These are criminals in LA, not protesters

 This weekend, what began as a protest in Los Angeles turned into violence.

Not debate. Not a peaceful assembly. Violence.

As you watch the scenes unfold on television, it feels like something that should be
happening in Iran or Afghanistan — not in Los Angeles.

Downtown mobs clashed with federal officers outside the Metropolitan Detention
Center.

Protesters were seen throwing water bottles, bottles, rocks, debris and other objects at federal and assisting law enforcement officers.

This weekend, what began as a protest in Los Angeles turned into violence.AFP via Getty Images

A dumpster was moved into the street and set on fire outside the federal facility.

The image was unmistakable: street chaos aimed directly at the seat of federal authority in the center of America’s second-largest city.

This is happening yesterday and today — not in some unstable foreign capital.

It is happening in Los Angeles, on streets where families work, live and commute.

Yes, many people gathered earlier to protest federal immigration enforcement. That is their constitutional right.

But a violent faction broke off and turned the streets into a confrontation zone where rioters attacked officers, threatened bystanders and destroyed property.

Federal officers were the first on the front line.

They were forced to defend a federal facility as the crowd grew more aggressive and more emboldened.

Local police later moved in to support federal law enforcement efforts to disperse the crowd and arrest the people committing acts of violence and mayhem.

Their role became one of reinforcement after the situation had already deteriorated into open confrontation.

Los Angeles’s sanctuary posture has been treated like a moral badge by its leaders.

But the moment violence erupts — assaults, vandalism, arson, obstruction — the
argument is over. Those are crimes, not political statements.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has drawn the line clearly: “Every American has the right to peacefully protest. What is not constitutionally protected is a right to engage in violence … or to impede federal agents … by assaulting … or obstructing their operations.”

That is not politics.

That is the law, stated plainly.

And yet this weekend is another reminder that Mayor Karen Bass governs by press
release and platitude rather than firm, visible leadership.

Angelenos do not need carefully calibrated messaging when officers are under attack outside a federal facility.

They need leadership.

They need unmistakable condemnation of violence and immediate enforcement that deters the next wave before it forms.

Instead, we get the same pattern: public disorder first, official resolve later.

More reminders of her leadership failures during the unrest from last summer, when the city also struggled to project control.

Weak signals from leadership invite stronger waves of disorder.

When lawlessness appears to go unchecked, the most extreme actors take that as
permission to escalate.

If City Hall will not enforce order early and clearly, then the federal government must protect its own people and property.

President Donald Trump does not need the Insurrection Act to strengthen federal
protection of federal facilities; existing federal authority already provides tools to
safeguard federal property and the people on it.

Los Angeles should not be a battleground between mobs and officers.

It should be a city where the rule of law is not negotiable and public safety is not filtered through political caution.

If Mayor Bass will not draw the bright line between protest and riot, Washington may have to draw it for her.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.

https://nypost.com/2026/01/31/opinion/criminals-not-protesters/

US House Speaker Johnson says he has votes to end partial shutdown by Tuesday

  U.S. House ​Speaker Mike Johnson ‌told NBC's "Meet the Press" ‌on Sunday he believes he has the Republican ⁠votes to ‌end a partial government shutdown ‍by at least Tuesday.

"I'm confident that we'll ​do it ‌at least by Tuesday. We have a logistical challenge of getting everyone ⁠in town," ​he said, ​as transport problems persist following a ‍snowstorm ⁠that affected travel in the southeastern ⁠U.S.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/house-speaker-johnson-says-confident-135320738.html

Convicted Terrorist Who Plotted To Bomb British Consulate Now Standing For Election In UK

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Shahid Butt, a 60-year-old Muslim activist with a conviction for conspiring to bomb the British consulate in Yemen, is now gunning for a seat on Birmingham City Council. 

Yes, really.

Convicted in 1999 and sentenced to five years in a Yemeni prison, Butt was found guilty of forming an armed gang to target the consulate, an Anglican church, and a Swiss-owned hotel.

Butt claims the charges were bogus, insisting he was forced to confess and that they weren’t terrorism-related. Yet reports link him to an armed Islamist jihadi group that kidnapped 16 Westerners in 1998. In the early 1990s, he headed to Bosnia as an “aid worker” before joining a foreign fighters brigade in the Bosnian army. Back in Birmingham during the 1980s, he racked up trouble with a notorious gang and even served prison time for violence.

Now, as a pro-Gaza independent candidate in the Sparkhill ward—where around 80% of residents are Muslim—Butt is openly urging the city’s Muslim youth to “work out at the gym and learn to fight” in preparation for potential attacks. He calls for Muslims to “stand together and hold their ground” against “disbelievers” of other faiths.

Victims of Islamist attacks aren’t buying the redemption story. Groups representing terror survivors slammed the candidacy as making “a mockery of our political system,” according to The Telegraph. 

One source told the paper: “Allowing someone with this history to run for office undermines everything we stand for in fighting extremism.”

GB News host Patrick Christys tore into the development, asking: “Are you mental?!” in a blistering monologue. He highlighted Butt’s past, from the Yemen plots to his calls for Muslims to arm up against non-believers.

This isn’t an isolated case of the UK rolling out the red carpet for radicals. Just last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer personally celebrated the release and return of British-Egyptian extremist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has a track record of praising Osama bin Laden, denying the Holocaust, and calling for violence against Jews and police. Starmer called it a “top priority” for his government.

Meanwhile, ordinary Brits face the full force of the law for far less. Take Lucy Connolly, who served time for a heated tweet about immigration after the Southport attacks and now faces re-imprisonment for sharing a satirical joke about Starmer. 

The contrast couldn’t be starker: extremists with bomb plots and hate-filled rhetoric get platforms and welcomes, while native Brits get jail cells for memes and jokes. 

Birmingham’s council elections in May could mark another win for sectarian politics, fueled by unchecked migration and a government more interested in appeasing radicals than protecting its own citizens.

As communal tensions rise, with anti-Israel protests turning violent and Jewish groups raising alarms, allowing figures like Butt to run exposes the rot in Britain’s system.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/convicted-terrorist-who-plotted-bomb-british-consulate-now-standing-election-uk

Joe Rogan Defines Chaos In Minneapolis As "Color Revolution"

 Left-wing unrest in Minneapolis and elsewhere across the country - whether protests or riots over the past few weeks or over the last decade targeting President Trump and the America First agenda - is being framed as a color revolution operation fueled by dark-money-funded NGOs, and that narrative is now reaching a wider audience.

Democrats are uneasy that this framing is gaining traction after the left-wing revolution was most recently discussed on The Joe Rogan Experience, where host Joe Rogan and guest Andrew Wilson, a conservative podcaster, discussed it.

Rogan discussed how, shortly after Nick Shirley’s investigation into alleged large-scale Somali-linked daycare and autism fraud, there was an immediate “narrative shift” that appeared to coincide with what he described as a coordinated pressure campaign on the ground against federal agents - something Rogan characterized as a “color revolution.”

"For people that don't, it's a coordinated effort to cause chaos, and this is a very coordinated thing," Rogan said.

He continued, "The idea that this is an organic protest, these riots are organic, is nonsense. It's probably nonsense because now they have access to the Signal chats."

From the beginning, we have framed much of the left-wing pressure campaigns as far from organic, pointing instead to dark-money-funded NGOs supporting activist groups on the ground opposing federal deportation operations. It was not until “Signal Gate,” however, that the nation could see how heavily coordinated these efforts allegedly were...

Now these left-wing NGOs are seeking spring protests, as they have riled up young people to carry out their anti-ICE agenda.

They also plan to launch campaigns nationwide:

• NYC Socialists Prepare Mass Mobilization Of 4,000 Anti-ICE Army

As well as targeting critical economic chokepoints.

• Left-Wing NGOs Transition To Targeting 'Critical Economic Chokepoints' In Minneapolis

The chaos in Minneapolis is part of the left-wing's protest industrial complex that moves from one high-profile news event to another - from George Floyd protests to pro-Palestinian demonstrations - mobilizing activists with aims at revolution.

There is good news: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat down with journalist Christopher Rufo earlier this month to discuss plans to investigate dark-money-funded NGOs sowing chaos nationwide.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury ⁦@SecScottBessent⁩ tells me that the Trump Administration will launch investigations into left-wing nonprofits that serve as a front for violent protests and criminal obstruction of ICE operations. It’s time to stop left-wing terrorism in America. pic.twitter.com/roorsk4XLA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) January 9, 2026

Let's remind readers about retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn's comments in late November:

• General Flynn Calls For National Address From Trump On Color Revolution Threat

As warmer weather approaches, the protest industrial complex will be operating at full steam. Rogan’s characterization of the chaos in Minneapolis as resembling a color revolution presents optically displeasing headlines for Democrats, as that framing increasingly circulates to wider and wider audiences.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/joe-rogan-defines-chaos-minneapolis-color-revolution

Explosion In AI Data Center Buildouts Will Demand Next-Gen Counter-Drone Security

 Despite trillions of dollars slated for global data center buildouts, power grid upgrades, and other artificial intelligence infrastructure expansion through the end of the decade, there remains very limited investor discussion about the next-generation physical security architecture required to defend these increasingly critical and high-value infrastructure nodes, including data centers, power plants, and grid transmission chokepoints.

Protection of data centers from suicide drone swarm attacks is currently assessed as a lower risk at the moment, while the Trump administration, particularly following last year's "Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty" executive order, is primarily focused on counter-UAS measures to secure stadiums and related venues against drone attacks ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

In recent weeks, U.S. military, federal agencies, and local authorities gathered for a two-day summit near U.S. Northern Command headquarters, bringing together federal agencies, 11 U.S. host committees, and FIFA's security heads to prepare for matches across the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

"We're never going to not worry about a dirty bomb," Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosanna Cordero-Stutz, who participated in the planning session, told Politico. "But we also recognize that there's a lot of other things that we need to worry about as well."

"You can't just give counter-UAS mitigation equipment to law enforcement that hasn't learned how to use it yet," said White House FIFA World Cup Task Force Andrew Giuliani, who coordinated the federal government's role in tournament preparations and addressed the drone threat at the summit.

Trump's counter-UAS EO last June, combined with heightened drone-threat concerns ahead of FIFA World Cup events, underscores the urgent need for low-cost, rapidly deployable kinetic interceptor counter-UAS systems that could be repurposed to defend high-value infrastructure and critical assets beyond the soccer tournament.

Beyond the FIFA World Cup and back to the data center buildout story, Morgan Stanley's Vishwanath Tirupattur forecasts that nearly $3 trillion of global data center spend will occur through 2028, comprising $1.6 trillion on hardware (chips/servers) and $1.3 trillion on building data center infrastructure, including real estate, build costs, and maintenance.

Wall Street analysts largely end their analysis at the financing and construction of next-generation data centers, with limited discussion regarding the modern security architecture required once these facilities are built and become instant high-value targets for non-state actors or foreign adversaries; traditional perimeter measures such as metal chainlink fencing and standard surveillance systems are rendered useless in the world of emerging AI threats, including coordinated autonomous drone or swarm-based attacks enabled by advances in AI and low-cost unmanned systems.

The deployment of low-cost kinetic counter-UAS intercept systems from the US could soon become a reality in Ukraine and be field-tested on the front lines, where tons of operational data would be gathered to help developers refine these systems ahead of future deployment to protect stadiums, data centers, and other high-value assets from drone threats across North America.

Cameron Rowe founded counter-UAS intercept startup Sentradel, which builds autonomous turrets to detect, track, and destroy FPV (first-person view) drones that can be easily modified with explosives. The low-cost interceptor uses a rifle that fires low-cost 5.56 bullets at incoming FPVs, versus current systems that use missiles and may cost tens of thousands per interception, where the economics of war aren't there.

Meet Sentradel's low-cost kinetic interceptor counter-UAS system:

Watch 

There's growing interest from the Trump administration that these counter-UAS intercept systems will be guarding high-value assets, perhaps not stadiums immediately, but likely data centers in the future, especially as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently warned that attacks on data centers are only a matter of time. Readers can see the full story here.

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/explosion-ai-data-center-buildouts-will-demand-next-gen-counter-drone-security

Brussels Versus Washington

 by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes via the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE),

For years, Europe has tried to convince itself that it could regulate its way to technological greatness.

Instead of becoming a technological powerhouse, it produced rules, many rules, with effects now extending far beyond its own borders.

In 2026, those rules are colliding head on with an American president who refuses to accept that U.S. innovation could be governed from Brussels.

Two regulations sit at the center of this escalating tension. The Digital Markets Act, or DMA, applies to the world’s largest digital platforms, the so-called gatekeepers, and forces them to open their ecosystems, share data, and abandon business practices that are central to their models. 

The Digital Services Act, or DSA, regulates platform content and algorithms, requiring the removal of information deemed illegal or harmful, with all the subjectivity this entails.

This risks granting a supranational authority direct power over online speech by compelling platforms to remove content that fails to comply with regulatory guidelines.

These laws, which entered into force in 2022 for the DSA and 2024 for the DMA, appear designed with America’s largest technology firms in mind. Five of the six companies designated as DMA gatekeepers are U.S.-based, as are the overwhelming majority of platforms subject to the DSA.

This has placed companies such as Apple, Google, and Meta under constant supervision by Brussels, forcing them to modify products in order to operate in the European market, with consequences not only for firms themselves but also for consumers and innovation more broadly.

In 2025, under the DMA alone, Apple was fined 500 million euros and forced to open iOS to rival app stores and payment systems. Meta was fined 200 million euros and required to alter how it uses user data.

Under EU competition law, Google also received a historic 2.95 billion euro fine for alleged abuse of market dominance in the digital sector and was forced to redesign key aspects of its search engine and advertising business.

Upon taking office, Donald Trump identified this European interventionism as disguised tariffs that artificially raise costs for American firms and strip them of competitive advantages.

He threatened to invoke Section 301 of U.S. trade law, the same tool used against China, to retaliate, significantly intensifying tensions between Brussels and Washington.

In December 2025, that tension took on a face: X. The European Commission fined Elon Musk’s platform 120 million euros under the DSA, accusing it of failing to manage so-called systemic risks linked to the circulation of political information. For Musk, this amounted to an assault on free speech. The episode appears to have triggered a broader transatlantic diplomatic and commercial escalation. Washington responded by imposing visa bans on five European officials and experts associated with the DSA and threatened tariffs and restrictions against European firms such as SAP, Capgemini, and Mistral AI should Brussels fail to retreat.

The conflict has now spread beyond the European Union. The United Kingdom and Australia have begun discussing restrictions on X, citing risks related to misinformation and online safety, reinforcing the perception that Brussels is asserting itself as a global digital regulator.

Despite pressure from the Trump administration, the European Union shows no signs of slowing down. In 2026, another regulation enters fully into force, the AI Act, which appears once again tailored to American firms. It subjects artificial intelligence systems deemed high-risk, including AI used in hiring, credit, healthcare, public security, content moderation, and high impact generative tools, to mandatory risk assessments, human oversight, and constraints that exist in no other major market. These requirements will delay product launches, raise costs, and force companies to design technologies according to political criteria defined outside the United States.

As a result, 2026 is shaping up to be a particularly challenging year. From a geopolitical perspective, the most immediate risk is the erosion of the transatlantic relationship in a strategic sector. Technology today is an instrument of power, and this escalation among allies is likely to generate incompatible regulatory blocs, fragmenting the digital economy, weakening the West, and opening space for alternative models, particularly China’s state-controlled approach.

Consumers stand to lose most from this conflict, along two pillars central to any classical liberal order: first, the free market, as rising compliance costs will inevitably translate into higher prices; second, online free expression, increasingly constrained by incentives for excessive moderation and the preventive removal of lawful but controversial content.

At a moment when the world is rapidly advancing in artificial intelligence, automation, and the technologies that will define the next decade, the European Union is moving in the opposite direction, deepening an interventionism that exceeds the role a state should play.

The European Union must lower barriers, simplify rules, promote competition, and allow innovation to flourish without permanent political oversight.

In today’s world, as always, market liberalization is not a threat to consumers. It is their strongest protection and the true engine of progress.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/brussels-versus-washington