Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the tabs …
The local protestors do not want the illegals deported, period. Even if the ICE force was incredibly well trained, wore white gloves and followed Waldorf-Astoria rules of etiquette, if they are effective local dissenters will press forward with resistance until it produces… https://t.co/SVtub9sGWC
— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) January 25, 2026
Ed: This is exactly right. It’s why DHS needs local police cooperation. This starts with making the point that enforcement will continue, even with adjustments, and that sanctuary jurisdictions have the choice between making it easy and making it hard. However, that also requires LEOs to act carefully and their leadership to look calm. The latter didn’t happen this weekend, which is why Trump adjusted the leadership.
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Andy Ngo at Ngo Comment: There are dozens of Signal chats currently active among far-left extremists in Minnesota. Many are ad hoc, short-lived, and frequently deleted — an effort to destroy evidence. I was able to access several chats. What follows is a snapshot of what participants are saying.
The prevailing mood inside these groups is one of distrust and paranoia. Public scrutiny, particularly from users on X, has focused increasing attention on the role these Signal chats play in coordinating obstructionist conspiracies. Nearly all users operate under aliases. Administrators are actively purging participants they suspect to be “right-wingers” or federal agents. Auto-deleting messages are enabled by default to destroy evidence. …
My time inside these chats was limited, but it offered insight into the internal dynamics of these groups. Participants are deeply paranoid right now and increasingly fractured. Many are retreating into smaller, supposedly vetted cells — classic behavior consistent with clandestine, criminal organizing.
Ed: Read it all. The unhinged will not remain well-organized for long; perhaps the respite provided by the rapprochement between Trump and Walz will divide the paranoids even more, and the FBI can start rounding up the organizers. The messages do not reveal people willing to work through election and Congress to change matters, because they apparently realize that their positions are fringe and can only be imposed by force.
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Meet Melinda, a healthcare worker at @VCUHealth. She posted a series of videos encouraging people to inject ICE agents with succinylocholine, a temporary paralysis drug, and spray poison on them. She also encourages woman to go on dates with agents and drug their food.
Any… pic.twitter.com/CMJN12GhOc
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 27, 2026
Ed: These are not protesters or dissenters. These are people trying to start a war. They are unhinged, and until local authorities take these threats seriously, these are the people who eventually will start one.
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WSJ: So far, the talks on Capitol Hill haven’t produced any realistic solutions, according to a Senate Democratic leadership aide. A White House aide said that discussions are ongoing with Democrats to avoid a shutdown. The deadline is approaching just as the Trump administration has signaled plans to keep pushing lawmakers to adopt the plan already passed by the House. Current funding for much of the government expires at 12:01 a.m. ET on Saturday.
Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to coalesce around a list of demands for constraints on DHS’s immigration enforcement activities and more oversight of the department. The changes they seek include requiring judicial warrants for arrests and home searches, broader use of body cameras and clearer identification for federal immigration agents.
Republicans say they want to preserve the six-bill funding package, rather than break it up. Any changes would require that the bills be sent back to the House for re-approval. The House isn’t scheduled to return until Monday, and Republicans argue splitting off DHS would lead to a shutdown after Friday.
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The Dems need a reset, or even a Kanye-style apology for past mistakes on mass migration, identity pol and permissive attitudes on crime. The party should stand for national cohesion, fairness, and serving the working man — while holding Trump and corporations accountable. https://t.co/xMXDaI8DNq
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) January 27, 2026
Ed: Right now, they’re avoiding all of that with their Orange Man Bad obsession. By 2028, though, that focus will expire, and they will have to either do what Fang suggests or get consigned to the political wilderness until they do.
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The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m not going to stand up here today and ask you for your trust. I’m going to earn it, just like we have to do with our viewers,” Weiss told staff. “What I can give you is what I’ve always tried to give my readers a a journalist: transparency. Clarity. Straight talk. So here it is as plan as I can say it: I am here to make CBS News fit for purpose in the 21st century. Our industry has changed more in the last decade than in the last 150 years, and the transformation isn’t over yet. Far from it. It’s almost impossible to conceive of how fast things will move from here.” …
“We have to start by looking honestly at ourselves. We are not producing a product that enough people want,” she said. “We can blame demographics or technology or fractured attention spans or ‘news avoidance,’ but these are all copes.
“The reality is twofold. First: Not enough people trust us. Not you. Us. As in: the mainstream media,” she added. “We can debate why that is, but the numbers tell the story. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 28 percent of people say we have their trust. Second: We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are. So they are leaving us. They are not tuning out, far from it. In fact, Americans spend twice as much time consuming news today as they did 50 years ago. They are going to the vast universe of podcasts and YouTube and Twitch and newsletters and, yes, sometimes to our nimbler competitors.”
Ed: This is exactly what Will Lewis tried to tell the Washington Post staff more than a year ago. Instead of responding to the challenge, they fought against accountability and integrity, and leaned into organized resistance. Now that the paper has decided to pare down the staff to bring costs in line with revenues, the staffers that remain want a bailout from Jeff Bezos. And they are not likely to get it, as Weiss warns CBS News staffers about David Ellison as well.
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Washington Post reporters to Bezos: https://t.co/KWnmv4gr6Y pic.twitter.com/WX1YJg5zpW
— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) January 27, 2026
Ed: And they still haven’t figured it out at the Post.
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Just the News: Twenty years ago Monday, former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and received a standing ovation. The 2006 documentary was released to theaters the following May and went on to gross over $25 million worldwide.
Gore’s film was a primary catalyst for the climate activist movement, and it generated a lot of concern about global warming following its release. The movie left audiences with the impression that the human race was hurtling toward a dystopian future on a planet baking in unbearable temperatures where extreme weather caused frequent disasters. …
Gore’s film, however, was full of numerous predictions that turned out to be wrong, and it’s likely that the world will not end in 2031, as Ocasio-Cortez predicted.
Ed: How wrong was it? JTN counts the ways, but it did do one thing right … it made Gore a very wealthy man, thanks to the grift. And he was hardly the only grifter who’s benefited, either.
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Nothing in the news recently has changed the reality that 8 out of 10 voters believe illegal immigration is bad for America https://t.co/h4HZYh4xhB
— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) January 27, 2026
Ed: The issue is less about policy support and more about confidence in the administration to carry it out effectively and with as little collateral damage as possible.
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Glenna Goldis at The Free Press: As a lesbian, I care passionately about the safety of gender nonconforming youth. I am also experienced in identifying consumer fraud, and I am troubled by how vulnerable patients in psychological distress are being misled.
When James leveled her accusation at me, I’d been working as a lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s office for four years. In that time, I’d watched her file amicus briefs in support of pediatric gender medicine and battle against restrictions at both the federal level and in other states.
When I expressed my concerns about such full-throated support, I was at best ignored, at worst threatened. Last April, when I was trying to discuss my views, a colleague told me: “If you say one more word on this subject, I’m calling HR.”
And all this came to a head that day, January 15, when I was told that, unless I resigned—or agreed to “cease from engaging in any unapproved, disruptive speech immediately”—I would be fired in a week.
Ed: This essay went up later in the day today, and it’s well worth reading in its entirety. It’s not the first time that progressives are finding themselves under fire for opposing the radical fringe when it comes to pediatric sex change therapies. It’s one of the first that shows the elites punishing subordinates for dissent in government, though.
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Imagine if you die for your cause and then someone at MSNBC decides you’re too ugly to be a martyr 💀 https://t.co/6cMMImz3HP
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) January 27, 2026
Ed: David wrote about this earlier. I’ll just remark that it seems very odd to see a need to manipulate an image chosen by the person himself in order to “improve” it later on his behalf. What was going through their minds?
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Salena Zito at WashEx: Fetterman’s presence is about more than his physical stature. His outsize, unvarnished view of the country matches his imposing frame, and new Morning Consult polling suggests voters are responding to both.
The survey shows that 51% of voters approve of his performance as senator, while 36% disapprove. His standing is bolstered by Pennsylvania Republicans who respect his candor on broadly supported issues such as border security and backing the release of hostages held in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks. …
His approval among Democratic voters in the state has dipped slightly in the survey, fueling talk on the party’s left wing of a possible primary challenge. What they overlook is that Pennsylvania voters rarely choose candidates from either extreme in statewide general elections, even if they succeeded in replacing him.
Fetterman says he does not base his policy decisions on politics, but on what he believes best reflects the sentiments of voters in the state. He adds that he hears from them constantly in everyday life.
Ed: Democrats are supposedly trying to get a progressive challenger in the primary to beat him in 2028. This suggests that such a project may not have much chance of succeeding.
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Dem strategist, former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser https://t.co/ATseM524PP
— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) January 27, 2026
Ed: Good question.
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Ed: For tonight’s final Final Word, here’s my latest podcast with Cranky T-Rex on the debacle of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. We planned to do about 30 minutes, but we were having so much fun that we went far longer. And bear in mind that we don’t even delve much into Episodes 2 and 3. My initial review is here. (Also … I can’t believe I had to explain the Quentin Tarantino reference here to Cranky …)
The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!
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