"Today the USA is a disaster"

ICE Director reacts to political aftermath of Minneapolis shooting

Minnesota law enforcement officials were outraged on Thursday, January 9, when they were told the FBI was taking over the investigation into the self-defense shooting of Nicole Renee Good by an ICE agent. They are considered too biased. The BCA and Minnesota officials have lied about the death of Renee Good, who aimed her car at an […] The post Minnesota Police Are Blocked from Investigating the Agent Who Shot Renee Good appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

On her 44th birthday, Kate Middleton shared a beautiful reflection with followers on Instagram. As part of the royal family’s “Mother Nature” series, Princess Kate narrated a video about winter. Nature has always been a place of comfort for the princess, particularly throughout her cancer and healing journey. “Even in the coldest, darkest season, winter has a way of bringing us stillness, patience, and quiet consideration. Where the stream slows just enough for us to see our own reflection. To discover the deepest parts of ourselves, alongside the whispers and the pulse of every living thing,” she heard in the voiceover. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Prince and Princess of Wales (@princeandprincessofwales) Many Wished Kate Middleton a Happy Birthday on Her Post Kate Middleton smiled in the video as she walked outdoors embracing winter. “To be at one with nature. A quiet teacher and a soft voice that guides. In memory, helping us to heal,” she added. She captioned her post with a reminder of the importance of caring for the Earth. “The Mother Nature series has been a deeply personal, creative reflection on how nature has helped me heal. But it is also a story about the power of nature and creativity in collective healing,” Kate Middleton shared in the video’s caption. There is so much we can learn from mother nature, as we look to build a happier, healthier world. C.” Followers shared sweet birthday wishes with Kate Middleton. “Happy Birthday, Your Royal Highness. What a beautiful video. The darkness of the diagnosis and chemo journey I know so well, yet the joy and the colours of life we experience when out the far side is immeasurable! We are blessed beyond measure to life this wonderful life!” A follower wrote. “Wishing you a very Happy Birthday Catherine. Have a lovely day with those you love,” another person added. This story’s featured image is by Isabel Infantes – WPA Pool/Getty Images

'F*ck you and f*ck that'

'You want to come at us?'

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. This content was recorded by Victor Davis Hanson prior to his Dec. 30 medical operation. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We’ve talked in the past about the problems with diversity, equity, and inclusion. That’s the rubric for what, I guess, we could call mandated equality of result, rather than of opportunity. But it’s been in the news lately because there’s a common denominator between the $9 to $10 billion, and climbing, fraud among the Somali community—some of them—in Minnesota. Here in California, we’re looking at $60 to $70 billion fraud, involving everything from homeless funds that were misspent through corruption, wasted, and unemployment insurance, etc., etc. We have the problem with the truck drivers. We had 17,000 licenses given to illegal aliens in California and put many of us in danger who drive frequently on the California freeways. That’s true nationwide as well. And then, of course, the unknown number, it’s in the several millions, somewhere between 8 and 12 million, who came in under the Biden administration. But they were all given exemptions, is what I’m trying to say. And the exemptions were subtle and insidious, but they were characterized that they were DEI. In other words, all of these different groups were categorized by officials as on the victimized, oppressed side of the lecture. And therefore, they were not completely audited. Because, if they had been audited, the cries of racism, nativism, etc., prejudice, bias would’ve been voiced. And people didn’t want to be exposed to that. What happens, then, when you have DEI, there is no deterrence. The particular groups that are favored on non-meritocratic grounds feel that if the society, at large, does not audit them the way—whether that’s immigration audits or welfare audits, or unemployment audits—then why would they audit them under further circumstances? So, that creates a self-perpetuating, almost a self-motion machine that they will continue to engage in activity for which they don’t feel there will be any consequences. And deterrence is lost. More importantly, if you are a DEI beneficiary—in other words, you applied to college and your SAT scores or your grade did not otherwise qualify you, or you’re a professor who plagiarized but was given a pass because of DEI grounds—then what happens is you must continually make the case that you are a victim because that alone will explain why you got this position, why you got this admission, when you did not have otherwise standard meritocratic qualifications. And that means you’re always going to be on the hunt for victimization. If you’re Joy Reid and you can’t do a podcast without spouting racist nonsense, and your audience is crumbling and eroding, then you say that you’re constantly a victim of racism. If you’re on “The View,” and you have a one-dimensional view of race, and you’re boring, and you’re losing market share, you say it’s because of yet another incident of racism that you felt. The other thing that’s a problem with DEI, there are no qualifications now. Once you destroy meritocracy for one group, then all groups feel, well, these people were given particular advantages. So, why don’t we get them? And you know, the funny thing about it is we did have a kind of DEI for very wealthy people, very connected people, the children of billionaires, the children of college deans, who were given admission advantages or were hired in what we call the old-boy network. But meritocracy was supposed to be the antidote. So, DEI was, in a very strange, ironic way, just the twin of the old-boy network, substituting race for money and influence that the old-boy network exercised. That was the fuel that drove that. Finally, there’s a couple of final things. It’s costly because once you add layer under layer under layer of nonproductive people, who are not teaching in the university, they’re not doing research, but they’re monitoring everybody’s syllabus, they’re looking for DEI owes among applicants, they are perched on hiring committees, they have a huge bureaucracy, and they’re nonproductive. They’re very similar to the commissar system in the Soviet Union that was very, not just a sin of commission, that they were wasting resources and causing a lot of problems and killing people, but a sin of omission, that by funding the commissars, you were not funding science or you were not funding meritocratic military schools. You were appointing military officers in World War II on the basis of their ideology rather than on their proven excellence on the battlefield. So, it doesn’t have a good history—DEI. And one thing that we’re watching now, as the Trump administration makes a very persuasive case that DEI violated the civil rights laws of the 1960s, specifically ’64 and ’65, and the Supreme Court ruling of 2023, there is no moral, legal support for it anymore. And yet, we have this vast, top-heavy infrastructure—this ossified, calcified, DEI apparat—and it’s not legally or morally justified. So, it’s gonna be very interesting to see what happens to the DEI complex. But let’s hope that it dies on the vine, at last. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Minnesota Somali Fraud, Illegal Trucking Scandals Share One Thing: DEI appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—After pro-life leaders rejected President Donald Trump’s admonition to be “a little bit flexible” on the Hyde Amendment, some White House officials are looking to walk back that statement, three sources familiar with the administration’s thinking told The Daily Signal. Many pro-life leaders objected to the call to be flexible on Hyde, which bans taxpayer-funded abortion, and the administration has received their message, the sources said. One White House official disputed the idea that the administration is walking Trump’s comment back, but said it is rather clarifying it. The president has delivered the pro-life movement its biggest win in history with the overturn of Roe v Wade, the official said.  The Hyde Amendment is longstanding policy prohibiting funding of elective abortions in federal health care spending. Trump told House Republicans at their Members Retreat Tuesday they need to be a “little bit flexible on Hyde” when making a deal with Democrats on health care. Many Republicans in Congress have said they will not support a health care deal without the policy in place to prevent federal subsidies from funding abortion coverage in health plans. When asked about the president’s statement on Hyde at Wednesday’s briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt also clarified the president’s comments. “The president did not change the administration’s policy,” Leavitt said at a press briefing on Wednesday. “It was President Trump who signed an executive order protecting the Hyde Amendment. It’s the Trump administration that has taken multiple actions on various fronts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not funding the practice of abortion.” Trump signed an executive order titled “Reinforcing the Hyde Amendment” in his fourth day in office, which ends “the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.” “What the president was saying yesterday was Republicans, and frankly Democrats, too, need to show a little bit more flexibility so we can actually get something done with respect to the issue of health care,” Leavitt continued. After the president’s statement on Hyde, elected officials and pro-life leaders said the policy was a red line for them. “We are not going to change the standard that we’re not going to use taxpayer funding for abortion,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said. “I’m just not going to allow that to happen.” “To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of leading pro-life group, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. “If Republicans abandon Hyde, they are sure to lose this November.” One source reported hearing from the administration that it has been “inundated” with messages from the pro-life community in support of Hyde. A source familiar with the White House’s thinking says that now that the administration has received the message that pro-lifers will not compromise on Hyde, the pro-life movement is more concerned about the Senate compromising on the policy. On Thursday, 17 House Republicans joined Democrats to pass a three-year extension on Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies which do not include Hyde protections against abortion funding. Pro-lifers are concerned that a few Senate Republicans will break ranks to pass a health care deal without Hyde protections. “We’ve got to hit the Senate with everything we’ve got and make them know that we’re going to be strong and be firm on this issue,” a pro-life movement leader said. The post SCOOP: Some White House Officials Want to Walk Back Trump’s Statement on Abortion Funding, Sources Say appeared first on The Daily Signal.