The Jerusalem Post, 16 Jan 2026 (via JMG): Candace Owens pushes theory Charlie Kirk was ‘time traveller’ who went to ‘X-Men school’, subtitled “In a recent episode of her podcast, Candace Owens said Charlie Kirk told her he was a ‘time traveler’ who was sent to ‘X-Men school,’ and alleged he was monitored since childhood.”
Controversial US political commentator Candace Owens claimed in a recent episode of her podcast that the late activist Charlie Kirk told her that he was a “time traveler,” and knew that he would die young.
“It is an absolute fact that Charlie Kirk thought that he was a time traveler. He told me he was a time traveler. Repeatedly,” she claimed.
This is saying that Charlie Kirk thought he was a time-traveler? Is it saying that Candace Owens believed him? Either way this is lunacy of course, another example of conservative disconnect from reality, presumably because they live in some kind of fantasy world derived from religion and pop culture.
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Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 15 Jan 2026: Jack Hibbs Doesn’t Want ‘To Be Anywhere Near’ Anyone Who Votes For Democrats
On Wednesday, Jack Hibbs—a far-right anti-LGBTQ pastor, conspiracy theorist, and Christian nationalist who was invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson to deliver a prayer to the House of Representatives last year—held an event at his Calvary Chapel Chino Hills church to promote the campaigns of Steve Hilton and Michael Gates, who are running as Republicans for governor and attorney general in California, respectively.
Hibbs, who has been a vocal supporter of Hilton’s campaign from the beginning, used last night’s event to declare that Democrats are “evil” and that he doesn’t want anyone who votes for them anywhere near his family.
(There are many links in this text at the link, which I’m not reproducing.) Once again, Christians are anxious to define themselves as people who refuse to get along with people unlike them. Also, the fantasy world: he doesn’t want contact with anyone who might puncture his bubble. Also, projection: their “conduct is dangerous.”
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Substantial piece by Fareed Zakaria.
The Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria, 15 Jan 2026: The world is adjusting to an unreliable United States, subtitled “Years of accumulated trust are being spent for short-term leverage.”
More evidence about how Trump is destroying the world order of the past 75 years, and more evidence of conservative short-term thinking. And so America is being increasingly disregarded. Zakaria concludes:
For decades, the global order was built on an American platform. Trade flowed through U.S.-designed institutions. Security rested on U.S. guarantees. Crises were managed, for better or worse, by Washington. The global agenda was set in Washington. That platform still exists — but the world is no longer building on it. It is building around it.
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They lie by rote. They know they can get away with it. Even when someone has evidence that they lie, Trump’s base doesn’t care.
Slate, Laura Jedeed, 16 Jan 2026: The Trump Administration Is Calling My Viral Story a Lie. Good Thing I Kept the Receipts., subtitled “The administration that lies all the time is lying about me. And I can prove it.”
Three days ago, Slate published an article I wrote titled “You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof.” The article details how I, in an effort to learn more about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s hiring practices, applied for a job at ICE—and ended up getting a job offer. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement: For one, I’m a vocal online critic of ICE and the Trump administration. More saliently, I skipped many of the steps required for the application. It’s a wild story—I’d encourage you to read the whole thing—and one that does not reflect particularly well on ICE or its parent organization: the Department of Homeland Security.
Such lax procedures should be a concern.
This administration, however, took a different approach. “This is such a lazy lie. This individual was NEVER offered a job at ICE,” DHS said Wednesday through the administration’s most official communication channel: X (formerly Twitter). “Applicants may receive a Tentative Selection Letter following their initial application and interview that is not a job offer. It just means they are invited to submit information for review, similar to any other applicant.”
But she took screen grabs of her application status, that proves them wrong.
I uploaded the video to X in response to DHS’ “lazy lie” accusation, along with the text “You sure about that?” Seven million impressions, over 100,000 likes, and zero response from the Department of Homeland Security. To be fair, they have their hands full right now; they are very busy brutalizing and detaining people as they attempt to go to doctor’s appointments, throwing flash-bang grenades into cars full of children, and terrorizing the residents of a major American city.
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Finally for today, this piece makes a good point.
NY Times, guest essay by Shalom Auslander, 15 Jan 2026: They Were Ordinary Germans. We Are Ordinary Americans.
The writer finds, in a New York City flea market, a diary of a German soldier from the early 1940s. And was struck by how it was filled ordinary, day to day, events. No awareness of what was going on.
To me, what was most notable was what I didn’t find: There were no photos of death camps, or mass graves, or starving prisoners. Instead, there was one of him with his parents in front of their house. Proud.
I shook my head at what I saw as this man’s almost pathological ability to compartmentalize the madness he likely played a role in and the quaint, pastoral life he led at the same time. It reminded me of something I was told as a child.
“How could people do such things?” I often asked, around age 9 or 10.
That’s Germans, I was told by my parents and teachers. They were evil. It was in their blood. The only good German is a dead German, they would say.
And the point of the essay is that Americans are just as complacent about what’s going on in our own nation. ICE, Renee Good, Trump. Are Americans really different? The writer hopes so.
Alas, my comfort was short-lived, as I made the mistake, then, of sinking into social media. There I encountered ordinary Americans who believed the Trump administration without question. Ordinary Americans who blamed Ms. Good, who repeated the things they learned from the government, like that she was a paid agitator, a far-left radical who got what she deserved. Ordinary Americans who said the armed agent who killed an apparently unarmed woman was a hero, defending his nation from undesirables. Ordinary Americans who, soon enough, lay the blame for the whole thing on Democrats, antifa, Gov. Tim Walz, Jews, women and gays.
One can understand without approving. Each of us contains dark elements of human nature, a nature that has survived for millions of years.
And I wonder if someday, at some distant flea market, a young man will chance upon an old iPhone from 2026, and scrolling through it — through pics of the owner’s friends, vacations, festive dinners — will wonder how this unbothered American went about his normal life as the country was descending into fear-induced psychosis at the hands of an autocrat.
“Thank goodness,” he will comfort himself, “we’re not like them.”
