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House heading toward vote to extend health care subsidies in rebuke of GOP leadership

WASHINGTON — In a remarkable rebuke of Republican leadership, the House is moving ahead Thursday on legislation that would extend expired health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act after renegade GOP lawmakers joined essentially all Democrats to help millions of Americans afford insurance under Obamacare.

Forcing the issue to a vote came about after a handful of Republicans signed on to a so-called “discharge petition” to unlock debate, bypassing objections from House Speaker Mike Johnson. If approved, the bill would go to the Senate, where pressure is building for a similar bipartisan compromise. Without action, estimates are that millions will go uninsured this year.

Together, the rare political coalitions are rushing to resolve the standoff over the enhanced tax credits that were put in place during the COVID-19 crisis but expired late last year after no agreement was reached during the government shutdown.

“The affordability crisis is not a ‘hoax,’ it is very real — despite what Donald Trump has had to say,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, invoking the president’s remarks.

“Democrats made clear before the government was shut down that we were in this affordability fight until we win this affordability fight,” he said. “Today we have an opportunity to take a meaningful step forward.”

Ahead of voting, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill, which would provide a three-year extension of the subsidy, would increase the nation’s deficit by about $80.6 billion over the decade. At the same time, it would increase the number of people with health insurance by 100,000 this year, 3 million in 2027, 4 million in 2028 and 1.1 million in 2029, the CBO said.

As federal health tax credits end, Chicago-area leaders warn about costs to Cook County and Illinois hospitals

Growing support for extending ACA subsidies

Johnson, R-La., worked for months to prevent this situation. His office argued Thursday that the federal health care funding from the COVID-19 era is ripe with fraud, pointing to an investigation in Minnesota, and urged a no vote.

While the momentum shows the growing support for the tax breaks that have helped some 22 million Americans have access to health insurance, the Senate would be under no requirement to take up the House bill.

Instead, a small group of senators from both parties has been working on an alternative plan that could find support in both chambers and become law. One proposal would be to shorten the extension of the subsidy to two years and make changes to the program, particularly to root out fraud.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that for any plan to find support in his chamber, it will need to have income limits to ensure that the financial aid is focused on those who most need the help. He and other Republicans also want to ensure that beneficiaries would have to at least pay a nominal amount for their coverage.

Finally, Thune said there would need to be some expansion of health savings accounts, which allow people to save money and withdraw it tax-free as long as the money is spent on qualified medical expenses.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who is part of the negotiations on reforms and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, said there is agreement on addressing fraud in health care.

“We recognize that we have millions of people in this country who are going to lose — are losing, have lost — their health insurance because they can’t afford the premiums,” Shaheen said. “And so we’re trying to see if we can’t get to some agreement that’s going to help, and the sooner we can do that, the better.”

Trump has pushed Republicans to send money directly to Americans for health savings accounts so they can bypass the federal government and handle insurance on their own. Democrats largely reject this idea as insufficient for covering the high costs of health care.

Republicans go around their leaders

The action by Republicans to force a vote has been an affront to Johnson and his leadership team, who essentially lost control of what comes to the House floor as the Republican lawmakers joined Democrats for the workaround.

After last year’s government shutdown failed to resolve the issue, Johnson had discussed allowing more politically vulnerable GOP lawmakers a chance to vote on another health care bill that would temporarily extend the subsidies while also adding changes.

But after days of discussions, Johnson and the GOP leadership sided with the more conservative wing, which has assailed the subsidies as propping up ACA, which they consider a failed government program. He offered a modest proposal of health care reforms that was approved, but has stalled.

It was then that rank-and-file lawmakers took matters into their own hands, as many of their constituents faced soaring health insurance premiums beginning this month.

Republican Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Robert Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie, all from Pennsylvania, and Mike Lawler of New York, signed the Democrats’ petition, pushing it to the magic number of 218 needed to force a House vote. All four represent key swing districts whose races will help determine which party takes charge of the House next year.

Lawler has portrayed the bill as a vehicle senators could use to reach a compromise.

“No matter the issue, if the House puts forward relatively strong, bipartisan support, it makes it easier for the senators to get there,” Lawler said.

Trump encourages GOP to take on health care issue

What started as a long shot effort by Democrats to offer a discharge petition has become a political vindication of the Democrats’ government shutdown strategy as they fought to preserve the health care funds.

Democrats are making clear that the higher health insurance costs many Americans are facing will be a political centerpiece of their efforts to retake the majority in the House and Senate in the fall elections.

Trump, during a lengthy speech this week to House GOP lawmakers, encouraged his party to take control of the health care debate — an issue that has stymied Republicans since he tried, and failed, to repeal Obamacare during his first term.

Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/house-vote-health-care-subsidies/ 

Posted in News

Chicago Blackhawks trade Nolan Allan — a former 1st-round pick — and Laurent Brossoit to San Jose Sharks

The Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday traded defenseman Nolan Allan, goaltender Laurent Brossoit and a 2028 seventh-round draft pick to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for defensemen Ryan Ellis and Jake Furlong and a 2028 fourth-round pick.

Ellis, 35, amassed 275 points (76 goals, 199 assists) with the Nashville Predators (2011-2021) and Philadelphia Flyers (2021-22). The Sharks selected Furlong, 21, with the 140th pick in the 2022 draft, and he has spent his three-year career in the AHL with the San Jose Barracuda, totaling 10 points (one goal, nine assists) in 78 games.

With caps hits of $6,250,000 and $7,857,143, respectively, Ellis and defenseman Shea Weber, 40, are the highest-paid players under contract for the Hawks. Neither has played a game since 2021 due to injury. The Ellis acquisition may have come to help satisfy next season’s salary-cap floor, which will be $70.6 million.

While dealing Allan may have been unexpected — he was a Hawks first-round pick (No. 32) in 2022 — the 22-year-old’s trade stock had decreased in recent months. He compiled 29 points (nine goals, 20 assists) in 109 career regular-season games with Rockford.

Brossoit, 32, signed with the Hawks on July 1, 2024, but did not suit up for the main roster due to injuries. He returned to the net with the IceHogs this year, sporting a 3-3-0 record, .901 save percentage and 3.38 goals-against average.

The Hawks also sent defenseman Ethan Del Mastro to the IceHogs.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/chicago-blackhawks-san-jose-sharks-trade/ 

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Olympic champion snowboarder Chloe Kim is unsure if she can compete in Italy after injuring shoulder

LAAX, Switzerland — Two-time Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Chloe Kim said Thursday that she dislocated her shoulder in training and doesn’t know whether she will be able to compete in the Winter Games next month in Italy.

Kim posted footage of her fall from earlier this week on the halfpipe in Laax, where the world’s top snowboarders compete later this month in a key pre-Olympic tune-up. She landed a jump cleanly but lost her edge and went skittering across the pipe face down.

She said she is “trying to stay optimistic” about competing in the Olympics but “I don’t have much clarity now.”

The 25-year-old Kim said she has an MRI scheduled for Friday that will reveal the extent of the damage.

“The positive thing is I have range,” she said. “I’m not in that much pain. I just don’t want it to keep popping out, which has happened.

“I’m just trying to stay really optimistic. I feel really good about where my snowboarding is at right now, so I know the minute I get cleared and I’m good to go, I should be fine.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/chloe-kim-shoulder-injury-olympics-italy/ 

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Tulsi Gabbard Reportedly Kept In Dark On Venezuela Operation As Nation’s Intelligence Chief

Tulsi Gabbard Reportedly Kept In Dark On Venezuela Operation As Nation’s Intelligence Chief

Longtime Tulsi Gabbard supporters have wondered why she has seemed to be missing in action in terms of weighing in on Trump’s militarily invading Venezuela to oust longtime socialist leader Nicolás Maduro, given that as a prior member of Congress before taking up the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) position, she had been quite vocal against any move on Venezuela. 

While the DNI position – which is the top intelligence post in the US government (overseeing all the agencies and coordinating intelligence at the NSC and for the White House) – is not fundamentally an office weighing in on the policy side of things, many have still wondered just where her ‘non-interventionist’ voice has been – at least behind the scenes in internal administration deliberations.

The Wall Street Journal reports she was intentionally sidelined from any and all planning for the mission to oust Maduro. “White House officials excluded the top U.S. intelligence officer, Tulsi Gabbard, from Venezuela planning since last summer, according to people with knowledge of the matter,” WSJ writes Thursday.

Trump has “gone to bat for Tulsi” in appointing her and keeping her as DNI, but it seems some considered her a ‘risk’ in terms of being let in on the covert Venezuelan Maduro kidnap raid. via NBC

“As President Trump’s national-security team huddled last week to make final preparations for the operation to snatch Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Gabbard was posting social-media photos of herself on a beach in Hawaii, where she grew up, ignorant of the operation’s details,” according to more details.

So she was not only sidelined as intelligence director from being let in on the single biggest foreign military and intelligence mission of the Trump administration thus far, but she was literally thousands of miles away from decision-making centers when it went down.

One anonymous US official did say that her office was involved in providing “intelligence analysis that assisted in the overall mission from the analytical side” – but clearly she was nowhere near the situation room, and essentially blocked from any foreknowledge.

“Trump isn’t particularly close with Gabbard, a senior administration official said, and wanted to limit the number of people who knew about the Venezuela mission. She didn’t need to know about it, the official said,” according to more details.

This means that intel would have been primarily handled by the Central Intelligence Agency, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe – who is seen as increasingly having Trump’s ear.

However, the WSJ report has also noted there are contradictory sources, including one very significant voice which weighed in as follows:

“That’s completely false,” Vice President JD Vance said when asked about Gabbard’s exclusion from the Venezuela planning during a Thursday White House briefing. “We kept it very tight to the senior cabinet-level officials and related officials in our government.”

But Vance seems to be suggesting that Gabbard may have been among those top IC (intelligence community) officials who actually ‘didn’t need to know’ – though this is a bit strange and unexpected.

An example of her strident position against regime change in Venezuela and other places (like Iran)…

This is what Tulsi Gabbard said when she announced her presidential campaign in February 2019 — denouncing Trump’s pursuit of “regime change” in Venezuela and Iran. There is simply no way for her to wriggle out of this and retain bare-minimum credibility pic.twitter.com/42eNeEo28j

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 8, 2026

Prior reporting in the aftermath of the Friday night into early morning raid in Caracas underscored that even top Pentagon officials were kept in the dark as to the timeline and details of the operation, until the very last moments of execution, overseen by a tight crew of Trump admin officials, generals, and without doubt CIA Director Ratcliffe.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 01/08/2026 – 16:50

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/tulsi-gabbard-reportedly-kept-dark-sidelined-venezuela-operation-nations-intelligence 

Posted in News

Ben Johnson says keeping a routine — workout? movie? — is key for Chicago Bears to combat playoff pressure

Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson’s schedule has been so packed with preparation for Saturday’s playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, he hasn’t had a lot of time to mark the occasion with his family.

“Yeah, hard to say this week,” Johnson said Thursday when asked how his wife, Jessica, and children Emory, Kennedy and Halle have handled the playoff buzz around the Bears. “Haven’t seen them a whole lot.

“I’ll see them this afternoon. I think that’ll be palpable to a degree with them. They’ll certainly appreciate it.”

Johnson, 39, noted that his kids are young and watched their father reach the playoffs the previous two seasons as the Detroit Lions offensive coordinator before making it three in a row as the first-year Bears head coach.

“I think they’re kind of expecting it now,” he said. “When you’re a young coach in this league, I’ve come to really appreciate it. … I certainly don’t take it for granted, and I know our players don’t either.”

Safety and special teams player Jonathan Owens echoed several players who expressed how much making the playoffs means to them, especially since the Bears hadn’t reached the postseason since 2020, when only three current players — tight end Cole Kmet, cornerback Jaylon Johnson and kicker Cairo Santos — were on the team.

“It means a lot anytime you get to play extended time at the end of the year,” Owens said Wednesday. “I have been in this position a lot of times where I’m packing up and today is one of those exit meetings, doing all the physicals and everything.

“I know it means a lot to the city, just from everything they have been through and the seasons we’ve had here.”

While Ben Johnson appreciates what making the playoffs means to the locker room, he wants the players to keep a handle on their emotions.

“Because this is our third time through it (with the Packers), I think we’ll be able to handle the emotions a lot better,” he said. “Last time we played them, we ended up having a number of 15-yard fouls that hurt us, that hurt the team, and I think we’ll learn from that and I think we’ll be better off for it.”

Bears players committed two roughing-the-passer and two unnecessary-roughness penalties during the 22-16 overtime win Dec. 20 at Soldier Field — a prime-time, Saturday night home game just like this week’s NFC wild-card game.

“It’s natural to be excited about a game of this magnitude,” Johnson said, “and yet I told them yesterday it won’t take long once that ball is kicked off for all of us to understand it’s another football game.

“That’s when the lights are the brightest and you’ve got a little bit more pressure and high stakes like this, you focus on your fundamentals, you focus on your details and the little things, and that’s really what we’ve been talking about all week.”

Until then, Johnson has settled into a routine and expects his players to do the same.

“I get a good workout in,” he said. “Our guys have handled the short weeks really well. We’ve handled the night games really well. At this point in the season, we all understand what that routine needs to look like.

“It certainly makes a long day, and you try to do what you can to make sure you’re in the plan a little bit but also getting your mind away from it so that you’re fresh and ready to go for kickoff.”

To get away from football — in what little time is afforded — Johnson said he tries to “get a little sleep, a little rest.”

“A workout for the coaching staff normally is a good thing, just to get the blood flowing a little bit,” he said. “And maybe watch a movie or something like that if you’ve got extra time.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/chicago-bears-ben-johnson-playoff-pressure/ 

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First Family Center of Lake County grows to meet area concerns: ‘Needs such as anxiety, stress or addictive behavior’

Walking through the largely expanded offices of the Family First Center of Lake County, individuals will eventually come upon the Serenity Sanctuary for Plants and People — a room filled with flowers and plants, primarily around the walls.

Rachael Chenier, Family First’s executive director, said the room serves a number of purposes for an organization that grew significantly, both in the number of staff members, which has more than tripled, and physical space, more than fourteenfold, in less than a year.

A gift from the Brushwood Center in Riverwoods, Chenier said the room may be therapeutic for clients of Family First as well as members of the staff who need a relaxing moment during the workday. In part, the room enables nature to be part of a person’s therapy,

“Not everyone likes to be out in a forest,” she said. “This room is bringing nature to them with indoor green space. It’s helpful for people trying to make a change in their life. It’s a place where people can become calm.”

The Family First Center of Lake County grew from eight to 27 employees between May and October at its Waukegan office primarily because it became a licensed Illinois Certified Behavioral Clinic in February. It now has seven case managers helping more than 240 clients.

Obtaining its license in February, Chenier said it enabled Family First to bill Medicaid and private insurance companies for the services it provides to clients with a variety of needs, no longer depending primarily on grants for revenue.

Rachael Chenier tends to one of the many plants in the Family First Center of Lake County’s Serenity Sanctuary in its expanded offices in Waukegan, where it now employs 27 people, up from eight less than a year ago. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun)

Before it was licensed by the state, Chenier said Family First had eight employees, as much of its work centered on community events throughout the county. By October, there were 27 people on staff, including seven case managers.

Initially operating out of a 300-square-foot office in a six-floor building in the 2500 block of West Washington Street in Waukegan, Chenier said Family First now occupies approximately 4,250 square feet, including the entire sixth floor and some space on the first level.

Generally, people come to family first with a specific need, like money for rent. utilities, childcare or something else basic. Chenier said they often connect a client with an organization that can directly offer emergency help, like their township, but now there is more.

“Underlying all these needs are behavioral needs such as anxiety, stress or addictive behavior,” Chenier said. “Before these needs can be met, a client has to deal with this emotionally. The case managers help them with that.”

Family First Center case managers can work with children in a room where they can express themselves through play. The room is part of a major expansion of the Waukegan office in the past year. (Steve Sadin/For the Lake County News-Sun)

Nancy Perez Rosa is the caretaker for her special-needs adult daughter, Rebecca Diaz. Rosa came to Family First because she had challenges getting the assistance she needed, particularly health insurance for her daughter, which led to basic financial needs.

“They found a place with programs for me,” Diaz said. “I get to play sports like (wheelchair) hockey and dance.”

“We went to different places, and Family First was able to give her the help she needs,” Rosa added.

Venessa Corona, Family First’s director of case management, said she helped Diaz and Rosa find a way to explain the situation to an insurance carrier, which enabled the family to get their insurance needs met.

Corona said she joined Family First in September when 12 people worked there. She watched it grow rapidly. She regularly helps people who need assistance with rent, utility bills or legal assistance — often collecting child support.

“We ask them where they’ve been,” Corona said. “We look for a different provider and help them articulate the reasons they need the help.”

In September, Corona said the influx of people needing aid grew as immigration enforcement efforts of the federal government, known as Operation Midway Blitz, became more intense. Mothers Trust was a big help at the time with gift cards for clothes.

“People’s hours were cut,” Corona said. “They were not going out of the house because they were afraid. There is less of that now.”

Among the assistance case managers give is helping people both find jobs and secure positions with greater earnings potential. Corona said they often work through the Job Center of Lake County.

Along with Family First’s growth through becoming a licensed behavioral clinic, Chenier said the organization continues to work in the community, operating a preschool at Lions Math and Science Christian Academy and after-school activities at PADS of Lake County.

Chenier said Family First continues to do its Unity in the Community events, where it will bring the bouncy houses and other activities to add to an event like a farmers market.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/family-first-center-waukegan/ 

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Former Crown Point woman gets 7 years after admitting posing as a psychologist, defrauding Medicaid

A federal judge sentenced a former Crown Point woman to seven years in prison Thursday after she admitted posing as a psychologist and bilking Medicaid and Medicare out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Christine L. Reese, a.k.a. Christine Lang, 63, pleaded guilty in April to Medicaid fraud and aggravated identity theft.

“She saw me as a valuable dollar sign,” one client wrote in a letter read during the 2.5-hour hearing.

In court filings, Reese “caused an intended loss of over $457,000 and actually received over $247,000,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Wolff wrote.

The damage was more profound, he later argued in court. She forged documents with real people’s licensing numbers while trying to get jobs. While posing as a psychologist, Reese allegedly wrote a letter of support for one client trying to get a gun and weighed in on another client’s custody battle.

She “defrauded vulnerable people out of mental health treatment,” he said.

He showed a picture from the Harvey Public Library in May 2023, where she was speaking as an apparent psychologist at a mental health forum.

Defense lawyers Jeffrey Urdangen and Bria Stephens argued Reese had a rough childhood and came under the influence of her second husband, Roy Reese Jr., who served time for murder in Cook County before they met.

Tearful, Christine said she was “so ashamed” and “only wanted to help (people).”

“You did real harm,” Judge Phillip Simon said.

She may have thought she was helping people, but more likely that was “delusional,” he said.

Christine Reese was charged Aug. 23, 2023, after an FBI raid on her Crown Point home produced evidence confirming she used others’ identities to obtain a job as a licensed clinical psychologist — she is not one — with Mid-America Counseling Services.

Once Mid-America Counseling fired her, she opened her own telehealth psychology practice, Sanctuary Counseling LLC, five days later, with Roy C. Reese Jr., who at the time was a boyfriend/business partner.

They married Oct. 4, 2021, according to court documents. There she passed herself off as a licensed clinical psychologist who treated patients, made recommendations to officials on patients’ behalf, and then proceeded to bill Medicaid and private insurers for services she was not legally authorized to provide.

A complaint filed in federal court by FBI Special Agent William Powell lays out what he described as a scheme to use another individual’s Indiana Professional Licensing Agency identification number to impersonate a licensed psychologist for the purpose of operating a psychology clinic she was not licensed to operate and allegedly seek reimbursement from Indiana Medicaid and other insurance providers for services Reese could not legally provide.

According to court records, state law requires psychologists to be licensed by the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency, which requires applicants to show they have a doctoral degree in psychology.

“Christine Reese has never been licensed as a psychologist by the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency,” the document reads.

According to the court records, in November 2021, Reese used fraudulent and stolen information to enroll Sanctuary Counseling as an Indiana Medicaid Provider. On the application, the complaint alleges she falsely identified herself in print and handwritten signature as “Dr.” Christine Reese. On a second form for Sanctuary Counseling, she used the name of a licensed psychologist, identified as M.O. in the court documents, and claimed that M.O. was a rendering provider for the clinic.

According to the complaint, that individual never worked for the clinic and denied signing the application bearing her name and said she never gave anyone permission to put her signature on the document. In another alleged misdeed, Reese submitted an IPLA identification number and falsely represented it was hers on a Medicaid enrollment form. The IPLA number belonged to a psychologist who never worked for Sanctuary Counseling.

Then, using the fraudulent information, Reese successfully was able to enroll Sanctuary Counseling as an Indiana Medicaid Provider. During a period beginning in November 2021 and ending in January 2023, Reese, through Sanctuary Counseling, submitted about 506 claims for reimbursement to Indiana Medicaid for approximately 18 individual Medicaid recipients.

Previously, she was sentenced to 50 months in Wisconsin for identity theft.

Post-Tribune archives contributed.

mcolias@post-trib.com

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/former-crown-point-woman-gets-7-years-after-admitting-posing-as-a-psychologist-defrauding-medicaid/ 

Posted in News

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot launches ‘ICE Accountability Project’ to document immigration agents

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has launched an “ICE Accountability Project,” an independent initiative she said would collect and document federal immigration agents’ alleged criminal or abusive conduct during Operation Midway Blitz. 

“A mask cannot shield agents from accountability, and there simply must be accountability for those individuals if we are a democracy,” she said at a downtown news conference Thursday. 

Lightfoot said residents could send videos, audio, photos or other information to reporticenow.com. The accounts will be published on the website and serve as a “centralized, permanent archive” that law enforcement, elected officials, journalists and others can refer to, she said. 

The initiative from Lightfoot follows months of President Donald Trump’s tense and heavy-handed immigration crackdown across Chicagoland as well as an agent killing a woman in Minneapolis Wednesday. Agents arrested thousands of immigrants, most of whom didn’t have a criminal record, during the Chicago operation. It also prompted numerous protests where agents repeatedly deployed tear gas and pepper spray. 

Some of the most high-profile confrontations are already documented on the Report ICE website, including the federal raid on an apartment building in South Shore and the nonfatal shooting of Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park. 

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Lightfoot’s project follows on the heels of Gov. JB Pritzker launching the Illinois Accountability Commission in October to scrutinize agents’ actions in Chicago. The details may be used to hold the federal government accountable if Democrats regain control of Congress in this year’s midterm election or the White House in 2028, he has said.

Pritzker’s commission, led by former federal Judge Rubén Castillo, held its first public hearing last month to primarily discuss agents’ use of chemical crowd control weapons. The commission is scheduled to release an initial report on its findings and recommendations by the end of the month. As of Thursday morning, no additional hearings had been scheduled. 

While Lightfoot said the primary goal of the state commission is thinking of policies or solutions to address the needs of residents, her project would focus on collecting information, though it was unclear exactly what it would be used for in the future.

Lightfoot said Thursday that she’s known Castillo for a long time and believes the two initiatives will work “in harmony with each other.” 

“I am confident, both because of our personal relationships with people on the commission and as I said, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Judge Castillo,” she said. “Also our missions are different, but they can coexist and I think work in harmony together.” 

The project has no law enforcement authority and won’t conduct criminal investigations, although Lightfoot said she hopes local jurisdictions consider doing so when agents cross the line. She also said they won’t publish home addresses or “personal identifying information” of federal agents, but will list details like their clothing or vehicles they drive. 

“(There’s) phone videos, other information that’s been collected by people that are out in these neighborhoods and on the front line, but it’s dispersed amongst literally hundreds of different people … It could disappear just like that,” Lightfoot said. “What we want to do is gather that information in a centralized location, so that people who are inclined to do something, people who are in authority, have the ability to do that.” 

When an incident is submitted, there will be two levels of review, Lightfoot said. In the first review, volunteers will confirm the basic factors of a submission, such as date, time or location. In the second review, she said a team of “experienced investigators” like lawyers or former federal agents will examine it.  

She said “under no circumstances” absent a court order signed by a judge would they divulge the identities of people who submit information to the project. She said they also hosted the website on a non-U.S.-based platform because “we are painfully aware of how certain U.S. companies have acquiesced to the unlawful demand of this federal administration and censored content.” 

The former mayor, who previously served in police oversight roles for the city, first previewed the concept for the accountability project in an interview with Fox 32 Chicago in October.

Almost immediately, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on a Fox News show that Lightfoot would “get a letter from us tomorrow” and said that it appears she’s “violating the law” by attempting to disclose the identities of federal agents. 

“I have every reason to believe that they will not be silent in case of this initiative,” Lightfoot said Thursday. “But what I also know is everything that we’re doing completely is consistent with our rights, my rights as a private citizen to exercise my personal rights to speak.” 

Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella contributed reporting. 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/former-chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-launches-ice-accountability-project-to-document-immigration-agents/ 

Posted in News

Editorial: A needless death in Minneapolis

Every last American should agree the death in Minneapolis of a 37-year-old American mother of three at the hands of a gun wielded by an agent of U.S.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an abomination, an indicator of domestic crisis and, we fear, a harbinger of yet worse to come.

When armed, hardened, stressed and poorly trained ICE and Border Patrol agents descended on our city, accompanied by infuriated and thus unpredictable protesters and impeders who do not support either their mission or even their existence, we said that someone is going to get badly hurt and our concern extended to the agents themselves as well as to those who oppose them.

Badly hurt has proved to be an understatement. Killed would have been a better word.

To our minds, Wednesday’s horror, those kids who lost a mother, should supplant the inevitable circling of the ideological wagons and the parsing of the different angles of pictures taken at the scene. This fraught situation on the streets of American cities has to stop. It is profoundly unsafe.

Those on the right, determined to make the case that this was an officer killing in self-defense, should instead be beginning with this utter failure to protect the life of a civilian protester and de-escalate the situation through some means other than shooting a fellow American in the head. This is true even if one allows that the agent genuinely believed he was in harm’s way, as our police officers do with frequency.

We don’t doubt for a moment that Trump administration officials now defending the ICE agent’s action also know this to be true, but they refuse to express it because they see that as a retreat of their determination to conduct deportations as part of an immigration policy Donald Trump made clear before he was elected.

Not the point, say we. Someone died on a Midwestern street. Changes must be made.

You can find video-driven parsings of what happened at the time of the shooting in thousands of places, mostly slanted to your preferred side. We’d prefer to draw your attention to the beginning of the encounter, as another agent walks aggressively up to the car and tries to grab the door handle, panicking the car’s occupant. Prior to that point, no ICE agent was fearing for his life: There simply was a vehicular obstruction to solve with many different options available. The good ones all required at least the taking of a breath.

The vast majority of immigration enforcement actions are not emergencies. Unless a protester — or even someone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally — is an imminent threat to human life, they should not be the target of gunfire from an officer sworn to protect. The Trump administration is treating those who oppose them as enemies in a civil war, demonstrably all the way up to death.

For God’s sake, will they tell us that they understand the clear and present danger to the union and change what they are doing?

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/08/editorial-ice-minneapolis-shooting-renee-good-immigration-enforcement/ 

Posted in News

How Dare You Fight Back Against Communists!

How Dare You Fight Back Against Communists!

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us

When we examine the historic nature of communist revolution, we have to look beyond our disgust for their motives and consider their strategies and the reasons why they tend to succeed. Because it is simply a fact that the western experiment of individual liberty and self determination is being systematically eroded by a storm of socialist movements that will inevitably lead to a global communist regime if we do not take drastic actions in the near future.

The goals of communism and socialism are essentially the same; the core difference is that socialism seeks collectivist control of populations and resources through an incremental and “peaceful” (subversive) takeover of governments. Communism seeks collectivist control over populations and resources through direct and violent overthrow.

Either strategy can bleed into the other and there is no rule that says communists can’t exploit various shades of violence and sabotage while hiding behind a facade of peace and democracy. At bottom, leftists operate like guerrillas when they are not in government power, and they operate like dictators when they are in government power.

We have seen this dynamic on display when it comes to the highly organized activist sabotage networks that stalk and impede lawful deportations of illegal aliens. This week, one female activist was shot and killed while allegedly trying to block ICE agents with her vehicle, and then trying to run one of them over when they approached her.

I’ve looked at all the available video evidence from multiple angles and in my opinion she did in fact try to hit the officer with her car. Frankly, she got exactly what she deserved and I would argue that more of these NGO paid activists need to face similar consequences if we are ever going to stop the engineered communist monkey wrenching in our midst.

If we can’t shut the NGOs down, then the people they pay and train need to be pummeled until they realize the money simply isn’t worth it.

Leftists function on the assumption that they can skirt the law while using it as a shield against reprisal. They do it over and over and usually they get away with it. They whittle us down by stabbing at us from behind a curtain of gray legality. I’m tired of it, and I think many millions of other Americans are also tired of it. We’re done playing nice.

In my studies on various communist insurgencies over the past century there is a clear pattern, a specific strategy that is almost always used. For lack of a better description, today we would call it the strategy of the “Cry Bully.”

Here is basically how Cry Bully communists operate:

1) They work with the very same oligarchs, corporatists and globalists they claim to despise. They happily take the money of wealthy institutions and NGOs and do the bidding of their elitist masters as long as they get to tear down their enemies.

2) They employ elicit funding to pay for a the mobilization of an astroturf army of provocateurs and agitators (useful idiots will naturally gravitate to this army over time because they wrongly assume it’s grassroots).

3) They use propaganda to justify the activist sabotage and disruption of the target society by falsely claiming that they represent the will of the populace and the rights of the “disenfranchised.”

4) They wrap themselves in the identity of the “victim”; they are the poor, downtrodden masses. They are the poverty stricken underclass. They are the abused and mistreated majority suffering under a minority of overlords (anyone more successful than they are or anyone who opposes their beliefs). Therefore, everything they do no matter how vicious, deceitful and destructive is morally exonerated.

5) The insurgents then agitate and provoke and poke and prod the society until it reacts to defend itself. When they finally get hit back, leftists then cry the tears of the wounded underdog.

6) They then attempt to abuse the laws and principles of the existing system in order to punish anyone who defends themselves against communist provocations. If they can get the law on their side, through corrupt judges and politicians, then they can cripple their opposition by making people afraid to fight back for fear of imprisonment.

7) When leftists can’t control the law they wail and rage over it’s rightful application. They act as if the enforcement of basic law and order is the same as government tyranny. How dare you fight back! How dare you subject them to the punishments they deserve!

8) A great and fabricated drama unfolds. Leftists play the role of martyrs who “only want to be free”, who only want “equity” and the same prosperity enjoyed by their betters. They only want to protect the rights of the vulnerable. In reality, they are militants trying to burn down your freedom and prosperity and pillage what they can in the process.

They don’t want to be equal to you, they want to plunder what you have so they can feel superior to you. They want to steal your wealth, your accomplishments and the life which you worked so hard to build. They are parasites, not people.

If any of this is sounding familiar it’s because we are experiencing this very process of communist revolution right now in America. And, I think it’s time to admit that our republic and our constitution (as we currently interpret it) are ill equipped to defeat an insurgency made up of millions of the same citizens that the republic was originally built to protect.

If the Founding Fathers were alive today, they would have already crushed this insurgency to dust and they would not be concerned about any constitutional conundrums. They understood that the liberties of the republic only apply to people who want to keep the republic alive. They do not apply to people who desire its death.

How do we fight this enemy from within? Well, first we have to accept that the greatest enemy conservatives have is ourselves. There is no shortage of conservatives and centrists these days who refuse to take proper action. Our greatest enemy is those people within our own ranks who have no balls.

In the face of rampant racketeering and migrant driven fraud in Minnesota (and other blue states) we repeatedly discover that the system is being manipulated to serve the interests of miscreants who want to steal from us and subjugate us. It’s not just the migrants, it’s the leftist politicians enabling the migrants. The entire structure of law is being subverted and mocked.

Tim Walz is just one example of a political poison pill that likely participated in fraud and he’ll probably never face prison time for it. Look at all the leftist judges protecting the Somali fraudsters. Look at all the politicians in congress protecting them. And it’s not just Democrats, there are some Republicans and libertarian politicians who are constantly interfering with any meaningful response.

Meanwhile, blackpillers scream over Trump “not doing anything.”

It’s clear that our welfare systems are being pirated, that our country has been invaded and that at least one half of our government is in on the scheme. Yet, I see a number of conservative and libertarian voices who would rather blither on about small government theory rather than actually confront the culprits.

It doesn’t seem to occur to them that the government’s massive expansion is a symptom of our inaction on the “smaller” issues. If we can’t even deal with a bunch of low IQ pirates from Somalia and the garbage Democrats supporting them, then we’re never going to be able to deal with the “bigger” issues of federal waste, the central bank or the globalists.

There’s a good reason why public approval for congress is constantly sitting near record lows (currently hovering around 15%). All they do is maintain the status quo and impede every effort that might lead to a modicum of reform. Communists love these kinds of circumstances. They love legal purists and constitutional sticklers, because the purists make communist revolution possible.

This is not to say that I believe the federal government is the answer to everything, or most things. But at some point conservatives decided that government is not allowed to do ANYTHING. That it is supposed to sit idle while the country is overrun by barbarians and morally relative demons. That we aren’t ever supposed to retaliate and strike fear into the hearts of our adversaries.

I’m sorry, but we are at war and there is no place for such idealism any longer. Retaliation is the only thing that is going to save us now.

When I ponder this problem I’m often reminded of a book called The Trial by Franz Kafka. In that book there is a short story called “Before The Law” which describes a man who travels from the country to the city to a place where he can “access the law.” The doorway to the law is protected by a guard, who tells him he “can’t admit the man at the moment”, but if he waits he might eventually gain entry.

Over years of waiting the man grows old and feeble, fixating on the guard and desperate for admittance. Finally, he begins to die. He asks the guard why no one else has sought entry in all that time. The guard replies: “No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. And now, I am going to shut it.”

The law seemed to be open to him, but it was a facade. If he wanted justice he would have to grab it himself, but the man never attempted to force his way in. He never took action. Instead, he wasted his life and youth hoping for the system to treat him fairly.

And this is how I look at the conservative liberty movement or MAGA movement and the various groups that orbit it. It’s not only about the system interfering with Trump’s efforts, it’s about conservative being hobbled and tied down by false promises of law and justice while communists are given free rein to do as they please.

Conservative are constantly told that waiting is the answer. It’s a grand lie designed to keep us passive and apathetic. In fact, I would argue that extensive wealth and energy has been expended over the years by the powers-that-be to do one thing: To simply keep conservatives from taking matters into their own hands.

Like crabs in a bucket, there always seems to be naysayers, blackpillers and purists who grab hold of anyone taking action and pulling them back into the water. And, when government does do something right, as we have see with Trump on more than a few occasions, these same people are often a more incessant obstacle than the very leftist insurgents attacking our nation from within.

Their argument of course is that if we fight back then the result might be much worse than what we have today. What if we become the monsters we’re trying to defeat? I say that’s a risk we’re going to have to take. Better to do something than wait at the gate, aging and rotting away slowly, watching our republic die from a thousand cuts when we could have saved it while we are still capable.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 01/08/2026 – 16:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-dare-you-fight-back-against-communists