At the Midday Café...

... you can talk until dawn.

"Erika Kirk is walking a fine line...."

Here, that's a gift link to The Washington Post.

I was puzzling over that headline at 4 a.m., but I'm only getting to blogging it now, and I don't want to go on too long at this point. So I'll just give you a numbered list and leave it to you.

The RNC posted yesterday that "Democrats were told to be 'willing to get shot' to obstruct President Trump."

I do think this posting should say that this interview took place last July. Posting it relates to the shooting of Renee Good, but when Blitzer and Jeffries spoke, the incident had not yet occurred:

Democrats were told to be "willing to get shot" to obstruct President Trump, and instead of condemning it, they incited it further.

Democrats are held hostage by their violent and deranged far-left base.pic.twitter.com/Y3DQw2UG4z

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 8, 2026

Here's the Axios article Blitzer cites, "Democrats told to 'get shot' for the anti-Trump resistance" (published July 7, 2025). Excerpt:

A lynch mob? A crowd chants "Kristi Noem will Hang!" in New York City.

NOW: "Kristi Noem will Hang!" Huge crowd chants in Foley Square NYC, also "Save a life, kill an ICE" as they gather to protest the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.

Some in the crowd condemn the talk of killing. pic.twitter.com/ifrXNZB0dz

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 8, 2026

Democrats who hope to win back power need to act now to reconnect with peace and good order. They seem to have encouraged the chaos yesterday, and they need something quite different today lest they be seen as they wanted us to see Trump after January 6th, as having incited insurrection.

Trump would like to be even more effusive in his female impersonation.

Strip away the context and it's fun for all:

Impeachment is trending on X, but I'm not sure why.

It could be this:

Jesse Watters: “If Democrats do win the midterms is Trump getting impeached again?”

Vice President JD Vance: “I’m sure he’ll get impeached. Look, they have nothing to actually run on or govern on. Their entire obsessive focus is that they hate Donald Trump.”

“If they ever get… pic.twitter.com/xtiL4xlthA

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) January 8, 2026

But it could be this:

Impeach Judge Boasberg and Judge Boardman now. pic.twitter.com/LLNF6rmNnk

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 8, 2026

Impeachment cuts both ways. Both sides can try to do it (and indulge in rhetoric about how the other side is trying to do it).

"So I feel like white tears are not always something that's helpful or necessary when black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time."

A woman at the makeshift memorial for Renee Good told me it felt wrong for her to be there.

Because she’s a white woman with a lot of “privilege”

“I feel like white tears are not always helpful or necessary.” pic.twitter.com/B6ZASuWLEZ

— Brecca Stoll (@breccastoll) January 9, 2026

What is this person really saying? At first, you might think the idea is that she is a white lady and so perhaps she should minimize herself and not put herself forward as the crier of tears. That's self-dramatizing, privileged, and performative. But if you listen again and pay attention to the last part — "black and brown people have been experiencing this for a long time" — it sounds as though she is minimizing Renee Good! It seems that she is imagining persons of color who have suffered from violent law enforcement for many decades and who might be hurt to see extreme grief over the death of a white woman. It's confusing and she seems to understand herself as a good person in need of instruction in a complex situation.

"You have to have a federal government that can enforce laws."

Resurfaced video of Joe Biden being asked about sanctuary citiespic.twitter.com/e2SrFohLJD

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) January 8, 2026

Sunrise — 7:01, 7:08, 7:45.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

"For those unfamiliar with the acronym, the first letter stands for a certain curse word, followed by 'around and find out.'"

"It amounts to something like 'Don’t mess with me or you’ll regret it.' The implication, in this context, is that Nicolás Maduro unwisely did the former and now must do the latter.... Superficially, it may seem jarring that people entrusted to run our nation, suit-wearing people who take themselves very seriously, would throw around a term like this. But I actually think it’s a positive development. The normalization of that word — the one Hegseth abbreviated as 'eff' — is a sign of maturity in American English...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "The Trump Administration’s Coarseness Is a Sign That English Has Grown Up" (NYT).

Did he just call the New York Times immature?

"The country should not seek a mere boost in the number of children born or in the monetary support that parents receive."

"Yes, the country needs more children. But it matters how and to whom children are born. Society depends on men and women who want to form families, that is, who freely want to marry, and then freely bear and nurture children."

Said a report from the Heritage Foundation called "Saving America by Saving the Family," quoted in "Heritage paper on families calls for ‘marriage bootcamp,’ more babies/The conservative think tank aims to boost U.S. marriage and birth rates through recommendations to discourage online dating, restrict pornography, create tax credits for bigger families and more" (WaPo).

From the article: "A previous draft obtained by The Post, dated in October, also included an appendix of ideas that Heritage did not endorse but said were offered ‘in the spirit of furthering debate and innovative thinking on family policy.'...

"In a wide-ranging conversation with four Times reporters, President Trump talked about the Minneapolis ICE shooting, immigration, Venezuela and even his plans for further White House renovations."

I see "Trump Sits Down With Times Reporters for Two-Hour Interview," the headline in the NYT.

There's no substance, just an announcement:

The Times’s coverage of the president’s remarks will include stories, newsletters and videos over the coming days, as well as an episode of The Daily on Friday. A transcript of the interview will be published.

Very bold of Trump to give all that access — and right in the middle of a week packed with quickly unfolding action and with only the full transcript to protect him. I like that the Times is breaking out the material in separate bits.

The first bit is: "We Pressed Trump on His Conclusion About the ICE Shooting. Here’s What He Said. The exchange was a glimpse into the president’s reflexive defense of his federal crackdown on immigration." It could have been a much more reflexive defense of the ICE agents. His first take was balanced: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." And later, he says: "She behaved horribly. And then she ran him over. She didn’t try to run him over" — I would say that's a reflexive defense of the woman. How does he know she didn't try to run the agent over? 

Also, the NYT writes "When we pressed Mr. Trump on his conclusion that the victim, Renee Nicole Good, tried to run over the agent," but technically, the first quote is not a statement that she tried to run anyone over. It's a distanced, abstract statement: "I want to see nobody get shot. I want to see nobody screaming and trying to run over policemen either." I'm not seeing the follow-up question quoted, but I think it shouldn't have been "Why are you concluding that Good tried to run over the agent?" but "Are you saying you've determined that Good tried to run over the agent?" [Or better, to avoid ambiguity: "Are you saying you've determined that Good intended to run over the agent?"]

The second article based on the interview is "Trump Says U.S. Oversight of Venezuela Could Last for Years/In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, President Trump said 'only time will tell' when it comes to how long the United States aims to control the country" (NYT).

"Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said the National Guard is ready to deploy if riots break out, something he was too slow to do after George Floyd’s murder in 2020."

"But he pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful. 'They want a show,' he said. 'We can’t give it to them.' Walz is right that Trump could use unrest to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy U.S. troops to Minnesota. (A recent defeat at the Supreme Court otherwise limited his authority to commandeer the National Guard.) The president posted on social media: 'We need to stand by and protect our Law Enforcement Officers from this Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate!'... Before the shooting, Walz described the federal enforcement surge as 'a war that’s being waged against Minnesota.' After the incident, MAGA allies quickly sought to blame Walz’s rhetoric, including his previous comparison of ICE to the Gestapo, for raising tensions...."

 
Writes the Editorial Board of The Washington Post, in "The woman fatally shot by ICE in Minneapolis did not deserve to die/Rioting in response to fatal shooting plays into Trump’s hands."

Fog at. sunrise, 7:07, sun at 1:14.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

On turning 75.

I am about to turn 75, so I was struck to arrive at this passage in James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned) — a book I've been reading on and off since my last birthday:

IN JULY 1842, ADAMS TURNED SEVENTY-FIVE. ALREADY HE HAD outlived the biblical span of threescore and ten, which Adams viewed as the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live. Life, he understood, was a “pilgrimage” from which he could at any moment be recalled. He had been admonishing himself for years, often on the occasion of his birthday, to prepare his soul for death. Two years earlier, on his seventy-third birthday, he had written in his diary, “I am deeply sensible of the duty of beginning in earnest to wean myself from the interests and afflictions of this world, and of preparing myself for the departure to that which is to come.” Then, almost in the next sentence, Adams made a stark admission to himself: “The truth is, I adhere to the world and all its vanities, from an impulse not altogether voluntary, and cannot, by any exercise of my will, realize that I can have but very few days left to live.”

SEVENTY-FIVE... the age beyond which no one could reasonably expect to live...

Minnesota in rapid decline.

🚨 BREAKING: Minneapolis Police has now PULLED OUT as hundreds of protestors begin pushing police officers

Antifa is going to be allowed to take over the city AGAIN.

The National Guard may need to be deployed VERY soon, as Democrats will let this place BURN! pic.twitter.com/ntr0OmK4xh

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 7, 2026

ADDED: The rowdy mob is throwing snowballs. Reminiscent of the Boston Massacre.

AND: From David McCullough's "John Adams" (commission earned):