Federal judges in Minnesota have rejected the Justice Department’s charges against some of the anti-ICE agitators who invaded a church during service earlier this month, and others have released multiple defendants, even as the Justice Department has appealed some of these decisions. After the Justice Department filed charges against eight agitators for depriving churchgoers of their rights to exercise their religion under the First Amendment, Magistrate Judge Douglas L. Micko declined to issue arrest warrants for five of the defendants, and struck down charges against the others. The Justice Department appealed the denial of the arrest warrants, a move that Patrick Schlitz, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, said is unprecedented, at least in the courts under the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. The Justice Department claimed that the agitators would likely disrupt a church service again, and many of the leaders have stood by their decision to disrupt the service. Here are five things to know about the cases. 1. The Church Invasion Between 30 and 40 anti-ICE agitators interrupted a Sunday service at Cities Church, a non-denominational Christian church in St. Paul, and shouted, “Justice for Renee Good!” as they surrounded members of the congregation.  Videos of the incident show the pastor and others repeatedly asking the agitators to leave, and the agitators chanting, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!” This is not peaceful protest. This is an invasion of a sacred space. Anti-ICE agitators disrupted Cities Church in the middle of service. Warning: the agitators on the Left are serious. The man who posted this video bragged about doing this—comparing it to Jesus flipping over… pic.twitter.com/BeeIdubpwM— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 19, 2026 According to the charging document, a member of the congregation said worshippers were “terrorized, our children were weeping.” One woman broke her arm. Agitators blocked about 50 members of the congregation from exiting, making it “nearly impossible for parishioners to get out and leave.” The document also mentions that agitators prevented congregants from getting to their children, and one of the agitators reportedly told young children, “Do you know your parents are Nazis, they’re going to burn in hell?” ?HORRIFYING NEW DETAILSThe invasion of Cities Church was even worse than we thought. Agitators blocked stairs so "parents were unable to get to their children" at Sunday School.?One told a kid, "Do you know your parents are Nazis, they're going to burn in hell?"?1/7 pic.twitter.com/DUNPRdECGa— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 25, 2026 2. The Defendants On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that law enforcement had arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, and William Kelly, who posted videos of the invasion online under the handle “DaWoke Farmer.” Yet Magistrate Judge Micko rejected arrest warrants for the other five defendants. While the published version of the charging document redacts the defendants’ names, clues in the document suggest that Lemon and Jamael Lundy each face charges. The charging document quotes an exchange between Lemon and Cities Church Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell. The pastor tells the former CNN host: “It’s shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship.” The document also notes that one defendant “identified himself as a current candidate for Minnesota State Senate, District 65.” Lundy, the intergovernmental affairs director for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, is running to represent that district in the Minnesota Senate, and he appeared in videos with the organizers before the church invasion. 3. Church Invader Charges The Justice Department brought two charges against the church invaders: deprivation of rights under the Ku Klux Klan Act and violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances or FACE Act. The Klan Act criminalizes depriving people of their civil rights, such as the free exercise of religion, while the FACE Act protects access to churches. Judge Micko approved the warrants for Armstrong, Allen, and Kelly, but he struck the FACE Act charges, writing, “No probable cause.” Micko denied the arrest warrants for the five other invaders. Lemon’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, praised the magistrate judge’s decision. “The magistrate’s reported actions confirm the nature of Don’s First Amendment protected work this weekend in Minnesota as a reporter,” Lowell told Fox News Digital.  Screenshot 4. The Appeal Patrick Schiltz, chief judge of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota, explained in a letter how the Justice Department went about appealing Micko’s decisions. “It is important to emphasize that what the U.S. Attorney requested is unheard of in our district or, as best I can tell, any other district in the Eighth Circuit,” Colloton wrote. If the prosecutor does not like a magistrate judge’s decision, he or she can either improve the filing and present it to the same magistrate judge, or present its case to a grand jury to seek an indictment. Colloton said he would not make a decision until conferring with his colleagues at a bench meeting, but the meeting got postponed. He plans to make a decision after a lunch meeting on Tuesday. Schiltz noted that the U.S. attorney’s office stated that “there are plans to disrupt Cities Church again on Sunday.” He said that the government “does not explain why the arrests of five more people—one of whom is a journalist and the other his producer—would make Cities Church any safer, especially because that would still leave ‘dozens’ of those who invaded the church on Sunday free to do it again.” 5. Church Invaders Released The Sherburne County Jail, which had held the defendants, released them Friday after District Judge Laura Provinzino rejected the government’s appeal. Prosecutors claimed that Armstrong and Allen posed flight risks and requested that the court hold them or require them to post $10,000 cash bail. Judges often grant pretrial detention in cases where defendants are accused of violent or other serious crimes or pose a flight risk. Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, pledged to aggressively pursue these cases. “We’re going to pursue this to the ends of the earth,” Dhillon told Megyn Kelly about the cases, particularly the charges against Lemon, the former CNN host. ? IT'S OFFICIAL: Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon is AGGRESSIVELY pursuing charges against Don Lemon for storming the Minnesota churchGood, do NOT let radical judges protect him!DHILLON: "When I first saw the video that Don Lemon himself put out about his conduct that day, it… pic.twitter.com/ubrrCcKfvO— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 25, 2026 Cities Church’s attorneys have suggested that they are considering civil cases against the church invaders. The post 5 Things to Know About the Minneapolis Church Invasion Case appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The most fertile soil for collectivism is isolation. During his inaugural address, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said, “We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Many people have skewered the second part of that statement—and rightfully so. For those who’ve endured it, the warmth of collectivism feels like hell on earth. In the last century, communist regimes slaughtered more than 150 million people. Hundreds of millions more have suffered through scarcity and oppression. Collectivist regimes struggle to keep the lights on and produce enough toilet paper. So much for warmth. But the first part of Mamdani’s statement deserves scrutiny as well. Merriam-Webster defines rugged individualism as “emphasizing personal liberty and independence, self-reliance, resourcefulness, self-direction of the individual, and free competition in enterprise.” Even if they wouldn’t use the term, this encapsulates the general beliefs of most Republicans and conservatives. Mamdani implied that those of us who believe in these things suffer from a lack of human attachment. He implied we freeze others out, ignoring their needs. Presumably, he thinks this is done to pad our bank accounts. As a supporter of rugged individualism, Mamdani’s caricature is utterly foreign to me. I’m a husband and father of seven children. Life is full of bustle, not seclusion. There are music lessons, sports, speech classes, and church. My wife and I essentially run an unlicensed restaurant, laundromat, and taxi service. There are a lot of wonderful things about having a big family, but it’s not exactly a financial bonanza. While the number of children I have is an outlier, my experience isn’t. Republicans aged 25-64 are 15 percentage points more likely to be married than their Democratic peers. Republicans are 11 percentage points more likely than Democrats to be in a “very happy” marriage. In 2024, Gallup found a significant partisan marriage gap remained even after adjusting for demographic factors. Conservatives who are childless and under 50 are more than three times as likely as liberals to say they definitely want children. Unsurprisingly, red states have significantly more babies than blue states. The popular perception is that growing older makes people more conservative. That may be true, but strong evidence suggests that getting married and having children play a major role. It’s the collectivists in the Democrat Party who desperately need people to remain as individuals. A 2024 Pew report found that 72% of never-married women lean Democrat. But among married women, it’s just 45%. Half of married women lean Republican. A significant increase in marriage rates would be an existential threat to the modern Democrat Party. Perhaps you can see the paradox. Adherents to rugged individualism are more likely to form familial units and have children. Here’s why. Conservatives use personal liberty—not to isolate—but to create and join communities. The most fundamental is marriage, which has major benefits. As Brad Wilcox notes in his book “Get Married,” married couples are happier and better off financially than singles. Strong marriages are good for society, too, because children do best when raised by their married parents. There’s a long tradition of Americans freely joining together for other purposes, too. Alexis de Tocqueville remarked on our country’s many associations in his classic 1835 book “Democracy in America.” “Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite,” he wrote. “Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small.” Don’t buy into Mamdani’s false dichotomy between individualism and collectivism. The voluntary associations formed by free individuals are far preferable to the coercion of communists. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post ‘Rugged Individualism’ Leads to Community appeared first on The Daily Signal.

National School Choice Week highlights the education options available to students across the United States. In Florida, we celebrate the historic action to implement the largest school choice program in the nation’s history. Nearly half of all students in Florida are learning in a school choice setting, whether in private schools, charter schools, or home education. At a time when too many states remain trapped in the same education options they have always had, Florida chose a different path. We refuse to accept stagnation as inevitable and have rejected a one-size-fits-all education model. Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida has built the most expansive, parent-driven education ecosystem in the nation. In 2023, DeSantis signed legislation delivering universal school choice options for all families, ending the era in which ZIP codes and standardized models dictate a child’s future. Families are now free to choose from high-quality public schools, public charter schools, magnet programs, career and technical pathways, homeschooling, and the strongest scholarship program in the country for students to attend private schools. Florida empowers every family and every child to achieve their educational goals through a robust array of school choice programs. In 2026 alone, over 530,000 students are on scholarships to attend a school of their choice, and more than 400,000 students are enrolled in charter schools across Florida. That is the highest number of students attending charter schools in the nearly 30 years they have been operating in the Sunshine State. Opponents of school choice often falsely claim that expanding educational options for families weakens accountability and harms public schools. The goal of school choice should not be to prop up any one particular type of school, but rather the focus should always be what is best for the individual student. Florida’s success unequivocally proves the tired old talking points of failed teachers unions have become relics of a bygone era in which students suffered at the hands of unaccountable special interests. As school choice options have grown, outcomes have improved in every education space. Our approach has produced measurable results and national recognition. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Florida No. 1 in the nation for education in two out of the three past years. These rankings are based on the overall quality of each state’s education system from pre-K through higher education. In addition to being recognized as a national leader in education, Florida’s public schools have also seen remarkable improvements, which have been driven by expanded school choice. Just last year, 71% of Florida schools earned an A or B grade, up from 64% the year before, and the percentage of A schools grew from 38% in 2024 to 44% in 2025. Charter schools are also thriving with 77% earning an A or B. Florida’s progress monitoring results from the 2024-25 school year showed a 21-point gain in English Language Arts and a 44-point gain in mathematics. To put that into perspective, that is nearly 115,000 more Florida students on grade level in ELA and 100,000 more in math compared to the past few years. Florida’s public schools also set a record-breaking graduation rate of 92.2% for the 2024-25 school year, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over the prior year and 4.9 percentage points since the 2021-22 school year. These rankings and improved data are proof that Florida’s policies are working for students and families. All schools improve when parents have options. School choice has also fueled innovation. Schools across Florida are expanding classical education models, strengthening STEM and workforce pathways, and delivering specialized supports for students with unique needs. Rather than forcing children into one-size-fits-all systems, Florida has built an education system designed to adapt to every child. National School Choice Week is a powerful reminder that educational freedom expands opportunity. In Florida, that belief drives policy, and our students are stronger because of it. As states across the nation look for solutions, Florida stands as a clear blueprint: put students first and empower parents to choose the educational path that best fits their family. Success will follow. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Florida Takes the Lead on School Choice. Here’s Why Other States Should Follow. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

An exchange on ABC News’ “This Week” Sunday laid bare the sharp political divide over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Following a second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis in just over two weeks, ABC News host Jonathan Karl asked panelists to offer their reactions amid escalating tensions between the Trump administration and the state’s Democrat leaders. The Daily Signal’s Rob Bluey sparred with Democrat strategist Donna Brazile over who was ultimately responsible. “President Trump was elected with the promise that he would ramp up immigration enforcement in this country,” Bluey said on the ABC News roundtable. “Elections have consequences. I think that’s what the administration keeps coming back to.” Brazile fired back, challenging the training and identification protocols of federal agents deployed under the administration’s expanded enforcement operations. “These agents are barely trained. They are supposedly getting trained for 47 days because they wanted to have 47 after the president. That’s crazy,” Brazile said. “Number two, they are not identified. They walk around like they are hooded thugs.” Fatal Shooting Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse with no previous criminal record, was shot by federal agents Saturday while filming an immigration enforcement operation. Like the Jan. 7 death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the latest shooting has sparked intense scrutiny of the frame-by-frame video of Pretti’s actions. At the time of the incident, Pretti was armed with a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol for which he had a concealed carry permit. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Pretti of an “act of domestic terrorism” and Border Patrol Commander at Large Greg Bovino said he had an intent “to inflict maximum damage on individuals.” Refusing to Cooperate Bluey noted that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have blamed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for refusing to cooperate with federal authorities Their resistance to federal authority is tantamount to historical figures like Jefferson Davis or George Wallace, Bluey said. Walz has openly embraced neo-Confederate rhetoric to justify his decisions. Brazile called for collaboration, but insisted that ICE must leave Minneapolis. “The cities are saying like they did under Obama, under Bush, work with the city and state officials,” she said, adding that “the Minneapolis police department said, we want to work.” Bluey countered that Minnesota is a sanctuary state, purposefully impeding the enforcement of federal immigration laws. What Comes Next The clash reflects broader national tensions as the administration pursues aggressive immigration enforcement in sanctuary jurisdictions while facing resistance from state and local officials. Senate Democrats, including by Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, have threatened to block a Department of Homeland Security funding bill over recent incidents, potentially leading to another partial government shutdown. ABC News legal analyst Sarah Isgur, editor of SCOTUSblog, noted the Pretti shooting could present an unusual legal scenario where Minnesota authorities might have grounds to prosecute federal agents—typically shielded from state prosecution—if the conduct was so egregious it fell outside official duties. Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association issued a rare rebuke of a Trump-appointed assistant U.S. attorney who suggested citizens approaching law enforcement with guns were putting their lives at risk. “Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” the NRA statement read. The post Donna Brazile Calls ICE Agents ‘Hooded Thugs’ in ABC News Debate With Daily Signal’s Rob Bluey appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Recently, Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, passed away at age 80. His passing was duly eulogized by the Reagan Foundation and the Young America’s Foundation at the Reagan Ranch. Both noted that Michael, whom I had the privilege to know, devoted his life to writing and speaking about the American principles that so defined his father. No death is ever timely. But there seems something fitting that President Reagan’s legacy would be closed out with the passing of his oldest son in the year of the 250th birthday of our nation. At this time of such confusion and division, there couldn’t be a better moment to remind all of us what America is about, as understood by Reagan. And there is no better source from which to quote Reagan than what I believe was his greatest speech, and perhaps one of the greatest in America’s history. It is his speech delivered March 8, 1983, to the National Association of Evangelicals, known as the “evil empire” speech, because it was here he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” A couple takes from that important speech: “I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities—the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.” “But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man. We know that living in this world means dealing with … the doctrine of sin.” “There is sin and evil in the world, and we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.” “While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I have always maintained that the struggle going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.” Of course, along with the words were deeds. Reagan proceeded to give the country back to the people through tax cuts, deregulation, and restoration of the integrity of our currency. He also increased defense spending from 6.5% of gross domestic product when he assumed office to 7.9% by 1986. We know that the Soviet Union, the “evil empire,” imploded and collapsed. But we also know that what replaced it, Russia under Vladimir Putin, is not much better. Evil can never last, but without a clear sense of the good to replace it, it will just reinvent and perpetuate itself. This is an obvious lesson for today’s world. Reagan demonstrated that the most powerful weapon is truth and principles. From these the right policies follow. Truth, when clearly spoken and articulated, spreads on its own power. Natan Sharansky sat in prison in 1983 for the sin of requesting to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. Sharansky wrote: “In 1983 I was confined to an 8-by-10 foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire.’ By tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s ‘provocation’ quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth—truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.” Reagan was reelected in 1984, winning 49 of 50 states. Can it be a surprise that the one state he did not win was Minnesota? Will we ever see such unity again? Rest in peace, Michael Reagan. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post Thank You, Michael Reagan appeared first on The Daily Signal.