It’s only tabs, and tabs are all I have, to make you read again …
MUST WATCH: Footage of an a man who looks like Alex Pretti with a gun in his waistband, spitting on and attacking federal law enforcement officers and kicking the tail light of their vehicle on January 13.
Bombshell report from the BBC.
Important context: Pretti was not a… pic.twitter.com/snzEO8rU8w
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 28, 2026
Ed: There was a question earlier about the authenticity of this video, but CBS News and the Daily News have run with it. According to Mary Margaret Olohan, the Star Tribune has confirmed its authenticity. Pretti had reportedly been injured a week earlier in another encounter with ICE/CBP and had injured a rib; this may be that encounter. Even if this is authentic, it might be interesting background data but not context for the shooting that took place on another date and time. The only context for judging the shooting is the circumstances at that time, and whether the two Border Patrol agents had a reasonable fear that Pretti presented a threat to their lives and the lives of others.
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Hollywood in Toto: Leguizamo posted a rant on social media this week demanding that anyone who disagrees with his views on ICE and immigration enforcement should stop watching his films.
All his films.
“If you follow ICE, unfollow me. Don’t come to my shows, don’t watch my movies.”
Ed: Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice. I can’t even recall the last time I saw Leguizamo in a film. However, to answer Christian’s question, producers should still cast him in films if they are inclined to do so, which they don’t seem to be these days. They should also cast Gina Carano, James Woods, Adam Baldwin, Nick Searcy, and Kevin Sorbo in films, because they are all talented and do good work. Those guys won’t even tell progressives to get lost before buying tickets, so … win-win.
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Watching Tammy Duckworth obsessively interrupt Marco Rubio during this hearing is like watching Forest Gump argue with Isaac Newton.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) January 28, 2026
Ed: Did Maizie Hirono try to question Rubio? Or was that reserved as a pay-per-view event? Not that we complain about subscriber-only material, of course. That might have been worth a trial rate.
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Jeffrey Blehar at NRO: In the wake of the Minneapolis shooting, and particularly in the wake of the perceived — and real — climbdown of federal authorities in the city, the far left is now rising like a rabble to not only claim victory but push boldly forward. The rhetoric is loud and growing louder: Trump must somehow be compelled to formally restrict his own powers! ICE or DHS must be abolished! Rise, leftist Lilliputians, and tie President Gulliver down while he’s still dazed!
And this, incidentally, is why sending Greg Bovino home to retire and bringing in Tom Homan was the strongest possible countermove the Trump administration could have made: not only because Homan is a professional but because progressives who misinterpret the politics of the moment will wipe away their situational advantage by massively misjudging the mood of the American people.
That sort of miscalculation is precisely what you’re seeing from the left’s most hotheaded progressives right now, as they immediately return to hair-on-fire “Abolish ICE” and anti-deportation rhetoric as they deem themselves to be “winning the argument” in public opinion. I’m not referring merely to the Bluesky rants of anonymous nobodies like “FrightenedKaren981” or “Jamelle Bouie,” I’m talking about actual politicians here.
Ed: This is an excellent point. While some polls show softness on Trump’s enforcement tactics lately, immigration enforcement ttself remains a popular and still-potent policy in the electorate. Trump shuffled the roster in order to regain control of the situation, and he has succeeded. Democrats still refuse to play anything other than checkers with Trump, and still refuse to realize that this is actually the main part of his mandate.
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News that will not be on your tube tonight. https://t.co/4XScrhned4
— John Ondrasik (@johnondrasik) January 28, 2026
Ed: I wonder how many of them will actually get convicted by Minneapolis juries. At least the police have begun doing something about it. That in itself will provide a certain level of disincentives.
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Amy Kellogg at The Free Press: Ali first joined the protests on January 8. By then, they had grown to a million people. He and his wife, whom I’ll call Roya, live in one of Iran’s bigger cities, and were not activists or dissidents. “I had never been to a protest before,” Ali told me. But he felt a responsibility to take a stand. And, for the first time in Ali’s life, the prospects for a change in the regime appeared hopeful.
“After the 12-day war with Israel, the regime seemed weak. They didn’t feel as scary,” Ali said. “We are okay materially—not like some people in Iran. But we wanted change and wanted to be a part of making it happen.”
All those hopes were destroyed when the protests were crushed with cold-blooded killings by Iran’s Basij paramilitary forces. While Ali, sensing the danger, had left the protests before the worst of the violence, he saw enough to give a chilling picture of the regime’s retaliation and its aftermath. Some of what Ali relates, from his own experience and those of other protesters he knew well, echoes stories told in the intermittent, distorted phone recordings that have leaked out from behind Iran’s internet blockade. But hearing these descriptions from someone you know, as I know Ali, evokes another layer of terror altogether.
Ed: Be sure to read it all. It’s pretty harrowing, and it raises the question if we missed another opportunity to liberate the Iranian people. Hopefully the window will open again in the next few days or weeks.
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The press seems hell bent on giving maximum exposure to the CBS Evening News, which is probably why its ratings are up. People are tuning in to see a train wreck and instead are finding a very competent newscast, less pretentious than the alternatives. https://t.co/tP8J4psmUY
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 28, 2026
Ed: It’s a benign strain of the Streisand Effect!
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NY Post: Anti-ICE protesters want to shut down schools and business during a massive demonstration on Friday.
“On Friday, January 30, join a nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping,” reads an online call to action.
“The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country — to stop ICE’s reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN.”
Ed: This flopped in Minneapolis. It will flop everywhere else. All this does is harm businesses in deep-blue jurisdictions, while allowing politicians to virtue-signal without any risk to themselves.
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🚨 Senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk to Al Jazeera: “Hamas has never agreed to hand over its weapons. Hamas agreed to a framework plan to end the war. The issue of handing over weapons was not discussed at all. All arrangements planned in Gaza must happen with Hamas’… pic.twitter.com/wM9l8bN4qi
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) January 28, 2026
… All arrangements planned in Gaza must happen with Hamas’ consent. Netanyahu cannot boast about the return of Israeli prisoners because they all returned according to Hamas’ agreement and conditions.”
Ed: Get ready for another war when Hamas refuses to meet its Phase 2 obligations. This is exactly what we expected, and it won’t change until the regime in Iran falls.
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Matt Taibbi at Racket News: Consternation among Republicans is palpable. How bad is it? “Abolish ICE” is now a statistically significant portion of the GOP electorate, with 19 percent saying they somewhat or strongly support the idea, a ten percent hike over June, while 61% of Americans think ICE has gone “too far.” The same YouGov pollsters in June 2024 found 62% of the country favored a “national program to deport all undocumented immigrants,” suggesting Trump in two years went from far ahead to underwater on his signature issue. Comments from Treasury chief Scott Bessent and FBI Director Kash Patel (who said “no one who wants to be peaceful shows up to a protest with a firearm”) had the NRA denouncing officials for “demonizing law-abiding citizens.” As the Republican strategist noted, it’s “not every day” the NRA takes a shot at a GOP president, presenting a historic political opportunity.
Democrats are not gaining, though. In real terms, both parties have been losing support for a while. The phenomenon has been confirmed by enough independent studies of late that even the New York Times wrote about it this week.
While the Minnesota unrest is a genuine high-stakes clash centered on profound moral/ideological issues (pitting anger about Trump’s deportation program and methodology against national discontent about illegal immigration and protest methods), it’s being covered as if its every development correlates to the blue-red battle for political supremacy. That may not be true.
Ed: I’m not sure I agree with this analysis, but Taibbi always has an interesting take. I am suspicious of YouGov polls anyway, and these figures seem like outliers. Let’s see what other pollsters have to say about these issues.
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This is truly the stupidest concept in the world. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the clock stayed at seven minutes to midnight . . . and moved back at the next review to twelve minutes. https://t.co/LAZKNDSd4K
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) January 28, 2026
Ed: It’s truly idiotic how much attention this gets, to this day, despite being nothing but a pants-wetting barometer based on nothing at all.
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Ed: The playbook never changes. “This series is great because shut up and bigot.”
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