"The midair collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army Blackhawk helicopter over the nation's capital was preceded by months of harrowing near misses at airports across America, as well as increasingly shrill warnings that the nation's air traffic control and safety system is stretched to the limit.

"Just 14 months before Wednesday night's fatal mishap near Ronald Reagan National Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration received a safety expert report that warned America's air traffic control system is suffering from quality control issues and staffing shortages that put safety at risk.

"That report warned that 'challenges, in the areas of process integrity, staffing, and facilities, equipment, and technology, all have ties to inadequate, inconsistent funding. Together, these challenges contribute to increased safety risk and should be regarded as incident precursor.'"

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"In his first hours in office, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order curtailing the practice of unlimited birthright citizenship. Many think the Fourteenth Amendment calls for citizenship for everyone born in America. Left-wing attorneys general in 18 states have filed suit to stop the order. But the case isn't as clear cut as some would contend.

"At the heart of the debate is this phrase: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'

"This central clause raises questions about its application for some children of non-citizens and illegal immigrants. By revisiting the original debates surrounding the amendment's language and reviewing its implications, Trump's call for limiting the scope of birthright citizenship appears reasonable."

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"President Trump is exposing a fundamental flaw in the basic Biden-Harris theory of illegal immigration.

"Specifically that America is somehow at fault because people jump our borders and that we need to bribe the origin nations of the illegal flood with goodies like trade deals and spending on spurious 'root causes,' all because an evil and guilty United States has to pay and pay and pay before even thinking of maybe asking nicely for repatriations.

"For proof, witness Sunday's almost-instant cave-in by Colombian President Gustavo Petro after he tried to go head to head with Trump on the issue."

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"The federal government reported $161.8 billion in improper payments during the most recent fiscal year, according to a new watchdog report.

"Improper payments have been a significant issue for the federal government, with executive branches reporting an estimated $2.8 trillion worth since 2003, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

"The report found a total of $161.8 billion in improper payments in 2024 alone. That figure is likely an undercount because not all federal agencies follow reporting guidelines."

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"Apocalyptic global warming predictions of doom have long been fashionable, quasi-religious beliefs of 21st-century liberalism. But after the recent wildfires that have devastated the state, some California Democrats will be clinging to climate change as a matter of political survival.

"The epic incompetence demonstrated both by Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass during the crisis isn't just a matter of bad optics and some excruciatingly embarrassing moments for two career politicians. It has also created the possibility that even in a one-party state completely dominated by the Democrats, they might be held accountable for their egregious lack of leadership and terrible decisions that turned a natural disaster into an unprecedented catastrophe that has cost dozens of lives and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and buildings.

"While the notion that this might be a turning point to reverse the overwhelming advantage possessed by Democrats in California might be fanciful, the two are highly vulnerable to recall elections that, especially in the case of Bass, might actually force her from office."

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"Most state 2025 legislative sessions kicked off last week or this week. The remaining states will have their sessions underway by early February. Louisiana is the only exception, and it is not scheduled to convene its legislature until April.

"During the legislative sessions, K-12 education will continue to be a common top policy area throughout the country. Efforts to enact and expand school choice legislation will be front and center in several states, as has been the case since 2021."

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"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows:

"Section 1. Purpose. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, an amendment essential to the success of our Republic, enshrines the right of the American people to speak freely in the public square without Government interference. Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans' speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve. Under the guise of combatting 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' and 'malinformation,' the Federal Government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the Government's preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society."

Read the entire executive order here.

"President-elect Trump on Sunday rallied with supporters in Washington, D.C., on the eve of his second inauguration, taking a victory lap and teasing an expected barrage of activity on his first day in office. ...

"President-elect Trump promised a blitz of executive action on Day 1 in the Oval Office, including sweeping repeals of Biden administration policies, and pledged that his followers will 'have a lot of fun' watching the barrage.

"'Every radical and foolish executive order of the Biden administration will be repealed within hours of when I take the oath of office,' Trump said.

"'Oh, you're going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow,' he told the crowd. 'Somebody said yesterday, "Sir, don't sign so many in one day. Let's do it over a period of weeks.' I said, 'Like hell we're going to do it over weeks.' We're going to sign them at the beginning.""

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"Days before departing his last political job, a beleaguered Joe Biden went to the podium to announce a long-awaited ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. But when pressed by the news media over who should get credit for the deal, the 46th American president demurred.

'Is that a joke?' Biden retorted Wednesday afternoon. And moments later he walked away without providing an answer.

Half way across the globe, another world figure whose country was lead negotiator in the deal offered a clear answer: The man succeeding Biden as U.S. president had changed the dynamic and enabled a deal that had been stalled for months."

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"The recently released White House report blaming computer software for the massive increases in rental prices that Americans have suffered over the past four years is best described as a self-serving whitewash.

"This report claims that algorithmic pricing software, used by property owners to set a market price for their rental properties, has artificially inflated rents. But this analysis conveniently ignores the primary culprit -- the Federal Reserve's dovish monetary policy and the Biden administration's reckless economic agenda.

"Inflation didn't just happen; it was fueled by the Fed's printing press and the White House's excessive spending programs, which flooded the economy with trillions of dollars. This spending spree drove up demand across the board, which -- by increasing competition for available properties -- inflated prices."

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