Making Myself Kristol Clear

Good morning and welcome back. Glad you’re here. Today is Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026.

Today in History: 

1794: Congress changes the U.S. flag to 15 stars and 15 stripes.

1888: The National Geographic Society was founded.

1830: Authorities believe that rebel slaves set the great fire in New Orleans.

1908 Rhoads Opera House fire in Boyertown, Pa., kills 171 people.

1920: The New York Times editorial (with typical accuracy) reports that rockets can never fly.

1930: Mickey Mouse comic strip first appears.

1943: Hitler declares war against the Allies.

1967: Decca Records in the UK and London Records in the U.S. release the Rolling Stones' single "Let's Spend the Night Together."

1968: Johnny Cash performs for inmates at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif.; the show is recorded for a live album release. 

2000: Bill Gates withdraws as CEO of Microsoft.

Birthdays today include: Salmon P. Chase, American politician and jurist (senator and governor of Ohio, U.S. Supreme Court chief justice, 1864-73), actor Jeff Morrow (Union Pacific), actor Robert Stack, jazz guitarist Joe Pass, Rip Taylor (The Gong Show), actor Richard Moll (Night Court), Trevor Rabin, Trace Adkins, Orlando Bloom

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Bill Kristol is the gift that, alas, keeps on giving. We will, I have no doubt, survive despite him. Still, it's worthwhile to note why we reject him.

I'm struck by MAGA pearl-clutching for the poor ICE and CBP agents allegedly threatened by peaceful citizens trying to monitor and limit their lawlessness. A half century ago MAGA types denounced the trouble "outside agitators" were causing for poor Bull Connor and his men.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 11, 2026

Bull Connor? That's about 60 years ago. Talk about out of touch.

If there’s anything that is amazing about this, it’s that anyone takes Kristol seriously anymore. On the other hand, given that all of his publications seem to fail of late, perhaps the number of people who do take him seriously is substantially lower than he’d like us to believe. It's clear Kristol didn't get the message when the Weekly Standard fell over back in 2018, for example. We're still waiting on the most recent venture, The Bulwark. 

Let's take his prediction back in July of 2022, in defense of Joe Biden's economic policies, that Inflation would subside. Some of you may recall that prediction having a shelf life of about 25 minutes. Inflation went up by 9% before the day was out. In the same post, he predicted the Democrats would do well come November. You will doubtless recall how THAT turned out. The silence from Kristol on that point in the weeks afterward was palpable, if quite predictable. 

And should we mention his signing on with the bastion of right-wing conservatism, The New York Times, in 2007, after Time Magazine canned him? What do you suppose this indicates?

However, all of that may be, Kristol (not unexpectedly) completely misses the irony in his message. Claiming as he does that people like Good are simply “peaceful citizens” trying to monitor and limit ICE “lawlessness” ignores what is actually happening on the ground. Does nobody remember when a domestic terrorist shot and killed Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom? Does nobody remember that the same man shot Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who now faces possibly years of rehab?

Okay, they weren't ICE. They were simply people whom the left doesn't like because they were trying to enforce the law. That’s fine, though, because the trend is obvious, even when you limit your searches to incidents with ICE:

• Minneapolis area: Roberto Carlos Munoz-Guatemala dragged an ICE officer named Jonathan Ross with his car, and Ross sustained injuries requiring medical attention.
• Omaha: An ICE agent was slammed to the ground during an arrest and had to be hospitalized, though specific details about the agent's identity and condition were not publicly released.
• California: An ICE agent said he was dragged by a car, though the agent's name and the full extent of his injuries were not disclosed in available reports.
• Minneapolis: Following a shooting incident, an ICE agent was hit by a vehicle and went to the hospital before being released.

Overall, the Department of Homeland Security has reported dramatic increases in attacks on ICE personnel, claiming 275 assaults from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31, 2025, compared to 19 during the same period in 2024. It has risen since then. 

The trend toward violence on the left against law enforcement and American interests has been long established: Ashli Babbitt, several attempts on President Donald Trump’s life, and Charlie Kirk. Kristol passing this trend off as “peaceful” speaks to someone so reality challenged that it makes anything literally he says suspect. One really must question if Kristol has even tried to include these incidents in his calculations.

The thing is that it’s not just violence against the individual; it is rather attacking federal officers in the process of doing their duty, which means against the law itself.

I cite as an example 18 U.S.C. § 111, which prohibits forcibly assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, or interfering with federal officers engaged in official duties. Perhaps I’m foolish, but when a federal officer orders me out of a car, I try to avoid running him over with it. I do so because, among other reasons, it will never be seen by anyone who matters as being "peaceful."

By the same token, most “peaceful citizens” don’t take formal training on how to disrupt federal officers from doing their jobs. Renee Good did exactly that. See what I mean? Kristol's argument can be totally destroyed in a few sentences at most.

And as an aside, the reality detachment here is striking. We have her partner on video, in that incident in Minneapolis, demanding to know why the ICE officers have real bullets. The reality detachment is astounding. I doubt we will ever see Kristol comment on that point, since he is apparently committed to that reality detachment himself.

We also won’t see him comment on the people ICE was there to arrest, much less their victims. Examples include Hernan Cortes-Valencia, convicted of sexual assault against a child and four DUIs; Sriudorn Phaivan, convicted of multiple serious crimes, including sodomy charges; and Ge Yang, convicted of rape, aggravated assault with a weapon, and strangulation. Others included in the day's arrest list were several individuals convicted of homicide, including Abdirashid Adosh Elmi, Gilberto Salguero Landaverde (three counts), Gabriel Figueroa Gama, Galuak Michael Rotgai, Thai Lor (two counts), and Mariana Sia Kanu (two counts).

As I asked over the weekend, is this who Good was defending? And now, we can include Kristol on the list of people defending these criminals. It's to the point now with Kristol where we are waaaaayyyyy beyond simple stupidity being the driver behind his positions. The only conclusion left is intent. Certainly, his "conservative" creds are completely vaporized. 

I'm by no means suggesting that Kristol, or for that matter, any of the old-line establishment GOP, the never-Trumper GOP, such as Kristol, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, and Mitch McConnell, should be silenced.  I have long been of the view that the establishment GOP is among the most serious impediments this country faces, since they are the people who still refuse to learn the lessons that Ronald Reagan taught us — the ones who are still in butthurt mode that Donald Trump won his elections twice.  

If, as Kristol infamously has done, you claim to be a conservative yet are inexplicably so emotionally involved with the functional defeat of someone who has moved the conservative football further down the field than anyone since Reagan, it seems to me that the principles that you base that decision on are ill-defined, or at the very least misrepresented. Like the remainder of the establishment, introspection is not Kristol's long suit.

They still don’t allow themselves to understand that there are demonstrable reasons why both John McCain and Mitt Romney lost their presidential bids and why voters rejected Jeb Bush, the choice of the GOP establishment, out of hand before he even got to the nomination process. It is the very same reason that Donald Trump has been so wildly successful, despite having to fight both the GOP establishment and their fellow travelers in the Democratic party and their corruption, which the GOP establishment has been trying desperately to avoid mentioning, much less fighting.

I predicted before Trump took the nomination for his first term that the GOP rank and file and a goodly number of independent voters as well were about to go nuclear on the GOP establishment types, such as Kristol. What can both the original nomination and election of DJT be considered, but going nuclear on the establishment? Trump’s second nomination and election sent the message even louder and clearer than the first about the desires of the voters. 

Kristol has made a modest living for the last decade, positioning himself in opposition to those voters, those desires. If we were to follow the path he advises, the GOP would be little more than a minority party with no influence to speak of.

The reality is that the GOP establishment as it existed in the Obama era, no longer has the influence it once did, having been replaced by Trump and company, a change for which I am happy, as are most Americans. 

But I also recognize that the most effective way to expose these old-line establishment fools, such as Kristol, is to let them spew. They do more damage to their own positions simply by being their arrogant selves than anything anyone else, including myself, might say.  

Thought for the day: The most frightening moments in your life happen before you take your first step on a new path. 

Hope to see you here tomorrow.

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And as always, your comments are welcome.