Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 1/31

[SVPete]

NEW: Federal Judge Tosses Minnesota Lawsuit to Stop Immigration Enforcement Surge

https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2026/01/31/new-federal-judge-tosses-minnesota-lawsuit-to-stop-immigration-enforcement-surge-n3811431

The outcome should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, on which Minnesota AG Keith Ellison relied for his lawsuit. What may come as a surprise is that not even the normally sympathetic federal judge hearing the case would swallow it.

Judge Katherine Menendez, a Biden-appointed jurist whose recent stay on ICE operations got sharply overturned by the Eighth Circuit, threw in the towel early this time. She ruled that Minnesota couldn't make its case for judicial intervention to stop Operation Metro Surge, the Homeland Security effort to find violent illegal-alien criminals released by state and local authorities into the Twin Cities:

[SVPete]

‘Melania’ Movie Humiliates Critics and Media Naysayers with Historic Box Office

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/01/31/melania-movie-humiliates-critics-and-media-naysayers-with-historic-box-office-n4948955

The legacy media must be devastated. Melania just had a huge box-office opening for a documentary, despite all the efforts to destroy the film before its release.

Deadline reports that Melania will finish the weekend in third place, with an $8 million opening.

Coming in at third is Amazon MGM Studios’ Brett Ratner-directed documentary Melania, which is eyeing $2.85M today (no previews) for an $8M opening in third place — that result would mark the best start for a docu in the last decade (beating Angel Studios’ 2023 doc After Death, which opened to $5M and finaled at $11.5M stateside). I’m hearing sales are gaining, with Florida and Texas quite large, for the First Lady’s big-screen debut.

[SVPete]

Whoopi: ‘Do Something About’ Trump Before He Can ‘Steal the Election’

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/02/03/whoopi-do-something-about-trump-he-can-steal-election

ABC News moderator Whoopi Goldberg issued a call to action against President Trump during Tuesday’s episode of The View. She called on Americans to “do something about” Trump before he got the chance to “steal the election” in November. Instead of pushing back, Goldberg received aid in the form of co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin pushing their own claims that the midterm election results couldn’t be trusted if Democrats came up short.

Goldberg’s call to action came in response to Hostin repeating an unsupported accusation she made on Friday, when she asserted that Trump was trying to get ahold of voters’ Social Security Numbers as part of a plot to steal the 2026 midterms:

Barron's Box-Office Bomb Prediction Blows Up in Face as 'Melania' Outperforms Expectations

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2026/02/03/barrons-box-office-bomb-prediction-blows-face-melania-outperforms

You might not want to rely on investment advice from the weekly financial and investment magazine Barron’s, judging by its bad market call regarding the expected opening week take of the Melania Trump documentary, which opened on Friday: “The Melania Movie Looks Like a Box-Office Flop. What It Means for Amazon.”

Reporter George Glover tried to project what Melania's expected box office failure might mean for Amazon.com, which paid to distribute and market the doc from director Brett Ratner. But the purported failure chain fell apart when Melania’s opening week busted box-office expectations (which ranged from $3-$5 million) by raking in an estimated $8.1 million, a huge opening for a non-concert documentary, attracting older conservative women despite wicked reviews.

An "investments" magazine that bases its advice on its partisan views cannot be trusted.