"The Clintons are again suggesting that they might not agree to a deposition after previously yielding to the threat of a contempt vote. Hillary Clinton taunted House Oversight Chair James Comer 'if you want this fight...let's have it -- in public.' For his part, Bill Clinton seemed more conclusive on X in opposing a deposition: 'I will not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court.' The question is whether the Clintons are again gaming the system after avoiding a bipartisan vote to hold them in contempt.

"As with the Hunter Biden deposition (which was also delayed by such tactics), there are various reasons for holding a closed deposition before public hearings.

"First, these depositions allow professional staff to conduct questioning in a methodical and professional manner. In a public hearing, questioning is conducted by members who are often ill-equipped for substantive inquiries."

Read the entire article here.

"The North American grid watchdog Thursday published its annual long-term reliability assessment, and the analysis offers a sharp warning about the growing threat of blackouts across much of the United States in the coming years.

"'The overall resource adequacy outlook for the North American BPS is worsening: In the 2025 LTRA [long-term reliability assessment], NERC finds that 13 of 23 assessment areas face resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years,' the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) report states.

"During January's Winter Storm Fern, many parts of the U.S. grid neared the point where demand exceeded supply. If the grid continues to shut down fossil-fuel generation and tries to meet demand with intermittent wind and solar, according to NERC, more Americans will face blackouts when demand is high."

Read the entire article here.

"In less than a month, two 'ICE watchers' have been shot and killed by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis. On January 24, a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs ICU nurse. His death follows that of Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was killed on January 7.

"Both Pretti and Good participated in 'ICE watching,' an anti-immigration-enforcement tactic that can involve tracking ICE agents, filming arrests, and alerting other activists of enforcement actions. While participants frame ICE watching as a 'community safety' measure, these tactics often place untrained civilians in direct, high-stakes confrontation with armed federal agents.

"In Minneapolis, one key organizer of these activities is 'Defend the 612.' The group, the membership of which apparently included Renee Good, oversees a massive network of Signal chats dedicated to monitoring and protesting ICE activity. It has become the beating heart of the city's resistance to federal immigration enforcement. (The group's name refers to the Minneapolis area code.)"

Read the entire article here.

"Soon after the unsealing of the grand jury indictment returned against Don Lemon, the left launched a two-track media blitz to defend the former CNN pundit. A cacophony of 'journalists' falsely claimed the Trump Administration charged Lemon for exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of the press. Simultaneously, some big names, such as Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos, framed the grand jury indictment as somehow suspect because several judges had earlier refused to issue an arrest warrant for Lemon. Neither narrative holds merit."

Read the entire article here.

"Well before 'AI' had entered the lexicon of evening newscasters, the university model of higher-education was in trouble. Between 2010 and 2022 -- the year ChatGPT came out -- university enrollment dropped nearly 15 percent throughout the US. State funding cuts pushed already exorbitant tuition costs onto even more students, forcing many to ask whether a college education was even worth the staggering investment.

"And when AI chatbots did hit the scene, they turned a lousy situation into a full blown nightmare, with fresh college graduates discovering in real time that their degrees are almost useless in one of the worst job markets in recent history. ...

"According to the most recent data released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in mid-December, the unemployment rate for recent college grads stands at 5.8 percent, a full 1.7 percent higher than the average across all workers. Recent college grads are also experiencing an unemployment rate almost double the average for all college grads, which stands at 2.9 percent."

Read the entire article here.

"Technically, Punxsutawney Phil emerges next week to predict an early spring or more grim winter. But for all practical purposes, Congress is once again facing its own version of Groundhog Day -- the possibility of yet another partial government shutdown at the end of this week.

"We've all been here before. Despite partisan differences, it appeared that Senate negotiators had reached general agreement on a funding bills package moving forward. But recent events in Minneapolis involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement have led many Democrats to threaten to pull their support for Homeland Security funding, currently part of the overall agreement.

"What Democrats want remains unclear. But if no agreement can be reached before Sunday, they may well throw the dice and risk another significant partial shutdown that would impact far more than ICE or even DHS. Is that a bet worth making for Democrats, given the outcome of their last foray into shutdown politics?"

Read the entire article here.

"In the early months of 2025, Donald Trump sensibly began to roll back burdensome regulations that had targeted modern conveniences. Now the House has codified a Trump executive order so that the next Democratic president can't, with the stroke of an autopen, unwind the progress. Now it's up to the Senate to match the House's work and make the deregulatory directive law.

"Still fresh into his second term in the White House, the Trump administration, in the words of Marc Oestreich that are so enjoyable to read that we have to repeat them here, 'turned its chainsaws on the Department of Energy (DOE), cutting, canceling, or pausing a handful of onerous regulations set to hobble household and commercial appliances.'

"'Gone were efficiency mandates that have made dishwashers weaker, A.C. units feebler, and appliances more expensive,' Oestreich wrote in Reason. 'A new rollback offers a rare win for function over dogma.'"

Read the entire article here.

"NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned the European Union Monday that the alliance would not be able to defend itself without the United States' 'nuclear umbrella' and military assistance, amid heightened tensions over Greenland.

"Tensions in Europe escalated in recent weeks over President Donald Trump's threat to annex Greenland, which is a territory of NATO ally Denmark, but Trump has since backed off the threat of military force after creating the framework of an agreement to acquire Greenland last week.

"Rutte, who spoke with Trump at the World Economic Forum last week, told European lawmakers in Brussels that they would need to double their expected economic spending on defense if they hoped to defend themselves without the U.S."

Read the entire article here.

"This year, there has been a race to the bottom as Democratic politicians fuel the rage in our streets against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. That continued this last week when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz again rushed to judgment after a shooting, adding that the public should not treat Border Patrol or ICE officers as real 'law enforcement' officers. However, rock bottom was finally reached by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), who not only said that she does not consider ICE officers to be 'real law enforcement,' but raised the possibility of citizens shooting them under state law.

"First, the obvious. Mayes said, 'I put ["officers"] in air quotes because I don't think they are real law enforcement.' These are real law enforcement officers under federal law, enforcing federal law. Period. The effort by Walz, Mayes, and others to question their status or treat them as impostors is clearly designed to inflame citizens and encourage greater confrontations. It is a dangerous form of demagoguery. It is sending citizens into harm's way, encouraging them to impede federal operations involving the arrest of criminal suspects.

"Mayes's comments could justify many putting 'attorney general' in air quotes since she is not only misleading citizens about the status of these officers but also enabling the very rage that is causing the injury and death of individuals."

Read the entire article here.

"The United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization on Thursday, slightly over a year after President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO via an executive order on the first day of his second term. The decision was primarily due to the WHO's response during the COVID-19 pandemic, an occurrence Trump noted in his 2025 directive.

"'The United States noticed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2020 due to the organization's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and its inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states,' read the executive order.

"A one-year waiting period was required for the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO to be finalized."

Read the entire article here.