Think Tanks
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Ifo Institute: Business Climate in German Automotive Industry Somewhat Better
MUNICH, Germany, Jan. 10 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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Business Climate in German Automotive Industry Somewhat Better
The Business Climate Index in Germany's automotive industry improved slightly in December 2025: The balance rose to -19.8 points, up from -20.2 points* in November. While companies assess their current business situation as worse, they are less pessimistic about the coming months. "One ray of hope is the development in electromobility," says ifo industry expert Anita WOlfl.
According to data from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, almost
... Show Full Article
MUNICH, Germany, Jan. 10 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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Business Climate in German Automotive Industry Somewhat Better
The Business Climate Index in Germany's automotive industry improved slightly in December 2025: The balance rose to -19.8 points, up from -20.2 points* in November. While companies assess their current business situation as worse, they are less pessimistic about the coming months. "One ray of hope is the development in electromobility," says ifo industry expert Anita WOlfl.
According to data from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, almost55,000 battery electric vehicles (BEV) were newly registered in Germany in December 2025. That's more than 22% of all new car registrations. As a result, the annual average for BEVs in 2025 reached a new high with a share of 19%. In addition, new BEV registrations grew almost continuously over the course of the year, while new registrations of gasoline- and diesel-powered cars fell steadily compared to the same month of the previous year. "Electromobility seems to have arrived in Germany," says WOlfl.
*Seasonally adjusted
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More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-01-09/business-climate-german-automotive-industry-somewhat-better)
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-01-09/business-climate-german-automotive-industry-somewhat-better
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Providence Magazine: Spain Is Still Litigating the Legacy of Francisco Franco
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to the Providence magazine:
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Spain Is Still Litigating the Legacy of Francisco Franco
By Paul Marshall
Western Europe's common disavowal of its Christian roots is usually less animated by antagonism and more than by an impression that religion is, in Christian Smith's term, "obsolete."
However, in Spain there has been within living memory a vicious civil war with major religious currents. The creeds
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to the Providence magazine:
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Spain Is Still Litigating the Legacy of Francisco Franco
By Paul Marshall
Western Europe's common disavowal of its Christian roots is usually less animated by antagonism and more than by an impression that religion is, in Christian Smith's term, "obsolete."
However, in Spain there has been within living memory a vicious civil war with major religious currents. The creedsof that war are still contested and may be coming to a head in disputes over one of the country's major historical and religious sites, the Valle de los Caidos (Valley of the Fallen).
Despite Spain's powerful and often aggressive secularist movements, the Catholic church still retains a somewhat privileged legal position. While the law states that no religion shall have a "state character," Spain has a concordat with the Holy See. The 1953 concordat was amended in 1976 and 1979 to accord with the 1978 Constitution that established Spain as a non-denominational state.
The Constitution also states that "public authorities shall take into account the religious beliefs of Spanish society and consequently maintain appropriate cooperative relations with the Catholic Church and other denominations." Catholicism is the only religious group explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and is the only religious entity to which people may allocate a percentage of their taxes, which about one third of Spaniards do.
However, already in 1973, under Franco, the Spanish Episcopal Conference had publicly declared its "willingness to renounce any privilege granted by the State in favor of ecclesiastical persons or entities...."
A week after Franco's death in 1975, with the coronation of King Juan Carlos I, Cardinal Tarancon, a leading figure in the church, declared that the church needed to be detached from its history with the Franco regime, since the Second Vatican Council had taught that the "message of Christ... does not sponsor or impose any specific model of society."
Meanwhile, the governmental Pluralism and Coexistence Coalition (FPC) promotes religious freedom and provides funds to non-Catholic religious groups having an agreement with the government to support cultural, educational, and social integration.
Notwithstanding these amicable arrangements, there is increased anti-Christian animus.
The 2024 Spanish Observatory for Religious Freedom Report found a sharp rise in anti-Christian hate crimes, with violent attacks, including the murder of a Catholic monk, doubling from the previous year. Vandalism of churches and symbols had increased by 12%. Christians were the main victims of religious freedom restrictions, suffering 168 of the 243 documented incidents. In previous years, about 85% of violations of religious freedom had targeted Catholics. In August 2025, there were seven cases of vandalism and desecration against Catholic churches.
Of the priests surveyed, 67% reported that they had experienced insults, mockery, or offensive remarks, 12% that they had been denied services or faced direct discrimination, and 15% that they had been excluded from meetings or events due to their clerical status. 90%
There are also legal restrictions. In November 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled against the male-only religious brotherhood Real y Venerable Esclavitud del Santisimo Cristo de La Laguna for refusing to admit a woman as a member, claiming that its internal statutes violate the Constitution.
In January 2025, following a complaint by the Spanish Association Against Conversion Therapies, the Ministry of Equality began an investigation of seven Catholic diocesesover alleged breaches of the 2023 Trans Equality Law. This vague law criminalizes action "aimed at modifying the sexual orientation or gender identity or expression of individuals, even with their consent."
One incident recalls the civil war. On July 21, 2022, a Catholic priest received a letter containing death threats and the warning "You will burn like in '36," referring to the 1936 outbreak of war when thousands of priests, monks and nuns were assassinated, and churches destroyed.
In October 2024, a memorial cross in Neda, on one of the famed Camino de Santiago routes, was dismantled under Spain's Law of Democratic Memory, which mandates the removal of Francoist symbols. The law requires only the removal of political plaques, but some municipalities have taken down entire crosses despite a court ruling that removing crosses stripped of political meaning was unjustified.
What is causing most controversy is changes to the Valle de Cuelgamuros, also called the Valle de los Caidos, the Valley of the Fallen. This massive memorial is dedicated to those, on both sides, who lost their lives during the 1936-1939 civil war. It was constructed by order of Franco and completed in 1958. Franco himself said that that it was intended as a "national act of atonement" and reconciliation. He was buried there in November 1975 but was exhumed in 2019 as part of an effort to erase all public homage to his dictatorship.
It is also a major religious site, containing a basilica, one of the largest in the world, the remains of thirty thousand war dead, an active Benedictine community, and what is probably the world's largest Christian cross, visible from 20 miles away.
The Spanish government of Spain, led by the Socialist Workers' Party under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, wants to further secularize the memorial.
According to a November 17, 2025, report by the conservative American First Policy Institute, a proposed government project will "create a 'great crack," a horizontal rupture across the Valley's esplanade, designed to transform the site into a "space of dialogue and plurality." It would also "eliminate the staircase leading to the Basilica and replace it with a large lobby containing an 'interpretation center' whose goal is to reframe the Valley's meaning."
The "pilgrim hostel, and even basic visitor access to the foot of the Cross and the Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) have been progressively shut down, steadily limiting the site's religious and cultural life. The Benedictine Prior, Fr. Santiago Cantera... was effectively forced out by the Sanchez government and replaced with a figure more aligned with the government's vision."
Since the monument is a Spanish state site, the government has flexibility in reshaping it and so this is probably not a religious freedom issue.
It is also understandable that the Spanish government is leery of seeming to celebrate a 36-year dictatorship. However, the proposed changes seem punitive in character and may create an architectural travesty.
It is also part of a common pattern to excise history so that we live only in an eternal present whose monuments merely mirror our current attitudes.
Read in Providence (https://providencemag.com/2026/01/spain-is-not-done-litigating-the-legacy-of-francisco-franco/).
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Paul Marshall is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/religious-freedom/spain-still-litigating-legacy-francisco-franco-paul-marshall
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary to Free Press: Ayatollah's Regime Is Crumbling
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to the Free Press:
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The Ayatollah's Regime Is Crumbling
No matter what happens now, there is no scenario in which the Islamic Republic survives 2026 with its power intact.
By Michael Doran
Iran is at a crossroads. The largest and most sustained wave of nationwide protests since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising in 2022 and 2023 is now sweeping the country. The current marches may soon eclipse them.
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to the Free Press:
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The Ayatollah's Regime Is Crumbling
No matter what happens now, there is no scenario in which the Islamic Republic survives 2026 with its power intact.
By Michael Doran
Iran is at a crossroads. The largest and most sustained wave of nationwide protests since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising in 2022 and 2023 is now sweeping the country. The current marches may soon eclipse them.What began in late December 2025 as demonstrations over a collapsing currency and rising living costs has spread rapidly across cities and regions. As repression has intensified and casualties have mounted, the protests have hardened into open demands for regime change.
No matter what happens next, there is no scenario in which the Islamic Republic survives 2026 with its power intact. Too much has happened; too many uncontrollable yet intersecting factors are conspiring to erode the regime's power. But that does not mean that revolution is inevitable and Iran will blossom into a free open society once more.
The Islamic Republic has faced mass unrest before. Over the past 15 years, it has weathered repeated nationwide protest cycles. Each time, the pattern held: Demonstrations surged, the security services cracked down violently, and opposition networks fragmented. The regime survived intact.
That history matters--but it no longer governs the present moment.
The Islamic Republic is dying. It may suppress this round of protests. The leadership may survive this year. But it will not emerge from 2026 with its authority, cohesion, or capacity preserved.
A complete overthrow of the Islamic Republic is only one of three plausible outcomes.
The first scenario is regime collapse. Sustained unrest fractures the elite, leading to defections within the security services and the breakdown of centralized control.
The second is partial transformation. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now 86 years old and visibly frail, may die--or be removed--clearing the way for a strongman from the Revolutionary Guard to take power. Such a figure would adjust policy at home and abroad to buy time. The state might endure, but the regime as we now recognize it would not: Ideological authority would erode, and institutional cohesion would weaken.
The third scenario is muddling through. The leadership represses the protests until they dissipate. The system survives without formal change. But it emerges even weaker than before: more paralyzed, more isolated, and more reliant on force to function at all.
These outcomes are distinct, but none preserves the regime as it now exists. Collapse is possible. Severe decline is inevitable.
None of this renders the Islamic Republic harmless. Like a rabid dog, it is dying--but still extraordinarily dangerous. Iran retains a substantial ballistic missile force, a residual nuclear capability, and an ideological commitment to destroying Israel and driving the United States from the Middle East. A dying regime does not become cautious by default.
Why is this time different? Because the regime has lost the most basic attribute of a functioning state: control over its currency. When the gap between the official and market exchange rates reaches 35 to 1, the rial no longer adequately functions as money. Savings become meaningless, contracts lose credibility, and economic planning collapses.
The regime now presides over two separate economies. One operates in depreciating rials and sustains the formal bureaucracy. The other conducts real transactions through oil barter and hard currency, accessible only to a narrow circle of regime insiders. When the Iranian defense ministry must sell crude directly to foreign customers to finance operations--because the central budget can no longer transfer funds through normal channels--the state has lost its capacity to allocate resources. Public finance, in any meaningful sense, has ceased to function.
With foreign currency reserves frozen or inaccessible, the central bank can no longer defend the currency or manage liquidity. Monetary policy has become a series of levers attached to nothing. A government that cannot stabilize its money or credibly tax and redistribute revenue has lost one of the basic arms of the state--and it will not recover it.
The reason is structural. In practice, the Central Bank no longer controls Iran's foreign currency at all. Sanctions have forced the regime to rely on a shadow banking system in which foreign exchange is held outside Iran, parked in shell companies and intermediaries beyond the reach of normal state institutions. The money exists, but it is not available for macroeconomic stabilization or public welfare. Instead, it is channeled through extraterritorial networks to sustain the regime's confrontation with the West and Israel. For ordinary Iranians, this collapse is experienced in daily shortages of everything. Water is intermittent even in major cities. Electricity and fuel are rationed. Food prices outpace wages, forcing households to cut consumption and exhaust savings.
Iran's socialized economy compounds the damage. Fuel is sold domestically at heavily subsidized prices. Regime-connected middlemen buy it cheaply, export it illegally, and pocket the difference. The public absorbs the shortage; insiders capture the rest. What appears on paper as social protection functions in reality as a corruption machine.
Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has broken with decades of regime orthodoxy by openly acknowledging the depth of Iran's systemic failure. He has attributed the crisis largely to American economic sanctions and expressed sympathy for the protesters. "I have tasked the Minister of the Interior to hear the legitimate demands of the protesters through dialogue with their representatives, so that the government can act with all its might to resolve problems and respond responsibly," he posted on X on December 29. Rather than denying the scale of the problem or immediately calling for repression, he publicly conceded that the national economic collapse lies at the center of the unrest.
Yet Pezeshkian, 71, has also been explicit about his own powerlessness. In a speech last March, he said that he favored negotiations with Washington but was overruled. On the central question of sanctions relief--the only plausible path to economic stabilization--the Iranian president openly acknowledges that he has no agency. Ali Khamenei retains a veto that freezes policy, blocks recovery, and leaves the regime without a viable exit from the crisis it has wrought.
That exit does exist--at least in theory. The Trump administration has put a clear offer on the table: Dismantle both the nuclear program and the ballistic missile program, and end the financing of regional proxies. In return, Iran would regain access to foreign currency, stabilize its economy, and unwind the sanction-induced shadow system that now sustains corruption and scarcity. Khamenei has rejected the offer outright. Ideology and regime identity take precedence over survival.
This paralysis--economic, political, and strategic--now follows a series of reversals that stripped the regime of its aura of invincibility. After October 7, 2023, Israel dismantled Iran's regional strategy piece by piece. It destroyed Hamas in Gaza, massively degraded Hezbollah in Lebanon, and collapsed Iran's Syrian support, culminating in the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Only after that regional structure was broken did the conflict widen into the 12-day war of June 2025, which struck Iran directly, destroying key elements of its air defenses, missile forces, and nuclear infrastructure. The nuclear program had long functioned as the regime's central symbol of defiance against the West. Its destruction ended that claim.
The damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure was real, but it was not the same as strategic disarmament. Tehran still possesses technical knowledge, remaining assets, and--above all--the intent to rebuild. The same is true of its missile program. These capabilities no longer guarantee leverage or immunity, but they ensure that the regime remains a lethal actor even as its position deteriorates.
Taken together, these shocks have pushed the system into a new phase. Iran now displays many of the classic preconditions for revolution--economic collapse, military humiliation, legitimacy erosion, and external isolation. But it lacks a decisive catalyst: an organized revolutionary leadership. The regime has been systematic and ruthless in eliminating potential leaders. What remains is an angry public that can take to the streets but cannot take control.
Sustained protest does not by itself topple regimes in Iran, but it increases the probability that elite fracture, security defection, or external intervention will do so.
Iran's ethnic diversity compounds the problem of translating mass protest into unified political action. Persians constitute only about half of the population, alongside large Azerbaijani, Kurdish, Arab, Baloch, and Turkmen minorities concentrated in distinct regions. These groups hold different grievances and respond to different pressures. The protest dynamics in Tehran do not automatically translate to Kurdistan or Baluchistan. The regime has long exploited this fragmentation, suppressing unrest region by region rather than confronting a unified national movement.
Despite visible tensions within the elite, there have been no confirmed defections within the security services. No senior commanders have changed sides. The coercive core of the regime--centered on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps--remains intact, cohesive, and more than willing to use force to preserve its power.
In the absence of a unified national movement, this repressive apparatus still has room to operate. Internet shutdowns, mass arrests, and calibrated violence can fragment protest networks and exhaust participants. The security services remain disciplined and willing to act. This capacity does not resolve the regime's underlying failures, but it can delay their most severe political consequences.
Donald Trump has warned that mass killings of Iranian protesters would trigger intervention. His recent actions in Venezuela and Operation Midnight Hammer give the warning some punch. Nevertheless, recent reporting suggests that the regime has entered a more openly repressive phase, indicating that Tehran is prepared to test Trump's redlines.
The immediate test will come this weekend, when the protests are set to intensify. If repression fragments and disperses them, the regime may yet muddle through. If, however, violence triggers an American or Israeli response, or if it broadens participation and spreads unrest nationwide, then even survival through paralysis may no longer be possible.
No matter what, the trajectory is clear. The Islamic Republic may kill protesters and try to outlast the demonstrations, but the regime can no longer restore its authority. It enters 2026 weaker than at any time since its founding, and if it manages to last out the year, it will be even weaker still.
Read in The Free Press (https://www.thefp.com/p/the-ayatollahs-regime-is-crumbling?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email).
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Michael Doran is a senior fellow and director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at Hudson Institute. He specializes in Middle East security issues and cohosts Israel Update.
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/ayatollahs-regime-crumbling-michael-doran
[Category: ThinkTank]
Empire Center: State Delays Disclosing Emails About $1B Home Health Contract
ALBANY, New York, Jan. 10 -- Empire Center, a non-profit think tank, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026:
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State Delays Disclosing Emails About $1B Home Health Contract
By Bill Hammond
For a third time the state Health Department has postponed releasing records related to a disputed $1 billion Medicaid contract, saying it needs another six weeks or more to locate and redact the materials in question.
The latest delay means the department's early communications with Public Partnerships Limited - which later won a statewide contract to operate the Medicaid's Consumer Directed
... Show Full Article
ALBANY, New York, Jan. 10 -- Empire Center, a non-profit think tank, issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026:
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State Delays Disclosing Emails About $1B Home Health Contract
By Bill Hammond
For a third time the state Health Department has postponed releasing records related to a disputed $1 billion Medicaid contract, saying it needs another six weeks or more to locate and redact the materials in question.
The latest delay means the department's early communications with Public Partnerships Limited - which later won a statewide contract to operate the Medicaid's Consumer DirectedPersonal Assistance Program - will remain unavailable to the public until Feb. 20 or beyond.
The records are expected to shed further light on why the state abruptly decided to consolidate the $11.9 billion program under a single statewide "fiscal intermediary" - and how PPL was chosen to handle that lucrative job.
The Empire Center requested the records on Sept. 8, shortly after the state Senate held a hearing on the much-disputed contract - including allegations that the department had effectively picked the winner in advance.
At the hearing, PPL official Patty Byrnes testified that there had been "no conversations" with state officials before bidding on the contract opened in July 2024. In a follow-up letter, however, the Byrnes acknowledged the company had communicated with the Health Department in March and April of that year, which was before the Legislature authorized the bidding process as part of the annual state budget.
To obtain copies of those communications, the Empire Center submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Law with both the Health Department and the governor's office.
Similar documents are also being sought by the Sens. James Skoufis and Gustavo Rivera, the organizers of the hearing last summer.
In December, the governor's office responded to the Empire Center's request by releasing a single email record - an April 4 invitation to an on-line meeting involving advisers to Governor Hochul as well as officials of the Health Department and PPL.
For its part, the Health Department initially said it could produce the records no sooner than Oct. 7. It has since pushed back that date to Nov. 21, Jan. 6 and, most recently, to Feb. 20 - which would be almost six months after the initial request.
The latest postponement, as with the earlier ones, leaves open the possibility of further delays:
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Please be advised [the Records Access Office] is unable to respond to your request by the date previously given to you. We are working diligently to identify or redact records responsive to your request.
The Records Access Office now expects to complete its process by February 20, 2026. The Department will notify you in writing when/if the responsive materials are available for release or if the time needed to complete your request extends beyond the above date.
Please note that the office is working through a significant backlog of FOIL requests and asks for your patience.
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The Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP, is a form of home-based care for Medicaid recipients with disabilities. Patients in the program choose their own caregivers, who can be friends or family members, and Medicaid pays their wages. It has been one of the fastest-growing parts of the Medicaid budget, covering some 280,000 people at a cost of $11 billion as of 2024.
The state formerly employed hundreds of companies known a fiscal intermediaries to handle payroll processing and other CDPAP-related duties. In the name of cutting costs, Governor Hochul and the Legislature decided last year to consolidate those administrative functions under a single contractor.
Lawmakers approved the consolidation plan along with the rest of the budget in mid-April 2024. The Health Department opened bidding in June and named PPL as the winner in September. Despite multiple lawsuits seeking to block the transition, PPL began taking over in April 2025.
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Bill Hammond
As the Empire Center's senior fellow for health policy, Bill Hammond tracks fast-moving developments in New York's massive health care industry, with a focus on how decisions made in Albany and Washington affect the well-being of patients, providers, taxpayers and the state's economy.
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Original text here: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/state-delays-disclosing-emails-about-1b-home-health-contract/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Federal Authorities Assert Full Jurisdiction Over Investigation Into Fatal Shooting by ICE
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Jan. 10 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Jan. 8, 2026:
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Federal authorities assert full jurisdiction over investigation into fatal shooting by ICE
By David Zimmer
Federal authorities assert full jurisdiction over investigation into fatal shooting by ICE
Yesterday, following the fatal shooting of Renee Good, 37, in South Minneapolis by an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a preliminary decision had been made by authorities
... Show Full Article
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Jan. 10 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Jan. 8, 2026:
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Federal authorities assert full jurisdiction over investigation into fatal shooting by ICE
By David Zimmer
Federal authorities assert full jurisdiction over investigation into fatal shooting by ICE
Yesterday, following the fatal shooting of Renee Good, 37, in South Minneapolis by an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a preliminary decision had been made by authoritiesto conduct a joint investigation involving Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and agents from the Force Investigations Unit of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).
As noted in our article yesterday, federal law gives federal authorities sole jurisdiction to investigate and to make use of force evaluations involving the actions of federal agents. It appears like the federal government will be exercising that prerogative in this case.
Earlier this morning the Superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension issued a statement saying that the FBI and the US Attorney's Office had decided the investigation would be led solely by the FBI, and that the BCA would not be given access to the case material. The BCA assessed it would no longer be able to meet the investigative standards needed to continue their involvement.
I sense that the decision to pull the investigation completely under federal oversight has nothing to do with quality of work established by the BCA's Force Investigations Unit. That unit has demonstrated itself to be the gold standard in investigating use-of-force incidents.
Instead, it likely has everything to do with the earned distrust of political forces in Minnesota that have shown their lack of impartiality in this case and others like it in the past.
The federal government rightfully has decided against subjecting this investigation (or it's agent) to the circus-like atmosphere that has existed in recent officer-involved shootings (OIS's) in Minnesota. Political leadership including Governor Walz, Attorney General Ellison, Hennepin County Attorney Moriarty, Minneapolis Mayor Frey, and US Senator Klobuchar have no one to blame but themselves.
First, they have demonized and undermined the mission of ICE in Minnesota. They have repeatedly refused to cooperate with ICE and have supported practices and policies that prevent state and local authorities from working or sharing information with ICE. Minneapolis has gone to the extent of banning ICE from using city owned parking lots or other property to stage. Their anti-ICE rhetoric has encouraged organized activists to harass and obstruct ICE in the field daily over the past month. It is particularly rich to hear many of them now complain that ICE is refusing to "coordinate" with them as they carry out their immigration enforcement.
Second, based largely on the Hennepin County Attorney's Office's handling of OIS's in recent years, a massive amount of trust has been lost in how that office would handle information and the decision-making process involving such a politically sensitive incident as yesterday's OIS.
Minnesotans who have paid attention to this problem are reminded of this exchange between the Hennepin County Medical Examiner and the Assistant Hennepin County Attorney in the George Floyd case -- "... what happens when the actual evidence doesn't match up with the public narrative that everyone's already decided on...this is the type of case that ends careers." Or, they may recall Mary Moriarty's discredited handling of the politically charged OIS involving Minnesota State Trooper Londregan. Both cases exemplify how politics has inappropriately influenced the charging decisions of OIS cases in Hennepin County in recent years.
Third, many of these local leaders have made statements or posted information that have once again served to inappropriately prejudice the local atmosphere around this case.
Here is U.S. Senator Klobuchar's Facebook post made the day of the ICE shooting, highlighting a flyer declaring that Good was "murdered."
The morning of the OIS, Governor Walz held a press conference, in which he made a number of inappropriate statements to prejudice the case.
"We will stop at nothing to ensure accountability."
"It was totally avoidable. So preventable, so unnecessary."
"Someone is dead, in their car, for no reason whatsoever."
"I said, if they do this, they are going to create a chaotic situation where someone innocent gets killed, and they did it."
And in reference to potentially activating the National Guard, the Governor gave several examples of why he might do that, including:
"...in this case if it is a rogue federal agent."
Then this morning, the Governor held another press conference in which he claimed he was not using inflammatory language, only to go on to say:
"Kristi Noem was judge, jury, and executioner."
Minnesota was under "relentless assault" by our federal government.
It would be "very, very difficult that we will get a fair outcome" now that the FBI had asserted sole jurisdiction over the investigation.
Attorney General Ellison posted this statement, further demonizing ICE, and making his opinions about the shooting clear:
The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA) weighed in on the many inappropriate comments coming from Minnesota's politicians, and hit the nail on the head by calling for an end to the "inflammatory language, and to respect the legal and investigatory process."
The statements make one wonder if Minnesota's political leaders are truly blind to the prejudice that they create, and the prejudice that has become so commonplace in Minnesota surrounding OIS incidents.
Kudos to the Justice Department for not playing along.
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David Zimmer is a Public Safety Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment.
David.Zimmer@americanexperiment.org
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Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/federal-authorities-assert-full-jurisdiction-over-investigation-into-fatal-shooting-by-ice/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: As Gov. Walz Ramps Up Civil War Talk, He Gets the History of the Last One Wrong
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Jan. 10 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Jan. 8, 2026:
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As Gov. Walz ramps up civil war talk, he gets the history of the last one wrong
By John Phelan
With a year of his political career remaining, Gov. Walz is, unfortunately, determined to do as much damage as he can on his way out.
Today, giving a press conference on the fatal shooting by an ICE agent in Minneapolis yesterday, the governor invoked the experiences of the 1st Minnesota
... Show Full Article
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, Jan. 10 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on Jan. 8, 2026:
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As Gov. Walz ramps up civil war talk, he gets the history of the last one wrong
By John Phelan
With a year of his political career remaining, Gov. Walz is, unfortunately, determined to do as much damage as he can on his way out.
Today, giving a press conference on the fatal shooting by an ICE agent in Minneapolis yesterday, the governor invoked the experiences of the 1st MinnesotaInfantry Regiment at the battle of Gettysburg:
I told the heroic story of the 1st Minnesota in the Spring 2023 issue of our magazine, Thinking Minnesota. On the second day of the battle -- July 2nd, 1863, not July 3rd as the governor mistakenly thinks -- they played the decisive role in stopping the Confederate attack on the center of the Union line. "The superb gallantry of those men saved our line from being broken," their Corps commander, Winfield Scott Hancock, wrote. "No soldiers, on any field, in this or any other country, ever displayed grander heroism." "At twilight," I wrote in 2023, "just 47 men answered the regimental roll call. Of the 262 Minnesotans who charged the Confederates, 215 -- 82 percent -- were killed or wounded, the most severe losses suffered by a Union regiment in a single engagement during the Civil War."
But besides getting one of the most hallowed dates in Minnesota's state history wrong -- a poor performance from a former history teacher -- the governor's analogy fails in broader, crucial ways.
First, the 1st Minnesota were fighting on behalf of the federal government. Second, they were fighting against the forces of secessionist states which sought remove themselves from rule by the federal government. If Gov. Walz is serious about his lunatic threats to turn the National Guard loose on federal agents, then, by analogy, he is placing them in the role of the 28th Virginia, the Confederate regiment whose battle flag the 1st Minnesota captured while foiling Pickett's Charge on July 3rd.
That flag is in the possession of the Minnesota Historical Society. The governor should go and see it sometime.
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John Phelan is an Economist at the Center of the American Experiment.
john.phelan@americanexperiment.org
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Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/mr-glahn-goes-to-washington/
[Category: ThinkTank]
America First Policy Institute: Mayor Frey, ICE is Not 'Sowing Chaos.' You Are. Please Resign.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to Fox News Online:
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Mayor Frey, ICE is not 'sowing chaos.' You are. Please resign.
By Chad Wolf and Cooper Smith
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey--perhaps best known for fomenting Black Lives Matter riots and abandoning a police station to rioters in 2020--is using the tragic officer-involved shooting of a woman to reignite the same radical forces that led to such destruction just over five years ago.
"To ICE, get the f*** out of Minneapolis. We don't want you here," said Frey this
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WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following commentary on Jan. 9, 2026, to Fox News Online:
* * *
Mayor Frey, ICE is not 'sowing chaos.' You are. Please resign.
By Chad Wolf and Cooper Smith
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey--perhaps best known for fomenting Black Lives Matter riots and abandoning a police station to rioters in 2020--is using the tragic officer-involved shooting of a woman to reignite the same radical forces that led to such destruction just over five years ago.
"To ICE, get the f*** out of Minneapolis. We don't want you here," said Frey thisweek, demonstrating the same reckless behavior that tragically helped destroy his city.
While this most recent statement was designed for social media clicks and attention-grabbing headlines, another made during the same press conference was even more irresponsible and detached from reality.
"They (ICE) are not here to cause safety in this city (...) they're sowing chaos on our streets, and this case, quite literally killing people," Frey continued.
These are not the words of a serious person.
Such a statement, made mere hours after a shooting, is erroneous and ridiculously places all blame on law enforcement while investigations are ongoing. With Jacob Frey in power, the "Defund the Police" movement is alive and well.
To read the full article, click here (https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/chad-wolf-cooper-smith-mayor-frey-ice-not-sowing-chaos-you-are-please-resign).
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Chad F. Wolf serves as Chair of AFPI's Homeland Security & Immigration. In this role, Wolf is responsible for the day-to-day management and strategic direction of AFPI with a focus on setting policy goals and research priorities.
Cooper Smith currently serves as Director for Homeland Security and Immigration.
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/mayor-frey-ice-is-not-sowing-chaos-you-are-please-resign
[Category: ThinkTank]
