News roundup
(1) What’s going on with the riots in France? The original story was that it was about high school students protesting education problems, but that appears to only be a small part of the story:
Harvey Feigenbaum, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and an expert on French politics, told Fox News Digital that France’s underlying problem is a government caught between expensive social commitments, sluggish economic growth and mounting pressure to cut spending.
“France is in deep debt. It wants to cut its expenses,” Feigenbaum said, explaining that years of financial pressure and neglected school facilities have fueled frustration among students.
The scale of the financial predicament is striking. According to Eurostat, French public debt stood at 117.6% of GDP in the first quarter of 2026, the third-highest ratio in the European Union, behind Greece and Italy.
Reuters reported Oct. 8 that rising borrowing costs and investor concerns have severely limited the government’s ability to resolve unrest through additional spending, a strategy employed during previous waves of French protests.
The financial squeeze has collided with an increasingly fragmented political system, creating opportunities for parties at both ends of the political spectrum to capitalize on public dissatisfaction. …
Insoumise party, known as LFI, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, became an increasingly contentious issue.
Reuters reported Oct. 1 that French intelligence agencies had told a government crisis meeting that LFI and affiliated activists played a role in fomenting the unrest. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez also cited agitators moving between schools to encourage violence.
LFI is a far-left party.
And then there are the Muslims, who are also involved, either as demonstrators or as influencers:
And what about the “Al Aqsa flood” slogan tagged on the wall of the Sorbonne? What about the obsession with the “Free Palestine” slogan, the “We’re all the children of Gaza,” heard in each and every demonstration? Can it illuminate the constant Palestinian, Lebanese, and Algerian flags deployed during most of the riots between Oct. 1 and Oct. 7, which then receded after Oct. 8? …
Whether an agreement has been made between LFI and crypto-Islamist groups to let them freely celebrate Oct. 7 inside of the demonstrations can only be a matter of speculation. But it’s certainly hard to miss the prevalence of Palestinian flags during the first week of October.
(2) The Cornell rape case gets weaker and weaker as more information emerges.
Many of today’s young women want it both ways: complete sexual freedom and complete protection from harm, as well as from the consequences of their actions.
(3) Ilham Omar’s house has been raided by HSI (Homeland Security Investigations):
Two sources close to the investigation say the search stems from a criminal fraud investigation into the Somali-born congresswoman’s immigration paperwork, which was filled out by her late father when she was a child.
So, if she was a child, I don’t see that she faces any criminal liability for this.
(4) There’s no evidence that Talarico was in a mental health facility in Ohio. That recording seemed bogus to me and so I didn’t cover it.
That doesn’t answer the question of what actually has been going on with Talarico.
(5) El Sayed’s half-sister wrote years ago that the family has long been connected with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, wrote openly about her family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in social media posts in 2012 and 2013, the Washington Free Beacon found.
El-Sayed has denied it, of course.
Item (1): I never believed for an instant that the unrest in France really had to do with education issues. Why do I believe this? Because I think the late David Horowitz was 100 percent on target when he said/wrote,
“An SDS radical once wrote, ‘The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.’ In other words the cause – whether inner city blacks or women – is never the real cause, but only an occasion to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of power to make the revolution.”
https://quotefancy.com/quote/1943805/David-Horowitz-An-SDS-radical-once-wrote-The-issue-is-never-the-issue-The-issue-is-always
What I wonder is what Omar’s citizenship status is, if her father lied on his application.
Re: Omar – Has anyone seen any serious analysis of the relevant immigration law? The allegations that have circulated at places like powerlineblog are that her true father was a general during the Somali civil war and was alleged to have committed war crimes. He then, purportedly, lied about his children’s identity so that he or they could claim asylum. If there’s anything to that, it’s a lot more serious than the other things the Trump DOJ has alleged against political enemies, BUT:
Is there truly anything that could be done about that now? For better or worse, we’re hooked into the “it’s a crime that we can prosecute right now, or it’s completely OK” paradigm. If the true answer is that it is too late to address the issue now, Omar will claim that she has been “exonerated,” and, for purposes of public opinion, she most likely will be.
And, is the Trump administration really going to try to revoke the citizenship of a member of Congress? Wow. If they’re going to actually run that play, that had better have slam dunk evidence and a slam dunk interpretation of the relevant law.
If they’re just playing the “process is the punishment” routine, they’re only playing into Omar’s hands. She already claims to be a martyr. They’ll just make her more of one.
On (3), I wonder if those sources are correct that this is about immigration fraud. I agree with neo that she would not have criminal liability for something her father did. But it would not surprise me if they were trying to uncover money laundering or other types of fraud (if those are in DHS’s bailiwick).
Once again CC™-R shows faux concern about the veracity of Ill ham Oh Mars ( a real alien life form) citizenship through not so subtle questioning of “places like powerlineblog.”
Followed by his usual hand wringing; but can “we” actually do anything? Like enforce the law?
But if course CC™-R finishes his agitprop with a stab at The Great Orange Whale.
Reasons.
Oh noes! Another Minnesota martyr! The Great Orange Whale will never “lear!”
“Ilham Omar’s house has been raided by HSI .”
Yep, the feds were looking for Melania’s underwear.
France
1) 57% of France’s economy is government spending
2) Dirigisme – is the French word meaning that the federal government takes a very direct and active role “guiding” private business.
3) In France once you have hired someone it becomes almost impossible to fire them. A French private company is fully aware of this so does not hire 3rd rate Muslim labor with little or no skills and an attitude. Musk doesn’t go to the inner cities of Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore to hire people if you want an analogy.
4) French “workers” get 5 weeks paid vacation and 11 to 13 paid holidays a year. Let that sink in.
I could go on endlessly as I have close family in Europe. France competes against America and China where this crap does not happen.
I live in Montana and we have a joke.
Question: “What do you call a woman with two jobs?”
Answer: “Lazy.”
We lead the nation in workers with two jobs. Poverty with a view.
“If she was a child”
Not claiming to be an expert in matters regarding Ilhan Omar, but I have heard that at the time the family immigrated she was “17 or 18”. The difference between 17 or 18 could be significant with respect to any legal proceedings concerning her immigration
status. I don’t think she was a tyke.
I live in Omar’s district. My gut feeling is she was elected because a core of the 5th District DFL stalwarts think she’s a bad-ass, East African immigrant who, they believe, “speaks truth to power” and gives it to “the man,” the white man. She’s talking to those supporters when she says, in reaction to the raid, “I will not be silenced.” (Note that Trump’s action is to throw shade on her political legitimacy, not particularly to silence her.)
As the Dems have become more radical, this raid might erode support of the merely habitual DFL voter, but not the hard core. Even that possible erosion will be mitigated substantially by the perception that she is being unfairly hounded by Trump. Omar has won by some large margins, so she can stand some erosion.
So, unless HSI actions can lead to revoking her citizenship (not sure they can do that, but I hope they can), the raid won’t change who my congressperson is. (Omar faces a white male this Fall for the first time in her career.)
Maybe they are looking for evidence to her marriage to her brother ?
According to RedState.com the Fed’s name for the raid on Ill Ham Oh Mars’s Wa DC home is “World War Eleven” WW 11.
I’m sure that CC™-R is just as appalled and outraged as the Washington Post is.
FOAF:
She was 12 years old. Definitely a child.
Egads! Trump is melting down right before the midterms.
Reports out of Europe are saying that Trump is threatening sanctions **against Ukraine** if they don’t agree to a unilateral ceasefire against Russian energy infrastructure. This means cutting Ukraine off from all weapons and intelligence — including that provided by Europe. He has told Europe to cease intelligence sharing, weapons delivery, and even spare parts for Ukraine’s F-16s.
Administration officials have reportedly told their European counterparts “This is a demand, not a request.”
I can only assume that the polling showing Republicans getting shellacked in the midterms is accurate, and Trump is blaming Zelensky specifically and Ukraine more generally.
Ugh. No good can come from this — any of this.
Why is the male participant in the Cornell incident identified in the linked NY Post article identified, but the female participant is referred to as “Jane Doe”? This is particularly odd since Jane Doe is telling the male participant what happened. Seems like the male was less able to consent than the female. No one looks good, but with the NY AG on the case, the male will be harassed or imprisoned. Quite strange.
mkent:
Don’t light your hair on fire just yet, leave that spectacle to CC™-R. European press is remarkably hostile to President Trump.
The question which has been raised is whether she was 17 or 18 at the time her father was naturalized. If 17, she became a citizen by virtue of his. If 18, she’d have to be naturalized separately, and she wasn’t. An allegation has been made that she changed her birth date to make herself legal. Since her birth was in Somalia, I’m not sure how her actual birth date can be verified.
Thanks, Kate. I thought it was something like that, especially the part about the difficulty of verifying her age
Bill Shipley just put up a long post on the Omar raid and her immigration situation on his Shipwreckedcrew’s Port-O-Call Substack. I think unfortunately it’s behind his paywall but I’ll try to give a TL;DR summary.
https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/yes-minn-rep-ilhan-omar-can-be-denaturalized
As you can sorta tell from the URL it is Shipley’s opinion that Omar does face naturalization, though maybe not criminal, jeopardy regardless of her age at the time she immigrated. In fact, because she was a minor she might be in more trouble than if she had been an adult. If she was a minor her ability to apply for naturalization was based on the acceptance for immigration and naturalization of her “father” (I note there are some questions regarding that, as well) who was, at least according to some sources, a fairly high ranking officer in the Somali National Army during the Marxist dictatorship of Mohammed Said Barre, and is said to have participated in human rights violations and other atrocities during SNA suppression of unrest involving the Isaaq tribe located in the area of Somalia that calls itself “Somaliland.” (He notes that the recent diplomatic recognition of an independent nation of Somaliland by Israel might be the source of additional information about the Omar family.) US immigration law bars the acceptance for refugee status of anyone affiliated with a Marxist or totalitarian party, and the regime of Barre in Somalia was an self-proclaimed Marxist dictatorship. It appears that Omar’s father described himself as an ‘educator’ on his immigration and refugee applications, a characterization continued by Omar in her own writing, without disclosing his association with the Somali National Army and Barre’s government. That would make his application for naturalization invalid under US law therefore making her subsequent application invalid as well. There is a case directly on point for Omar’s father of a former Nazi concentration camp guard who passed himself off as a laborer, was admitted to the US under the Displaced Persons provisions after WWII, and was eventually deported after the USSC ruled there was no statute of limitations on revoking immigration or naturalization status if facts which would have caused a rejection of the application were discovered even long after the fact. It is not quite on point for Omar but it certainly raises the possibility her naturalization could be revoked because her entry into the US was the result of fraud, even if she wasn’t the one committing the fraud.
The only question Shipley has is the basis for the search warrant since denaturalization is a civil action, not a criminal one, and search warrants are part of a criminal investigation. He speculated there might be information regarding the family’s immigration process as detailed in Omar’s writings, and an investigation could have the purpose of determining if there was on-going fraud to conceal her father’s history. I would also think there could be a criminal investigation into Omar’s connection with various Somali fraud rings in the Twin Cities so the search warrant might have nothing to do with the immigration case, or the search might have had multiple purposes.
”Don’t light your hair on fire just yet…”
No need to worry about my hair. There’s not enough left to roast a marshmallow.
mkent – I wish neo had a like button for comments.
And, speaking of lighting one’s hair on fire, I said that the administration had better have all of its i’s dotted and t’s crossed. That’s lighting my hair on fire?
I also expressed concern that this matter is going to end up like almost all of Trump’s other lawfare “adventures,” where the charges are weak and quickly dismissed and the target claims to have been “exonerated” and becomes an even bigger “resistance” hero. Cry flaming follicular matter all you like, but that has happened repeatedly in the past two years. It’s a legitimate worry.
A larger philosophical point – I don’t think that MAGA and Trumpers understand leftist lawfare. However thuggish their behavior, leftists sincerely believe that they are on the side of right, we are on the side of evil, and that it is not abusive to use the justice system to punish bad people.
People who truly believe that they are correctly using the justice system to “get the bad guys” and “make the world a better place” are not going to be deterred by a response in kind. To the leftist, Trump’s clumsy, ineffective lawfare is simply more proof of their own biased worldview.
The solution to leftist lawfare is to remove the ideologues from power by convincing a majority of the electorate that lawfare is abusive and harms all of us, even if it is to get the “bad” people.
Nothing to start the day like CC™-R talking down and mansplaining to others.
I smell burning hair wafting in from Little Ahab.
You realize Emmanual Macron is an exemplar of the French establishment. He had excellent exam scores, won places at the grandes ecoles, and was promoted through the ranks in the national civil service to the highest levels. The political party he founded won an outright majority in the legislative elections of 2017. Well, the last ten years have been the years seed corn was et in the crucial areas of policy. Prof. David Betz has noted ‘elite incompetence’ as a feature of government in Europe. You’re looking at it in him.
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France might actually require its own Pinochet to extricate itself from the predicament in which it has placed itself.
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Hoping Marine can get the job done won way or another.
CC™-R let his agitprop mask slip; the search warrant on Ill Ham Oh Mars, is Trump “lawfare.”
To Little Ahab, a.k.a., CC™-R, a.k.a., Bauxite,
President Trump is acting worse than Biden’s and Obama’s DOJ. You see they were only a bit overzealous for “justice” in Little Ahab’s eyes?
Ilhan Omar
New York Times reported that Biden Admin went after her as well – 1/26/26
“Under Biden Administration, Justice Dept. Began Examining Ilhan Omar’s Finances”
So it just isn’t Trump who finds our Little Communist/Jihadist/fraud loving/America and Jew hating Witch – let’s say somewhat shady.
I think Representative Omar is probably the most odious member of Congress. What troubles me is the possibility she could be removed for office for immigration fraud by her father.
As opposed to all the other reasons she is repellant. Mainly her views and attitudes towards this nation and its shared values.
It’s like indicting Capone for mail fraud.
Or jailing Al Capone for taxes instead of murder, racketeering, …..?
JGIII: “New York Times reported that Biden Admin went after her as well – 1/26/26”
Waiting for bauxy to slam Biden. But not holding my breath.