<It's time to ban perfy.>

chessgames.com chessforum (kibitz #42838)

<Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino and other U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were refused service Wednesday at a Speedway convenience store.

Video circulating on social media shows Bovino and other federal agents turned away at a Speedway near Minneapolis. A Speedway worker reportedly told the commander and his team they would not be served because staff members “don’t support ICE.”

Independent journalist Cam Higby shared footage showing him questioning a Speedway employee after Bovino and other federal agents were denied service at a Minneapolis location. In the video, Higby asks the employee whether they work at the store and whether they refused service to the agents. The employee answered and said the decision was intentional.

“You guys kicked him out?” Higby asked.

“Yeah, I did. Because I wanted to. We don’t support ICE. Nobody here does. Neither do I,” the worker said.

Higby then turned to Bovino and asked whether it is legal for a business to deny service to federal agents.

“If it is, I personally don’t care,” the Speedway worker interjected.

Protests against ICE intensified across the United States following the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good, after an ICE officer fired as she accelerated her vehicle toward him. Demonstrations spread nationwide. A video that circulated Friday on X shows anti-ICE activists misidentifying a man as an ICE agent because he was driving a vehicle similar to those commonly used by the agency.

As the protests escalated, the Pentagon reportedly ordered about 1,500 active-duty troops to stand by and prepare for possible deployment in Minneapolis.

The Department of Homeland Security and Speedway did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.>

There are innumerable other such establishments about in Minneapolis; Bovino can f*** off and die so far as I am concerned, same as <stalkers> <antichrist> and <fredthejackal>.

<Weeks after abruptly pulling a 60 Minutes segment about Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration to the notorious El Salvadorian prison CECOT, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss gave the greenlight for the newsmagazine to quietly air the “Inside CECOT” story this past Sunday.

Hours before the report finally ran, however, Weiss called several journalists to help shape coverage of the decision, according to Status News. It was during these private briefings – conducted on background with the condition that reporters wouldn’t directly attribute the information to Weiss – that she took the opportunity to criticize Sharyn Alfonsi, the 60 Minutes correspondent behind the piece.

“Status has learned that during these conversations with reporters, Weiss expressed significant frustration with Alfonsi, who had declined to make changes to her piece at Weiss’ behest,” Status News’ Oliver Darcy reported.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for CBS News and Weiss for comment.

The broadside against Alfonsi in the background calls – like Darcy, this reporter did not take part in these discussions and learned about them independently – comes after Weiss has been on the receiving end of withering press coverage and internal criticism over her leadership of the Tiffany Network’s newsroom.

The relentless scrutiny of her approach as editor-in-chief – a position the anti-woke columnist was granted by Paramount chief David Ellison in October despite her dearth of experience in broadcast news – reached a fever pitch last month when she dramatically pulled the “Inside CECOT” segment at the last minute, even though it had been cleared by the network’s legal team and promoted on CBS airwaves.

Amid widespread blowback both internally and externally, Weiss repeatedly defended her decision that the segment was “not ready” to air, citing the lack of on-the-record comments from the Trump administration defending their actions and legal justifications. Meanwhile, Alfonsi fumed in a memo to her 60 Minutes colleagues that Weiss's decision to spike the segment appeared to be politically motivated.

“Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now – after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

Alfonsi also noted that if the White House’s “refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” adding that the network goes “from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”

The fiasco around the segment prompted network employees and insiders to suggest that Weiss could face a “revolt” from 60 Minutes staff, which was already suffering from plummeting morale following a year’s worth of controversies, such as Paramount paying Donald Trump $16 million to settle a “meritless” lawsuit over the program’s interview with rival Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, with Weiss coming under additional fire over the “MAGA-coded” reboot of CBS Evening News – which has suffered a rocky rollout replete with internal discord, technical mishaps, cringey pro-Trump segments and soft ratings – The Free Press founder has grown increasingly frustrated with the overwhelmingly negative media coverage she’s received.

Therefore, after finally giving the “Inside CECOT” story the green light to run this past Sunday – with little promotion and up against the NFL playoffs – Weiss rang up several journalists to offer her own perspective on the controversy and “do her own PR,” as one Weiss associate explained to Status.

In general, this type of behind-the-scenes outreach by a network chief amid a media firestorm in which they are embroiled is unusual, as attempts at public relations spin are typically left to spokespeople and communications staff. Making it even more eyebrow-raising from Weiss, however, was what was said during those calls – namely, the criticism of Alfonsi.

“While it is no secret that Weiss and Alfonsi are at odds, the fact that the network’s top editorial executive would voice irritation with one of her marquee correspondents to outside journalists is, to put it mildly, extraordinary. Sure, disputes with subordinates happen at virtually every organization,” Darcy pointed out. “But strong leaders keep disagreements within the house. They don’t complain to the press about them—especially when the subordinate is barred from advocating in the press on her own behalf.”....>

<....Indeed, with morale sinking at CBS News as a whole amid the network’s conservative shift under Ellison, who has been accused of trying to curry favor with Trump as he seeks regulatory approval in his hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, Weiss’ criticism of Alfonsi in her reporter briefings isn’t going over well with staff.

“She is so out of her depth it’s astounding. Her inexperience is on full display,” one network reporter told The Independent. “How long must we endure this fiasco?”

Another 60 Minutes staffer told Status that Weiss was “deflecting” the widespread backlash she has faced since joining CBS by “blaming us,” adding that she should have expected some pushback from the show’s staff due to their experience and accolades.

“They know exactly what they’re doing, and they do it exceptionally well. That’s why the show has been No. 1 for as long as it has,” that staffer said.

“Of course, there’s going to be friction when Bari walks in acting like she owns the place. These are the people who built it,” the staffer continued. “You don’t gain and build trust when you insult us, come in and say we’re biased, don’t learn the place [and] how we work, the fact-checking and research involved.”

Another network staffer, who spoke to The Independent on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, stated that it seemed pretty apparent who Weiss had spoken to over the weekend based on the stories that were published about the situation.

“Clearly those lines in news reports about 'people who work with Bari say she admits she got involved too late in the 60 process and wasn’t aware of the effect a late decision would have on the 60 process' is from her private briefings with reporters that Status refers to,” the staffer stated.

“Trying to show it’s an honest mistake and I’m learning - f*** that - it’s not a difficult thing to understand how your involvement can f*** things up,” they added. “Firstly, you don’t need to have worked in TV to get that and secondly, it reveals her arrogance because she could have asked what the ramifications were or listened when people protested.”

In the end, while she held the story for four weeks, Weiss ultimately allowed it to air largely intact. While the report itself remained unchanged from the previously submitted version, which briefly ran on a Canadian network before CBS News pulled it back, 60 Minutes added portions to the front and back of the segment. The bookended sections included additional comments from the Trump administration and details about an “offensive tattoo” that one of the Venezuelan migrants interviewed by Alfonsi had removed.

At the same time, though, Weiss’ push to have a Trump official sit down for the story proved unsuccessful in the end. Despite her making it a top priority for the report to air, and the biggest reason she claimed it needed additional work to be ready to run, the Trump administration rebuffed 60 Minutes’ efforts to score an interview.

In fact, as several outlets recently reported, Weiss reached out to the administration to get DHS chief Kristi Noem or border czar Tom Homan to speak with the program – with Alfonsi making her way to Washington to conduct the interviews.

“Since November, ‘60 Minutes’ has made several attempts to interview key Trump administration officials on camera about our story,” Alfonsi said during the aired segment on Sunday. “They declined our requests.”>

<One of the biggest public investors in the world has trimmed its exposure to U.S. assets in yet another indication that the “sell America” trade is taking root in global capital markets.

President Donald Trump, however, had some harsh words for those who might want to mimic it.

“There would be a big retaliation on our part,” Trump told Fox Business News during an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos when asked if he was concerned that European countries might dump U.S. Treasuries.

“We have all the cards,” he said.

The U.S. has a lot of cards, of course, but a lot of IOUs as well. Overall debt is forecast to rise past $50 trillion over the coming decade, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A good chunk of that money will come from foreign investors.

But some are starting to think twice about financing America’s ballooning deficits, particularly in the wake of a foreign-policy blitz that has rattled NATO allies in Europe, raised the prospect of annexing Canada as the “51st state,” and threatened military action in Central and South America.

“Donald Trump’s remarks at the Davos Forum come at a moment when markets are already highly sensitive to political risk, and they help explain why global investors are reassessing their exposure to U.S. assets,” said John Murillo, chief business officer at B2Broker.

“We are already seeing early signs of a ‘Sell America’ narrative gaining traction, with capital rotating out of U.S. equities and Treasuries,” he added. “The result is higher bond yields, tighter financial conditions, and reduced liquidity for businesses that rely on stable access to capital.”

Jo Taylor, who runs the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a public-sector behemoth with around $200 billion in assets under management, told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that it scaled back its investment in U.S. assets early last year and has held them at similar levels since then.

“We thought we were a little exposed to the dollar and to U.S. Treasuries, so we’ve cut them both,” Taylor said. “The U.S. is still around 30% of our overall portfolio and remains an important territory for us in terms of further capital.”

But that might not mean more Treasury purchases. Others have expressed a similar view.

Denmark’s AkademikerPension fund, which also serves teachers and academics, said earlier this week it would sell its $100 million U.S. Treasury portfolio, while the Greenland-based SISA Pension fund has said it may follow suit.

However, the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, the $2.1 trillion Norges Bank Investment Management, is staying put.

“Our presence in the United States reflects the size of the U.S. market,” Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. “I think that’s the best way for a very long-term fund.”

Looking ahead is good, of course, but the vista investors must now contemplate is replete with a host of issues that are both unique to U.S. markets and concerning to a longer term outlook.

Tech stocks, which have powered the vast bulk of stock market gains over the past three years, carry uncomfortable political risks. The White House used its bully pulpit to take a 10% stake in Intel, and demanded a cut of Nvidia’s China-bound chip sales. It also carries a holding in the rare-earth producer MP Materials and maintains a “golden share” that gives it veto power over moves at U.S. Steel following the merger with Nippon Steel.

President Trump’s key criterion in selecting a new Fed chair, meanwhile, is the delivery of lower interest rates. This will add downward pressure on short-term Treasury yields while extending the rise of longer-dated yields. That distorts the ability of any investor to predict returns in a blended bond portfolio.

The same could be said for commodities. They are tied to tariffs risks, as in the case with gold, silver and copper, and unpredictable seizures and embargoes, as is the case with oil and gas.

The U.S. isn’t, and won’t ever become, an uninvestible risk. But at the margins, which are significant in a stock market valued at $48 trillion and Treasury debt valued at $30 trillion, small exits matter. And over time, they can become concerning.

“When you have conflicts, international geopolitical conflicts, even allies do not want to hold each other’s debt,” legendary investor Ray Dalio told CNBC earlier this week. “They prefer to go to a hard currency. This is logical and it’s factual, and it’s repeated throughout the world history.”>

<President Donald Trump is so desperate for fresh ideas on the economy he’s now turning to the people he’s repeatedly blamed for the nation’s dismal fiscal performance.

MAGA insiders told Politico’s Playbook newsletter Friday that the White House is weighing discussions with the Democratic Party as a way of melding “what might be termed traditional Republican approaches and traditional Democratic approaches.”

“While these proposals are more populist in orientation, it doesn’t mean just taking off the shelf a Democratic proposal and refashioning it,” one official said. “It is trying to figure out the ways in which the free market and Trump-ist populism can be advanced using different paradigms.”

Economists remain divided on whether Trumponomics can be advanced at all.

The president has repeatedly leveraged and threatened astronomical tariffs against trading partners as part of an “America First” policy he says will establish a “level playing field” for the U.S. in international markets.

But financial experts have pointed out those same markets have overwhelmingly favored the U.S. for the better part of a century and warned that trade tariffs almost always end up affecting domestic prices, since businesses move to shift the additional costs onto consumers over time.

At 2.7 percent, inflation remains persistently high, with the increased cost of bare essentials like utilities, energy, and groceries reported to be hitting lower- and middle-income families hardest.

While headline unemployment rates may not have spiked dramatically, job growth has slowed significantly across multiple sectors.

Significant government layoffs, with hundreds of thousands of positions axed amid MAGA’s cost-cutting frenzy last year, have further reduced household income for former federal staffers while dampening consumer demand in local economies dependent on government employment.

A record-breaking government shutdown in October and November of last year is also estimated to have cost the economy tens of billions of dollars, placing a considerable dent in both consumer and business confidence across the country.

A fresh Wall Street Journal poll this week found that voters are more likely by 15 percentage points to rate the overall economy as weak rather than strong.

Just over 50 percent of voters said things have worsened over the past year, compared to 35 who believe the situation has improved.

The White House seems conscious of those numbers ahead of this year’s crucial midterm elections. But any reaching out across the aisle only serves to undermine the narrative Trump has consistently pushed about the nation’s economic woes.

Just this week, the MAGA leader told the World Economic Forum in Davos that “under the Biden administration, America was plagued by the nightmare of stagflation,” and that Democratic economic policies had proven “a recipe for misery, failure and decline.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment on this story.>

<By the time Donald Trump’s first year back in office ended earlier this week, it was no longer clear what counted as a scandal at all. Actions that once would have triggered hearings, resignations or criminal investigations now landed with a shrug or feigned shock—if there was even time to muster a response before the next sh-tshow landed. Corruption was open, grift was ever-present, constitutional violations routine and abuses of power staggering. The guardrails all but disappeared.

But here’s the bad news: 2025 was just the warm-up. As the old saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

You might say what’s coming will be unprecedented. But that word has been used so often to describe Trump that it’s lost almost all meaning. What hasn’t lost meaning—at least, not yet —is the idea that things can still get worse.

They can. They will.

What matters now isn’t what Trump has already done, but what he is incentivized to do next. The reason is simple. Trump’s time is running out, both in his ability to operate unchecked and, possibly, in good or even below adequate health.

Midterm elections are looming—assuming they happen at all, given Trump’s threats—and if Democrats retake Congress, oversight resumes, subpoenas fly, and impeachment returns to the table. And let’s not forget the odd discourse Trump has often wandered into regarding his chances of getting into heaven—zilch—raising the question of whether he senses the end may be nearer than he lets on. If so, Trump is not the type to have a come-to-Jesus moment.

So as Trump enters 2026, this doomsday clock will become the dominant force in his decision-making. With accountability potentially arriving after the midterms, the coming year isn’t about restraint or consolidation. It’s about acceleration.

This year isn’t about Trump “testing the limits” anymore. Trump has already tested them and discovered something he didn’t have during his first term: There are effectively no limits at all, so long as the right (i.e. the far-right) people surround him. He will go unbound.

Some will argue Trump has always behaved this flagrantly. But that misses the point. Yes, Trump has never respected rules or norms in his privileged, lazy life. But his pattern isn’t recklessness for its own sake; rather, it’s escalation. He pushes until institutions and people flinch, recalibrates, and then pushes further once he learns there are no consequences. Just when you think he’s gone as far as he can, he goes further.

Talk of deploying the military domestically? Unconstitutional. Ha. Accepting the world’s most luxurious jet as a future personal gift? The Emoluments Clause once mattered. No more! Invading a country and kidnapping its leader? International law says no. Oh well. Aren’t those executive orders illegal? Who cares!

Each time, the unthinkable becomes normalized. Each time, we move on. And Trump learns the same lesson: He can do whatever he wants because nothing meaningful stops him.

That lesson was reinforced in a peripatetic New York Times interview, when Trump said the only thing restraining him is his own morality. Not Congress. Not the courts. Not the law. His morality.

That may be the most honest—and terrifying—thing the baloney-babbling Trump has ever said. And not even just because he is entirely amoral to begin with.

Morality, unfortunately, is not a guardrail. It’s a principle, and Trump has none. He has maniacal moods and impish impulses. So if he believes accountability is coming in January 2027, his incentive in 2026 is not restraint. It’s reckless abandon. Full steam ahead.

We’ve already seen how Trump treats presidential power as a license for personal indulgence. Pardons, once an extraordinary presidential power, have been degraded and deranged into a loyalty-for-sale system and self-protection. The January 6 blanket pardons were shocking. That proclamation was the first of his second term, and set the tone. And with each new one, they pale further. By this year’s end, they may look quaint.

Meanwhile, the grift accelerates. A reported billion-dollar buy-in for Trump’s so-called “peace board” raises obvious questions about who controls the money and why it exists at all. The blurring is intentional. Expect more “boards,” more exclusive access schemes, more Mar-a-Lago-style membership fees disguised as legitimate governance....>

<....Legally, the strategy is simple: delay everything. Drag lawsuits through the courts. Stonewall oversight. Fire watchdogs. Strip regulatory agencies. Run out the clock until pardons and immunity claims erase the paper trail.

Hovering over all of this is the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling that says presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for official acts, especially core constitutional duties, though not for purely private actions. Trump has barely leaned on it so far, but that will change. Expect it to be invoked to justify aggressive domestic deployments, unilateral foreign actions, coercion of federal agencies, and personal enrichment reconstituted as “official acts.”

Need a preview? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered one with his recent defense of Trump’s new tariffs—which legally require a national emergency—by declaring that “the national emergency is avoiding a national emergency,” amid European nations’ pushback against Trump’s Greenland ambitions.

Yes, some of the scenarios that flow from this logic sound implausible, even melodramatic. Frankly, anyone who wagers a guess about what Trump could do is talking in a wind tunnel. But the things Trump has already done are what the media calls “unprecedented.”

Now ask yourself a simple question: What wouldn’t Trump do if it benefited him personally? Trump’s bottom line is always exactly that: his bottom line. Helping Republicans in the midterms offers him nothing. Enriching himself, testing judicial boundaries, and daring institutions to stop him offers everything.

The tragedy isn’t that we can’t imagine how far he’ll go. It’s that every time we say, “He’d never do that,” he treats it as a dare.

2026 won’t be the year the renegade Trump shocks us with something entirely new. It will be the year he proves that the limits we thought existed never did at all.>

<<No paying member, no editor, zero correction slips, zero game uploads but follows everyone around like a school teacher.> - and proud of it.>

Classic projection and confession, rolled into one.

<Ya want a guy that comes to play. This guy didn't just come to play. He come to beat ya. He come to stuff the goddam bat up your ass.>

<In a heated interview with CNN‘s Dana Bash on Sunday, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said his agents were the real “victims” in the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis protestor.

Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs nurse, was killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday. In videos of the deadly altercation between Pretti and several agents, he can be seen placing himself between an agent and several women that he was shoving. Pretti is sprayed with a chemical irritant and then wrestled to the ground, where one agent repeatedly hit him in the head with the irritant’s metal canister. Pretti, who was legally carrying a firearm, was fatally shot by agents while on the ground.

The Department of Homeland Security immediately painted Pretti as a threat, saying that officers feared for their lives because Pretti was legally carrying a firearm. Multiple videos of the shooting contradicted the official line that Pretti was threatening agents. On Sunday, Bash pressed Bovino for evidence “that he was intending to massacre law enforcement.”

When Bash repeatedly asserted Pretti’s right to carry his firearm, Bovino made the bold claim that Pretti forfeited his Second Amendment rights via his actions.

“We respect that Second Amendment right, but those rights don’t count when you riot and assault, delay, obstruct, and impede law enforcement officers — and most especially when you mean to do that beforehand,” he said.

Bovino went on to say that Pretti was merely the suspect and that his agents were the people who truly suffered.

“The victims are the Border Patrol agents,” he said.

A fake presidency, but real tyranny

That party line was echoed by Trump Cabinet members across the Sunday press shows. FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News that protestors have no right to carry firearms.

“You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It’s that simple. You don’t have that right to break the law and incite violence,” he said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also erroneously stated that you can’t bring a gun to a protest. Bessent trampled over host Jonathan Karl’s assertion that all Americans have a right to bear arms during a stop by ABC’s “This Week.”

“I’ve been to a protest. Guess what? I didn’t bring a gun. I brought a billboard,” Bessent said.>

Scott Pissant should shut his worthless, syphilis-infested piehole and go back to counting the coin.

<....Hall of Fame quarterbacks are naturally a very elite group. These are quarterbacks with a lot of hardware who were consistently among the best quarterbacks in the game. For the most part, Manning fell well below the bar of being one of the best passers on a year in, year out basis.

I looked at Manning's yearly ranks among qualified quarterbacks in a variety of stats. The comparisons range from unflattering to shocking.

He is nowhere close to a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback when it comes to efficiency measures.

First, I looked at EPA per play (expected points added per play). He ranked 18th on average when ranking every season of his 16-year career. That's below average play! It's worse than Derek Carr. Manning finished in the top 10 three times and none in the top five.

Next up, Pro Football Reference's ANY/A+ (adjusted net yards per pass attempt index). It's a mouthful, but essentially a better version of passer rating that is era adjusted, perfect for comparing Manning to both his peers and quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame. His average annual rank was 17th, or worse than Andy Dalton. The average Hall of Fame QB ranked 10th on an annual basis.

There's also passer rating for the dinosaurs out there! His average rank was 19th. Worse than Carson Wentz. Ouch. He had zero top-five finishes and just one top-10 finish, in 2011. The average Hall of Fame QB (I looked at 14 to debut since 1969) ranked 10th on an annual basis. None had fewer than five top-10 finishes in their career. In other words, Manning never sniffed consistent greatness in terms of efficiency and that's very far below the bar for a HOFer.

HOF QBs who debuted since 1969 - Top 10 passer rating finishes:

Peyton Manning: 15
Joe Montana: 13
Dan Marino: 12
Brett Favre: 11
Steve Young: 8
Dan Fouts: 8
Roger Staubach: 7
Kurt Warner: 6
Terry Bradshaw: 6
Jim Kelly: 6
Troy Aikman: 6
Warren Moon: 6
Ken Stabler: 5
John Elway: 5

He ranked around 10th for the year-by-year leaderboards for touchdown passes and passing yards, which is closer to the Hall of Fame average.

The table below summarizes the average year-by-year ranks for Manning vs. the 14 Hall of Fame QBs to debut since 1969. It's not pretty.

Eli Manning Avg Season QB Ranks in 16-Year Career

Avg Rank HOF QB Avg Worse Than Top 10 Finishes Top 5 Finishes EPA/Play

18th

N/A

Derek Carr

3

0

ANY/A+

17th

10th

Andy Dalton

2

1

Passer rating

19th

10th

Carson Wentz

1

0

Pass TD

11th

9th

Aaron Brooks

7

2

Pass yards

10th

9th

Trent Green

7

3>

<For years, Republicans have had some reliable <terra firma>: If they were talking about immigration and border security, they were winning.

Even amid the backlash from Donald Trump’s 2016 pledge to ban all Muslim immigrants to his 2024 amplification of baseless claims that migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets—immigration remained a durable, winning issue for the GOP.

Now the ground is shifting under them.

A torrent of viral images from Minnesota and beyond as Trump’s immigration agents stepped up their shambolic interior campaign of enforcement in recent months — and the killing of two people in Minneapolis in two separate incidents this past month — have led to a loud public backlash, soured voters on the GOP’s approach and eroded President Donald Trump’s standing on the issue ahead of the looming midterms.

The broad sweep of public polling shows Trump fumbling what has historically been his party’s strongest issue, which even Democrats concede paved his path back to the White House. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found this week Trump hit a second-term trough on the issue, with a majority of Americans — 58 percent — saying his crackdown has gone too far. Only 39 percent approve of his handling of immigration, down two points from earlier this month, and an 11-point erosion from last February. What’s more, a poll from the Democratic-aligned Searchlight Institute this week found that 58 percent of likely midterm voters want ICE to be reined in.

"The image that has been created is not a good thing," said Jose Arango, the Republican chair of Hudson County, New Jersey, a heavily Democratic area with a large Hispanic population that shifted rightward in 2024. "We're losing in the public relations campaign."

Even before Alex Pretti’s killing in Minneapolis, Trump’s own voters were fretting over his agenda. A plurality of Americans said the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive — including 1 in 5 voters who backed Trump in 2024, according to the latest POLITICO Poll. More than 1 in 3 Trump voters said that while they support his immigration agenda, they disapprove of the way he is implementing it.

And another new round of polling on Thursday could give Democrats more ammo as voters move away from Trump’s immigration agenda. The Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC’s latest polling, shared exclusively with POLITICO and being sent to lawmakers, donors and campaigns Thursday, shows not only a growing number of likely voters who disapprove of ICE, but also a majority in favor of Democrats’ strategy of demands for reform even if it means a partial government shutdown, with 54 percent also saying they would blame the GOP and Trump for the shutdown and not accepting ICE reforms. These numbers are especially telling as the biggest shifts occur “among moderates, non-MAGA Republicans, and key swing voters,” the polling memo said.

As former President Joe Biden and his administration officials left themselves electorally exposed on the issue, then-candidate Donald Trump exploited those vulnerabilities with vows to seal the southern border and enact the largest deportation campaign in American history. But his enforcement actions have focused less on the border, which polls show most voters approve of, and more on the nation’s interior, drawing the ire of Trump-curious commentators like the comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan and raising alarm among Republicans.

“The president can feel, generally, that his policies at the border have been largely supported by a majority of Americans. But what he’s doing inside the border seems to be not working,” said Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, a Republican who runs one of the most conservative large cities in the nation but backed Kamala Harris in 2024....>

<....One longtime Republican strategist who worked on presidential campaigns in 2020 and 2024, granted anonymity to candidly assess Republicans’ standing, expressed consternation over ICE’s deployment to a place like Minnesota, far from the southern border.

“When I think of immigrants broadly, I don’t think of Minnesota,” the strategist said. “People want to see, like, okay, ‘I voted for taking criminal illegal immigrants and getting them out of the country. I want to see criminal illegal immigrants taken out of the country. I want to see more miles of wall being built.’ I feel like we talked about the wall weekly in Trump 1. I don't remember the last time we talked about the wall in Trump 2.”

All of which raises an uncomfortable question for Republicans: Is the party in danger of ceding one of its best issues back to Democrats?

“Immigration used to be a winning issue for Democrats back when we made clear we took enforcement seriously,” said Adam Jentleson, the former chief of staff to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) and top aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who commissioned the Searchlight polling shared with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as he shuttled toward another potential shutdown over the issue. “It can be a winning issue for us again if we are smart about how we handle this.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a rising Democratic star who won his seat in 2024 at the same time Trump carried his state, campaigned in key Latino areas for his party in New Jersey, Virginia and Miami’s mayoral elections last year, and who has launched his own border security and immigration platform, told POLITICO his party has to build trust with swing voters.

“We have to be the party that talks about professional, legal enforcement of our immigration laws with an understanding that criminals need to be deported and the border needs to be secure, and that we have to move to a sane compromise when it comes to immigration reform,” Gallego said.

It wasn’t so long ago that was the reality: As recently as 2013, under then-President Barack Obama, the majority of Americans said the Democratic Party better represents their feelings on immigration than Republicans did.

What does the GOP risk ahead of the midterms if it doesn’t find a better message?

“I think you'll see the numbers continue to suffer,” the longtime GOP strategist said.

Gallego, who has called for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller to be fired, said that gives Democrats an opportunity.

“If I was the Republicans right now, I would be very worried about what the future looks like in terms of elections, and Stephen Miller may have basically created a political tsunami among voters, both Latino voters as well as just kind of moderate voters,” Gallego said. “That's going to come back and haunt them, going into the 2026 election.”>

<When Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem strode into the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters last week, ahead of a monster winter storm that walloped much of the country, she caught staffers buzzing around the agency’s response center off guard.

“I was shocked she showed up after all the @#$% we’ve been put through and what she’s said,” one FEMA official told CNN, adding that you could hear a pin drop in the center that day.

For the past year, Noem has been one of FEMA’s loudest critics, calling the disaster response agency partisan, bloated and broken; vowing to “clean house”; and even threatening to eliminate it altogether. FEMA insiders say her reforms and rhetoric have tanked morale and driven out thousands of disaster workers, including dozens of experienced senior leaders.

But on this day, she sounded more like a coach before a big game, rallying the staff to “lean forward” and help Americans weather the storm with a robust federal response, three sources with firsthand knowledge told CNN.

For many inside FEMA, it was a jaw-dropping about-face from the combative and adversarial Noem they’ve come to know during President Donald Trump’s second term. It was also her first in-person briefing at FEMA since taking over the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, according to several high-ranking FEMA officials.

A week later, Noem is facing another moment with calls for her ouster over her handling of the department’s other major mission – immigration – and a possible bomb cyclone threatening the East Coast. So far, White House sources say Noem’s job is not at risk despite frustration over her handling of the crackdown in Minneapolis, Democrats seeking her impeachment and some Republicans saying they have lost confidence in her leadership.

FEMA’s storm response was quickly overshadowed Saturday when immigration enforcement officers shot and killed a protester in Minneapolis. Noem and her team, already gathered at FEMA headquarters, pivoted to address both calamities at a press conference with the disaster agency’s logo displayed prominently behind her.

Noem began by defending the officers and blaming Democrats in Minnesota, labeling the protester Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist and claiming he intended to harm law enforcement — allegations contradicted by bystander videos from the scene.

She also spoke about the impending winter storm. But with the brunt of the impact still hours away, the shooting drew a barrage of questions from reporters, which appeared to frustrate Noem, who asked if anyone had questions about FEMA and its plans.

Noem’s efforts to shine a spotlight on FEMA’s role were familiar in a way. Current and former agency officials say they have seen past administrations capitalize on their response to life-threatening hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes to earn positive headlines and build goodwill.

“They look to be able to say, here is part of the power of the federal government, and we’re able to deliver,” a senior FEMA official told CNN.

In this case, many FEMA insiders were heartened by Noem and her team’s sudden show of support but aren’t convinced the heavy-handed overhaul and downsizing are over. “I doubt that this is permanent. I hope it is, but I doubt it,” a high-ranking official said....>

<....When asked about Noem’s apparent turnabout on FEMA, DHS pointed to a press release outlining the federal storm response.

“Over the last year, this administration has transformed FEMA into a lean, deployable disaster force that empowers and supports state and local governments,” Noem said in the release. “Through every stage of this winter storm, the new FEMA delivered results to American communities.”

The White House emphasized in a statement that FEMA’s role should be “supplemental and appropriate to the scale of the disaster.”

“While Federal assistance was always intended to supplement state actions, not replace those actions, FEMA’s outsized role created a bloated bureaucracy that disincentivized state investment in their own resilience,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Noem hunkers down

As Noem made her way through the building last week, shaking hands, the impact of her sweeping changes at FEMA – many months in the making – was impossible to ignore. Across the room, a handful of staffers whose employment contracts were expiring that very day were quietly escorted out.

Since January, the Trump administration has been terminating nearly every FEMA worker whose contract ends — about 300 so far — fueling new concerns about diminishing disaster response capabilities. But just hours after Noem’s visit last Thursday, an email went out across the agency: The dismissals were paused, at least for now. Some recently let-go staffers were even called back, multiple sources said.

Before the first snowflake fell, DHS directed FEMA to activate its National Response Coordination Center in DC and pre-position teams, generators and hundreds of thousands of meals and water bottles in states bracing for the storm. Search and rescue crews were on standby, ready to roll.

“It was a bit confusing,” the senior FEMA official said. “Winter storms rarely require this level of national coordination.”

Typically, winter storms don’t trigger such an urgent FEMA response, several longtime agency officials told CNN. Plus, Noem and Trump have repeatedly pledged to shift disaster responsibilities to states and local governments, leaving FEMA on the sidelines. Just last summer, when deadly floods hit Texas, FEMA’s response was delayed by spending restrictions Noem had put in place.

“It seemed like she was trying to cut us out of the response completely in Texas, and we were begging to respond,” said the high-ranking official who spoke to CNN. “So, this was a 180.”

This time, sources say Noem promised there’d be no red tape and that DHS and the White House were ready to move fast, with FEMA front and center.

The immigration debate was never far from minds as DHS directed FEMA staff to avoid using the word “ice” in public messages and social media posts, warning that phrases like “watch out for ice in the street” could quickly turn into internet fodder or memes given the ongoing operations by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – also known as “ICE.” Staff were told to say “freezing rain” instead.

But Noem seemed hyper-focused on storm response. Inside FEMA headquarters, she sat at the head of a vast conference table — a seat usually reserved for the FEMA administrator, a role that’s been held in an acting capacity by three different Homeland Security officials over the past year.

She brought her team from DHS, including Corey Lewandowski, the longtime Trump ally now serving as her de facto chief of staff. They demanded hourly updates on power outages and snow and ice totals – even though the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration typically calculates those accumulations every six hours or so.

More than 100 FEMA workers were housed in a hotel near headquarters to ensure around-the-clock staffing, with meals and snacks provided to keep the team fed. Noem brought her dog, who roamed the halls of the response center.

And while Noem commuted daily, DHS directed FEMA to deliver a generator to Noem’s home in Washington, DC, citing the need for “continuity” in case of power outages, three sources with knowledge of the request told CNN....>

<....One official compared the response to what’s typically reserved for a Category 3 hurricane or worse.

“It was all a bit distracting and exhausting, and it felt out of touch after the past year,” another high-ranking official said. “But it’s good they were engaged and want us to be ready, which we appreciate.”

As the storm raged, Noem and DHS quickly moved to distribute more than $2 billion of backlogged public assistance to more than a dozen states in its path. Noem’s strict policies, including a requirement that she sign off on all spending over $100,000, has left more than $15 billion in funding stuck at FEMA, with states unsure when — or if — the money will be released.

Some in the administration have privately warned that the funding backlog is becoming a political liability. Republican lawmakers, state leaders, and even Trump officials have voiced frustrations, especially since some budget-strapped red states are more disaster prone and often rely more on FEMA aid and resources than blue states.

Last fall, Republican Sens. Ted Budd and Thom Tillis of North Carolina were so fed up with the funding delays that they blocked DHS nominees. Eventually, Noem announced hundreds of millions of dollars would soon flow to their state, though that was only a portion of what has been pledged for Hurricane Helene recovery.

‘You’ve done incredible work’

Inside FEMA headquarters, Homeland Security leaders pressed staff to stay in close contact with the affected states — especially the hardest hit ones, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — to ensure every need was met, sources told CNN.

Even as the states scaled back their own emergency operations at the end of the weekend, the administration ordered FEMA to maintain its overnight shifts, the sources added.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt proudly announced President Trump had approved federal emergency declarations for 12 states within 24 hours. The orders should unlock hundreds of millions in aid, though the money still faces Noem’s strict oversight before reaching the states.

“Meanwhile all year, we’ve had states begging for assistance, begging for declarations, and they don’t get responses for months,” another FEMA official said.

As the last of the snow and sleet fell and communities dug out in the cold, Noem’s praise for FEMA continued.

“You’ve done incredible work,” she told the staff at headquarters. “You’re sacrificing to be here and to serve the people of the country. So I want you to know I’m grateful. Thank you for what you do and for providing that kind of assurance to the country — that you’re here and you’re going to answer any questions and give people the resources that they need.”

Noem told them she would keep advocating for FEMA without addressing the ongoing overhaul or whether staff cuts would resume, according to sources who were in the room.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” one of the sources told CNN. “This feels like some bizarre, upside-down world.”

The Trump administration’s long-term plan for FEMA remains uncertain.

The agency is still awaiting a final list of recommendations from the task force Trump assembled to help him overhaul the agency. Earlier drafts of its report call for slashing the workforce in half and dramatically reshaping disaster assistance and grant funding, with state and local governments picking up the slack.

Last week, the White House extended the task force for another two months after abruptly canceling their final meeting in December.

FEMA officials who spoke to CNN said they hope Noem’s posture in recent days means she believes the nation still needs a FEMA.

“When they were in complete crisis, they turned to FEMA to come save their asses,” one of the high-ranking officials said. “And FEMA rose to the occasion.”>

<The man who squirted liquid from a syringe onto Representative Ilhan Omar in Minneapolis on Tuesday night had for years posted online about his anger at Democrats and had recently told a neighbor that he might be arrested at an event featuring the congresswoman.

The man, Anthony J. Kazmierczak, 55, was tackled to the ground after spraying a brownish liquid smelling of vinegar at Ms. Omar, who was speaking at a town hall event in North Minneapolis. He is now in jail on suspicion of assault while prosecutors determine what charges to file against him.

On Facebook, Mr. Kazmierczak, who went by Andy, frequently wrote and shared posts from others about conservative issues, including some that criticized Democratic lawmakers. Ms. Omar was the subject of one post he shared in 2021, a political cartoon that criticized her for hiring security as she made a push to restructure or decrease funding for the Minneapolis Police Department after a police officer killed George Floyd.

More than four years later, it was members of Ms. Omar’s security who tackled Mr. Kazmierczak to the ground in the basement of the Urban League’s offices, where her event took place.

In an interview, Mr. Kazmierczak’s mother, Merrikay Olson Baxendale, said her son grew up in a mostly conservative family. She defended him as a sensitive man who had depression and Parkinson’s disease.

Ms. Baxendale said that many of her son’s friends are not conservative, something that may have grated on him.

“The majority of our family is conservative,” she said. Since the attack, Ms. Baxendale, who lives out of the state, said she had received vicious email messages.

Mr. Kazmierczak had recently told a neighbor that he was going to attend an event held by Ms. Omar and that he might be arrested. The neighbor, Brian Kelley, said he did not anticipate from that conversation that Mr. Kazmierczak meant that he was going to attack the congresswoman.

Mr. Kazmierczak lives in a one-story duplex in South Minneapolis, near Lake Harriet, in a quiet neighborhood that is home to many families. On the lawn sit two wooden Adirondack chairs, near a wind chime and a small Minnesota state flag. Next to his entry door on Wednesday lay a shovel, broom, bucket and cleaning products, as well as a pile of what appeared to be used dog waste baggies.

Court records do not indicate that Mr. Kazmierczak had ever been charged with a violent crime in Minnesota, though he was convicted in 1989 of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and twice, in 2009 and 2010, of driving while under the influence of alcohol. The first drunken driving incident took place just days after his wife at the time, with whom he shares two children, now 22 and 20, had filed for divorce.

He remarried in 2013, and four years later, that marriage also ended in divorce. Patrice Benoit, his wife from that marriage, said that she had not spoken with him since 2017 but was “heartbroken” after learning about the attack. She said she wished “peace, strength and healing” for Ms. Omar, as well as for Mr. Kazmierczak’s family.

Mr. Kazmierczak had twice filed for bankruptcy, most recently in 2019, when he said he owed creditors about $95,000 in medical, credit card and other debt. He said he had sold most of his possessions on eBay over the past two years to pay for living expenses. Other court filings indicate that he has been unemployed and receiving disability insurance payments.

On Facebook, Mr. Kazmierczak showed his support for President Trump; Turning Point USA, the group founded by Charlie Kirk; and other conservative figures, as well as Israel and Ukraine. In 2022, he shared a news article about a candidate challenging Representative Cori Bush of Missouri, a progressive lawmaker who, along with Ms. Omar, is part of a group called “the Squad.” Ms. Omar, a Democrat, was sworn into Congress in 2019 and represents all of Minneapolis and some of its suburbs.

Mr. Kazmierczak also showed support for Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted after shooting three people who chased him during a protest over a police shooting in Wisconsin in 2020. In other posts, Mr. Kazmierczak called former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “spineless” in his dealings with Russia and Ukraine, defended police officers accused of crimes and was critical of policies requiring Covid vaccinations. His nonpolitical posts were largely about his dog, motorcycles or his children — and, in one case, a trip to Chicago.

Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, said her office was reviewing charging options against Mr. Kazmierczak. She said preliminary reports indicated that the substance he sprayed on Ms. Omar and those standing near her was “not toxic.”

It is possible, she said, that federal prosecutors could also bring charges against him.

<Online shopping feels familiar and fast, but a hidden threat continues to operate behind the scenes.

Researchers are tracking a long-running web skimming campaign that targets businesses connected to major payment networks. Web skimming is a technique where criminals secretly add malicious code to checkout pages so they can steal payment details as shoppers type them in.

These attacks work quietly inside the browser and often leave no obvious signs. Most victims only discover the problem after unauthorized charges appear on their statements.

What Magecart is and why it matters

Magecart is the name researchers use for groups that specialize in web-skimming attacks. These attacks focus on online stores where shoppers enter payment details during checkout. Instead of hacking banks or card networks directly, attackers slip malicious code into a store's checkout page. That code is written in JavaScript, which is a common type of website code used to make pages interactive. Legitimate sites use it for things like forms, buttons and payment processing.

In Magecart attacks, criminals abuse that same code to secretly copy card numbers, expiration dates, security codes and billing details as shoppers type them in. The checkout still works, and the purchase goes through, so there is no obvious warning sign. Magecart originally described attacks against Magento-based online stores. Today, the term applies to web-skimming campaigns across many e-commerce platforms and payment systems.

Which payment providers are being targeted?

Researchers say this campaign targets merchants tied to several major payment networks, including:

American Express

Diners Club

Discover, a subsidiary of Capital One

JCB Co., Ltd.

Mastercard

UnionPay

Large enterprises that rely on these payment providers face a higher risk due to complex websites and third-party integrations.

How attackers slip skimmers into checkout pages

Attackers usually enter through weak points that are easy to overlook. Common entry paths include vulnerable third-party scripts, outdated plugins and unpatched content management systems. Once inside, they inject JavaScript directly into the checkout flow. The skimmer monitors form fields tied to card data and personal details, then quietly sends that information to attacker-controlled servers.

Why web skimming attacks are hard to detect

To avoid detection, the malicious JavaScript is heavily obfuscated. Some versions can remove themselves when they detect an admin session, which makes inspections appear clean. Researchers also found the campaign uses bulletproof hosting. These hosting providers ignore abuse reports and takedown requests, giving attackers a stable environment to operate. Because web skimmers run inside the browser, they can bypass many server-side fraud controls used by merchants and payment providers.

Who Magecart web skimming attacks affect most

Magecart campaigns impact three groups at the same time:

Shoppers who unknowingly give up card data

Merchants whose checkout pages are compromised

Payment providers that detect fraud after the damage is done

This shared exposure makes detection slower and response more difficult.

How to stay safe as a shopper

While shoppers cannot fix compromised checkout pages, a few smart habits can reduce exposure, limit how stolen data is used, and help catch fraud faster.

1) Use virtual or single-use cards

Virtual and single-use cards are digital card numbers that link to your real credit or debit account without exposing the actual number. They work like a normal card at checkout, but add an extra layer of protection. Most people already have access to them through services they use every day, including....>

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Major banks and credit card issuers that offer virtual card numbers inside their apps

Mobile wallet apps like Apple Pay and Google Pay generate temporary card numbers for online purchases, keeping your real card number hidden.

Some payment apps and browser tools that create one-time or merchant-locked card numbers

A single-use card typically works for one purchase or expires shortly after use. A virtual card can stay active for one store and be paused or deleted later. If a web skimming attack captures one of these numbers, attackers usually cannot reuse it elsewhere or run up repeat charges, which limits financial damage and makes fraud easier to stop.

2) Turn on transaction alerts

Transaction alerts notify you the moment your card is used, even for small purchases. If web skimming leads to fraud, these alerts can expose unauthorized charges quickly and give you a chance to freeze the card before losses grow. For example, a $2 test charge on your card can signal fraud before larger purchases appear.

3) Lock down financial accounts

Use strong, unique passwords for banking and card portals to reduce the risk of account takeover. A password manager helps generate and store them securely.

Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our No. 1 password manager pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.

Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com.

4) Install strong antivirus software

Strong antivirus software can block connections to malicious domains used to collect skimmed data and warn you about unsafe websites.

The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have strong antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe.

Get my picks for the best 2026 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices at Cyberguy.com.

5) Use a data removal service

Data removal services can reduce how much personal information is exposed online, making it harder for criminals to pair stolen card data with full identity details.

While no service can guarantee the complete removal of your data from the internet, a data removal service is really a smart choice. They aren't cheap, and neither is your privacy. These services do all the work for you by actively monitoring and systematically erasing your personal information from hundreds of websites. It's what gives me peace of mind and has proven to be the most effective way to erase your personal data from the internet. By limiting the information available, you reduce the risk of scammers cross-referencing data from breaches with information they might find on the dark web, making it harder for them to target you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

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6) Watch for unexpected card activity

Review statements regularly, even for small charges, since attackers often test stolen cards with low-value transactions.>

<its not only that geniuses like Fischer, Kasparov, Carlsen and Karpov appearing so close to each other, is almost impossibly rare (and hence not expected to happen again any time soon)>

My comment: Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine (three dominant geniuses) also appeared simultaneously. Afterwards, it was a 'first among equals for quite some time. Finally, a Fischer appeared.

<its also that the modern chess environment today is not friendly at all for such dominant chess player to emerge:

They play too many online blitz and bullet, too many rapid and blitz tournaments that reduce depth and real chess understanding, they have too many distractions with youtube streaming and social media..

And also hooking with strong engines from early age, they are trained to chose the best engine's opening lines, to always look for the most accurate move, etc. While dominant players need to be creative, sometimes play dubious openings, sometimes chose risky moves to increase winning chances, sometimes defend bad positions even if they know the engine would give their opponent +4 there..>

My comment: I must say this is a very astute statement. I completely agree. Especially with <They play too many online blitz and bullet, too many rapid and blitz tournaments that reduce depth and real chess understanding>

<Republican unity over President Trump’s immigration tactics has started to splinter. And Trump himself is even starting to hedge.

But two of his top advisers have dug in.

Much of the GOP angst is aimed at some of Trump’s top advisers following Saturday’s deadly shooting of a Minnesota protester by immigration officials (the second such killing this month). Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott suggested Saturday’s killing could amount to “murder.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who has massive influence over domestic and foreign policy matters, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have been unflinching in their criticisms of protesters and unwavering in their defense of the actions of immigration officials.

Both Miller and Noem have, within hours of the two deadly shootings this month, been quick to label the deceased protesters as villains. Noem referred to Renee Good, killed by an ICE official on Jan. 7, as having committed acts of “domestic terrorism” despite much debate about what happened.

On Saturday, Miller referred to Alex Pretti, who was killed just hours earlier, as both an “assassin” and a “would-be assassin” even though a Wall Street Journal investigation contradicts the Trump administration’s narrative of events.

Asked on Sunday by the Journal’s Josh Dawsey, Trump was less certain. He said the shooting would be investigated and added that “I don’t like any shooting.” He also blamed Pretti for showing up to the protest with a firearm.

Since Trump surged immigration officials to Minnesota several weeks ago, they have operated completely at odds with state and local authorities and with little input from Congress. In addition, gun-rights groups are clashing with Trump officials over the latest shooting.

Changes could be coming. Trump told Dawsey that the federal officials will leave Minnesota at some point, though he didn’t say when. And there are growing signs that Democrats could force a government shutdown if DHS doesn’t change its approach. Senior Republicans, meanwhile, have said they want more congressional oversight, which could mean testifying under oath or possible subpoenas.>

<Daily Beast Content Officer Joanna Coles argues that President Donald Trump ordering CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins to smile while asking him about his longtime friend — convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein — was not some kind of clumsy deflection. Rather, she asserted it was a tool for controlling women.

“Trump has never asked a male correspondent why he isn’t smiling,” Coles said. “He didn’t say it to Jim Acosta. He didn’t say it to David Sanger. He didn’t even say it to Don Lemon. Men are allowed to look grim, severe, even hostile, while women are expected to look decorative, happy, even pleasing. Even if they’re asking about rape, corruption, and moral rot, a lady reporter must remember her lip gloss.”

When women speak with authority, they are considered “shrill,” while men are “experts,” said Coles. When women persist, they are “scolds,” while persistent men are “geniuses.”

“What makes Trump’s jab at Collins, 33, especially grotesque is that she was asking about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,” Cols said. “It took more than one thousand victims — one thousand! — for America to agree that Epstein was not a misunderstood libertine with powerful friends, but a serial predator running a vertically integrated abuse operation with powerful friends.”

And yet Trump’s instinct is to “shrug off Epstein’s crimes and, instead, focus on the real problem: a woman asking tough questions,” said Coles, who then brought up the double standard that society applies to women over men, including longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia, whose emails with Epstein “are being waved away as a lapse in judgment,” said Coles.

One of his emails included the claim: “P—— is, indeed, low carb,” and Attia described his correspondence with Epstein as “incredibly naïve,” despite being in his forties. CBS also does not apparently care that Attia made the choice to stay and hang with Epstein in Manhattan while his infant son was in an ICU with a stopped heart.

“In short, men can show a lack of judgment and keep their jobs, while women can show a lack of enthusiasm and be criticized,” said Coles. “And that’s the connective tissue to Trump and his craving for grinning gals. Trump wants a court, not a press corps. He wants obsequious cabinet members who ‘dear leader’ him until he falls asleep in a surround-sound loop of over-the-top flattery. He wants Collins to smile. Smiles signal obedience. In a way, it’s a compliment – a step up from ‘Quiet, piggy.’”

But the talented Collins owes no one a grin,” Coles said. “Nor does any women connected to the Epstein files, including the victims, reporters, lawyers, and podcasters.”

“Smiling is what you do when the system is working. Not when it’s protecting monsters,” Coles said.>