Notes on the Way

Mask mania, toilet terror, death of comedy, lawfare follies, Red Minniapolis

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“Anti-Zionist” rioters can wear face masks, Antifa goons can wear face masks, violent criminals can wear face masks, but federal law enforcement officers cannot: That’s the latest obsession of the Resistance Left. We’re told that when an illegal immigrant is arrested by an ICE officer wearing a mask, that’s a human rights violation, not to mention evidence of MAGA fascism. Yeah, right. The truth is that masking is inconvenient for radical activists who’d like to identify ICE agents for purposes of doxing, harassment, intimidation, and possibly even assassination.

Representative Debbie Wassermann Schlutz, Democrat of Florida, is not, shall we say, the brightest bulb in the US Capitol chandelier. She supplied fresh proof of this recently on the occasion of a visit by Democratic members of Congress to Alligator Alcatraz, the new ICE detention facility in Florida, which Wassermann Schlutz described as an “internment camp.” She waxed indignant over the conditions she found there, with particular emphasis on the sanitary facilities. "They get their drinking water, and they brush their teeth, where they poop, in the same unit," Wassermann Schlutz charged. Well, as a matter of fact, so do I. In my bathroom, the sink where I shave and brush my teeth is about three feet from the toilet. So then, we recently spent thousands of dollars to renovate our bathrooms—only to learn that they’re still full of human rights violations. Thanks a lot, Debbie…

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been axed by CBS. The network decided to retire the Late Show brand in May 2026, calling the cancellation “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.” And of course, the comrades are fit to be tied. After all, late-night TV is a key component of the Resistance: Defending “our democracy” requires a reliable supply of anti-Trump snark. So it must have been political pressure that from Trump that caused CBS to call it a late night! Here’s the thing though: The Late Show’s audience is tiny—around two million—and the show loses money for CBS—around $40 million per year. Then there’s the fact that Colbert just isn’t funny or interesting. On the show last week when he announced The Late Show’s impending demise, Colbert’s guest for the full hour was—Senator Adam Schiff. What, was Staci Abrams unavailable…?

And speaking of Adam Schiff, what goes around comes around. As a prominent never-Trumper, Schiff is highly placed on the President’s enemies list, and he’s now been hit with a criminal referral by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to the Justice Department, alleging mortgage fraud. According to National Review Online’s Andrew C. McCarthy, there’s probably not much there there. But that didn’t stop Trump from unloading on the Senator in a Truth Social post. “I have always suspected Shifty Adam Schiff was a scam artist,” he sneered. “And now I learn that Fannie Mae’s Financial Crimes Division have concluded that Adam Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud.” That’s how the game is played in the Age of Lawfare, I guess: What goes around comes around.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the city’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has followed New York City’s lead by endorsing a “democratic socialist” to run for mayor this year. The party rejected the two-term incumbent mayor, whom progressives appear to have deemed not progressive enough. Omar Fateh is thirty-five years old, a state Senator, a Somali American, and a Muslim. He’s running on a platform similar to that of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling for rent stabilization, affordable housing, a $30 minimum wage and, of course, higher taxes on the wealthy. He also has said that public safety depends on sending “the right responders”: coded speech for “defund the police and hire more social workers.” Oh, and of course he’s an “anti-Zionist,” i.e. an antisemite. What could possibly go wrong…?