On the menu today: Our David Bahnsen will keep you covered on the administration’s swing to the hard left on economic policy; and our Andrew Stuttaford is closely watching the Justice Department’s decision to serve the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, and the defiant response from Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Andrew warns, “The problem with attacking the Fed’s independence (or even to be perceived as attacking the Fed’s independence) is that it increases investors’ concern about the degree to which the value of the money they lend the U.S. (through buying treasuries) will be eaten away by inflation.”

But hey, when’s the last time inflation ruined a presidency, right?

This morning, we turn our attention to Iran.

The Plight of the Iranian People

The Iranian mullahs have run their country’s economy into the ground, and their currency is crashing. The long-suffering Iranian people are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. And the regime in Tehran is responding in the way they’ve responded to any challenge to their authority since 1979 — shooting at people who can’t shoot back.

IranWire: “Human Rights Activists in Iran, a U.S.-based group, said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested. If confirmed, the death toll would make the current uprising one of Iran’s deadliest crackdowns in recent years.”

Other estimates of those slain are significantly higher:

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced that the death toll from the nationwide uprising, which began on December 28, 2025, has surpassed 3,000 as of January 11, 2026. The figures are based on investigations drawing on local sources, hospitals, forensic medicine centers, and the families of those killed or disappeared across 195 cities. The Iranian regime was forced to display some of the bodies on state television, falsely attributing the killings to its opponents and to protesters.

I began this morning by wondering what American citizens can do to help the protesters in Iran. Impact Iran is a coalition of 19 international nonprofits that aim to help the Iranian people and promote human rights. Iran Alive Ministries attempts to help the besieged Christian communities in Iran and is rated 84 percent on CharityNavigator. (About 2 million Iranians identify as Christian.)

Up until last year, the U.S. State Department provided financial support to organizations that provide free virtual private network (VPN) technology to Iranians, allowing circumvention of the Tehran regime’s censorship efforts. At least one organization, NetFreedomPioneers, is continuing the effort, as well as sending Starlink portable kits, and is asking for private donations. (Starlink kits are banned in Iran, punishable by six months to two years in prison, so the devices need to be smuggled in.)

With that said, it appears that the Iranians have figured out a way to jam Starlink, perhaps using advanced technology supplied by one of our other geopolitical rivals:

Despite reports that tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran, the blackout has also reached satellite connections. Internet researcher Amir Rashidi told IranWire that as nationwide protests began, military-grade jamming signals were detected targeting Starlink satellites. According to him, about 30 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic was disrupted in the early hours, rising to more than 80 per cent by around 10 PM local time.

Rashidi said this kind of interference – caused by military equipment known as jammers – had never been witnessed in his 20 years of research. He added that the technology involved is highly sophisticated and military-grade, and was likely supplied to the government by Russia or China, if not developed domestically.

In the past I’ve argued that Elon Musk has something of a blind spot when it comes to China, or at least he’s been willing to toe the line that Beijing wants in order to keep his Tesla “gigafactory” in Shanghai running smoothly. I wonder how Musk feels, watching someone — perhaps Beijing, perhaps Moscow — help the Iranians counter the good work he and his team have done to keep Iranians connected to the rest of the world.

President Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One Sunday night:

Q: Sir, on Iran, have they crossed your red line yet to a trigger response?

Trump: They’re starting to, it looks like, and there seem to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed. These are violent, if you call them leaders, I don’t know if they’re leaders or just they, they rule through violence. But we’re looking at it very seriously. The military’s looking at it. And, uh, we’re looking at some very strong options. We’ll make a determination.

I mean, some of the protestors were killed through the stampeding. I mean, you know, there’s so many of them. And some were shot. We’re getting a full report. I’m getting an hourly report and we’re gonna make a determination.

The question is whether a U.S. strike against Iranian regime targets would spur any rally-around-the-flag effect in the Iranian populace, or whether the regime could use the attacks to discredit the protesters.

If the U.S. wanted to target the parts of the regime that are most directly attacking the protesters, it would likely be locations of the Basij militia, or the “The Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz’afin” (“The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed”). The Basij militia are part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps:

Basij’s involvement in countering major protests in Iran began in the early 21st century, including the fuel price protests in 2019 and the Mahsa Amini protests in 2022. The government uses them as a hardline tool to violently control crowds.

Using a vast network of informants, the Basij gathers intelligence on local levels. Their common targets are student groups, opposition groups, intellectuals, and anyone perceived as a threat to the regime. They also act as morality police enforcing the wearing of the hijab, arresting people for violating dress codes, confiscating satellite dishes and harassing government critics.

Human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International, regularly criticize the Basij for extreme violence against protestors and unjustified arrests and detentions. The Basij regularly abuse detainees, including using physical and psychological torture to extract forced confessions.

According to open-source intelligence from Treadstone71:

The Tharallah Central Security Headquarters acts as the IRGC’s elite domestic security command.

27th Mohammad Rasoul Allah Division (Tehran) — A mechanized and urban combat division. Formed during the war, now specializes in riot control, rapid deployment inside Greater Tehran, and crowd suppression.

20th Ramazan Armored Brigade (Hassanabad, S. Tehran) — An armored brigade with T-72 tanks and BMPs for deterrent power. Located at the capital’s southern perimeter.

The 27th Division is based near Pasdaran Avenue and has long been tied to the Vali Asr Garrison in north-central Tehran. Satellite imagery confirms an active motor pool, hardened vehicle depots, and regular nighttime movement patterns consistent with riot drill deployments. The 20th Brigade is located near Hassanabad, clearly visible via military polygon footprints on Google Earth, with wide training grounds and blast walls. Imagery shows staging areas for APCs and tanks, as well as regular movement between the base and south Tehran.

The weather forecast for these locations in the coming nights is cloudy with a chance of Tomahawk missiles.

The current commander of the Basij forces is Gholamreza Soleimani, who is not related to former Quds Force commander and current Baghdad International Airport access road speed bump Qasem Soleimani.

Trump also addressed the issue of restoring internet access to the Iranians:

Q: Are you going to set Starlink to Iran, sir, to help the people in the ground with the internet blackout for 70, more than 72 hours?

Trump: We’re going to be talking about that. We may get the internet going, if that’s possible.

Q: Are you talking to Musk about it?

Trump: We may speak to Elon, because as you know, he’s very good at that kind of thing. He’s got a very good company, so we may speak to Elon Musk. And, uh, in fact, I’m gonna call him as soon as I’m finished with you.

Why We Need Voice of America Beaming into Iran

The need to get information into and out of Iran, against the wishes of the regime, is one of the reasons we want to keep having a Persian-language Voice of America beaming its signals into Iran. The Trump administration shut it down in March, then restarted it in June.

Restarting it was a wise choice. As Israel and Iran clashed in June 2025, “Iranians surged to RFE/RL’s Persian-language Service, Radio Farda, for responsible news and information. Since Friday, Farda’s extremely popular Instagram profile attracted 62.5 million video views, a spike of 344 percent, and traffic to its website rose by 77 percent compared to its 30-day average. Farda is increasing its coverage to include ten-minute audio news bulletins at the top of the hour 24/7 to meet the needs of our audiences. Even before the war began, more than 6.6 million Iranians, ten percent of the adult population, accessed Farda each week to get news that was not produced by the state-controlled propaganda networks.”

Voice of America Persia costs a little under $20 million per year, or less than half of this year’s base annual salary of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, not counting his prorated $80 million signing bonus. There are people who will argue that the U.S. government cannot afford to continue to pay the $20 million  — with an “M” — for Voice of America Persia because the national debt is too high, while refusing to make any changes to entitlement programs, which will cost $4.26 trillion — with a “TR.” This is like trying to lose weight by eliminating the use of breath mints while continuing to eat extra-large meat-lovers pizzas and milkshakes at every meal.

The United States is best served by having institutions that can communicate the truths that hostile regimes want to cover up and deny.

Most of the funding for the VPN programs mentioned above comes via the U.S. State Department’s Near East Regional Democracy fund, created in 2008. (The mission of undermining the Iranian mullahs’ grip on power is supremely important, which means the government office in charge of that duty deserves a better acronym than “NERD.”)

In fiscal year 2025 — covering October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025 — Congress allocated $55 million for the Near East Regional Democracy fund. According to the Century Foundation, the State Department has not specified how that money was spent:

While the administration has shared these numbers along with their stated intent to allocate $6.5 billion in unspent funding allocated by Congress, the plan for allocating these funds has not been detailed. Even after the conclusion of fiscal year 2025, it is unclear how these funds were obligated, and to where, or the timeline for spending these funds.

The U.S. taxpayers and Congress have every right to know where every penny has been spent.

ADDENDUM: I notice some celebrities at the Golden Globes last night wore “ICE out” pins. Not much said about the Iranian people standing up for their rights against an oppressive regime.