Can I have an assurance of salvation, or is salvation something that can be lost?

'you look like a fucking ICE agent'

'We are seeking detailed information'

Time to act

In Toronto, one man and his glasses are making the city a friendlier place by wishing people a great week, or even just outrightly declaring to whoever he sees that they make the world a better place. Minjae Cho is once just like thousands of other Torontonians: he took the bus and the subway, went […] The post Toronto Man Tries to Make Public Transportation Less Lonely: ‘Little Gestures Can Shift the Whole Mood’ appeared first on Good News Network.

Minnesota? Somalis? Nine billion dollars in alleged welfare fraud? To understand what’s going on from a distance, it helps to understand basic culture. Minnesota was settled largely by people of Scandinavian and German ancestry. In survey after survey, Minnesota has ranked No. 1 or No. 2 among states, often just behind neighboring and much smaller North Dakota, in social connectedness, civic participation, workforce participation and voter turnout. It has traditionally led the nation in levels of trust and conscientiousness. This has been coupled with political behavior that resembles Scandinavian patterns. Minnesota, like North Dakota and fellow neighbor Wisconsin, had lively socialist-leaning third parties in the 1930s. It’s still the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, the result of a fusion engineered by future Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1944. As you might expect, Minnesotans have built a high-tax, high-spending state government. Like Scandinavians, they have trusted the state to provide services and have trusted individuals not to cheat in claiming benefits. Public support for these programs, as in Scandinavia, has traditionally been founded on confidence that aid goes only to the genuinely deserving. The Somalis who have been the most visible and politically active migrants to Minnesota over the past generation provide a vivid contrast. “The Somali,” the conservative writer Helen Andrews quotes a British official, “is convinced that he is entirely different from and vastly superior to any East African.” Somalia has been a land of chaos, a home base of pirates. Their home country has become a kind of no-man’s land, an example of what the political scientist Edward Banfield called amoral familism, where people are loyal only to fellow clan members and have no sense of obligations to the mores of the larger society. That’s in vivid contrast, it turns out, to the rampant, possibly billion-dollar-plus frauds perpetrated by Somalis who arrived in Minnesota as refugees and their offspring. Federal prosecutions began in 2022, when Biden administration Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized prosecutions of the Feeding Our Future program to feed hungry children during the COVID-19 lockdown period. As described in The New York Times last November, “State agencies reimbursed the group and its partners for invoices claiming to have fed tens of thousands of children. In reality, federal prosecutors said, most of the meals were nonexistent, and business owners spent the funds on luxury cars, houses and even real estate projects abroad.” In other words, this was a well-organized scam that required the cooperation or acquiescence of large numbers of people, including members of the Somali community as well as non-enforcement and non-auditing public officials. Were they simply naive Minnesotans, accustomed to an almost entirely conscientious population? Or were they deterred by the charges of racism that would inevitably be launched at anyone questioning a Somali-run operation? Most likely some of both. Any doubts that Feeding Our Future was a one-off exception have vanished with the exposure of other state-aided programs, which seemed to have no operations and no clients. Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who resigned this week for reasons unrelated to fraud cases, has estimated that Somali-run frauds have swindled $9 billion of public money, and it’s undisputed that the total take is at least in the hundreds of millions. It’s an obvious reason that DFL Gov. Tim Walz, the national party’s 2024 nominee for vice president, announced last week that he wouldn’t seek a third term. Minnesota liberals like to argue that Somalis have contributed much to Minnesota, but aside from their contribution to racial diversity statistics, they find it hard to come up with specifics. Actual data are not encouraging, showing that even after 10 years in Minnesota, three-quarters of Somali households receive Medicaid, half receive food stamps, and one-quarter receive government cash. Only about half are proficient in English. These numbers compare unfavorably with those of Hmong refugees who started arriving in Minnesota after the Vietnam War. After five decades, Hmong Minnesotans match state average incomes and home ownership rates, nearly match average high school graduation rates, and have no known involvement in massive welfare fraud. Somalis, after three decades in Minnesota, have made little progress on those dimensions. A low-trust, low-conscientiousness culture has proved to be stubbornly persistent, and, unlike the Minnesota liberals who helped the Hmong fit in, the last generation of Minnesota liberals has done little to move Somalis away from a dysfunctional culture that they brought from their embattled and unproductive homeland and from an adversarial attitude to the larger American society. The social connectedness of Minnesota liberals themselves has not disappeared. On the contrary, the network of volunteers monitoring and attempting to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation efforts, described vividly in The Wall Street Journal, is a prime example — and, as the death of Renee Good on Jan. 7 showed, a tragic one. It can be seen as an example of organized civil disobedience, only its participants seem to lack any sense that, by trying to obstruct federal law enforcement, they are doing anything morally questionable or potentially felonious. As Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have made it clear, they refuse to enforce federal immigration law and want to prevent the federal government from doing so. The state and city lawsuits seeking to block federal enforcement, in open defiance of the Constitution’s supremacy clause, stand out among the many absurd legal theories advanced by both the Trump administration’s opponents and, at times, the administration itself. This posture is not merely wrongheaded but reckless. It places Walz and Frey in the moral tradition of segregationist governors such as George Wallace (D-Ala.) and Ross Barnett (D-Miss.), urging resistance to lawful federal authority, a kind of incitement that, as recent events have shown, can turn deadly for participants and bystanders alike. Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. His new book, “Mental Maps of the Founders: How Geographic Imagination Guided America’s Revolutionary Leaders,” is now available. 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 What’s the Matter With Minnesota? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Discord is pressing forward with government ID checks for users in new regions, even after a major customer-support breach in October 2025 exposed sensitive identity documents belonging to tens of thousands of people. The expansion of its age-verification system reflects growing pressure under the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, a law that effectively compels platforms to collect and process personal identification data in order to comply with its censorship and content-control mandates. The October 2025 incident highlighted exactly why such measures alarm privacy advocates. Around 70,000 Discord users had images of government-issued IDs leaked after attackers gained access to a third-party customer service system tied to the company. The hackers claim to have extracted as much as 1.6 terabytes of information, including 8.4 million support tickets and over 100 gigabytes of transcripts. Discord disputed the scale but admits the breach stemmed from a compromised contractor account within its outsourced Zendesk environment, not its own internal systems. Despite the exposure, Discord continues to expand mandatory age-verification. The company’s new “privacy-forward age assurance” program is now required for all UK and Australian users beginning December 9, 2025. Users must verify that they are over 18 to unblur “sensitive content,” disable message-request filters, or enter age-restricted channels. Verification occurs through the third-party vendors k-ID and, in some UK cases, Persona, which process either a government ID scan or a facial-analysis selfie to confirm age. More: Tea App Leak Shows Why UK’s Digital ID Age Verification Laws are Dangerous Discord says that data is deleted once the age group is confirmed and that selfies used for facial estimation never leave the device. The company insists this complies with new national laws such as the UK’s Online Safety Act and Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Act, both of which impose legal obligations on platforms to block access to material deemed unsuitable for minors. Yet the system effectively normalizes document-based surveillance of everyday users, often without their direct consent to vendor storage. Persona, one of Discord’s verification partners, retains submitted data for up to seven days before deletion. The 2025 breach makes these government requirements look especially reckless. It demonstrated how fragile supposedly “privacy-protective” verification chains can be once multiple third-party vendors hold fragments of ID records. Government pressure to enforce identity verification has forced platforms like Discord to collect data that, once compromised, cannot be retrieved or anonymized. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Discord Expands Age Verification ID System to More Regions appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Two Tier Keir Has a Problem Called 'Waifu Amelia' and It Is Screamingly Funny

ABC’s The View celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day by literally laughing at the idea that white people could be discriminated against in any way. While they were laughing at the notion and suggesting it wasn’t real, staunchly racist co-host Sunny Hostin defended the idea of discriminating against whites and claimed that President Trump was trying to “erase” black history. Additionally, moderator Whoopi Goldberg openly mocked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for caring about discrimination against white people. Hostin defended discriminating against white people, calling them lesser beings: “I think, you know, equality feels much like oppression when you have always had the privilege of being ahead, even if you were mediocre. And I think that's what we're talking about here.” Despite that, she suggested there was no evidence of discrimination based on broad and sweeping numbers and not individual cases: White men, as of 2023, were 76 percent of the workforce and in all sort of top positions where people of color and women were not. (…) And the NAACP made it very clear after hearing his comments that, in fact, there is absolutely no evidence, no fact-based evidence, that white men have suffered because of this Civil Rights Act.   Sunny Hostin defends discriminating against white people, calling them lesser beings while claiming racism against whites doesn't exist: "Equality feels much like oppression when you have always had the privilege of being ahead, even if you were mediocre. And I think that's what… pic.twitter.com/YG3lW9gSpH — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 19, 2026   “Now, we really know that this attack against diversity, equity, and inclusion is based on white male grievance, and the fact that Donald Trump seems to really believe in the concept of reverse discrimination,” Hostin rhetorically scoffed. Co-host Sara Haines tapped the breaks slightly to suggest Trump might have been misdirecting his comments at the Civil Rights Act, when he might have meant to be directing his criticism at programs like affirmative action: I think he might be confusing the policies, like affirmative action, with the civil rights movement. Because when you look at the civil rights movement you're talking about ending segregation, you're talking about voting rights, you're talking about owning things. Later in the show, while speaking with Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn (SC), Hostin claimed – without evidence – that the Trump administration was trying to “erase” black history (Click “expand”): HOSTIN: Now, they are significant figures in black history, which is American history, something this administration is trying to erase under the guise of eradicating diversity, equity, and inclusion. What is your reaction to these efforts? CLYBURN: Well, my reaction is very clear, we cannot allow it to be done. And I think that we as activists, I'm elected, but I'm a very much an activist. Those people who are concerned about their future for their children and their grandchildren, we have a role to play that we should not ever set aside.   Sunny Hostin falsely claims the Trump administration is trying "erase" black history. pic.twitter.com/90IjebCEFs — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 19, 2026   They also let Clyburn get away with claiming Republicans were trying to bring back slavery. At the top of the show, Goldberg - a multimillionaire – led the cast in mocking the idea that whites could be discriminated against. She even allowed for their far-left audience to get in some jokes about it (Click “expand”): GOLDBERG: But in a recent interview with The New York Times, you-know-who claims that there's a downside to the Civil Rights Act. He says, and I quote, “white people were very badly treated - [Pauses] [Laughter] - where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university or a college.” And under his administration the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says there could be reparations for this discrimination. [Audience murmurs disapprovingly] UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: He's got jokes. Goldberg then played a month-old video of EEOC chair Andrea Lucas announcing their initiative to investigate anti-white discrimination, allowing the audience to mock her while it played. “So, this is my question, when did it all go downhill for white guys?” Goldberg asked while putting on a mocking voice.   The laughs at the idea that whites can be discriminated against in college admissions, work, est. pic.twitter.com/5JUf2Zc0R9 — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) January 19, 2026   Throughout all of this talk of racial injustice, there was no mention of Hostin’s slave-owning family members. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View January 19, 2026 11:02:32 a.m. Eastern (…) WHOOPI GOLDBERG: But in a recent interview with The New York Times, you-know-who claims that there's a downside to the Civil Rights Act. He says, and I quote, “white people were very badly treated - [Pauses] [Laughter] - where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university or a college.” And under his administration the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says there could be reparations for this discrimination. [Audience murmurs disapprovingly] UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: He's got jokes. [Laughter] GOLDBERG: Take a look at this clip. [Cuts to video, with audience murmurs of disapproval heard over it] ANDREA LUCAS (chair, US EEOC): Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws. [Transition] The EEOC is the federal agency charged with enforcing federal anti-discrimination law against businesses and other private sector employers. The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating all forms of race and sex discrimination, including against white male applicants and employees. [Cuts back to live] [Laughter] GOLDBERG: [Putting on a mocking voice] So, this is my question, when did it all go downhill for white guys? (…) 11:05:19 a.m. Eastern SUNNY HOSTIN: I think, you know, equality feels much like oppression when you have always had the privilege of being ahead, even if you were mediocre. And I think that's what we're talking about here. White men, as of 2023, were 76 percent of the workforce and in all sort of top positions where people of color and women were not. Whoopi: Uh-huh. HOSTIN: And so, what we're learning, I think, from this interview is that this administration kept on talking about a meritocracy and that things should be merit-based and they felt that it never was. Now, we really know that this attack against diversity, equity, and inclusion is based on white male grievance, and the fact that Donald Trump seems to really believe in the concept of reverse discrimination. And the NAACP made it very clear after hearing his comments that, in fact, there is absolutely no evidence, no fact-based evidence, that white men have suffered because of this Civil Rights Act. SARA HAINES: I think he might be confusing the policies, like affirmative action, with the civil rights movement. Because when you look at the civil rights movement you're talking about ending segregation, you're talking about voting rights, you're talking about owning things. (…) 11:27:24 a.m. Eastern HOSTIN: Now, your new book is fabulous called The First Eight. As you mention, it tells the story of the eight black pioneers who preceded you in representing South Carolina in the House in the years after the Civil War and before Jim Crow. Now, they are significant figures in black history, which is American history, something this administration is trying to erase under the guise of eradicating diversity, equity, and inclusion. What is your reaction to these efforts? REP. JIM CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, my reaction is very clear, we cannot allow it to be done. And I think that we as activists, I'm elected, but I'm a very much an activist. Those people who are concerned about their future for their children and their grandchildren, we have a role to play that we should not ever set aside. [Applause] (…)

Around 9 p.m. on New Year's Day, deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office in Louisiana responded to a reported medical emergency involving a juvenile at a gas station in Geismar, the sheriff's office said. Geismar is about 30 minutes southeast of Baton Rouge.Upon arrival, deputies found 5-year-old Marley Perilloux unresponsive, officials said.'People be treating their pets almost better than that.'Detectives told WAFB-TV the boy's parents put him in a car and called 911 in search of help, and deputies met them at the gas station off Highway 73.Deputies immediately began performing CPR on the boy while awaiting emergency services, the sheriff's office said.Marley was transported to an area hospital while deputies and other first responders continued life-saving measures, officials said.Ascension Parish Sheriff's Col. Donald Capelo told WAFB that medical professionals at the hospital "continued to work on the child for about 40, 45 minutes before the child just passed away."Detectives with the juvenile unit of the sheriff's office opened an investigation following reports of apparent injuries on the juvenile and additional concerns of child neglect, including severe malnourishment, the sheriff's office said.During their investigation, detectives executed a search warrant at the home where Marley lived with his parents, 33-year-old Marlon Perilloux and 27-year-old Raynisa Young, officials said.Detectives reported the home's interior was in poor condition and barely livable due to Perilloux and Young's negligence, officials said.Detectives interviewed Perilloux and Young and learned that both parents failed to ensure proper hygiene, feeding, and medical care for Marley, who weighed about 19 pounds at the time of death, officials said.Detectives arrested Perilloux and Young for negligent homicide, second-degree cruelty to juveniles, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, and illegal carrying of weapons, the sheriff's office said.Both were transported to the Ascension Parish Jail with no bond, officials said, adding that additional or upgraded charges are pending.RELATED: Dad brings toddler daughter into hot tub with him in middle of night; he falls asleep — and she drowns: Cops In addition, investigators said Marley was bedridden and apparently never left the house, WAFB reported."This is probably the worst case of child neglect I’ve seen in my 34 years of law enforcement," Capelo told the station. "To put it in perspective, when the coroners come out, there are body bags for adults, and there are body bags for infants. And this child, 5 years old, fit in an infant body bag."Cellphone video WAFB obtained shows the Geismar apartment where the family of six lived in squalor, the station said, adding that the unit was filled with trash, debris, and mattresses on the floor.Neighbors told the station the news stunned them, and they had no idea what was happening inside the home."People be treating their pets almost better than that," neighbor Calvin Lewis told WAFB.Lewis added to the station that neighbors gladly would have helped if the family had asked."We're a neighborhood where somebody needs something, that we have something going on," Lewis told WAFB. "You're more than welcome to come get a plate or, you know, any way we can help out."The state removed the three other children from the home, the station said.The district attorney told WAFB that he will see if any other adults knew about the child's condition — and if they did, they also could face charges.An autopsy is pending, the station said, adding that investigators said it's unclear when the child last ate.Capelo urged parents dealing with tough times to seek help, WAFB noted."They need to seek help, whether it be through a family member, whether it be through [the Department of Children & Family Services], a division of the state, but you have to seek help," he told the station. "You have to do whatever you can and whatever means you have to just take care of your children."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!