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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC - This is genuinely one of the most disgusting statements I have ever seen issued by an American official.
It should not stop shocking us that the Republican Party openly embraces this. Fine should be censured & stripped of committees. To ignore this is to accept and normalize it.
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Congressman Randy Fine @RepFine 
If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.
https://x.com/AOC/status/2023663993349669053

Al Goodwyn @Al_Goodwyn - The ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran, sparked by economic hardships, restrictions on women, and broader demands for freedom, a symbolic gesture emerged where women burn portraits of Khamenei and use the flames to light cigarettes.
This combines two acts of defiance, the serious crime in Iran of desecrating the leader's image and women smoking publicly, which has long been stigmatized or restricted.
Not to go all Cliff Clavin here, but the defiant act has gained in popularity from a video posted by an Iranian woman in Canada and has garnered world-wide attention. Similar acts followed in Iran and globally, evolving into a trend.
The woman goes by Morticia Addams. If you grew up watching “The Addams Family” or enjoyed the popular Charles Addams cartoons, her name may sound familiar. It’s her pseudonym inspired by her love for gothic aesthetics and the once popular sitcom.
She’s been deeply involved in Iran's protest movements, having been arrested and tortured multiple times, which ultimately forced her to flee the country.
Last month, on January 7, Morticia filmed herself setting fire to a portrait of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and using the flames to light her cigarette, a deliberate act of defiance combining desecration, punishable by death in Iran, with public smoking, which is heavily stigmatized for women under the regime.
Her radical feminism stems from lifelong gender discrimination, including child marriages and restrictions on women's behavior, clothing, and autonomy under the regime. She’s critical of Western leftists for ignoring Iranian women's plight out of fear of being labeled Islamophobic, calling their silence complicit.
Perhaps her actions will catch on among liberals and inspire them to make some noise, like the sound of a lighter.
https://x.com/Al_Goodwyn/status/2024161590476787992

Al Goodwyn @Al_Goodwyn - The claim that those in the country illegally commit fewer crimes than those who are legally present or native-born overlooks a key distinction.It’s not just the per capita crime rate of any group that matters, but the absolute number of new victims those crimes produce.
For instance, the Cato Institute analyzed comprehensive Texas Department of Public Safety data over the 10-year period from 2013 to 2022 and found that undocumented immigrants had an average annual criminal conviction rate of 685 per 100,000 people.This is about half the rate for native-born Americans. But the rate isn’t the only important factor; consider the added number of victims.
In a hypothetical scenario where there are zero new illegal entries, there are zero new crimes and thus zero additional victims from that source.
The net undocumented population grew substantially during the Biden administration, rising by an estimated 30%–40% above the pre-2021 baseline of roughly 11 million. The most evidence-based figure for the net increase is around 3–5 million (per analyses from Pew Research Center, the Migration Policy Institute, and Cato Institute), fueled by border surges from 2021 through early 2024 before dropping off during campaign season (coincidence? wink wink).Raw border encounters were much higher (~7–10 million+), but many did not result in permanent stays.
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