran, The Jerusalem Post published the following article, headlined “Mossad Spurs Iran Protests, Says Agent With Demonstrators in Farsi Message.” The article reports: “As protests grow across Iran, the Mossad posted an unusual Farsi message urging demonstrators to act, saying it is with them in the streets, amid rising economic pressure and public unrest.”

Violent Protests

Iran’s Fars News Agency has been reporting extensively on the riots taking place across Iran. In one of the worst examples, according to Fars, rioters in the city of Borujen set fire to an ancient library containing many original books and rare manuscripts, burning the building and all of its contents to the ground. In another example, Fars reported on video showing protesters attacking an Iranian police officer and then lighting him on fire and killing him.

Questionable Stats

When it comes to the numbers of protesters killed in Iran in the last few weeks, Western media have been relying on information released by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The only problem is HRANA is based out of Northern Virginia, not Iran, and is largely funded by the CIA-backed National Endowment for Democracy, leading objective observers to question its objectivity.

What Is Going on?

Only days after U.S. special forces kidnapped former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Reuters reported that at least a dozen cargo ships including oil tankers from multiple BRICS nations left ports in Venezuela loaded with oil. These countries included China, Russia, and India. U.S. officials claimed at least three of the ships turned around and headed back to port, but global ship tracking websites still show significant sea trade going on in the country. “All the departed vessels identified are under sanctions and most are now sailing on the high seas without any known flag or current ship safety documentation in place, shipping data showed,” reported Reuters. “Half of them are supertankers that typically carry Venezuelan crude to China, according to Tanker Trackers.com and shipping documents from [state-run Venezuelan oil company] PDVSA.”

Venezuelan Deal

The New York Times reported on Oct. 10 that the United States and Venezuela were in negotiations in September and that Venezuela promised even more than the Trump administration was demanding, but Trump officials cut off negotiations anyway. Following that, the United States starting executing alleged drug dealers and confiscating oil tankers and then risking the lives of soldiers on a stunt to kidnap Maduro. “Under a deal discussed between a senior U.S. official and Mr. Maduro’s top aides, the Venezuelan strongman offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to American companies, give preferential contracts to American businesses, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and slash his country’s energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian firms,” reported the Times. That deal certainly sounds better than the current chaos the U.S. has inflicted on Venezuela.

Insider Trading

A mysterious online bettor made more than $400,000 on Polymarket, a website that lets people wager cryptocurrency on the odds of real-world events occurring, by correctly predicting the U.S. would invade Venezuela and topple President Nicolas Maduro. The bets, which are viewable on Polymarket’s website, have prompted fresh concerns that the rise of similar platforms can allow insiders privy to confidential or classified information to easily use their knowledge to profit.

Surveillance State

According to news reports, federal agents on immigration duties have been taking unprecedented numbers of videos and photos as part of a growing surveillance state with no oversight. Agents have been working with Big Tech to implement facial recognition, phone tracking, license plate readers, and government databases that have been augmented by private technology companies.

Buying Greenlanders’ Support

According to multiple news reports, the White House may offer individual Greenlanders between $10,000 and $100,000 of U.S. taxpayers’ money to support secession from Denmark.

Sad State of Art in the U.S.

A shocking number of U.S. visas reserved for artists of “extraordinary ability” have been going to women who create internet pornography, according to new reports. These visas were once used to allow top musicians and painters to stay in the United States and work, but they now are being used for the likes of porn stars who came to the U.S. to make content for websites like “OnlyFans.” Immigration lawyers who spoke with news and commentary website “Florida Phoenix” said that over half of their clients seeking the coveted O-1B visa in recent years are either performers on the pornography platform or some other kind of “online influencer.” The U.S. O-1B visa is reportedly one of most difficult to secure and was first conceived around 1972 when lawmakers realized there was no immigration policy that helped attract top artistic talent to the country.

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