☕️ REVOLUTIONARY ☙ Wednesday, January 7, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Progressives reel as the Trump Revolution deepens; NGOs wither; Europe frets Greenland; feds probe CA welfare fraud; MN audit exposes rot; DHS floods Minneapolis; and much more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! We’re a week into the New Year, and what a week it has already been. The pace of news has not let up, nor has the amazing trajectory. Your awe-inspiring roundup today includes: progressives experience shock as they notice the “Trump Revolution” going even further than their worst fears; NGOs wither on the vine; Trump demonstrates governing competence; European élites frightened of Trump, don’t criticize Maduro’s capture, and fret about Greenland; more journalistic malpractice; Risk boardgame analogy for Trump strategy; suddenly and unexpectedly, feds investigate California for welfare fraud; Newsom doesn’t deny it; obstacles preventing Golden State fraud detection; DHS deploys TWO THOUSAND federal agents to one city—Minneapolis; forensic audit of Minnesota welfare agency finds widespread fraud among the government employees tasked with preventing fraud; urgent Times editorial says scandal needs to wake up Democrats before it’s too late; Dems misunderstand Mamdani win; Republicans giddy; Mamdani tenant advocate an all-in confiscatory communist; and the upside of all these socialist mayors.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Yesterday, the New York Times discharged a bellwether op-ed titled, “The Trump Revolution Is Going Much Further Than We Realize.” The ominous cover image —a shredded American flag— gave the punchline away.

Clearly penned by weekly columnist Thomas B. Edsall while he was in the throes of a fit of Trump Derangement —someone should call for a wellness check— the article rounds up the whole progressive grievance list, ranging over a wide landscape from sending the uninvited national guard into blue cities to ending windmill subsidies to mean Christmas tweets to the laughable claim of “pardon abuse,” presumably relating to Trump’s pardon of the January 6th political prisoners, and it’s a safe bet Edsall never complained about the Autopen’s pardon abuse. But never mind.

How far the so-called “intellectual wing” of the progressive movement has fallen! Edsall doesn’t even try to define any concrete standards for his worrisome areas of presidential power (probably because Democrat presidents would immediately fail the hardest— anyone remember vaccine mandates?) Edsall just whines about it. He’s a whiner. In fairness, Edsall probably just assumes all his readers intuitively understand and agree, since the progressive hive mind has been so successful in capturing its audience.

The problem with writing what amounts to affirmation literature exclusively for the already-convinced is that your critical faculties tend to atrophy. When you never have to analyze opposing arguments, apply consistent standards, or consider how your moral framework should constrain your own ideological side, you get lazy. Thomas Edsall is an intellectually lazy whiner. Again, I digress.

I mention Edsall’s foul excrescence of an argument for two noteworthy elements. First, Edsall delivered some unintentional, backhanded compliments to the Trump Administration— and they’ll warm your heart. “Trump and his allies are applying a financial and regulatory chokehold on an array of corporations, institutions, and special interest groups,” Edsall wrote, “that he is convinced are aligned with the Democratic Party and the left.” Because they are.

You would think after subway hero Daniel Penny was exonerated by a jury of his peers, they’d be more judicious in throwing around the term “chokehold,” but maybe they’re pining for the halcyon days of George Floyd. Anyway.

Back to the culture shift. Quoting various progressive academics, Edsall concluded that Trump’s “chokehold” on an “array of leftist groups” successfully “enabled Trump to shift the culture in his ideological direction.” The article admitted, albeit ruefully, that Trump 2.0 is categorically more effective than the first Trump term: “Trump administration efforts to wage the culture war have been far more advanced the second time,” a political scientist told Edsall, “with more preparation and empowered personnel using more available tools.”

Another professor was even more blunt. “Trump’s blunt-force approach has found more success in making culture more hospitable to the American right than at any time since the 1980s,” the professor unhappily chirped. Hurrah! Praise for the blunt-force approach! His reference to the 1980’s was a callback to nothing less than the Regan Revolution, although they refused to name it.

Those were welcome admissions. It’s encouraging that progressives are beginning to agree with our own perceptions of a true cultural shift. But we already knew that. What was even more revealing was how Edsall and his cronies from the academy believe the Administration is applying the so-called chokehold.

Firstly, progressive NGOs are on the run. “Some statistics indicate that fully one-third of NGOS incorporated in the U.S. lost funding in the first half of 2025,” one researcher wrote. “NGOs are nervous — and some are pulling back from some of the causes that they know this administration does not support,” she continued, almost in awe.

We conservatives didn’t even know about the NGO problem a year ago. The rest of the world knew about the threat; but we were the last one to find out. Only Democrats realized how much influence these shady nongovernmental organizations exercised on our democratic republic, and they never talked about it. But they’re talking about it now, Jack.

But second, and completely missing the profound irony, Edsall and his coterie of collectivist commentators described something they called “deeply unusual,” which was that Trump’s federal agencies are working together to achieve the President’s priorities. Behold this remarkable admission, which described the federal government working effectively:

Superficially, it’s more welcome confirmation of Swamp-draining. And it’s especially delightful in progressive surprise that Trump could have drained the federal swamp so quickly. But the deeper irony was the explicit admission that “coordinated efforts across agencies are normally difficult to organize.”

That, dear reader, is a statement of government dysfunction as the default, which progressives apparently view as a feature rather than as a problem. Either way, it was also an implied admission that Trump has successfully accomplished something that is “normally difficult” and “deeply unusual.” We accept the praise, however grudgingly it was offered.

That long paragraph I quoted above literally describes textbook effective public administration. It’s what good governance looks like. It describes competence. And it shocked Edsall and his progressive cronies. It also reveals a deeply cynical progressive point of view: Government should be inefficient when implementing policies we oppose. Had they described the same coordination for Biden’s vaccine mandates —OMB, OSHA, DOD, VA, CMS, DOJ all working in concert— they’d likely praise it as “whole-of-government” public health response.

Remember this progressive admission about Trump’s astonishing competence in governing when we come to the last segment about Mamdani, below.

🔥 This brings us to a second article and a second noteworthy admission about the second Trump Administration. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal defecated a hurt-feelings story headlined, “Alarm Spreads Among U.S. Allies Over Trump’s Demand for Greenland”

In short, the Journal’s ‘news’ article reported that Trump is being mean to European élites, again, and it is making them feel unsafe, again. “Europeans are afraid of Trump,” said Pascal Boniface, director of the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, a think tank in Paris. The Journal’s inelegantly implied theme, or thrust, was that European leaders’ fear of Trump explains why they didn’t criticize the recent arrest of Venezuelan narco-terrorist Maduro.

This is journalistic misdirection, and I’ll tell you why. The Journal was imputing a motive (fear of Trump) on all European leaders, without admitting that it was editorializing, to diminish the significance of the leaders’ apparent agreement with the move and thereby prevent it from legitimizing Trump’s actions. They only went along because they were afraid, was the Journal’s implied argument, which was dressed up as ‘news.’

🔥 I ran across a wonderful analogy yesterday that will immediately resonate with Gen-Xers like me who grew up playing the board game of world domination, Risk. It was so popular among Gen-X males that, in college, we’d even play all-night Risk sessions. The game board is a simplified Mercator world map. Players start the game by taking turns choosing countries and placing armies (little plastic horses and cannons). When play begins, they start attacking each other, with the ultimate goal of taking over the entire map and getting to bed at least an hour before morning classes started.

Observe Risk’s critical locations of Venezuela and Greenland, from the perspective of North America:

A well-known strategy among players (including your author) who strategically preferred to start their games in North America was that the key to winning lay in just three critical game squares: Alaska, Greenland, and Venezuela. If you controlled just those three “countries,” then North America became an impregnable fortress, a base from which the subjugation of the entire world became easy and inevitable, and victory assured.

The explanation for this is access. Any other player trying to penetrate North America could only do so by moving through Venezuela, Greenland, or Alaska. If the North American player assembled large armies (lots of game pieces) in those three chokepoints, then North America was snug as a bug in a rug. The other players would leave North America alone and fight amongst themselves, leaving the American player to simply wait around and clean up, once the dust settled.

Risk looks simple, but it was based on reams of historical and military wisdom, which explains the game’s enduring popularity. (These days, of course, it’s all about videogames. But back in the day, Risk was an 800-pound board-gaming gorilla.)

In any case, President Trump is playing Risk, and everyone else is playing pick-up sticks.

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It only took 24 hours. Yesterday morning, I predicted California was in the fraud crosshairs. Yesterday afternoon, Los Angeles affiliate ABC-7 published a delightful story headlined, “Newsom responds after Trump says California is under investigation for fraud.” In a Truth Social post, President Trump called California “more corrupt than Minnesota” —a true fact— and said California was “under investigation,” without providing details.

In response, California governor and French Laundry aficionado Gavin Newsom shot back, “Donald Trump is a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago.” Weak. But —and here’s the thing— he didn’t deny massive California welfare fraud. Instead, he claimed, “Since taking office, I’ve blocked over $125 BILLION in fraud, arrested criminal parasites leaching off of taxpayers, and protected taxpayers from the exact kind of scam artists Trump celebrates, excuses, and pardons.”

How many more billions weren’t blocked? Newsom’s protestations about tackling fraud sound just like what Governor Walz tried to claim at the beginning of the current scandal— meaning less than a month ago.

As for the claim that the oleaginous governor blocked ‘$125 BILLION in fraud’— well, I can’t wait to see his receipts. Since 2024, California’s main obstacle to stopping fraud has been one Gavin Newsom. Headline from ABC-10 Sacramento:

We shall see. Good luck, Gavin.

🔥 Minnesota’s fraud story saw two big developments yesterday. First, there was a massive ICE surge into the state’s capital, Minneapolis. A surge of two thousand federal agents. It’s arguable whether it set the Guinness record, but it was still historic.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said DHS had surged law enforcement resources to the state— and had already arrested over 1,000 people it described as killers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members. This is inarguably the Trump Administration’s largest single-city immigration action— and all for Tim Walz’s hometown.

Governor Walz, who is waltzing on thin ice, having just announced he won’t run for re-election, issued a rare tweet complaining about the ICE surge:

Ironically, Walz misspelled “buffoonery.” And to think, thanks to Democrats, this nitwit could have been one alcohol-induced coma from the presidency. The New York Post, yesterday:

🔥 Next, CBS —the new CBS!— ran an even more momentous story yesterday headlined, “Audit of Minnesota DHS grant programs finds “widespread failures in oversight.” This new fraud audit —which the state failed, of course— was categorically different from previous audits. This one wasn’t looking at provider fraud. The investigation, conducted by the Financial Audit Division, was looking at oversight failure in one (big) state welfare agency: the Behavioral Health Administration. In other words, it looked at how the state had failed to stop the fraud for so long.

The 72-page report’s findings were shocking, to say the least. BHA administers hundreds of millions in mental health and substance abuse grants. According to the audit, the Department of Human Services distributed more than $425 million in BHA grants —a half billion dollars— to 830 grantees over a two-year period between July 1, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2024.

It wasn’t just ordinary negligence. State Senator Mark Koran (R-North Branch), a member of the Legislative Audit Commission, said the audit showed that Department of Human Services leadership “failed at every level.” The failures in state government were comprehensive and widespread. “The OLA report shows a complete breakdown in how DHS’s Behavioral Health Administration manages hundreds of millions in taxpayer-funded grants,” Koran said. “BHA failed to verify that grantees were providing the services they were paid for, failed to put basic financial controls in place, and then created documentation after the fact to mislead auditors.”

“During the course of our audit,” the auditors wrote in a cover letter to lawmakers, “we identified a number of documents that BHA either backdated or created after our audit began.” In other words, it was comprehensive, across-the-board negligence combined with active efforts to cover it up. Fraud among those tasked with stopping fraud.

Don’t pass too quickly by the discovery of backdated documents. The fact that auditors found any backdated documents raises the natural question of how many they didn’t find. In other words, once we’ve established that staff is willing to fabricate documentation, then who knows how much fake paperwork is in the file? Some documents, like a site visit log form, would be devilishly hard to verify outside the file.

The auditors anonymously surveyed rank-and-file BHA staff. Many (13%) reported they had been asked to do something they believed was unethical, and for others (11%), something contrary to law or regulations. “Most of those employees responded that BHA leadership had made these requests,” the report noted.

The staff also reported they weren’t properly trained. “67 percent of staff who indicated that they managed grants disagreed that they received sufficient training on OGM policy…and 73 percent disagreed that they received sufficient training to fulfill their grant management responsibilities before they began managing BHA grants.”

The question naturally arises as to whether the undertraining of staff was intentional. It is helpful to an industrial-scale fraud operation if untrained employees just do what they’re told and have no idea of what is right, wrong, in- or out-of-place.

The auditors naturally focused on the legally required grant reconciliations, which are the heart of grant paperwork and should prove legitimacy. They “found issues with 63 out of 71 reconciliations” —i.e., 90% of them— including 25 with no documentation at all, and other reconciliations done after final payment or with only “limited documentation.” BHA “could not demonstrate that it conducted 27 out of 67 required monitoring visits,” again often with no documentation at all.

In one exemplary case, a grantee received an unusually large single monthly payment of $672,647.78; the grantee and its subcontractors could not provide adequate documentary support. “We questioned whether the grantee actually provided the grant‑related services,” the auditors said. Then they dropped the bomb: the BHA employee who approved that unsually large payment “left DHS a few days after approving it and later started to provide consulting services to the grantee.”

Gee, I wonder what happened there?

🔥 Here’s the thing. Unlike previous audits that uncovered fraudsters, this one proves that citizens can’t trust the government workers who administer the welfare programs, which is an entirely different and even bigger problem. In other words —try to follow me here, Portlanders— we can pass all the paperwork requirements that we want, to try to stop fraud, but if the department heads force grant workers to ignore the rules, and if grant administrators work with the fraudsters, there’s no use.

It simply doesn’t matter how many rules there are, if the government workers in charge of enforcing the rules are crooked (or stupid).

“Today’s shocking report by the Legislative Auditor shows a culture of pervasive fraud, negligence, and deception. We need answers immediately about the apparent backdating and potential falsification of documents found during the audit,” House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) said. “This proves once again that those running our programs expect no repercussions or accountability from Governor Walz or the Democrats in power, even when they fabricate documents and ignore basic procedures. It’s time to clean house and restore honesty and accountability in state agencies.”

Put another way, as many suspected, this industrial-scale fraud went right to the top. Or at least, almost to the top. We aren’t quite there yet, but we are now getting very close.

🔥 Related: This morning, the New York Times ran an op-ed titled, “Minnesota’s Fraud Should Be a Wake-Up Call for Democrats.” It’s an entertaining read. It reminded progressive readers how the Democrats wandered into the political wilderness for years after Reagan revealed all the welfare fraud— until Clinton rescued them with his historic welfare reform initiatives. Here’s the best paragraph from the editorial:

The next best paragraph reacted to the new Democrat Socialist Mayor of New York City’s recent and widely shared comments. He recently promised his followers he would “govern as a democratic socialist” and would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Yesterday’s op-ed recoiled in horror:

🔥 Democrats have badly misunderstood the meaning of Mamdani’s election. The young, inexperienced politician has already weathered the backlash from his first big gaffe. Headline from the Times of India, Monday:

Mamdani had soberly told witless reporters that “I was briefed this morning on the US military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.” Of course, the credulous fools reported and amplified it, resulting in breathless follow-up questions asking what Mamdani planned to do about it, since Maduro is being held in NYC city limits. Mamdani was forced to admit that (a) he doesn’t have a security clearance, and (b) he wasn’t actually briefed on the capture in the sense that most people understand the word “briefed,” he was just told about it like the rest of us.

Laughably, Mamdani also claimed he called President Trump to “register his opposition” to Maduro’s capture. Reporters then naturally asked what Trump said. Uh oh. Um … “I registered my opposition. I made it clear. We left it at that,” was all Mamdani could answer. Nobody believes him.

🔥 That’s not all. Mamdani next faces a new mini-scandal, since the activist buddy he appointed as New York’s Tenant Advocate has a long history as a full-on social media Marxist. New York Post, Saturday:

Here she is, right next to the diminutive Mayor, swanking a Chairman Mao-style red jacket, and making a face she (he?) will almost certainly not use on her Grindr profile:

The Office of Tenant Advocacy is about as powerless a position as you could ask for, even though it carries a generous $160,000 annual salary (estimated) and benefits. It’s one of those patronage jobs politicians reward supporters with. Her social media history was, until very recently (a communist purge!), packed with pro-communist claptrap and unserious nonsense which is simply too silly and irrelevant to quote here. (See the linked story if you want details.)

Anyway, it’s not likely that Cea “Ms. Mao” Weaver will be nationalizing any private property anytime soon. And even if she even tried, even a little, it would burst into a thousand furious lawsuits that the City would inevitably lose. (Thank goodness for the Constitution.) I’m not saying she won’t make life even more miserable for the City’s hapless landlords, who are about to endure an especially trying four years. But that was already baked into the Mamdani promise anyway.

Democrats seem to consider Mamdani as some kind of golden boy who represents the new face of the party or something. But Republicans —including your author— are already seeing the little muslim communist as a total gift. Politico, from last September:

Giddy is right. It’s playing out even better than we’d hoped. I feel for New Yorkers who will bear the brunt of the Democrats’ experiment in going all the way left. Even left of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is just as much a socialist as Mamdani, but at least tries to hide it a little. (FYI: Mayor Johnson’s approval rating languishes in the low 20s, with unfavorable ratings skating between 60%-80%, depending on the pollster and the day. In August, NBC reported that Mamdani was “trying to avoid repeating Johnson’s missteps.”)

So far, it hasn’t gone very well. Invest in U-Haul stock.* (* not investment advice.)

During the Cold War, anticommunists used to (only slightly jokingly) advise democratic South American governments to let the communists run some prominent public works agency, like garbage collection, which would poison the public against them, since communist revolutionaries run bureaucracies with the unparalleled competence of teachers’ union officials trying to do math at a cruise ship conference.

So on the one hand, we have progressives admitting that Trump has defied expectations and is competently running a unified federal government. On the other hand we have … Mamdani and the Red Jacket.

Since the pandemic quieted down, high-profile examples of Democrat incompetence have also receded in the public’s imagination. But Mamdani and his merry crew of communists are dragging Democrats’ obvious inability to govern right back into the limelight. I, for one, am cheering them on.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! There’s so much more that I was tempted to package it into another lightning round, but I’m hoping that I can catch my breath today and roll it all into normal roundups for you. Either way, don’t miss tomorrow’s terrific C&C edition with more essential news and encouraging commentary.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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