THE SHOW NOTES: Staggering Illegal Immigration, Seizing Trump's Building, & Is Biden Buying Votes?

Welcome! Donald Trump compared his legal troubles in New York to the fate of Alexei Navalny.

HEADLINE: Letitia James says she's prepared to seize Trump's buildings if he can't pay his $354M civil fraud fine - ABC

MUST READ: Meet the ethnic-studies antisemites - JNS

QUESTION: Can we talk about Georgia Rep. David Scott? - Politico

PENCE: Mike Pence Launches $20M Effort To Defend Conservative Principles - RCP

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Staggering Illegal Immigration

More than 7.2 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States while Joe Biden has been President. The jaw-dropping inflow is greater than the individual population of 36 states and is larger than almost every US city. For perspective, the state of Arizona has 7.1 million residents.

Fraud? New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a plan to give illegal immigrants pre-paid debit cards worth up to $10K earlier this month. The $53 million program is now under scrutiny from a New York City Councilmember who alleges that Mayor Adams signed a contract with Mobility Capital Finance without accepting other bids. According to CBS, Mobility Capital Finance is set to be paid:

• A $125,000 one-time set-up fee

• $250,000 in annual management fees

• And fees based on how much money is distributed to migrants -- $1.5 million for the first $50 million handed out, and $2.5 million for the next $100 million.

Bonus: Trump and allies plotting militarized mass deportations, detention camps - Washington Post (paywall)

Is Biden Buying Votes?

President Joe Biden on Wednesday will announce $1.2 billion of student debt relief for nearly 153,000 borrowers — and he’s sending emails to make sure they know whom to thank for it.

The administration’s latest tranche of loan forgiveness covers borrowers who are enrolled in Biden’s new loan repayment program, initially borrowed $12,000 or less and have been repaying their debt for at least 10 years.

Full story at Politico.

C’mon Nancy

Nancy Pelosi thinks that Vladimir Putin has financial blackmail on Donald Trump? What?

“It’s Time for President Harris”

Holman W. Jenkins Jr. wrote a must-read opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. Here are the two paragraphs that matter:

The time for Mr. Biden to step aside is now. In Kamala Harris Americans might discover a forerunner of a new breed of Democrat who actually believes in jailing criminals. It isn’t impossible to imagine her brushing aside a softball Super Bowl interview to tell 123 million Americans she didn’t become the country’s first black female president to toss away the greatest generation’s 79-year investment in global peace.

If nothing else, President Harris would bring to the table a quality missing in the current two front-runners. She would have to live in the world made on her watch.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall).

John Halpin: A Strident Minority ≠ A Majority

If you want to understand why American politics seems so upside down these days, it helps to first recognize that both Democrats and Republicans labor under the same two delusions: (1) that ideological minority factions of their parties constitute electoral majorities; and (2) that one-party rule in blue or red localities amounts to a national consensus.

Rather than pursuing durable national majorities from the center-left and center-right, both parties have increasingly adopted the mistaken strategies of strident yet electorally insufficient minority factions that staff their parties, feed their coffers, fuel their activist campaigns, and wage nonstop partisan war online on their behalf.

Full story at The Liberal Patriot.

Trending news:

• Georgia Gov. Kemp reveals he was interviewed by special counsel in 2020 election interference case - CNN

• Putin says Russia will push further into Ukraine after ‘chaotic’ fall of Avdiivka - NBC

• Man accused of lying to FBI about Hunter Biden claimed he got fake information from Russian intelligence - CBS

• It’s an election year, and Biden’s team is signaling a more aggressive posture toward the press - AP

• Google Gemini is accused of being racist towards white people - Dailymail

• Trump Campaign Spent More Than It Raised, While PAC Helped on Legal Fees - Bloomberg

• College reinstates biology professor who was fired after teaching sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes - Fox News

• World’s oldest unchanged brand changes logo for the first time in over 140 years - CNN

• In Chaotic Retreat, Hundreds of Ukrainian Troops Feared Captured or Missing - Yahoo

• Dominion wins access to Newsmax journalists' texts in its defamation case - NBC

• Epstein Had a Creepy Panopticon Room to Monitor All His Guests - DNYUZ

• Don’t dry your iPhone in rice – do this instead, says Apple - MSN

Market snapshot: