On this episode of Network ReACTS, Independent Women’s Network Director Julie Gunlock hosts a roundtable discussion with Patrice Onwuka, Carrie Sheffield, Beth Parlato, Jordanne Kemper, and Gabriella Hoffman for a 2025 roundup covering major news and key developments in policy and politics from the past year.
Issue: Immigration
Kristi Noem Means Business. Hegseth Under Fire. Walz Imploding. Tennessee Tonight. Men in Women’s Sports and Doping Scandal. More
When Border Czar-against-her-will Kamala Harris issued a half-hearted “don’t come” to illegal immigrants, everybody knew she didn’t mean it. But Kristi Noem is throwing down the gauntlet to potential aliens she thinks might harm the U.S., and you’d better believe she’s not kidding:
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proposed a “full travel ban” Monday on unnamed countries “flooding” the US with dangerous migrants, after a meeting with President Trump.
“I just met with the President,” Noem wrote on X. “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.
“Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom — not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS,” the DHS chief continued. “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE.”
President Trump must have been pleased by more than Noem’s flattering use of ALL CAPS. He is cracking down on forms of immigration that he believes are iffy:
The sweeping crackdown President Trump declared last week after an Afghan national was accused of shooting two National Guard members is poised to radically curtail immigrants from legally entering and living in the United States, putting up roadblocks unparalleled in recent history.
Within a matter of days, the administration rolled out a series of far-reaching policy changes: pausing all asylum decisions for migrants currently in the United States; reviewing the green cards that allow people from 19 countries, mostly from the Middle East or Africa, to live and work permanently in the United States; reassessing the asylum approvals issued during the Biden administration; indefinitely halting immigration applications filed by Afghan nationals; and barring Afghans from entering the country.
Wild Bunch: The New York Post has an exclusive on the 7,000 illegal aliens with criminal records who were released by the state of New York since President Trump began his second term:
The rap sheets behind the rogue’s gallery include 29 homicides, thousands of assaults and hundreds of burglaries, robberies, drug offenses, weapons offenses and sexual predatory offenses, the Department of Homeland Security revealed Monday.
All of them were protected by state and local sanctuary laws that dramatically restrict how local authorities can communicate with ICE, DHS says.
Don’t miss the chilling mini profiles of the lucky illegals who are now free to roam the streets. One thing I’ve noticed in sob stories about immigration is that vital details are omitted or appear deliberately confusing. For example, a story about a college student who was deported when she attempted to go back to Honduras to see her family told us she had been in the U.S. since she was eight. What we do not learn is whether she was here legally. But the battle is really between those who are glad that our borders were open and hope it will be too much trouble to send people back, and those who believe that the citizenry has a right to determine immigration policy.
Republicans are sweating a Tennessee congressional race between a West Point graduate and combat veteran (the Republican) and Democrat Aftyn Behn, a former Soros organizer who made no secret of her disdain for Nashville and country music. Glenn Reynolds writes that Aftyn Behn might win:
That makes the race a “canary in the coal mine” for our national politics, says columnist Mark Pulliam.
It shouldn’t be.
The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn writes about what it would mean if this “AOC of Tennessee” were to win tonight and explores some of her “kookier” ideas. But socialists seem all the rage. I remember that after Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race in New York, The Five’s Dana Perino said that there will “soon be a socialist coming to a city near you.” I guess I should not be surprised that socialist D.C. City Council member Janeese Lewis George has thrown her hat in the ring to succeed Mayor Muriel Bowser, who will not seek reelection. The Hill reports:
During her 2020 election against Todd, Lewis George received pushback for previous comments she made in which she supported the idea of defunding law enforcement — an issue that was in the headlines after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white cop in Minneapolis.
She was given an opportunity to clarify this:
“It wasn’t that we were against police officers, it was Black people saying we don’t want to be murdered,” George told the newspaper. “The notion that we’re just saying we don’t want to be killed and we want to trust our officers does not mean we don’t respect and love our officers and support them.”
Ms. Lewis George is also running on “affordability,” which—what a coincidence—economist Stephen Moore also addressed today with an incisive Townhall column headlined “If Young People Want More Affordability, They Should Get Jobs.” Is socialism confined to one political party? Don’t miss Katherine Mangu-Ward’s “To the Socialists of All Parties” in Reason.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is “facing intensifying scrutiny” “amid talk of war crimes” in the words of the (delighted) New York Times. “Why is Hegseth being attacked for defending Americans?” asks USA TODAY’s conservative-leaning columnist Nicole Russell. “I support the investigation into Pete Hegseth’s orders, but I trust they were lawful,” Russell writes. In an editorial headlined “Shooting the Wounded on Drug Boats?” Wall Street Journal editors say that Congress is correct in seeking the truth about Secretary Hegseth’s alleged Hegseth missile order:
The Pentagon is certainly full of people who might leak a derogatory story because they’d like to see Mr. Hegseth fired. The U.S. campaign against drug boats has also riled civil libertarians and progressives who want to constrain the President’s ability to conduct military action.
But the charge of deliberately killing the defenseless is serious enough to warrant a close look from Congress. That includes Mr. Hegseth giving an account under oath. The Administration so far seems to think it can ride out the story with ritual denunciations of the media.
If Mr. Hegseth is right, then the factual record will support him.
Also in the Wall Street Journal, Matthew Hennessey invoked Secretary Hegseth’s name in writing about President Trump’s nonpareil ability to defy the “Democrat-media cartel”:
Conservatives have known for decades who pays the piper. Democrats call the tune and the media plays it. The choir is singing a new song now. It’s called “Pete Hegseth Will Be Tried at the Hague.” It’s a tricky little ditty that likely required some rehearsal.
Last week, seemingly out of nowhere, a bunch of Democratic officeholders with military or intelligence experience made a video warning members of the military not to follow what they called “unlawful orders.” This was a discussion that no one was having before the video was released. Then, serendipity be blessed, the Washington Post published a scoopy story over the weekend all but accusing Mr. Hegseth of issuing illegal orders to kill helpless, probably surrendering drug runners hanging off the sides of burning boats in the Caribbean.
That isn’t journalism. It’s tee-ball.
Mr. Heartbeat Away: “The Rapidly Imploding Tim Walz” is the headline on a Powerline post by John Hinderaker. Minnesota Governor Walz is imploding because of a massive fraud scheme, centered on Minnesota’s politically relevant Somali community, that unfolded under Walz’s nose. Fox News columnist Liz Peek chortles:
The massive Somali-orchestrated welfare fraud in Minnesota grew so big, even The New York Times had to cover it.
Sports News: Spiked Online has a recommended interview with Olympic athlete, author, and advocate for women’s sports Sharron Davies, headlined “Why Men in Women’s Sports is the Doping of Our Time.” Davies is pleased with certain changes made by the IOC, but believes that they might not have happened if the games were not being played in Los Angeles, and President Trump’s policies are clear. Running out of room, so I’m reduced to telling you to see what intriguing thing Davies had to say in the aftermath of Lia Thomas.
ICE Dallas Shooting: Let the Liberal Gaslighting Begin. Rumors of War. Pregnant Women Post Videos of Themselves Taking Tylenol. And More
“Left Hate Leads to Murder” screams the New York Post front-page headline. Pictured is pudgy Joshua Jahn, 29, who shot up an ICE facility before turning the gun on himself.
Jahn appeared to be targeting ICE agents, but he hit illegal aliens being detained by ICE instead, killing one and injuring two others. Time magazine describes Jahn, who appears to be of Norwegian heritage, as a former Boy Scout with a “drug-related criminal history.” Jain’s sis shares his criminal past.
Jain’s mother had posted anti-gun rants aimed at Republican lawmakers a few days before the shooting. Sharon Jahn posted:
“Governor Abbott, Senator Cornyn and Senator Cruz how does it make you feel that your action to open up gun laws is responsible for the killing of 21 more people?” the anti-ICE gunman’s mother wrote in a May 25, 2022 post.
It’s not unfair to ask: How do you feel now, Mrs. Jahn?
The New York Times complains that there is “a rush to score political points before the facts are in.” The MSM is clinging to Jahn’s having registered to vote as an independent. His political opinions are said to be shrouded in mystery, despite the blatant and unmistakable anti-ICE slogans on his bullets. C’mon, you’re not fooling anybody, probably not even yourselves. Townhall’s Matt Vespa writes:
This will be another test to determine whether the legacy media’s power is truly waning. I think it is—they can no longer control narratives. The ones they trot out to distract us are easily dismissed as bunk. Still, we had another politically motivated attack in Texas yesterday, where Joshua Jahn, 29, opened fire on an ICE facility in Dallas, killing two detainees and injuring another before he committed suicide. No, he was not a right-winger. He was targeting federal vehicles. Jahn also had anti-ICE messaging on the ammunition.
National Review’s Jim Geraghty calls this latest shooting “another case of left-wing violence.” Jeffrey Blehar of the same outlet notes:
The gaslighting has already begun, incidentally. The denizens of Bluesky, America’s self-imposed social media leper colony, are currently going through the exact same cycle of denial and conspiratorial thinking that they did with Charlie Kirk, except this time they’ve had practice so they’re speedrunning it like Twitch streamers. “Nobody writes ANTI-ICE on a bullet, do you really trust a liar like Kash Patel?” “Maybe he was trying to kill the detainees!” “It’s too early to speculate about motive!”
An editorial in the New York Post argues that Democrats’ “Nazi rhetoric” about ICE inspired this shooting. Don’t miss California Governor Gavin Newsom on “masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing.” If you are counting, it’s been two weeks and one day since Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
Georgetown University is being papered with “Hey, Fascist” fliers urging students to resurrect the bloody legacy of lunatic John Brown. The group brags they are “the only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.” Hey, fascist was etched on a bullet by the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Another Rave Review Is In: Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York calls President Trump’s United Nations address Tuesday “epic.” He reprints the entire speech, and it is well worth reading. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal asks if there is a “new start” for Trump on Ukraine, adding that “harder rhetoric will have to be followed by a much harder policy toward Russia.”
President Trump’s UN speech was delivered in an atmosphere of rumors of war. “I’ve Seen the Future of War. Europe Isn’t Ready” is the headline in Niall Ferguson’s latest Free Press piece. “Hundreds of drones buzzing overhead like lethal hornets, watching with unblinking eyes for targets, others descending for the kill. Soon there will be thousands,” Ferguson alarmingly argues.
We appear to be on the cusp of a government shutdown. The American Spectator says a shutdown can’t come a minute too soon, while Karl Rove’s Wall Street Journal column is devoted to which party will be blamed. “The only certainty is that public trust in Washington isn’t about to improve,” Rove’s subhead. But isn’t skepticism about Washington a Good Thing?
Apropos of that question, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel observes, “The sheer number of Washington’s political probes raises a question: Can D.C. do anything beyond investigations anymore?”
If we’re binging on Washington headlines, why not binge on the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, too? Barton Swaim has an excellent piece on Trump’s crackdown on crime in D.C. Swaim writes:
I was there again in early September. At every stop guardsmen were on patrol. They weren’t doing much of anything, but plainly their presence deterred the hooligans, nuisances and crazy people who can make the Metro unpleasant. The city’s government, too, had made itself more visible than I’ve ever seen—Metro Transit Police officers below ground, Metropolitan Police Department patrol cars above.
I took the Metro from Northwest to the decidedly down-market Hill East neighborhood, my destination a superb gluten-free bakery called, in a nice irony, Sweet Crimes. The place is a few blocks from the Potomac Avenue Metro stop. In February, the stop’s entrance was peopled by vagrants, one of whom shouted at no one. This time, the vagrants were either gone or peaceable, the grounds cleared of the needles and other garbage I’d seen before. Five guardsmen stood nearby….
The cost may be worth it in the long term. Mr. Trump, in his own unruly way, is reminding American city-dwellers and their elected leaders of a simple principle they forgot over the last 15 years: that the visible presence of authority does more to prevent crime than any social program or economic-development project. The president has said repeatedly that he may send troops to Chicago or Memphis on a similar mission—a legally more complicated move than taking control of the federal District of Columbia. I don’t think he’ll have to.
Hollywood Discovers the Virtue of Free Speech. “Better late than never. Now that the celebs have defended Jimmy Kimmel, how about Alex Berenson?” ask the Editors of The Free Press.
On Merit, Both Harris and Buttigieg Were Failures. Thus spake Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the Maria Bartiromo show.
Fertility Declines Are a Cultural Problem. Josh Appel makes this case at City Journal. Further Study: P.D. James explored infertility in her amazing book, “The Children of Men,” which begins in a time when no child has been born for 25 years. I avoided it for years because I thought it had a lot of science fiction. It doesn’t, and it’s incredibly powerful.
Google is saying that, yes, the Biden administration did pressure them to censor:
Crucially, it turns out many of those banned had never actually broken the rules: The company simply folded, silencing even perfectly true speech, because the Biden crew demanded it, and “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation.”
“Misinformation,” once again, simply meaning info (right, wrong or mixed) that the people in power didn’t approve of.
Former FBI Director and Seashell Collector James Comey is expected to be indicted soon in a Virginia Court.
We’ll Show Him: Pregnant women are posting videos of themselves taking Tylenol to defy the Trump administration’s warning about Tylenol and pregnancy. No word yet on how pregnant men are responding to the administration’s caution.
Christopher Rufo had an interesting piece in City Journal yesterday on “radical normie terrorism.” Why are Middle American families producing monsters?” Rufo asks, suggesting that assassins come from perfectly normal families. He writes:
These acts of terror reflect something dark in our nation’s soul. The perpetrators were so dissatisfied with their middle-class lives that they sought to destroy the highest symbols of their society: murdering children in church pews, an attack on God; and murdering a political speaker in cold blood, an attack on the republic.
But are the majority of these monsters from normal families who are connected to normal cultural, civic, and religious customs? And that, I submit, is the “something dark” in our nation’s soul.
Network reACTS: Fighting Socialism and Championing Freedom
On this episode of Network reACTS, host Christy Narsi, National Chapter Director at Independent Women’s Network, is joined by Irina Edelstein, IWN Brooklyn, New York Chapter Leader and proud American citizen, for a powerful conversation about the realities of socialism.
The Hot Rage Against ICE: Mostly Violent. Another Eagerly Awaited Dissent from Justice Jackson. Big, Beautiful, Looong Cabinet Meeting & More
You’d have to be willfully blind—and many people, unfortunately, are just that—to ask why ICE agents are trying to protect their identities by wearing masks.
“Anti-ICE Agitation Reaches a Boiling Point” is the headline on National Review’s lead story this morning.
The magazine’s Noah Rothman pens a stunning account of the Monday morning attack on a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in McAllen, Texas:
At around 6 a.m.on Monday, CBP officers hit the ground as “many dozens of rounds” were fired at the building and the agents inside, according to McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez. The officers reclaimed the initiative and returned fire, killing their attacker, 27-year-old Ryan Louis Mosqueda. No federal officers were injured in the attack, but one local police officer is recovering today after taking a bullet in the knee.
Mosqueda’s motives have not yet been determined, but we can hazard a guess. “Images from the scene show the driver’s side door of the vehicle was spray-painted with “Cordis Die,” a Latin phrase meaning “Day of the Heart,” the BBC reported. “In the Call of Duty: Black Ops II video game, Cordis Die is a revolutionary movement that aims to cripple capitalist governments, according to gamer websites.”
An earlier ambush at the Alvarado facility on July 4 featured attackers in pseudo gear. An officer was shot in the neck.
Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York comments on this wave of attacks on ICE and border agents in a piece headlined “Disturbing Demonstrations of Democratic Anger”:
Obviously, these are Democrats who have moved beyond the defeat-them-at-the-ballot-box stage of politics, and even beyond the protest-by-civil-disobedience stage. They’re ready to turn a political fight into a physical fight. …
This is the radical, violent tip of the protests against the Trump administration’s enforcement of immigration law. Other examples of recent radicalization include far-left “Free Palestine” extremist Elias Rodriguez, who is accused of murdering two Israeli Embassy staff members outside the Jewish National Museum in Washington on May 21. Then there is Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024. Despite the brutality of his crime, Mangione found himself celebrated in some parts of the left — his crime minimized or excused — for what some apparently consider a bold action against an oppressive health-care system.
This reminds Ms. Must of violence perpetrated by the radical Weather Underground in the long-ago 1960s and ‘70s. I don’t think we ever really reckoned with the Weather Underground. Remember a future president once partied with guests in the Chicago residence of a former member, whose Wiki entry leads off disarmingly describing her as “a retired law professor.”
Meanwhile, President Trump received some good news. “The Supreme Court Says the President Can Fire People” is how an editorial in the Wall Street Journal describes it:
Do you hear the Justices now? That’s the question for lower court judges after the Supreme Court on Tuesday nixed a universal injunction that had barred the Trump Administration from even attempting to shrink the federal workforce. …
The Justices stayed the injunction in a pithy order, noting “the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful.” They also stressed that “we express no view on the legality of any Agency RIF and Reorganization Plan produced or approved pursuant to the Executive Order and Memorandum.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose opinions have struck a favorable note with satirists, was singled out for mention by the editors:
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. The order includes “no mention of congressional buy-in,” she writes. But Congress does not control the executive branch. “What is at issue here,” Justice Jackson says, is whether the order effects “a massive restructuring of the Federal Government (the likes of which have historically required Congress’s approval), on the one hand, or minor workforce reductions consistent with existing law, on the other. One needs facts to answer that critical question.” Precisely.
The American Thinker’s Andrea Widburg dubbed Justice Jackson’s dissent “wacko” (“For decades, I’ve read Supreme Court opinions that span centuries, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”), while RedState’s Bonchie suggests that this time Justice Jackson “did something so stupid that even Justice Sotomayor couldn’t let it slide.” A Townhall report on Justice Jackson’s latest quotes a tweet from Eric Daugherty:
OMG: Now a LIBERAL Supreme Court justice is trying to teach Justice Ketanji Jackson how this whole “judicial” thing works…
President Trump conducted a rollicking, two-hour Cabinet meeting yesterday (see it here: I dare you to watch the entire two hours) that prompted eagle eyed observers to claim the current president is more on the ball than his immediate predecessor. Speaking of whom, “How Insularity Defined the Last Stages of Biden’s Career” is the headline on a New York Times story.
“Insularity” is a rather mild word to describe the bunker White House insiders erected around the former president, but the story is worth reading. Former Biden doctor (no, not her) is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee probing the former president’s mental decline. Taking bets on whether he will phone in sick.
The Jeffrey Epstein client list was supposed to be the holy grail of smut: Suddenly, everybody anybody hated was going to be officially labeled a pedophile. But now AG Pam Bondi is under siege for announcing that there is no client list. Bummer. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board refers to “The Epstein Conspiracy Boomerang.”
Meanwhile, sea shell enthusiast and former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA head James Brennan, a member of the magic 51, have been referred for criminal investigation for their alleged roles in the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Brennan pushed for the discredited Steele Dossier, a work product of the Hilary Clinton campaign, to be included in a Justice Department investigation of President Trump in his first term.
“New York’s Mayoral Debate: No, You Quit” is the headline on a Wall Street Journal editorial:
Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams apparently agree that the most credible strategy for stopping a socialist takeover of New York is for one of them to drop out of this fall’s mayoral race. They simply disagree on the small matter of which one should do it. Zohran Mamdani, now the Democratic nominee, must be chuckling.
Mr. Adams said in a TV interview Monday that Mr. Cuomo had asked him to take one for the team, as it were, and quit the campaign. “I said, ‘Andrew, are you that level of arrogant?’” Mr. Adams told CNBC. “‘I’m the sitting mayor of the city of New York, and you expect for me to step aside when you just lost to Zohran by 12 points.’” …
The GOP’s nominee, Curtis Sliwa, doesn’t have much of a chance of winning, given New York City’s voter makeup, but he recently said the only way to get him out of the mayoral race before Nov. 4 “is in a coffin, in a pine box, and you bury me 6 feet under the ground.” This week he expressed no preference as to whether Messrs. Cuomo and Adams “play musical chairs on the Titanic.”
Identity Theft Alert! City Journal’s Chris Rufo explains how children of privilege, Zohran Mamdani and Sandy from Westchester, feign oppression for personal gain. Richard J. Sexton writes in the WSJ that instead of government grocery stores, Mamdani could make food more affordable, allowing Walmart to expand. One problem: Mamdani cares more about expanding government than growing food choices.
Two Marvelous New Freedoms: The TSA is going to let us keep our shoes on, and the IRS has ruled that priest, minister, rabbi, imam or shaman (have I missed anybody) “can endorse political candidates to their congregations, carving out an exemption in a decades-old ban on political activity by tax-exempt nonprofits.” Let’s kick up our (shod) heels!