Podcasts about Minneapolis

President Trump warns Republicans that losing the House in the 2026 midterms would almost certainly trigger another impeachment push from Democrats. Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa of California dies unexpectedly at 65. The Trump administration escalates its push to acquire Greenland, citing urgent national-security concerns tied to Russia, China, and Arctic dominance. The Department of Homeland Security deploys 2,000 agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul amid explosive allegations of massive taxpayer fraud linked to the Somali community. Birch Gold: Text MK to 989898 and get your free info kit on gold Riverbend Ranch: Visit https://riverbendranch.com/ | Use promo code MEGYN for $20 off your first order. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tim, Phil, & Tate are joined by Lectern Guy and Graham Allen to discuss 2,000 federal agents deployed to Minneapolis in escalating immigration clamp down, Tim Walz daughter admitting there was fraud amidst scandal, Tulsi Gabbard's standing against military intervention in Venezuela and Trump WH confirming it is working to acquire Greenland. Hosts:  Tim @Timcast (everywhere) Phil @PhilThatRemains (X) Ian @IanCrossland (everywhere) Tate @realTateBrown (everywhere) Producer: Serge @SergeDotCom (everywhere) Guest: Lectern Guy @lecternleader (everywhere) Graham Allen @GrahamAllen (everywhere)

Mike has a few restaurant recommendations for Kristi Noem and the ICE team in town today!!The federal Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that Secretary Kristi Noem was in the Twin Cities, as a federal immigration crackdown continues.The agency posted a video to social media on Tuesday morning, showing Noem accompanying federal agents as they detained a man.The agency and Noem, in separate social media posts, labeled the video as being taken in Minneapolis — but it appeared to show the operation taking place at a building on Payne Avenue in St. Paul.DHS said the man is from Ecuador and is in the U.S. illegally, and that he's wanted for murder and sexual assault. Noem said that warrant is from Ecuador, and said he was also convicted of robbery and extortion. DHS and Noem did not provide further details on those cases.It was not immediately clear how long Noem would be in the Twin Cities.It's now been more than a month since federal officials announced an immigration operation targeting the Twin Cities. The agency has previously said that it's made hundreds of arrests.Gov. Tim Walz, who ended his bid for a third term Monday, sharply criticized the federal enforcement effort, raising concerns about both the scale of the operation and the lack of coordination with state officials. “We have a ridiculous surge of apparently 2,000 people not coordinating with us that are for a show of the cameras,” Walz said. “Why 2,000 folks? What are they coming to do? Do they want to coordinate with us?”MPR News contacted both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to confirm the number of agents being deployed to Minnesota. DHS responded with a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, saying, “While for the safety of our officers we do not get into law enforcement footprint, DHS has surged law enforcement and has already made more than 1,000 arrests of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members.”Walz said the increased ICE presence is creating fear among immigrant communities, particularly communities of color. “What he's [Trump] doing to the Somali community is absolutely unconscionable,” Walz said, adding, "If you want us to fix fraud, come and help us do that. They're not interested in that.” Walz said he views the federal action as part of a broader political attack on Minnesota. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In this episode of The Wright Report, Bryan delivers a sweeping analysis of the national and global fallout from President Trump's decision to capture Nicolás Maduro. From Minneapolis to Caracas, and from Mexico to Greenland, Bryan explains how one operation is reshaping immigration policy, energy markets, global power dynamics, and America's definition of strength. ICE Launches Largest Immigration Operation in U.S. History: DHS Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed a massive surge of ICE officers into Minneapolis, with Venezuelans, Somalis, and other migrant groups now prioritized for removal. With Maduro no longer in power, the administration says it is safe for Venezuelans to return home. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz condemned the operation, calling it unprecedented, as Temporary Protected Status, asylum cases, and green card applications are frozen or revoked. Trump Strikes a Massive Oil Deal with Venezuela: Negotiations with Venezuela's new Marxist leadership produced a deal transferring thirty to fifty million barrels of oil to U.S. control, valued at up to two point eight billion dollars. The oil will help refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and stabilize global markets. U.S. oil companies are now being pushed to rehabilitate Venezuela's collapsed energy sector, potentially with taxpayer support, despite concerns about security and long term stability. Stability Over Democracy in Caracas: The White House decided it cannot yet work with opposition leaders like María Corina Machado or Edmundo González. Instead, Trump is temporarily backing remnants of the Maduro regime to maintain order and secure oil and mineral flows. Power struggles inside Venezuela have already turned violent, with armed gangs, checkpoints, and internal purges spreading fear among civilians. Global Strategy Tied to Oil and Power: Trump's plan aims to flood global markets with Venezuelan oil to pressure Canada, undercut Russia's finances, and entice India away from Russian energy. Bryan explains how this strategy could weaken Vladimir Putin's war funding and force movement toward a Ukraine peace deal. Shockwaves Across Mexico, Cuba, and Greenland: Mexican leaders fear they could be next as Trump escalates cartel strikes and pressures Mexico to cut oil shipments to Cuba. Cuban leaders face collapse without Venezuelan and Mexican energy. Meanwhile, Trump renewed warnings that military force remains an option to secure Greenland, citing the threat posed by China and Russia. European leaders are furious but largely powerless to stop him. A Message to China and the World: Trump warned Venezuela's remaining leaders to sever ties with China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran or face removal. Reuters reports Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello is now under direct U.S. threat. Bryan argues the broader message is clear. Trump is no longer bluffing, and assumptions that he is all bark and no bite are collapsing worldwide. Analysis and Warning: Bryan cautions that while Trump may manage Venezuela in the short term, the strategy carries serious risks. China, Brazil, or Colombia could destabilize the country through proxies or sabotage. He suggests Trump may seek a grand bargain with Beijing, trading U.S. restraint in Asia for Chinese withdrawal from the Western Hemisphere. The Political Lesson: Senator Chris Murphy admitted this week that Trump must now be taken seriously. Bryan closes by arguing that Trump is reordering global power at age seventy-nine because he believes the country is nearing collapse and this is America's last chance to reset its trajectory.   "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32     Keywords: January 7 2026 Wright Report, ICE Minneapolis surge Venezuelans, Kristi Noem Todd Lyons deportations, Trump Venezuela oil deal Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Maduro regime remnants power struggle, global oil strategy Canada Russia India, Mexico cartel pressure Cuba collapse, Greenland military option Trump, China warning Venezuela Cabello, Trump global power reset

TDC Podcast topics - Mike and Gregg tonight, Amy will be back tomorrow, update on fraud in Minnesota, Gen Z is full of anxiety but they're taking matters into their own hands when it comes to reporting on fraud, probe into CA. fraud underway, Hilton drops Minneapolis hotel that lied about ICE ban, Dan Bongino calls out black pilled conservatives, for Spartan Basketball star Paul Davis gets booted from the Breslin, who's entering the portal from UofM, threats for Ravens kicker who missed last second FG and much more.

The Bathhouse is a live call-in show from the green room of The Stand one of New York City's best comedy clubs.Follow the guests: Robbie Bernstein and Doug Uram00:00 Intro01:20 - Calls are working Rafe calls - Domestic violence13:18 - Abdul from Minneapolis - How's the Somali community?28:30 - Ethan from western Washington32:11 - Indian dude living in Japan calls 42:15 - Slav calls - Apology to Robbie1:03:40 - Rubestar - Can I get contact info for Sneako? / Dylan got in a big fight1:20:00 - wrap up

In this episode, we delve into the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal with Congressman Pete Stauber, who has been instrumental in raising awareness and pushing for accountability since the issue first emerged in August 2024. Stauber provides an update on the ongoing investigations and the implications of the fraud that has now expanded to California. We then shift our focus to Dr. Peter McCullough, who discusses the recent decision by the CDC to reduce the number of vaccinations recommended for young children, addressing concerns about vaccine overload and the potential benefits of a more measured approach. Dr. McCullough shares insights on how this shift came about amidst bureaucratic challenges. Finally, we hear from Victoria Coates, former deputy national security adviser, who offers her expertise on the current geopolitical landscape, including the fallout from Maduro's capture and tensions in Iran and Ukraine.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“These movies are not made for audiences.” - Steve, on DTS titles like this On our first episode of 2026 we're chatting about the direct-to-streaming, holiday-set sequel, The Family Plan 2! Why can't Wahlberg be icing dudes in this movie? Beyond that great Michael Bay doc that hasn't come out yet, are we still doing parkour in movies? Should Mark just start doing PVOD Secret Movies? How much of a boost does the on-location shooting give you? Does Kit Harington's character have an actual plan beyond the vague “power” dream? Why are we cramming Christmas into this film? And doesn't Michelle Monaghan deserve better than this? PLUS: The Transformers get down with some parkour too! The Family Plan 2 stars Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Monaghan, Zoe Colletti, Van Crosby, Reda Elazouar, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Sanjeev Baskar, and Kit Harington as Finn Clarke; directed by Simon Cellan Jones. This episode is sponsored by Lumi Gummies! Lumi Gummies are available nationwide! Go to LumiGummies.com and use code WHM for 30% off your order! Grab your tickets now for the first leg of the 2026 tour! We'll be in Los Angeles on 2/22, Minneapolis on 3/20 and Chicago on 3/22—don't wait, snag those tix now! Original cover art by Felipe Sobreiro.

It's only the first week of Stack Chips '26, and Trump & his Magat cabinet have already kidnapped the President of Venezuela! Anything to distract from the Epstein Files...*******CHECK OUT FREE EPISODES OF JULIE & BRANDY'S PATREON PODCAST**********FOLLOW JULIE ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER****FOLLOW BRANDY ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER***CHECK OUT THEIR T-SHIRTS!***EMAIL THEM! JulieBrandyPodcast@gmail.com****Follow Black Trump on Tik Tok!Get a Cameo From Black Trump!**************** Dumb Gay Politics with Julie & Brandy **** Dumb Gay Podcast with Julie & Brandy **** Julie Goldman **** Brandy Howard **** Julie and Brandy *** The People's Couch *** DGP *** Gay Podcast *** Political Podcast *** Lesbian *** Bravo *** Housewives *** Queer *** Liberal **** LGBTQ **** Killer Burlesque *** Host *** Portland *** Denver *** Nightmare on Strip Street *** Funny *** Comedy *** Democrat *** Progressive *** Comedian *** Jewish *** Politics *** Left *** San Francisco *** See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rod and Karen banter about sleeping in glasses, a conversation about the afterlife, NFL firings, Rod “derangement syndrome”, and eye exams. Then they discuss DHS Accuses Hilton of Canceling ICE Hotel Rooms in Minneapolis, Trump Says Oil Companies Were Consulted Not Congress for Venezuelan takeover, Federal health officials slash recommended childhood vaccinations under Trump’s directive, 60 Minutes cancels another segment, Fox News mocks Biden for going on vacation, Trey Songs arrested, Carls Jr, Boosie Falls For Fake Elon Musk 17-Hour Diabetes Cure Video, Social media ban for children under 16 starts in Australia, Gender Wars, Black Capitalists (Fawn Weaver, Jamal Bryant), drunk woman has fracas in the front yard, a Dairy Queen Blizzard ends armed stand-off, DoorDasher punches old man into a coma and sword ratchetness. Podjam 3 Tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/podjam3 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theblackguywhotips Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@rodimusprime⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@SayDatAgain⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TBGWT⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheBlackGuyWhoTips⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠theblackguywhotips@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Blog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theblackguywhotips.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Teepublic Store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠- https://the-black-guy-who-tips-podcast.dashery.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon Wishlist⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ – https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/1PDD9JUQUNVY5?ref_=wl_share ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Crowdcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ – https://www.crowdcast.io/theblackguywhotips Voicemail: ‪(980) 500-9034Go Premium: https://www.theblackguywhotips.com/premium/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he dives into today's top stories shaping America and the world. In this Tuesday Headline Brief of The Wright Report, Bryan covers political fallout from Minnesota's massive Medicaid fraud scandal, disciplinary action against Senator Mark Kelly for seditious conduct, explosive courtroom revelations from Nicolás Maduro's arraignment, rising global instability tied to Trump's Venezuela decision, and new intelligence warnings involving China, Iran, Germany, and America's food supply. He closes with encouraging medical research on immune health and cancer prevention. Tim Walz Forced Out as Minnesota Fraud Probe Explodes: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced he is dropping his reelection bid after becoming a liability to Democrats over the nine billion dollar Somali Medicaid fraud scandal. Federal investigators are now probing what Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison knew and when, after state whistleblowers warned in 2018 that fraud at Feeding Our Future was obvious before any money was paid. Despite those warnings, hundreds of millions flowed to Somali nonprofits that later donated to Democratic campaigns. Prosecutors admit the fraud is so widespread that many participants may never face charges due to limited resources. Hilton Refuses to House DHS and ICE Officers: A Hilton franchise owner in Minneapolis refused rooms to DHS and ICE agents participating in an immigration crackdown, saying the hotel would not assist deportations. Corporate Hilton had not responded at the time of recording. Bryan urges listeners to remember this incident when choosing where to spend their travel dollars. Mark Kelly Punished for Seditious Conduct: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reduced Senator Mark Kelly's military retirement rank and pay after Kelly called on service members to refuse illegal orders from President Trump but could not identify any such orders. Hegseth said Kelly's actions constituted reckless misconduct and confirmed investigators are evaluating whether Kelly could be recalled to active duty for prosecution under military law. Maduro Pleads Not Guilty as Indictment Stuns: Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty in Manhattan, declaring himself innocent and still the legitimate leader of Venezuela. Federal prosecutors released a detailed indictment outlining twenty-five years of cocaine trafficking, kidnappings, beatings, and murders ordered by Maduro and his family. His vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, vowed to resist the United States and declared Maduro a hostage, while Marxist guerrilla groups threatened attacks on Americans. Trump's Venezuela Decision Sends Shockwaves: The Wall Street Journal reports that President Trump repeatedly tried to negotiate Maduro's peaceful exit before losing patience after public taunts. His decision to authorize the capture has rattled regimes worldwide, including Iran. Reuters reports Iranian officials now fear Trump will act decisively if protests escalate, prompting the Ayatollah to quietly prepare escape plans to Russia along with billions in assets. China's Espionage Footprint Near U.S. Bases: A Chinese intelligence-linked individual owns two golf courses near Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home to America's nuclear bomber force. Chinese media openly described the courses as networking hubs for U.S. political and business elites. Bryan warns that such properties create serious espionage and sabotage risks, similar to a Chinese-owned trailer park near Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Threats to America's Food Supply: A new screwworm outbreak in Mexico threatens U.S. cattle just as Brazil reduces its breeding herd and America's cattle numbers hit historic lows. Bryan warns beef prices are likely to remain high for several years and advises listeners to stock freezers when possible. Left Wing Terrorism Returns in Germany: German officials warn left-wing terrorism is intensifying after radicals sabotaged power infrastructure in Berlin and Brandenburg, cutting electricity to forty-five thousand people. The attackers vowed to escalate assaults on oil and gas infrastructure nationwide. Promising Medical Research: German researchers found that supplementing with 1,000 milligrams of Urolithin A for 28 days significantly rejuvenated aging immune systems by restoring mitochondrial function. UK scientists also reported that ten minutes of intense daily exercise can slow or reverse colon cancer growth by triggering DNA repair and reducing inflammation.   "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32     Keywords: January 6 Wright Report, Tim Walz Medicaid fraud Minnesota, Feeding Our Future whistleblower Ellison, Hilton refuses ICE DHS rooms, Mark Kelly retirement demotion Hegseth, Maduro indictment Manhattan drug trafficking, Delcy Rodríguez resistance, Trump Venezuela decision global impact, China espionage Barksdale Air Force Base, screwworm outbreak beef prices, Germany left wing terrorism infrastructure attack, Urolithin A immune system study, exercise colon cancer DNA repair

This weekend America went on the offensive: U.S. Delta Force raided Venezuela, capturing Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in a swift hit-and-exit operation. Indicted in New York for narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking, and weapons conspiracies, Maduro appeared in court claiming “prisoner of war” status while AG Pam Bondi announced the takedown. Former CIA Station Chief exposes the deeper ties Cartel de los Soles, Smartmatic, Dominion, Huawei, China, Serbia, and the CIA all linked in a global election fraud network. This isn't about oil; it's about unraveling the stolen-election cartel that's infected democracies worldwide.Elon Musk dines with President Trump and hints “2026 is going to be amazing,” while Joe demands: no machines, no mail-ins, precinct-level counting with ID only. The pieces are falling into place fraud exposure is coming fast. Meanwhile, Trump's UN Ambassador Waltz declares the Western Hemisphere off-limits to Russia, China, and Iran, and Trump puts Denmark on notice over Greenland. Protests erupted across the U.S. and world, with paid agitators (including Central CSO-linked groups) pushing division while Venezuelans call out the liberal mobs.NYC's new socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani kicks off with a subway photo-op and vows to replace “rugged individualism” with collectivism. His team's agenda—tenant director Cea Weaver, Muslim call-to-prayer pushes, and radical rhetoric signals Dearborn and Minneapolis-style transformation for the Big Apple. NYC is cooked, the blueprint is clear, and the left's vendetta is in full swing. This is the weekend the tide turned, wake up, get loud, or watch it all collapse.

Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz has announced he will not be seeking reelection this year as he continues to grapple with a fraud scandal with multiple costly alleged money laundering operations with ties to the Somali community in the Twin Cities. Federal prosecutors have charged nearly 80-people with stealing more than $240 million from the 'Federal Child Nutrition Program' through the Minnesota-based nonprofit 'Feeding Our Future.' The House Oversight Committee is holding multiple hearings on Minnesota fraud and the probe could expand into other states' similar programs. FOX's John Saucier speaks with Mike Tobin, senior correspondent for the FOX News Channel, reporting from Minneapolis, who discusses the future for Gov. Walz, and breaks down the latest in the fraud probe. Click Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

//The Wire//2300Z January 5, 2026////ROUTINE////BLUF: USA TAKES CONTROL OF VENEZUELA, EFFORTS TO EMPLACE TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT CONTINUE. SOMALI FRAUD SCANDAL SPREADS NATIONWIDE. ECOTERRORISTS SET FIRE TO BRIDGE IN BERLIN RESULTING IN ELECTRICAL BLACKOUTS.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Germany: Over the weekend insurgents conducted a sabotage operation in Berlin, which targeted electrical infrastructure. The far-left terrorist group Vulkangruppe claimed credit for the attack that took the form of arson attacks on electrical pylons carrying power to much of southwest Berlin. The main attack took the form of arsonists setting fire to a bridge carrying electrical cables across the canal to the west of the power plant in Lichterfelde.Analyst Comment: This attack was coordinated and timed to coincide with a cold snap that brought extremely cold weather throughout the region. The insurgents were trying to cause as much harm as possible, so they conducted the attack at a time when they knew that cold-weather casualties would be maximized. Local officials have stated that it might be as late as Thursday before repairs can be fully completed, due to the severity of the attack.-HomeFront-Minnesota: The Somali Fraud saga continues as dozens of independent investigations and lines of analytical effort result in even more fraud coming to light by the hour. This afternoon, Governor Tim Walz made the announcement that he is dropping out of the gubernatorial race due to the scandal.Analyst Comment: Minnesota is no longer the only state in which major investigative efforts are underway. After the initial story broke in Minneapolis, others started looking around in their areas, only to find exactly the same kind of fraud...wholesale theft of taxpayer money, laundered through nonexistent daycares and other welfare programs. There are currently reports of widespread Somali fraud in Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Ohio, and Maine. Additional fraud activities are also being investigated in most other states, not just within the Somali community.Ohio: Overnight a security incident was reported at the home of VP Vance. One assailant, who has been identified as William DeFoor, was able to get close enough to Vance's residence to break one of the exterior windows with a hammer, before being detained and arrested.Analyst Comment: Considering the extreme threats to key leaders within in the US at this time, this reaction was probably expected. However, this incident was too close for comfort. One lunatic with a hammer getting this close proves that a terrorist with an S-Vest could get just as close, and the outcome would be very different.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: In Venezuela, the situation right now is still very dynamic. Though the American operation to capture Maduro was a one-time mission, the situation has not over yet. Maduro is out of the fight, but right now the United States has, in effect, taken control of Venezuela.Maduro's allies, Generals, and decades of infrastructure (and criminal enterprise) does not simply evaporate overnight, and the removal of the head of the snake doesn't mean that the body doesn't also exist. In many ways it's business as usual in Venezuela, and in other ways significant changes are underway. President Trump has stated that the short term goal is to run Venezuela for a time, installing a puppet government until a transition to a more stable government can take place. Whether or not this will happen can be debated, but this is the plan for now.Regarding Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricant (POL) facilities, President Trump stated that American oil companies will be running Venezuela's oil industry (and exporting that oil back to the United States).Concerning additional strikes, President Trump stated that a wider conflict may be nec

If you're planning a trip to Ireland in 2026 these tips will make planning smoother, help you avoid crowds, and maybe even save you a bit of money. Probably the most important tips are when NOT to be in Dublin, but there are some updates to European entry & exit systems that you need to know, as well as really important advice for 2027. Jody Halsted – Ireland Family Vacations and the Traveling in Ireland podcast In case you're wondering why you would want to get your Ireland travel advice from me… My name is Jody Halsted, and I am an Ireland travel advisor. I have been traveling to and through Ireland for over 23 years (!!), publish Ireland Family Vacations, host the Traveling in Ireland podcast, assist hundreds of travelers with their Ireland vacations each year and, occasionally, I also host small group tours through Ireland (I have 2 this spring so you can look forward to some live from Ireland episodes in April and May). That's a lot! But Ireland travel is my passion; and my goal -100% – is to help you have an amazing Ireland vacation. And I have quite a few ways to do that. My website, Ireland Family Vacations, is a complete resource for Ireland vacation planning – filled with information on what to do & see as well as handy tips for planning your trip and free itineraries to get your plans in motion quickly. (Don't let the name fool you! I travel through Ireland solo, with my husband, with my family, and hosting small group tours. Whatever your group size or dynamic I am able to assist!) My itinerary personalization, vacation coaching, and custom itinerary creation services help you maximize your Ireland experience, and my small group guided tours are designed to not only deliver the ‘authentic' Ireland of your dreams but also introduce you to the people and hidden places that make the country so very magical. If you love the process of planning your trip the Ireland Travel Compass walks you step-by-step through my expert process, from when to visit and how long the perfect vacation lasts, to what to see, where to stay, and even what to eat. It's basically my entire Ireland vacation planning brain laid out. On a more personal note, I have 2 daughters, now in college, who have been traveling through Ireland with me since before they could toddle and one very supportive husband (who loves it when I plan other people's vacations because it means I'm not planning my own). At Malahide Castle (It's probably time to get new family photos done)By Aoife for Flytographer; Dublin, Ireland. All rights reserved. Now that you know all about me, let's jump into what you need to know as you consider planning an Ireland vacation in 2026! This article is based on Traveling in Ireland podcast episode 320. Use the player below to listen or scroll to continue reading the article and get resource links. 2026 Ireland Travel Tips You Need Ireland Travel Rules & Regulations There are currently no restrictions in place for North Americans traveling to Ireland.Ireland travel restrictions and other requirement are found here. In Case of Cancellation Read and understand cancellation policies on everything from flights and transportation to tours and accommodations before booking. If booking with a credit card be aware of the cancellation coverage you may have with that card. I highly recommend purchasing travel insurance if you book tickets our tours that don't allow 100% refund if cancelled. And always if you are booking a tour package (and not necessarily the one the company offers). 2026 Looks like Another Busy Year from Travel to Ireland from North America Irish tourism numbers showed that tourism from Europe into Ireland was down, but numbers from North America remained steady. From my perspective things are already looking busy, especially in the months of May, late August, and September. (The shoulder season is the new high season.) More Direct Flights to Ireland in 2026 Aer Lingus, Ireland's flagship airline is adding 2 new US routes in 2026, bringing the total to 18 routes from Dublin!This is important because Aer Lingus is considered a ‘budget' carrier. And when budget carriers enter a market, US based airlines will drop rates to compete.

Welcome to another episode of ADHD-ish! Today, host Diann Wingert is joined by psychologist and viral TikTok creator Dr. Dante for a raw, insightful look at the "Neurodivergent Edge"—how ADHD traits transform not just personal relationships but entrepreneurial success.In this conversation, Dr. Dante shares the story behind his celebrated term "neuro baddies," celebrating the honesty, intensity, and creativity that neurodivergent women bring to the table. Together, Diann & Dante explore why society's negative perceptions of ADHD traits miss the mark, how trauma bonds form, and how rejection sensitivity and perfectionism can be reframed as superpowers in both love and business.You'll hear candid stories, hard-hitting truths about justice sensitivity, and practical wisdom on breaking free from toxic relationships—plus, a message for neurodivergent women struggling with self-acceptance. If you've ever wondered how your different way of thinking can be your biggest asset, this episode will inspire you to name it, claim it, and embrace the title of“neuro baddie” proudly. What's Inside This Episode?Here are 5 keys you'll learn in today's convo:The Origin of "Neurobaddies": How a spontaneous ADHD thought in the grocery store parking lot became a viral, empowering movement for neurodivergent women.Why Neurodivergent Women Make Amazing Partners: Honesty, hyperfocus, and genuineness—discover why these traits are actually super attractive (not quirks to hide!).The Narcissist Trap: Neurodivergent traits can make women more vulnerable to toxic relationships, but knowing the signs gives you real power to protect yourself.Entrepreneurial Superpowers: How “all-in” energy, justice sensitivity, and relentless action drive success in business (yep, your ADHD traits are an asset!).Healing Starts With Self-Trust: Why learning to trust yourself is the real game-changer, despite years of negative feedback.Guest Bio:Dante Assad Williams, PsyD (Dr Dante) is a Minneapolis-based psychologist, adjunct professor, entrepreneur, and social media influencer who highlights the unique strengths of neurodivergent women in relationships and in business. With lived experience as a neurodivergent (ADHD) man, and a viral TikTok following built on his unapologetic appreciation for "neuro baddies," Dr. Dante brings authenticity, deep understanding, and hope to every conversation about mental health, relationships, and business. His body of work is centered on neurodivergence, trauma, and holistic masculinity. Connect with Dr Dante: TikTok - Instagram - 5 Keys to Know if You're a Neurobaddie Fun Fact from the Episode:Dr. Dante named “neurobaddies” on a whim in a 10-second TikTok video? He didn't expect it to go viral—but now, it's a movement with merch on the way! (Yes, T-shirts are coming!)Is it time to build more balance and sustainability into your business? I have two openings for one-on-one coaching engagements, starting this month. The first step is...

In this explosive episode, Tara breaks down why federal investigators are flooding Minneapolis — and why local Democrat leadership is panicking in public. After Minnesota Governor Tim Walz abruptly drops out of the governor's race, Trump officials signal what many already suspect: this isn't a PR issue — it's criminal exposure. With 2,000 federal agents deployed, funds frozen, daycare and SNAP programs under review, and ICE on the ground, the reaction from city leaders has turned desperate. From suitcases of cash moving through airports, to empty daycares raking in millions, to a mayor all but threatening ICE agents, Tara lays out a fraud operation years in the making — and why it's finally being exposed.

Tara breaks down a sweeping federal crackdown unfolding in Minneapolis and beyond — from thousands of fraud and immigration investigators deployed, to explosive revelations about ghost daycare centers, suitcase cash operations, and decades-old investigations buried by Washington. As panic spreads among Democrat officials, Tara explains why this moment is different, how crime statistics are finally moving in the right direction, and why the media's narrative about “chaos” and “war” collapses under basic facts and long-standing law. This episode connects fraud, open borders, crime, censorship, and media deception — and shows why accountability is suddenly back on the table.

As It Turns Out, President Trump Took Out Maduro – And Perhaps a Somali Warlord in MinnesotaYeah, that's right – Trump bags the big bad Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in a ballsy midnight raid on January 3, 2026, hauls him and his wife straight to New York for those long-overdue narco-terrorism charges. Blindfolded, handcuffed, perp-walked like a common cartel thug. Trump watches the whole thing live from Mar-a-Lago, probably with a Diet Coke in hand, grinning ear to ear. Victory lap complete.And just two days later? Boom – Tim Walz, Minnesota's own homegrown warlord presiding over a fraud empire that makes Maduro's schemes look like pocket change, suddenly "decides" he's not running for reelection. Coincidence? Please. The guy's staring down a tidal wave of investigations into billions vanished from child nutrition, autism programs, housing, and those ghostly childcare centers. Walz bails faster than a rat off a sinking ship, citing he can't "fully commit" – translation: the feds are closing in, and an indictment would make campaigning awkward.This isn't oversight failure; it's a full-blown Somali-linked grift network thriving under Walz's watch. Feeding Our Future alone: $250+ million stolen, dozens convicted, mostly Somali defendants turning relief funds into luxury cars and wire transfers. Then the childcare explosion – empty buildings raking in millions, viral videos exposing the scam, feds freezing funds and surging agents into Minneapolis. And who's in the mix? Keith Ellison, the AG who allegedly had to personally sign off on fraud probes – talk about a bottleneck designed for bottlenecks. Ilhan Omar, queen of the district where it all went down, with fraudsters mysteriously donating to her campaigns. Ties? Mountains of circumstantial smoke, and where there's smoke, indictments are usually cooking.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike has a few restaurant recommendations for Kristi Noem and the ICE team in town today!!The federal Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that Secretary Kristi Noem was in the Twin Cities, as a federal immigration crackdown continues.The agency posted a video to social media on Tuesday morning, showing Noem accompanying federal agents as they detained a man.The agency and Noem, in separate social media posts, labeled the video as being taken in Minneapolis — but it appeared to show the operation taking place at a building on Payne Avenue in St. Paul.DHS said the man is from Ecuador and is in the U.S. illegally, and that he's wanted for murder and sexual assault. Noem said that warrant is from Ecuador, and said he was also convicted of robbery and extortion. DHS and Noem did not provide further details on those cases.It was not immediately clear how long Noem would be in the Twin Cities.It's now been more than a month since federal officials announced an immigration operation targeting the Twin Cities. The agency has previously said that it's made hundreds of arrests.Gov. Tim Walz, who ended his bid for a third term Monday, sharply criticized the federal enforcement effort, raising concerns about both the scale of the operation and the lack of coordination with state officials. “We have a ridiculous surge of apparently 2,000 people not coordinating with us that are for a show of the cameras,” Walz said. “Why 2,000 folks? What are they coming to do? Do they want to coordinate with us?”MPR News contacted both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to confirm the number of agents being deployed to Minnesota. DHS responded with a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, saying, “While for the safety of our officers we do not get into law enforcement footprint, DHS has surged law enforcement and has already made more than 1,000 arrests of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members.”Walz said the increased ICE presence is creating fear among immigrant communities, particularly communities of color. “What he's [Trump] doing to the Somali community is absolutely unconscionable,” Walz said, adding, "If you want us to fix fraud, come and help us do that. They're not interested in that.” Walz said he views the federal action as part of a broader political attack on Minnesota. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Are freight rates really stabilizing, or are we just riding another seasonal spike, and what does tighter CDL enforcement mean for capacity in 2026? Tune in today to learn the current freight market trends using real lane data and a strong outbound Minneapolis market!  We dig into why lane-specific pricing, seasonal volatility, and inverse market flows matter more than headline spot rates, how brokers can protect margins with consistent pricing strategies, and what tightening truckload capacity—down roughly 7.5% since 2023—means for carriers and brokers heading into a muted 2026 demand outlook. We also get frank about the upcoming federal CDL compliance enforcement, why a uniform national standard is long overdue, and how safety-focused regulation can level the playing field for legitimate operators while seasonal tender rejection spikes and spot rate surges normalize post-holidays!   Resources / References https://www.ttnews.com/articles/dot-fmcsa-power-test-2026 https://www.joc.com/article/separating-myth-from-reality-in-dry-van-truckload-capacity-6142668 https://www.freightwaves.com/news/2025s-peak-retail-season-the-best-for-trucking-in-years  

The federal Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that Secretary Kristi Noem was in the Twin Cities, as a federal immigration crackdown continues.The agency posted a video to social media on Tuesday morning, showing Noem accompanying federal agents as they detained a man. The agency and Noem, in separate social media posts, labeled the video as being taken in Minneapolis — but it appeared to show the operation taking place at a building on Payne Avenue in St. Paul.DHS said the man is from Ecuador and is in the U.S. illegally, and that he's wanted for murder and sexual assault. Noem said that warrant is from Ecuador, and said he was also convicted of robbery and extortion. DHS and Noem did not provide further details on those cases.It was not immediately clear how long Noem would be in the Twin Cities. It's now been more than a month since federal officials announced an immigration operation targeting the Twin Cities. The agency has previously said that it's made hundreds of arrests.Gov. Tim Walz, who ended his bid for a third term Monday, sharply criticized the federal enforcement effort, raising concerns about both the scale of the operation and the lack of coordination with state officials. “We have a ridiculous surge of apparently 2,000 people not coordinating with us that are for a show of the cameras,” Walz said. “Why 2,000 folks? What are they coming to do? Do they want to coordinate with us?”MPR News contacted both ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to confirm the number of agents being deployed to Minnesota. DHS responded with a statement from Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, saying, “While for the safety of our officers we do not get into law enforcement footprint, DHS has surged law enforcement and has already made more than 1,000 arrests of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members.”Walz said the increased ICE presence is creating fear among immigrant communities, particularly communities of color. “What he's [Trump] doing to the Somali community is absolutely unconscionable,” Walz said, adding, "If you want us to fix fraud, come and help us do that. They're not interested in that.” Walz said he views the federal action as part of a broader political attack on Minnesota. Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez said he has not received confirmation from the federal government about the reported deployment of 2,000 agents but said the impact of increased enforcement is already being felt across the city.“There hasn't been information shared with me at the city level,” Chavez said. “But what we are witnessing on the ground, is that we have already seen an escalation of ICE agents across our city and across the state.”Chavez said community members in South Minneapolis are reporting agents stopping and detaining people early in the morning as they head to work. “We have already seen it starting really early in the morning as people were heading to work, getting stopped and being kidnapped by ICE,” he said.He described seeing agents in tactical gear and an increase in unmarked vehicles.“We're seeing the tactical gear all over Lake Street and across South Minneapolis,” Chavez said. “We're seeing a ton of unmarked vehicles and we have witnessed folks already being detained.”Chavez said he is particularly concerned about racial profiling and due process. Meanwhile, the Immigrant Defense Network — a statewide coalition of more than 100 organizations — is launching constitutional observer trainings across the state to help community members document and respond to federal enforcement activity.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, and here's the latest on how to occasion is being marked. Plus, an independent Hilton Hotel refused reservations from ICE in Minneapolis as agents swarm Minneapolis on the heels of a federal funding fraud tied to Somali immigrants.

On this episode of America at Night, with McGraw Milhaven the show opens with Blois (Bloyce) Olson, Chief Political Commentator at WCCO, breaking down what's really happening with Minneapolis daycares, cutting through headlines to explain the policy failures and political realities impacting families on the ground. Next, the focus shifts overseas as Matthew McGuire, foreign policy and international economy expert and former U.S. Executive Director to the World Bank, analyzes the reported capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, arguing the episode exposes U.S. weakness rather than strength on the global stage. Finally, Lt. Gen. Richard Y. Newton (Ret.), former Assistant Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force and senior national security contributor, offers a strategic and security-focused assessment of the Maduro capture, weighing its implications for U.S. credibility, regional stability, and America's posture toward authoritarian regimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of The Clay Edwards Show (#1129, Hour 2), host Clay Edwards welcomes guest Andrew Gasser for a lively discussion on current events and politics. They dive into the anniversary of January 6, reflecting on its impact, election integrity issues in Georgia, and the long-term effects of national debt. The conversation covers Dan Bongino's resignation from the FBI, speculation on Andrew Bailey as a potential future director, and the controversy surrounding a Hilton hotel in Minneapolis canceling reservations for DHS agents. They also touch on social media scandals, cultural divides, and the importance of vigilance in American politics. Strap in for unfiltered talk on fighting for America's soul.

Iran's Supreme Leader reportedly preparing to leave the country amid protests; Maduro enters not guilty plea; Defense Secretary Hegseth begins "Arsenal of Freedom" Tour; South Korean pastor jailed; Minneapolis pastors help the homeless.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, and here's the latest on how to occasion is being marked. Plus, an independent Hilton Hotel refused reservations from ICE in Minneapolis as agents swarm Minneapolis on the heels of a federal funding fraud tied to Somali immigrants.

The Quality Bicycle Products renowned industry event is back! Frostbike will take place at its company headquarters in Minneapolis, February 26–28, 2026.Bill Schouman, VP of Sales at Q, joins us today to give a preview of this high impact bike industry event that connects hundreds of retailers, supplier brands, and thought leaders.Support the show

Tim Walz just stepped down from his re-election campaign in Minnesota, and the timing couldn't be more suspicious. This comes right as federal agents descend on Minneapolis investigating up to $9 billion in daycare fraud—with shocking connections to Seattle's Somali community. We're talking 2,000 federal agents, citizen journalists knocking on doors finding "daycares" with no children, and a money trail that allegedly spans from Seattle to Minneapolis to Somalia. Walz claims he can't focus on campaigning while dealing with the fraud scandal, but if he's not guilty, why quit now? Meanwhile, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson and Attorney General Nick Brown are scrambling to protect the same suspicious daycare networks here in Seattle, even proposing legislation to shield providers from "harassment"—aka investigative journalism. We dive into the Seattle-Minneapolis connection, the $20 million cash flights, the convicted bribery attempt involving a Seattle resident, and why Democrats are screaming about "targeting" when conservatives are simply asking: where are the children and where did our tax dollars go? Is Washington next for a federal crackdown? What do you think—coincidence or coordinated fraud? Drop your thoughts below, and if you're tired of your tax dollars funding potential terrorism and welfare scams, hit that subscribe button and share this everywhere.

 Interview: NGF (BandLab & ReverbNation Artist of the Month)Indie/alternative artist from Columbia, SCDebut 3-track release Soft Spoken Released (Dec 5, 2025)A conversation about restraint, vulnerability, silence, and writing songs that feel too honestWhy three songs can say more than twelveWhat happens when intimacy meets the internetGlobal & Political Chaos (But With Jokes)Nicolás Maduro pleads not guilty to drug-trafficking charges in U.S. court, claims he was “captured”Senate prepares a war-powers vote to block Trump's Venezuela actions after the factDenmark shuts down Trump's renewed Greenland takeover fantasiesMinnesota Gov. Tim Walz drops his reelection bid, blowing open a once-safe raceCulture, Tech & Trust IssuesGen Z men drifting politically — not loyal, just angry, broke, and onlineICE vs. a Minneapolis hotel: when room reservations become a national debateFood-delivery app whistleblower alleges fake “priority” fees, algorithmic exploitation, and corporate gaslightingCanada warns U.S. politics are bleeding into public health dataTrump administration reviews childhood vaccine schedule, alarming doctors everywhereBig Themes This EpisodePower without guardrailsAlgorithms with no ethicsInstitutions losing trustSilence being louder than noise LINKShttps://instagram.com/itsnewstoushttps://tiktok.com/@itsnewstous Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, and here's the latest on how to occasion is being marked. Plus, an independent Hilton Hotel refused reservations from ICE in Minneapolis as agents swarm Minneapolis on the heels of a federal funding fraud tied to Somali immigrants.

Ringmaster James T. Harris welcomes Jon Justice from our sister station in Minneapolis to talk about the local reaction to Tim Walz announcing he is no longer running for re-election and what the aftermath of the Somali childcare fraud may be.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, and here's the latest on how to occasion is being marked. Plus, an independent Hilton Hotel refused reservations from ICE in Minneapolis as agents swarm Minneapolis on the heels of a federal funding fraud tied to Somali immigrants.

Kimchi One from Brightcore – Health Starts in the GutGet 25% Off – Use Code: LARRY at https://www.mybrightcore.com/larryOr call (888) 462-4779 for up to 50% OFF your order and Free Shipping! Watch LARRY with Larry O'Connor LIVE — Monday-Friday at 12PM Eastern on YouTube, Facebook, & Rumble! Listen to LARRY with Larry O'Connor wherever you get your podcasts! SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/7i8F7K4fqIDmqZSIHJNhMh?si=814ce2f8478944c0&nd=1&dlsi=e799ca22e81b456f APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/larry/id1730596733 On this full episode of LARRY, we discuss the BREAKING NEWS that President Trump is launching a MASSIVE investigation into Minnesota Somalian fraud as ICE and immigration agents descend on Minneapolis, Stephen Miller brings Jake Tapper and CNN DOWN During a FIERY interview, and MUCH, much more! SHOP OUR MERCH: https://store.townhallmedia.com/ BUY A LARRY MUG: https://store.townhallmedia.com/products/larry-mug Become a Townhall VIP Member today and use promo code LARRY for 50% off: https://townhall.com/subscribe?tpcc=poddescription https://townhall.com/ https://rumble.com/c/c-5769468 https://www.facebook.com/townhallcom/ https://www.instagram.com/townhallmedia/ https://twitter.com/townhallcomBecome a Townhall VIP member with promo code "LARRY": https://townhall.com/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz has announced he will not be seeking reelection this year as he continues to grapple with a fraud scandal with multiple costly alleged money laundering operations with ties to the Somali community in the Twin Cities. Federal prosecutors have charged nearly 80-people with stealing more than $240 million from the 'Federal Child Nutrition Program' through the Minnesota-based nonprofit 'Feeding Our Future.' The House Oversight Committee is holding multiple hearings on Minnesota fraud and the probe could expand into other states' similar programs. FOX's John Saucier speaks with Mike Tobin, senior correspondent for the FOX News Channel, reporting from Minneapolis, who discusses the future for Gov. Walz, and breaks down the latest in the fraud probe. Click Here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this segment, Mark is joined by Liz Collin, an Investigative Journalist with Alpha News and the Producer of "The Fall of Minneapolis". She shares the latest on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announcing that he will not seek a third term.

In hour 1 of The Mark Reardon Show, Mark is joined by Josh Hammer, a Newsweek Senior Editor at Large and the Host of The Josh Hammer Show. Hammer shares his thoughts on Trump capturing Venezuelan Dictator Maduro. He's later joined by Liz Collin, an Investigative Journalist with Alpha News and the Producer of "The Fall of Minneapolis". She shares the latest on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announcing that he will not seek a third term.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, and here's the latest on how to occasion is being marked. Plus, an independent Hilton Hotel refused reservations from ICE in Minneapolis as agents swarm Minneapolis on the heels of a federal funding fraud tied to Somali immigrants.

Nicolás Maduro captured by U.S. troops in Venezuela. What's next for the Trump administration internationally? Secretary of State Marco Rubio lays out the future for Venezuela. Maduro and his wife are headed to court. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is ready to replace the leaders of multiple countries. "The warmth of collectivism" is on display as Zohran Mamdani is inaugurated as the new mayor of New York City. Seattle inaugurates its own communist mayor. So much fraud, and it's not just in Minneapolis. 00:00 Pat Gray UNLEASHED! 00:22 Nicolás Maduro is OUT! 04:55 Russia is Mad??? 08:07 China in Venezuela?! 09:18 Hugo Chávez Mausoleum Bombed 11:17 Harry Sisson "Schools" Trump Supporters 13:20 Venezuela Celebrates its Freedom 14:26 Venezuelan Family's Reaction to Maduro's Ousting 18:07 President Trump on the Monroe Doctrine A.K.A. "Donroe Doctrine" 19:51 Venezuela STOLE From the U.S. 21:32 Maduro on the Move 23:12 President Trump on the Future of Venezuelan Oil 25:08 Mike Lee Comments on Venezuela 25:57 Donald Trump Asked about Ousting Dictators 26:44 Why is Venezuela Part of "America First"? 33:52 Marco Rubio Explains Maduro's Arrest 36:29 Marco Rubio on NBC News Discussing Venezuelan Oil 38:02 Lindsey Graham on Drug Nations 42:02 Trump NEEDS Greenland! 45:43 New Polls about Venezuela Takeover 56:02 Zohran Mamdani is the New Mayor of NYC 59:33 Zohran Mamdani's Nazi Salute 1:00:01 Zohran Mamdani's New Fire Chief Lillian Bonsignore 1:01:18 Zohran Mamdani's New City Attorney Ramzi Kassem 1:01:49 Bread & Roses Socialist Anthem at NYC Inauguration 1:08:28 Venezuelans Celebrating Everywhere!!! 1:12:20 New Communist Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson 1:14:06 Fat Five 1:25:57 Heavily Redacted Epstein Files 1:26:57 Update on J6 Pipe Bomb Suspect 1:27:15 Somali Fraud Chart 1:29:00 Somali Fraud in Minnesota 1:32:03 Somali Community being Harassed? 1:33:59 Somali Mom Freaks Out Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Cy kicked the year off by forgetting how computers work so we have the incredible Eeland Stribling (@EelandStribling) filling in who grew up drinkin' Sunny D and fuckin' loves fish dude. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp! --- Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Chad Daniels (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@ThatChadDaniels⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) is a Dad, Comedian, and pancake lover. With over 750 million streams of his 5 albums to date, his audio plays are in the 99th percentile in comedy and music on Pandora alone, averaging over 1MM per week. Chad's previous album, Footprints on the Moon was the most streamed comedy album of 2017, and he has 6 late-night appearances and a Comedy Central Half Hour under his belt. Cy Amundson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CyAmundson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) With appearances on Conan, Adam Devine's House Party, and Comedy Central's This is Not Happening, Cy Amundson is fast-proving himself in the world of standup comedy. After cutting his teeth at Acme Comedy Company in Minneapolis, has since appeared on Family Guy and American Dad and as a host on ESPN's SportsCenter on Snapchat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Should you rinse ice before you pour a carbonated drink over it? What's the best way to store fresh bread? And is there a reason to drink room temp water between bites of ice cream? Daniel Gritzer, editorial director of Serious Eats, and Swetha Sivakumar, who writes a food science Substack, join Dan to answer your food science questions. They also help Grace in Minneapolis, whose fresh bread dispute is threatening her marriage. Put on your nerd glasses and fire up your Bunsen burners!The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell.Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Reporter Liz Collin exposes a Craig's List ad for child actors to stage Minneapolis daycare facilities with children. Minnesota's new paid leave act is going to wallop residents with a billion dollar tax, as calls of widespread fraud and abuse are already flooding watchdog whistleblower lines. Tim Walz (as of this writing) is expected to announce he will no longer seek re-election. And the best op-ed of the day about why the outrage over Maduro's capture is selective, but the justice is Venezuelan.  

We start with the latest developments in Venezuela after the US' attack. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is also making military threats to other countries. Business owners in Minneapolis' Somali community say they're being threatened and harassed. The age of some of the victims of a Swiss bar fire is raising questions about whether proper checks were in place. Plus, more rain for flood-impacted California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As rumors swirl around a major political fallout in Minnesota, Tara breaks down why this moment matters — and why the media can't spin its way out of it.

In this sprawling, must-hear episode, Tara pulls together multiple threads that the media desperately wants kept separate—and shows why they're all connected.

In this episode of the Young Adults Today Podcast, Josiah and Micah sit down with Rohn Starling to talk about the real gaps in young adult discipleship, how the Church can better serve 18–30-year-olds, and why character and spiritual disciplines matter more than hype. Ron shares his story of coming to faith as a “good kid,” running from God, and the one phone call from a caring pastor that changed everything. They dive into mentorship, online church, dating, and how to communicate the gospel in a way the next generation actually understands. 1,000 hooks for free: https://www.scribd.com/document/856793989/1-000-Viral-Hooks-PBL  More about us: Learn more about youngadultstoday: www.youngadults.today Give to propel the ministry forward: https://tithe.ly/give?c=5350133 Resources: -Free eBook "10 Steps to Starting a Successful Young Adult Ministry": https://www.youngadults.today/book/starting-a-successful-young-adult-ministry -Join our FaceBook Group Community with 2500+ leaders: https://www.facebook.com/groups/796270437396021 -Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youngadults.today/ -Join us for the FREE Digital Conference Wednesday, January 21st 11am on Zoom: www.youngadults.today/digital-conference -See you in Minneapolis this March 13-14th for the youngadultstoday leader conference: www.youngadults.today/conference -Limited Spots are available for our Coaching Communities launching February 16th: www.youngadults.today/coaching-communities    

Send us a textNote: For the most up-to-date information on Erin's submission status, interests, and availability, visit https://erincaseywestin.com.Episode SummaryIn this episode of Writers With Wrinkles, Beth McMullen and Lisa Schmid talk with Erin Casey Westin, associate agent at Galt & Zacker Literary Agency, about the current kidlit market and how agents evaluate queries and manuscripts. Aspiring authors will gain insight into writing stronger query letters, understanding agent decision-making, and knowing when a manuscript is truly ready to submit.Guest BioErin Casey Westin is an associate agent at Galt & Zacker Literary Agency, where she represents children's literature. She is especially drawn to projects with strong voice, vivid worldbuilding, and authentic, thoughtful representation. Erin is passionate about stories that allow every child to see themselves reflected on the page. She is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Key Discussion PointsThe state of the kidlit marketErin shares what she's hearing from editors, including cautious optimism around middle grade and continued demand for humorous, character-driven picture books.How sales track records affect authorsWhy prior sales aren't everything, how agents strategize around them, and when switching publishing houses can make sense.What makes a query letter stand outClear, specific stakes; strong voice; and careful attention to submission guidelines—plus why vague, high-level stakes often fall flat.Common query mistakes to avoidWriting queries in first person as the character, misquoting agents, careless personalization, and over-reliance on AI-generated text.How Erin evaluates manuscriptsThe step-by-step mental checklist: polish, voice, character connection, plot and pacing, and whether the story sustains momentum beyond the opening pages.When a manuscript isn't ready yetWhy rushing to query out of frustration can hurt your chances, and when putting a book away for a few months can actually help.What Erin wants to see more ofMiddle grade and YA survival stories—especially fresh, modern takes featuring underrepresented protagonists.ConclusionThis episode reminds writers that strong queries and manuscripts are built on clarity, specificity, and patience. Erin Casey Westin offers a transparent look at how agents read, evaluate, and decide—helping authors approach querying with more confidence and intention.Links & ResourcesErin Casey Westin: https://erincaseywestin.comGalt & Zacker Literary Agency: https://www.galltzacker.com/QueryTracker: https://querytracker.net

Introducing Rob Ruiz Meet Rob Ruiz, a seasoned Senior Full Stack Developer with nearly two decades of expertise in WordPress innovation and open-source magic. As the Lead Maintainer of WP Rig since 2020, Rob has been the driving force behind this groundbreaking open-source framework that empowers developers to craft high-performance, accessible, and progressively enhanced WordPress themes with ease. WP Rig isn’t just a starter theme—it’s a turbocharged toolkit that bundles modern build processes, linting, optimization, and testing to deliver lightning-fast, standards-compliant sites that shine on any device. Show Notes For more on Rob and WP Rig, check out these links: LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robcruiz WP Rig Official Site: https://wprig.io GitHub Repository: https://github.com/wprig/wprig Latest Releases: https://github.com/wprig/wprig/releases WP Rig 3.1 Announcement: https://wprig.io/wp-rig-3-1/ Transcript: Topher DeRosia: Hey everybody. Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m your host Topher DeRosia, and with me today I have- Rob Ruiz: Rob Ruiz. Topher: Rob. You and I have talked a couple of times, once recently, and I learned about a project you’re working on, but not a whole lot about you. Where do you live? What do you do for a living? Rob: Yeah, for sure. Good question. Although I’m originally from Orlando, Florida, I’ve been living in Omaha, Nebraska for a couple of decades now. So I’m pretty much a native. I know a lot of people around here and I’ve been fairly involved in various local communities over the years. I’m a web developer. Started off as a graphic designer kind of out of college, and then got interested in web stuff. And so as a graphic designer turned future web developer, I guess, I was very interested in content management systems because it made the creating and managing of websites very, very easy. My first couple of sites were Flash websites, sites with macro media Flash. Then once I found content management systems, I was like, “Wow, this is way easier than coding the whole thing from scratch with Flash.” And then all the other obvious benefits that come from that. So I originally started with Joomla, interestingly enough, and used Joomla for about two or three years, then found WordPress and never looked back. And so I’ve been using WordPress ever since. As the years have gone on, WordPress has enabled me to slowly transition from a more kind of web designer, I guess, to a very full-blown web developer and software engineer, and even software architect to some degree. So here we are many years later. Topher: There’s a big step from designer to developer. How did that go for you? I’m assuming you went to PHP. Although if you were doing Flash sites, you probably learned ActionScript. Rob: Yeah. Yeah. That was very convenient when I started learning JavaScript. It made it very easy to learn JavaScript faster because I already had a familiarity with ActionScript. So there’s a lot of similarities there. But yeah. Even before I started doing PHP, I started learning more HTML and CSS. I did do a couple of static websites between there that were just like no content management system at all. So I was able to kind of sharpen my sword there with the CSS and HTML, which wasn’t particularly hard. But yeah, definitely, the PHP… that was a big step was PHP because it’s a proper logical programming language. There was a lot there I needed to unpack, and so it took me a while. I had to stick to it and really rinse and repeat before I finally got my feet under me. Topher: I can imagine. All right. So then you work for yourself or you freelance or do you have a real job, as it were? Rob: Currently, I do have a real job. Currently, I’m working at a company called Bold Orange out of Minneapolis. They’re a web agency. But I kind of bounce around from a lot of different jobs. And then, yes, I do freelance on the side, and I also develop my own products as well for myself and my company. Topher: Cool. Bold Orange sounds familiar. Who owns that? Rob: To be honest, I don’t know who the owners are. It’s just a pretty big web agency out of Minneapolis. They are a big company. You could just look them up at boldorange.com. They work for some pretty big companies. Topher: Cool. All right. You and I talked last about WP Rig. Give me a little background on where that came from and how you got it. Rob: Yeah, for sure. Well, there was a period of time where I was working at a company called Proxy Bid that is in the auction industry, and they had a product or a service — I don’t know how you want to look at that —called Auction Services. That product is basically just building WordPress sites for auction companies. They tasked us with a way to kind of standardize those websites essentially. And what we realized is that picking a different theme for every single site made things difficult to manage and increase tech debt by a lot. So what we were tasked with was, okay, if we’re going to build our own theme that we’re just going to make highly dynamic so we can make it look different from site to site. So we want to build it, but we want to build it smart and we want to make it reusable and maintainable. So let’s find a good framework to build this on so that we can maintain coding standards and end up with as little tech debt as possible, essentially. That’s when I first discovered WP Rig. In my research, I came across it and others. We came across Roots Sage and some of the other big names, I guess. It was actually a team exercise. We all went out and looked for different ones and studied different ones and mine that I found was WP Rig. And I was extremely interested in that one over the other ones. Interestingly enough- Topher: Can you tell me why over the other ones? Rob: That’s a great question. Yeah. I really liked the design patterns. I really liked the focus on WordPress coding standards. So having a system built in that checked all the code against WordPress coding standards was cool. I loved the compiling transpiling, whatever, for CSS and JavaScript kind of built in. That sounded really, really interesting. The fact that there was PHP unit testing built into it. So there’s like a starter testing framework built in that’s easy to extend so that you can add additional unit tests as your theme grows. We really wanted to make sure… because we were very into CICD pipelines. So we wanted to make sure that as developers were adding or contributing to any themes that we built with this, that we could have automated tests run and automated builds run, and just automate as much as possible. So WP rig just seemed like something that gave us those capabilities right out of the box. So that was a big thing. And I loved the way that they did it. Roots Sage does something similar, but they use their blade templating engine built in there. We really wanted to stick to something that was a bit more standard WordPress so that there wasn’t like a large knowledge overhead so that we didn’t have to say like, okay, if we’re bringing on other developers, like junior developers work on it, oh, it would be nice if you use Laravel too because we use this templating engine in all of our themes. We didn’t want to have to worry about that essentially. It was all object-oriented and all that stuff too. That’s what looked interesting to me. We ended up building a theme with WP Rig. I don’t know what they ended up doing with it after that, because I ended up getting let go shortly thereafter because the company had recently been acquired. Also, this was right after COVID too. So there was just a lot of moving parts and changing things at the time. So I ended up getting let go. But literally a week after I got let go, I came across a post on WP Tavern about how this framework was looking for new maintainers. Basically, this was a call put out by Morton, the original author of WP Rig. He reached out to WP Tavern and said, “Look, we’re not interested in maintaining this thing anymore, but it’s pretty cool. We like what we’ve built. And so we’re looking for other people to come in and adopt it essentially.” So I joined a Zoom meeting with a handful of other individuals that were also interested in this whole endeavor, and Morton reached out to me after the call and basically just said, “I looked you up. I liked some of the input that you had during the meeting. Let’s talk a little bit more.” And then that eventually led to conversations about me essentially taking the whole project over entirely. So, the branding, the hosting of the website, being lead maintainer on the project. Basically, gave me the keys to the kingdom in terms of GitHub and everything. So that’s how it ended up going in terms of the handoff between Morton and I. And I’m very grateful to him. They really created something super cool and I was honored to take it over and kind of, I don’t know, keep it going, I guess. Topher: I would be really curious. I don’t think either of us have the answer. I’d be curious to know how similar that path is to other project handoffs. It’s different from like an acquisition. You didn’t buy a plugin from somebody. It was kind of like vibes, I guess. Rob: It was like vibes. It was very vibey. I guess that’s probably the case in an open source situation. It’s very much an open source project. It’s a community-driven thing. It’s for everybody by everybody. I don’t know if all open source community projects roll like that, but that’s how this one worked out. There was some amount of ownership on Morton’s behalf. He did hire somebody to do the branding for WP Rig and the logo. And then obviously he was paying for stuff like the WPrig.io domain and the hosting through SiteGround and so on and so forth. So, we did have to transfer some of that and I’ve taken over those, I guess, financial burdens, if you want to think of it like that. But I’m totally okay with it. Topher: All right. You sort of mentioned some of the things Rig does, compiling and all that kind of stuff. Can you tell me… we didn’t discuss this before. I’m sitting at my desk and I think I want a website. How long does it take to go from that to looking at WordPress and logging into the admin with Rig? Rob: Okay. Rig is not an environment management system like local- Topher: I’m realizing my mistake. Somebody sends me a design in Figma. How long does it take me to go from that to, I’m not going to say complete because I mean, that’s CSS, but you know, how long does it take me to get to the point where I’m looking at a theme that is mine for the client that I’m going to start converting? Rob: Well, if you’re just looking for a starting point, if you’re just like, okay, how long does it take to get to like, okay, here’s my blank slate and I’m ready to start adopting all of these rules that are set up in Figma or whatever, I mean, you’re looking at maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, something like that. It’s pretty automated. You just need some simple knowledge of Git. And then there are some prerequisites to using WP Rig. You do have to have composer installed because we do leverage some Composer packages to some of it, although to be honest, you could probably get away with not using Composer. You just have to be okay with sacrificing some of the tools the WP Rig assumes you’re going to have. And then obviously Node. You have to have Node installed. A lot of our documentation assumes that you have NPM, that you’re using NPM for all your Nodes or your package management. But we did recently introduce support for Bun. And so you can use Bun instead of NPM, which is actually a lot faster and better in many ways. Topher: Okay. A lot of my audience are not developers, users, or light developers, like they’ll download a theme, hack a template, whatever. Is this for them? Am I boring those people right now? Rob: That’s a great question. I mean, and I think this is an interesting dichotomy and paradigm in the WordPress ecosystem, because you’ve got kind of this great divide. At least this is something I’ve noticed in my years in the WordPress community is you have many people that are not coders or developers that are very interested in expanding their knowledge of WordPress, but it’s strictly from a more of a marketing perspective where it’s like, I just want to know how to build websites with WordPress and how to use it to achieve my goals online from a marketing standpoint. You have that group of people, and then you have this other group of people that are very developer centric that want to know how to extend WordPress and how to empower those other people that we just discussed. Right? Topher: Right. Rob: So, yeah, that’s a very good question. I would say that WP Rig is very much designed for the developers, not for the marketers. The assumption there is that you’re going to be doing some amount of coding. Now, can you get away with doing a very light amount of coding? Yes. Yes, you can. I mean, if you compare what you’re going to get out of that assumed workflow to something that you would get off like Theme Forest or whatever, it’s going to be a night and day difference because those theme, Forest Themes, have hours, hundreds, sometimes hundreds of hours of development put into them. So, you’re not going to just out of the box immediately get something that is comparable to that. Topher: You need to put in those hundreds of hours of development to make a theme. Rob: As of today, yes. That may change soon though. Topher: Watch this space. Rob: That’s all I’ll say. Topher: Okay. So now we know who it’s for. I’m assuming there’s a website for it. What is it? Rob: Yeah. If you go to WPrig.io, we have a homepage that shows you all the features that are there in WP Rig. And then there’s a whole documentation area that helps people get up and running with WP Rig because there is a small learning curve there that’s pretty palatable for anybody who’s familiar with modern development workflows. So that is a thing. So the type of person that this is designed for anybody that wants to make a theme for anything. Let’s say you’re a big agency and you pull in a big client and that client wants something extremely custom and they come to you with Figma designs. Sure, you could go out there and find some premium theme and try to like child theme and overhaul that if you want. But in many situations, I would say in most situations, if you’re working from a Figma design that’s not based off of another theme already that’s just kind of somebody else’s brainchild, then you’re probably going to want to start from scratch. And so the idea here is that this is something to replace an approach, like underscores an approach. Actually, WP Pig was based off of underscores. The whole concept of it, as Morton explained it to me, was that he wanted to build an underscores that was more modern and full-featured from a development standpoint. Topher: Does it have any opinions about Gutenberg? Rob: It does now, but it did not when I took it over because Gutenberg did not exist yet when I took over WP Rig. Topher: Okay. What are its opinions? Rob: Yeah, sure. The opinion right out of the gate is that you can use Gutenberg as an editor and it has support like CSS rules in it for the standard blocks. So you should be able to use regular Gutenberg blocks in your theme and they should look just fine. There’s no resets in there. It doesn’t start from scratch. There’s not a bunch of styling you have to do for the blocks necessarily. Now, if you go to the full site editing or block-based mentality here, there are some things you need to do in WP Rig to convert the out-of-the-box WP Rig into another paradigm essentially. Right when you pull WP Rig, the assumption is you’re building what most people would refer to as a hybrid theme. The theme supports API or whatever, and the assumption is that you’re not going to be using the site editor. You’re just going to kind of do traditional WordPress, but you might be using Gutenberg for your content. So you’re just using Gutenberg kind of to author your pages and your posts and stuff like that, but not necessarily the whole site. WP Rig has the ability to kind of transform itself into other paradigms. So the first paradigm we built out was the universal theme approach. And the idea there is that you get a combination of the full site editing capabilities. But then you also have the traditional menu manager and the settings customizer framework or whatever is still there, right? These are things that don’t exist in a standard block-based theme. So I guess an easy example would be like the 2025 WordPress theme that comes right out of the box. It comes installed in WordPress. That is a true block-based theme, not a universal theme. So it doesn’t have those features because the assumption there is that it doesn’t need those features. You can kind of transform WP Rig into a universal theme that’s kind of a hybrid between a block-based and a classic theme. And then it can also transform into a strictly block-based theme as well. So following the same architecture as like the WordPress 2025 theme or Ollie or something like that is also a true block-based theme as well. So you can easily convert or transform the starting point of WP Rig into either of those paradigms if that’s the type of theme you’re setting out to build. Topher: Okay. That sounds super flexible. How much work is it to do that? Rob: It’s like one command line. Previously we had some tutorials on the website that showed you step-by-step, like what you needed to change about the theme to do that. You would have to add some files, delete some files, edit some code, add some theme supports into the base support class and some other stuff. I have recently, as of like a year and a half ago or a year ago, created a command line or a command that you can type into the command line that basically does that entire conversion process for you in like the blink of an eye. It takes probably a second to a second and a half to perform those changes to the code and then you’re good to go. It is best to do that conversion before you start building out your whole theme. It’s not impossible to do it after. But you’re more likely to run into problems or conflicts if you’ve already set out building your whole theme under one paradigm, and then you decide how the project you want to switch over to block-based or whatever. You’re likely to run into the need to refactor a bunch of stuff in that situation. So it is ideal to make that choice extremely early on in the process of developing your theme. But either way it’ll still work. That’s just one of the many tools that exist in WP Rig to transform it or convert it in several ways. That’s just one example. There are other examples of ways that Rig kind of converts itself to other paradigms as well. Topher: Yeah. All right. In my development life, I’ve had two parts to it. And one is the weekend hobbyist, or I download cadence and I whip something up in 20 minutes because I just want to experiment and the other is agency life where everything’s in Git, things are compiled, there are versions, blah, blah, blah. This sounds very friendly to that more professional pathway. Rob: Absolutely. Yes. Or, I mean, there’s another situation here too. If you’re a company who develops themes and publishes them to a platform like ThemeForest or any other platform, perhaps you’re selling themes on your own website, whatever, if you’re making things for sale, there’s no reason you couldn’t use WP Rig to build your themes. We have a bundle process that bundles your theme for publication or publishing. Whether you’re an agency or whether you’re putting your theme out for sale, it doesn’t matter, during that bundle process, it does actually white label the entire code base to where there’s no mention of WP Rig in the code whatsoever. Let’s say you were to build a theme that you wanted to put up for sale because you have some cool ideas. Say, page transitions now are completely supported in all modern or in most modern browsers. And when I say print page transitions, for those that are in the know, I am talking about not single page app page transitions, but through website page transitions. You can now do that. Let’s say you were like, “Hey, I’m feeling ambitious and I want to put out some new theme that comes with these page transitions built in,” and that’s going to be fancy on ThemeForest when people look at my demo, people might want to buy that. You could totally use WP Rig to build that out into a theme and the bundle process will white label all of the code. And then when people buy your theme and download that code, if they’re starting to go through and look through your code, they’re not going to have any way of knowing that it was built with WP Rig unless they’re familiar with the base WP Rig architecture, like how it does its object-oriented programming. It might be familiar with the patterns that it’s using and be able to kind of discern like, okay, well, this is the same pattern WP Rig uses, so high likelihood it was built with WP Rig. But they’re not going to be able to know by reading through the code. It’s not going to say WP Rig everywhere. It’s going to have the theme all over the place in the code. Topher: Okay. So then is that still WP Rig code? It just changed its labels? Rob: Yeah. Topher: So, it’s not like you’re exporting HTML, CSS and JavaScript? The underlying Rig framework is still there. Rob: Yeah. During the bundle process, it is bundling CSS and HTML. Well, HTML in the case of a block-based theme. But, yeah, it is bundling your PHP, your CSS, your JavaScript into the theme that you’re going to let people download when they buy it, or that you’re going to ship to your whatever client’s website. But all that code is going to be transpiled. In the case of CSS and JavaScript, there’s only going to be minified versions of that code in that theme. The source code is not actually going to be in there. Topher: This sounds pretty cool. You mentioned some stuff might be coming. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but do you have a timeline? When should we be watching for the next cool thing from Rig? Rob: Okay, cool. Well, I’m going to keep iterating on Rig forever. Regardless of any future products that might be built on WP Rig, WP Rig will always and forever remain an open source product for anybody to use for free and we, I, and possibly others in the future will continue to update it and support it over time. We just recently put out 3.1. You could expect the 3.2 anytime in the next six months to a year, probably closer to six months. One feature I’m looking at particularly closely right now is the new stuff coming out in version 6.9 of WordPress around the various APIs that are there. I think one of them is called the form… There’s a field API and a form API or view API or something like that. So WP Rig comes with a React-based settings framework in it. So if you want your theme to have a bunch of settings in it to make it flexible for whoever buys your theme, you can use this settings framework to easily create a bunch of fields, and then that framework will automatically manage all your fields and store all the data from those fields and make it easy to retrieve the values of the input on those fields, without knowing any React at all. Now, if you know React, you can go in there and, you know, embellish what’s already there, but it takes a JSON approach. So if you just understand JSON, you can go in and change the JSON for the framework, and that will automatically add fields into the settings framework. So you don’t even have to know React to extend the settings page if you want. That will likely get an overhaul using these new APIs being introduced into Rig. Topher: All right. How often have you run into something where, “Oh, look, WordPress has a new feature, I need to rebuild my system”? Rob: Over the last four or five years, it’s happened a lot because, yeah, I mean, like I said, when I first took this thing over, Gutenberg had not even been introduced yet. So, you had the introduction of Gutenberg and blocks. That was one thing. Then this whole full site editing became a thing, which later became the site editor. So that became a whole thing. Then all these various APIs. I mean, it happens quite frequently. So I’ve been working to keep it modern and up to date over the past four years and it’s been an incredible learning experience. It not only keeps my WordPress knowledge extremely sharp, but I’ve also learned how various other toolkits are built. That’s been the interesting thing. From a development standpoint, there’s two challenges here. One of the challenges is staying modern on the WordPress side of things. For instance, WordPress coding standards came out with a version 3 and then a version 3.1 about two years ago. I had to update WP Rig to leverage those modern coding standards. So that’s one example is as WordPress changes, the code in WP Rig also needs to change. Or for instance, if new CSS standards change, right, new CSS properties come out, it is ideal for the base CSS in WP Rig, meaning the CSS that you get right out of the box with it, comes with some of these, for instance, CSS grid, Flexbox, stuff like that. If I was adopting a theme framework to build a theme on, I would expect some of that stuff to be in there. And those things were extremely new when I first took over WP Rig and were not all baked in there essentially. So I’ve had to add a lot of that over time. Now there’s another side to this, which is not just keeping up with WordPress and CSS and PHP, 8. whatever, yada yada yada. You’ve also got the toolkit. There are various node packages and composer packages of power WP Rig and the process in which it does the transpiling, the bundling, the automated manipulation of your code during various aspects of the usage of WP Rig is a whole nother set of challenges because now you have to learn concepts like, well, how do I write custom node scripts? Right? Like there were no WP CLI commands built into WP Rig when I first took it over. Now there’s a whole list. There’s a whole library of WP CLI commands that come in Rig right out of the gate. And so I’ve had to learn about that. So just various things that come with knowing how do you automate the process of converting code, that’s something that was completely foreign to me when I first took over WP Rig. That’s been another incredible learning experience is understanding like what’s the difference between Webpack and Gulp. I didn’t know, right? I would tell people I’m using Gulp and WP Rig and they would be like, “Well, why don’t you just use Webpack?” and I would say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what the difference is.” So over time I could figure out what are the differences? Why aren’t we using Webpack? And I’m glad I spent some time on that because it turns out Webpack is not the hottest thing anymore, so I just skipped right over all that. When I overhauled for version 3, we’re now not using Gulp anymore as of 3.1. We’re now using more of a Vite-like process, far more modern than Webpack and far better and faster and sleeker and lighter. I had to learn a bunch about what powers Vite. What is Vite doing under the hood that we might be able to also do in WP Rig, but do it in a WordPress way. Because Vite is a SaaS tool. If you’re building a SaaS, like React with a… we’re not a SaaS. I guess a spa is a better term to use here. If you’re building a single page application with React or view or belt or whatever, right, then knowing what Vite is and just using Vite right out of the box is perfect. But it doesn’t translate perfectly to WordPress land because WordPress has its own opinions. And so I did have to do some dissecting there and figure out what to keep and what to not keep to what to kind of set aside so that WordPress can keep doing what WordPress does the way WordPress likes to do it, but also improve on how we’re doing some of the compiling and transpiling and the manipulation of the code during these various. Topher: All right. I want to pivot a little bit to some personal-ish questions. Rob: Okay. Topher: This is a big project. I’m sure it takes up plenty of your time. How scalable is that in your life? Do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Rob: That’s a fantastic question. I don’t know about the rest of my life. I mean, I definitely want to do web development for the rest of my life because the web has, let’s be honest, it’s transformed everyone’s way of life, whether you’re a web developer or not. You know, the fact that we have the internet in our pocket now, you know, it has changed everything. Apps, everything. It’s all built on the web. So I certainly want to be involved in the web the rest of my life. Do I want to keep doing WordPress the rest of my life? I don’t know. Do I want to keep doing WP Rig the rest of my life? I don’t know. But I will say that you bring up a very interesting point, which is it does take up a lot of time and also trust in open source over the past four or five years I would argue has diminished a little bit as a result of various events that have occurred over the past two or three years. I mean, we could cite the whole WP Engine Matt Mullerwig thing. We can also cite what’s going on with Oracle and JavaScript. Well, I mean, there’s many examples of this. I mean, we can cite the whole thing that happened… I mean, there’s various packages out there that are used and developed and open source to anybody, and some of them are going on maintained and it’s causing security vulnerabilities and degradation and all this stuff. So it’s a very important point. One thing I started thinking about after considering that in relation to WP Rig was I noticed that there’s usually a for-profit arm of any of these frameworks that seems to extend the lifespan of it. Let’s just talk about React, for example, React is an open source JavaScript framework, but it’s used by Facebook and Facebook is extremely for-profit. So companies that are making infrastructural or architectural decisions, they will base their choice on whether or not to use a framework largely on how long they think this framework is going to remain relevant or valid or maintained, right? A large part of that is, well, is there a company making money off of this thing? Because if there is, the chances- Topher: They’re going to keep doing that. Rob: They’re going to keep doing it. It’s going to stay around. That’s good. I think that’s healthy. A lot of people that like open source and want everything to be free, they might look at something like that and say like, well, I don’t want you to make a paid version of it or there shouldn’t be a pro version. I think that’s a very short-sighted way of looking at that software and these innovations. I think a more experienced way of looking at it is if you want something to remain relevant and maintained for a long period of time, having a for-profit way in which it’s leveraged is a very good thing. I mean, let’s be real. Would WordPress still be what it is today if there wasn’t a wordpress.com or if WooCommerce wasn’t owned by Automattic or whatever, right? They’ll be on top. I mean, it’s obviously impossible to say, but my argument would be, probably not. I mean, look at what’s happened to the other content management systems out there. You know, Joomla Drupal. They don’t really have a flourishing, you know, paid pro service that goes with their thing that’s very popular, at least definitely not as popular as WordPress.com or WordPress VIP or some of these other things that exist out there. And so having something that’s making and generating money that can then contribute back into it the way Automattic has been doing with WordPress over these years has, in my opinion, been instrumental. I mean, people can talk smack about Gutenberg all they want, but let’s be real, it’s 2025, would you still feel that WordPress is an elegant solution if we were still working from the WYSIWYG and using the classic editor? And I know a lot of people are still using the classic editor and there’s classic for us, the fork and all that stuff. But I mean, that only makes sense in a very specific implementation of WordPress, a very specific paradigm. If you want to explore any of these other paradigms out there, that way of thinking about WordPress kind of falls apart pretty quickly. I, for one, am happy that Gutenberg exists. I’m very happy that Automattic continues. And I’m grateful, actually, that Automattic continues to contribute back into WordPress. And not just them, obviously there’s other companies, XWP, 10Up, all these other companies are also contributing as well. But I’m very grateful that this ecosystem exists and that there’s contribution going back in and it’s happening from companies that are making money with this. And I think that’s vital. All that to say that WP Rig may and likely will have paid products in the future that leverage WP Rig. So that’s not to say that WP Rig will eventually cost money. That’s just to say that eventually people can expect other products to come out in the future that will be built on WP Rig and incentivize the continued contributions back into WP Rig. The open source version of WP Rig. Topher: That’s cool. I think that’s wise. If you want anything to stay alive, you have to feed it. Rob: That’s right. Topher: I had some more questions but I had forgotten them because I got caught up in your answer. Rob: Oh, thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. I mean, my answer was eloquent. But I’m happy to expand on anything, know you, WordPress related, me related, you know, whether it comes to the ecosystem in WordPress, the whole WordCamp meetup thing is very interesting. I led the WP Omaha meetup for many years here in Omaha, Nebraska and I also led the WordCamp, the organizing of WordCamp here in Omaha for several years as well. That whole community, the whole ecosystem, at least in America seems to have largely fallen apart. I don’t know if you want to talk about that at all. But yeah, I’m ready to dive into any topics. Topher: I’m going to have one more question and then we’re going to wrap up. And it was that you were talking about all the things you had to learn. I’m sure there were nights where you were looking at your computer thinking, “Oh man, I had it working, now I gotta go learn a new thing.” I would love for you to go back in time and blog all of that if you would. But given that you can’t, I would be interested in a blog moving forward, documenting what you’re learning, how you’re learning it and starting maybe with a post that’s summarizes all of that. Obviously, that’s up to you and how you want to spend your time, but I think it’d be really valuable to other people starting a project, picking up somebody else’s project to see what the roadmap might look like. You know what I mean? Rob: For sure. Well, I can briefly summarize what I’ve learned over the years and where I’m at today with how I do this kind of stuff. I will say that a lot of the improvements to WP Rig that have happened over the last year or two would not be possible without the advent of AI. Topher: Interesting. Rob: That’s a fancy way of saying that I have been by coding a lot of WP Rig lately. If you know how to use AI, it is extremely powerful and it can help you do many things very quickly that previously would have taken much longer or more manpower. So, yeah, perhaps if there was like five, six, seven people actively, excuse me, actively contributing to WP Rig, then this type of stuff would have been possible previously, but that’s not the case. There is one person, well, one main contributor to WP Rig today and you’re talking to them. There are a handful of other people that have been likely contributing to WP Rig over the versions and you can find their contributions in the change log file in WP Rig. But those contributions have been extremely light compared to what I’ve been doing. I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without AI. I have learned my ability to learn things extremely rapidly has ramped up tenfold since I started learning how to properly leverage LLMs and AI. So that’s not to say that like, you know, WP Rig, all the code is just being completely written by AI and I’m just like. make it better, enter, and then like WP Rig is better. I wish it was that easy. It’s certainly not that. But when I needed to start asking some of these vital questions that I really didn’t have anyone to turn to to help answer them, I was able to turn to AI. For instance, let’s go back to the Webpack versus Gulp situation. Although Gulp is no longer used in WP Rig, you know, it was used in WP Rig until very recently. So I had to understand like, what is this system, how does it work, how do I extend it and how do I update it and all these things, right? And why aren’t we using WebPack and you know, is there validity to this criticism behind you should use webpack instead of Gulp or whatever, right? I was able to use AI to ask these questions and be able to get extremely good answers out of it and give me the direction I needed to make some of these kind of higher level decisions on like architecturally where should WP Rig go? It was through these virtual conversations with LLMs that I was able to refine the direction of WP Rig in a direction that is both modern and forward-thinking and architecturally sound. I learned a tremendous amount from AI about the architecture, about the code, about all of it. My advice to anybody that wants to extend their skill set a little bit in the development side of things is to leverage this new thing that we have in a way that is as productive as possible for you. So that’s going to vary from person to person. But for me, if I’m on a flight or if I’m stuck somewhere for a while, like, let’s say I got to take my kid to practice or something and I’m stuck there for an hour and I got to find some way to kill my time 9 times out of 10, I’m on my laptop or on my phone having conversations with Grok or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever. I am literally refining… I’m just sitting there asking it questions that are on my mind that I wish I could ask somebody who’s like 10 times more capable than me. It has been instrumental. WP Rig wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for that. I would just say to anybody, especially now that it’s all on apps and you don’t have to be on a browser anymore, adopt that way of thinking. You know, if you’re on your lunch break or whatever and you have an hour lunch break and you only take 15 minutes to eat, what could you be doing with those other 45 minutes? You could just jump on this magical thing that we have now and start probing it for questions. Like, Hey, here’s what I know. Here’s what I don’t know. Fill these knowledge gaps for me.” And it is extremely good at doing that. Topher: So my question was, can you blog this and your answer told me that there’s more there that I want to hear. That’s the stuff that should be in your book when you write your book. Rob: I’m flattered that you would be interested in reading anything that I write. So thank you. I’ve written stuff in the past and it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. But I also don’t have any platforms to market it either. But yeah, no, I made some… I’m sorry. Topher: I think your experience is valuable far beyond Rig or WordPress. If you abstract it out of a particular project to say, you know, I did this with a project, I learned this this way, I think that would be super valuable. Rob: Well, I will say that recently at my current job, I was challenged to create an end to end testing framework with Playwright that would speed up how long it takes to test things and also prevent, you know, to make things fail earlier, essentially, to prevent broken things from ending up in the wild, right, and having to catch them the hard way. I didn’t know a lot about Playwright, but I do know how toolkits work now because of WP Rig. And I was able to successfully in a matter of, I don’t know, three days, put together a starter kit for a test framework that we’re already using at work to test any website that we create for any client. It can be extended and it can be hooked into any CI CD pipeline and it generates reports for you and it does a whole bunch of stuff. I was able to do this relatively quickly. This knowledge, yes, does come in handy in other situations. Will I end up developing other toolkits like WP Rig in the future for other things? I guess if I can give any advice to anybody listening out there, another piece of advice I would give people is, you know, especially if you’re a junior developer and you’re still learning or whatever, or you’re just a marketing person and just want to have more control over the functionality side of what you’re creating or more insight into that so you could better, you know, manage projects or whatever. My advice would be to take on a small little project that is scoped relatively small that’s not too much for you to chew and go build something and do it with… Just doing that will be good. But if you can do it with the intent to then present it in some fashion, whether it be a blog article or creating a YouTube video or going to a meetup and giving a talk on it or even a lunch and learn at work or whatever, right, that will, in my experience, it will dramatically amplify how much you learn from that little pet project that’s kind of like a mini learning experience. And I highly encourage anybody out there to do that on the regular. Actually, no matter what your experience level is in development, I think you should do these things on a regular basis. Topher: All right. I’m going to wrap this up. I got to get back to work. You probably have to get back to work. Rob: Yeah. Topher: Thanks for talking. Rob: Thanks for having me, Topher. Really appreciate it. Topher: Where could people find you? WPrig.io?  Rob: Yeah, WPrig.io. WP rig has accounts on all of the major platforms and, even on Bluesky and Mastodon. You can look me up, Rob Ruiz. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on all of those same platforms as well. You can add me on Facebook if you want, whatever. And I’m also in the WordPress Slack as well as Rob Ruiz. You can find me in the WordPress Slack. And then I’m on the WordPress Reddit and all that stuff. So yeah, reach out. If anybody wants to have any questions about Rig or anything else, I’m happy to engage.  Topher: Sounds good. All right, I’ll see you. Rob: All right, thanks, Topher. Have a good day. Topher: This has been an episode of the Hallway Chats podcast. I’m your host Topher DeRosia. Many thanks to our sponsor Nexcess. If you’d like to hear more Hallway Chats, please let us know on hallwaychats.com.