Some states have let unqualified foreign drivers on the road and Americans pay the price

Once again, America is mourning because our commercial driver’s licensing (CDL) system failed.

Federal authorities say a Kyrgyz national behind the wheel of a semitruck crossed into oncoming traffic in Jay County, Indiana, killing four people and injuring several others. ICE has since arrested the driver. But for the families of those lost, enforcement after the fact is cold comfort.

Operating an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle is not a right. It’s a responsibility. And when that responsibility is handed to someone who is not properly vetted nor qualified to operate it, the results can be catastrophic.

The state of Pennsylvania issued this truck driver a non-domiciled CDL, a credential given to someone who is legally allowed to work in the U.S. but doesn’t permanently live in the state issuing the license — often foreign nationals working under temporary U.S. work authorization. But they must meet the same rigorous federal standards as all CDLs.

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Federal audits have repeatedly shown that some states are cutting corners. Weak oversight and poor enforcement have allowed unqualified drivers to slip through the cracks and onto America’s highways, putting law-abiding motorists and professional truck drivers at risk.

We’ve seen the consequences before. Last summer in Florida, a driver who was in the country illegally killed three people after making an illegal U-turn on the busy Florida Turnpike. That driver had failed his commercial driver’s test 10 times yet still held a CDL, rightfully triggering the need for enhanced state review and federal legislation to create new safeguards around how CDLs are issued. 

Investigations have exposed glaring systemic failures in states like California, where audits found a staggering share of non-domiciled CDLs were issued in ways that failed to comply with federal safety and immigration standards, including instances tied to a fatal Ontario, Calif., highway crash in October that claimed three lives.

Professional truck drivers endure intensive training, strict drug and alcohol testing, English proficiency requirements, and continuous oversight. These are core safety protocols designed to protect everyone on our roads. When it comes to highway safety, rules and regulations only matter if they’re enforced.

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Allowing individuals who do not meet these standards to operate big rigs is not just irresponsible. It’s outright dangerous, and the preventable crashes in Florida and California, and now this latest crash in Indiana are stark reminders of what can — and does — go wrong.

The Trump administration deserves credit for stepping in where states failed. Under President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, the federal government has tightened oversight of non-domiciled CDLs, expanded audits of state licensing agencies and held states accountable when they fail to verify legal status, qualifications and basic safety requirements. But we can’t stop there. As I testified on Capitol Hill in January, Congress has an opportunity to take decisive action and build on the Department of Transportation’s ongoing efforts to restore nationwide uniformity, improve the integrity of driver vetting and credentialing, and rebuild public confidence in the safety and reliability of the commercial driving workforce.

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Too many families have already suffered unimaginable loss. We must not wait for the next tragic headline to drive reform. Ensuring every CDL holder is qualified is essential and states must be held accountable when they fail to uphold federal law.

America’s highways demand professionalism and accountability. Anything less is a disservice to the American people.

Cuba is approaching its Berlin Wall moment — America must help them break through

The brutal regime in Cuba is collapsing in real time. Its economy is in free fall, its people are starving, and its communist dictatorship is running out of money, fuel and legitimacy. After more than six decades of repression, the regime is weaker today than at any point in my lifetime — and I know that personally. I lived under it. I fled it. And today, I am the only Cuban-born member of the United States Congress.

This moment demands clarity and resolve from the United States. We are closer than ever to ending the tyranny in Havana, but only if we act decisively and refuse to repeat the failed policies of the past.

The situation on the island is dire by every measure. Cuba faces severe shortages of food, medicine, electricity and fuel. Hospitals lack basic supplies. Power outages last for days. Families ration meals and struggle simply to survive.

RUBIO SCHEDULED TO APPEAR BEFORE SENATE TO OUTLINE TRUMP’S VENEZUELA POLICY

Make no mistake: this crisis is solely the responsibility of the regime. It is the inevitable result of socialism, corruption and decades of catastrophic mismanagement by a cynical dictatorship that prioritizes regime survival over human dignity.

For years, the regime survived by exporting repression and importing lifelines — Venezuelan oil, remittances, tourism dollars and shoddy business deals that funneled hard currency directly into the hands of the military and intelligence services. Those lifelines are finally being cut off.

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s decisive leadership and the aggressive enforcement of U.S. law — championed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the regime is being hit where it hurts most: its ability to finance repression. Oil shipments are drying up. International partners are pulling back. Havana is running out of options.

That is exactly why this time is different.

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History teaches us that dictatorships do not reform when they are weak. They crack down harder. When faced with collapse, the Cuban regime does what it has always done: silence dissent, jail protesters, and search for new patrons abroad.

Increasingly, the Cuban regime’s new patron is Communist China.

Beijing has disturbingly expanded its intelligence and strategic footprint on the island, just 90 miles away from Florida, turning Cuba into a base of operations aimed directly at the United States. A collapsing dictatorship aligned with America’s greatest geopolitical adversary is not just a humanitarian tragedy — it is a serious national security threat.

The United States must not provide any lifeline to the Castro regime.

First, we must enforce existing law — fully and without exception. No licenses. No loopholes. No fake “humanitarian” carve-outs that enrich regime-controlled entities while ordinary Cubans see none of the benefit. President Obama pursued engagement. It failed — spectacularly.

Second, we must cut off any remaining financial flows that prop up the dictatorship, including remittances and travel mechanisms captured by the military’s business conglomerates. These funds do not empower the Cuban people; they empower their oppressors.

Sanctions do not hurt the Cuban people more than the regime already does. As history showed with South Africa, sustained pressure weakens dictatorships and accelerates FREEDOM.

Ronald Reagan once said that communism “is not a permanent condition. It will end because it is against human nature.” We saw that truth when the Berlin Wall fell — not because dictators suddenly reformed, but because FREEDOM proved much stronger than fear.

Cuba is approaching its Berlin Wall moment.

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I lost my homeland as a child. I was raised in Miami’s Cuban exile community — exceptional men and women who had everything stolen from them, yet built new lives in the greatest nation on Earth. We are deeply grateful to America, and unwavering in our belief that FREEDOM is worth fighting for. My community overwhelmingly backed President Trump because we know strength, not appeasement, is exactly what puts America First.

Finally, we must speak directly to the Cuban people: America stands with you — not with your jailers. Our goal is not chaos or suffering. It is FREEDOM.

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The communist regime is on its knees. This is not the time to blink. It’s time to finish the job — by enforcing the law, applying maximum pressure, and standing proudly on the side of FREEDOM.

President Trump, the time for a free Cuba is now.

CAROL ROTH: Trump is right to worry about interest rates — but there’s a price to pay

This administration was handed a fiscal mess, and with that a difficult path. Our debt/GDP is in the neighborhood of 120%, the level of an emerging market in crisis, held together by the U.S. dollar still being a major reserve currency and trade currency, as well as the importance and relative stability of our economy and financial markets.

Our government continues to run massive deficits — the type you might see during a recession or war, not during a time of GDP expansion. And we are now in a place where interest expense on our national debt exceeds our spending on defense. As historian Niall Ferguson’s eponymous Ferguson’s Law says, “Any great power that spends more on debt servicing than on defense risks ceasing to be a great power.”

Given that higher interest rates beget higher debt servicing costs, and that we have an increasing amount of debt to finance, as well as trillions of dollars in debt to refinance this year, President Donald Trump is right to be concerned about interest rates.

But there is no free lunch.

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While the Fed has lowered its target interest rates, that more directly relates to interest rates at the short end of the yield curve (that is, short-dated Treasury securities). The market controls the long end of the curve (that is, longer-dated Treasury securities, like the 10-, 20- and 30-year maturities). And we have seen that those yields stay stubbornly elevated.

Ultimately, there will likely need to be some form of yield curve control (measures that bring and hold down the longer-term bond yields). If we continue to see our interest expenses rise, that will drive a larger deficit. That means more debt financing, which will drive up yields, make interest more expensive again and create a debt spiral until the U.S. and global bond markets are thrown into turmoil.

But, as we have seen with Fed meddling and government overspending, there is a cost to Fed intervention. The price paid will likely continue to inflate assets (on a nominal basis). While we need this because the value of stocks and housing decreasing over a period of time would likely directly and indirectly lead to a decrease in government receipts (aka tax revenue), it has the same effect on increasing deficits and exploding the cost of debt. This, again, means that some action will be taken.

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This is also why the positioning of Fed Chair appointee Kevin Warsh as a hawk (one who prefers tighter Fed policy) vs. a dove (one who prefers looser monetary policy) doesn’t really matter. Our fiscal situation and basic math will force him and the Fed to intervene in markets and lower interest rates one way or another.

The price paid for holding our fiscal house together will likely be inflation. This will continue to erode the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar and drive a bigger wedge between the wealthy and the middle class in America.

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But intervention is only a temporary solution. It buys time, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

Unless government spending is reduced, not only through lowering interest expense, but across all categories, or growth is so massive that in either scenario the deficit is eliminated, the core problem doesn’t go away. It just gets held back for a short period of time and then we will be in the same situation again.

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Our government continues to run massive deficits — the type you might see during a recession or war, not during a time of GDP expansion. 

If you are familiar with Congress, there doesn’t seem to be any political will from either of the major political parties to spend within an actual budget.

So, yes, interest rates are a problem, as is government spending. Warsh will be forced to help, whether he likes it or not, and we will all pay a price.

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MARK HALPERIN: The real reason Trump keeps beating the media at its own game

There are many reasons why covering Donald Trump is the journalistic challenge of a lifetime.

His temperament. His velocity. His volume. The sheer fact that he can generate three news cycles before most reporters have finished their first cup of coffee.

But there is one explanation that is often overlooked, and it may be the most important of all: Donald Trump understands the business of news better than any modern president — better, in many cases, than the people who work in it.

That may sound surprising. It shouldn’t.

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Trump did not grow up in politically friendly territory. Things were different for him before he entered the campaign world as a Republican. As a businessman and then a reality TV star, Trump luxuriated in dishy and usually aggrandizing gossip items, including in the August columns of New York Post legend Cindy Adams. His friendly, bantering relations with the press helped turn him into a larger-than-life figure.

But that all changed when he joined the political fray. Like George W. Bush before him, Trump learned how the press really works in a hostile environment. He was never granted automatic goodwill. He was rarely given the benefit of the doubt. He had to study the system, test it, provoke it, and sometimes fight it just to survive.

So he learned.

And he learned well.

Trump treat the media it as a rival, a foil, a stage and a punching bag. He studies it like a brilliant Ph.D. student. He probes it like a boxer testing defenses.

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Other recent presidents — Democrats Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — operated in a media climate that, while not always gentle, was structurally sympathetic. They were criticized, yes. But they were also understood. Interpreted generously. Given time. Granted patience. Their mistakes were often softened by context and explanation.

Trump never had that luxury.

So long before he descended the escalator in 2015 — long before rallies, red hats and chants — he was paying attention. Watching. Noticing patterns. Studying how stories were framed. Who was treated as “serious.” Who was treated as “dangerous.” Which narratives stuck. Which faded. Which sins were forgiven. Which were never forgotten.

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And he reached some conclusions.

He saw, first, a cultural bias — not necessarily in every article or every reporter, but in the air newsrooms breathe. In assumptions about what is normal and what is radical. In who is presumed reasonable and who is presumed reckless. Conservatives, he concluded, were playing uphill — and tens of millions of Americans knew it. It made them angry.

He saw, second, elitism: newsrooms clustered in a handful of coastal cities; journalists with similar educations, similar friends and similar politics. The press spoke endlessly about “ordinary Americans” while growing more distant from them every year. It struggled to grasp why illegal immigration worried so many families or why trade deals felt like personal losses in factory towns.

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He saw, third, a broken business model: newspapers and networks that missed the digital revolution; revenues shrinking; newsrooms shrinking; panic setting in. A few outlets found lifelines. Most did not. Layoffs became routine. Survival became uncertain.

And from these three problems flowed the fourth: collapsing trust.

When audiences see bias, distance and desperation, confidence erodes. And once credibility is gone, it is almost impossible to restore.

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Here is the great irony:

When Trump began attacking the media for these flaws, he did not fix them. He intensified them.

His criticism put news organizations on the defensive. They closed ranks. They hardened. They became more ideological, more insular, more brittle. Every attack convinced them they must be doing something right. Often, it meant the opposite.

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Trump, meanwhile, turned his feud with the press into a permanent political weapon.

Before him, Republicans sometimes complained about coverage. But Trump transformed grievance into theater. He did not merely dispute stories. He made the media itself a character in his drama — the villain, always lurking, always scheming.

With humor. With ridicule. With exaggeration. With showmanship.

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And it worked.

It still works.

This was never accidental.

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Behind the scenes, Trump and his advisers learned the incentives of modern journalism. They know which outlets crave clicks. Which reporters thrive on conflict. Which controversies spread fastest. Which phrases become headlines. Which outrages travel farthest.

They understand the machinery.

They know how to trigger it. How to flood it. How to redirect it. How to exhaust it.

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They know that outrage is oxygen. That conflict is currency. That attention is power.

And they know their supporters love watching it all unfold.

Criticism becomes proof of persecution. Coverage becomes confirmation of importance. Attacks become fuel.

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Knowledge, in politics, is power. And Trump’s knowledge of the media has given him power — over the press and over his own movement.

He plays the system as it exists, not as journalists wish it were.

He understands that modern news is part information, part entertainment, part combat sport. He understands that narratives matter more than footnotes. That emotion beats nuance. That speed beats reflection.

BROADCAST BIAS: MEDIA CIRCLE THE WAGONS TO PROTECT THEIR ANTI-TRUMP REPORTING

So he moves fast. He moves loud. He moves relentlessly.

For reporters and news organizations, this is the real challenge:

Not simply covering what Trump says and does — but covering someone who understands their industry’s financial, cultural and psychological vulnerabilities and presses on them constantly.

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Every weakness becomes leverage. Every habit becomes a pressure point.

Trump is not just running against and competing against Democrats.

He is running against and competing against the media.

He treats it as a rival, a foil, a stage and a punching bag. He studies it like a brilliant Ph.D. student. He probes it like a boxer testing defenses.

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And he knows exactly where it is fragile and vulnerable.

In an age when trust is scarce and attention is priceless, that knowledge may be his greatest political asset.

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Better than any president in modern history — perhaps better than almost anyone in public life today — Donald Trump understands how the news business really works.

And he knows how to use that understanding to his advantage.

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AI raises the stakes for national security. Here’s how to get it right

Regulating advanced AI isn’t a game of checkers. It’s a game of chess.

Every move matters. You have to think several steps ahead. And if you focus only on the next play — or worse, react after the fact — you risk losing the long game.

Today, the United States finds itself at a turning point on AI, where real policy choices are being made. You can see it in the actions underway in both the states and Washington.

In recent months, leaders in both New York and California have passed landmark AI safety legislation. California’s SB 53 took effect on January 1, while New York’s RAISE Act was signed into law by Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in December and will take effect in 2027.

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Both states are moving toward approaches that align state and federal law — recognizing that a fragmented, state-by-state patchwork isn’t sustainable. Given their size and economic impact, these moves create a clear path forward for federal action while positioning New York and California to lead the nation into the AI era.

There’s a word for this kind of alignment between state and federal action: harmonization. The federal government sets one clear national standard for the most powerful AI systems — the issues that affect national security and the country as a whole. States continue to focus on the issues closest to people’s daily lives: consumer protection, civil rights and how AI is used in schools, workplaces and public services. Each level of government plays to its strengths.

Think of it as one rulebook with two clear roles and one urgent mission: ensuring the United States maintains its competitive advantage in a technology central to national security and global economic leadership. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said bluntly that whoever leads in AI will lead the world. The United States can’t afford to drift — or to divide itself — at this critical moment.

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That’s because AI leadership is increasingly an issue of national security — and national security requires prevention, not punishment after the fact.

When states act alone, they are often forced into a liability-only approach — holding companies accountable after harm has already occurred. Preventing the most serious risks requires access to the technical expertise and classified systems that only the federal government possesses.

That is why our North Star must remain clear: deploying frontier models safely and in a way that best positions the United States to maintain its innovation lead.

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That prevention-first approach already exists in practice. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation — created by the Biden administration and updated by the Trump administration — gives the federal government the ability to test and evaluate advanced AI systems before they are widely deployed. That kind of centralized testing is essential for managing risks that no single state or company can address on its own.

Without harmonization, AI companies would face a confusing patchwork of conflicting state requirements that slows innovation without improving public safety. With it, companies get clarity and consistency, the public gets stronger protections and states are given clear room to act where they add the most value.

Today, the United States finds itself at a turning point on AI, where real policy choices are being made. You can see it in the actions underway in both the states and Washington.

At the same time, states play a vital role, and the recent moves in New York and California show what that balance looks like in practice. By moving away from fragmented approaches and toward alignment, the two largest innovation economies in the country are helping create a de facto national standard that exists alongside, and not instead of, state action.

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This is what harmonization looks like in practice: Washington focuses on the highest-stakes safety issues, while states address kitchen-table ones. It is a third way forward — avoiding both unregulated acceleration and fragmented overreach.

Think about how we handle car safety. We don’t wait for accidents to happen and then rely solely on lawsuits to make cars safer. The federal government sets clear national safety standards. It requires rigorous testing. And it makes seatbelts, airbags and braking systems mandatory — with strict rules for how well they must perform — before cars ever hit the road. Liability still matters, but prevention comes first because the stakes are too high to get it wrong.

That balance isn’t new. It’s how the United States has governed aviation, food and drug safety, financial markets and telecommunications. In each case, the federal government set clear national standards for systems that power the entire country, while states continued to play a critical role closer to home. The result wasn’t less innovation or less growth. It was regulatory clarity, economic growth and American leadership.

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I saw this dynamic firsthand in 1996, when I was working in the White House just as the internet was beginning to reshape the economy.

Washington faced a choice that feels familiar today: apply old rules to a new technology, or agree on a new national framework built for what was coming next. Democrats and Republicans chose the latter.

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The result was the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It wasn’t perfect, but it got the big things right. It created clear national standards, gave innovators room to build and helped position the United States to lead the internet era that followed.

Think of it as one rulebook with two clear roles and one urgent mission: ensuring the United States maintains its competitive advantage in a technology central to national security and global economic leadership.

The lesson is straightforward. When America sets smart, national standards for emerging technologies, we don’t fall behind — we lead.

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The chessboard is set. If the United States focuses on prevention, harmonizes state and federal efforts, and keeps its eyes on that North Star, we can once again lead a defining technological era.

That’s how you win the long game: by playing chess, not checkers.

DAVID MARCUS: Guess who has done more than anyone to expose Epstein’s evil exploits

It has now been confirmed that Donald Trump has spent nearly two decades trying to expose the evil actions of Jeffrey Epstein, starting as far back as 2006, when the future president was already assisting Florida police.

“Thank goodness you’re stopping him,” Trump told a sheriff when word of the 2006 investigation of Epstein got out, adding, “Everyone has known he was doing this,” while also telling authorities to focus on Ghislaine Maxwell, who he described as the creepy financier’s “evil” “operative.”

That investigation led to a slap on the wrist for Epstein, who thought he was out of the woods legally, and might have been had it not been for that pesky Palm Beach neighbor named Donald Trump.

That is because eventually, Trump would become president, and, during his first term, the federal investigation by his Department of Justice into Epstein would be revived, the monster would be arrested, and, well, we all know what happened next.

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Even if Epstein did take the coward’s exit, killing himself and denying his victims and the public a trial and full accounting of his crimes, Trump eliminated the threat. No child would ever be a victim of Epstein again.

Fast-forward to Trump’s second term, and his White House has produced millions of pages of documents surrounding Epstein, even though the president, quite correctly, had expressed fears that innocent people could be harmed by the release.

Three million pages of documents were released last week. Laid end to end, they would stretch across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and even though redactions were legally necessary, Congress has access to the unredacted files.

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To put a fine point on it, for 20 years there has been nobody on the planet who has done more to bring to light the truth behind Epstein’s crimes and associations than Trump. Yet Democrats like Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and the GOP’s constant contrarian Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., still ludicrously insist the administration is hiding some vital and dark truth from us.

What is amazing, and a cynic might call suspicious, is that these Democrats and Massie expressed little to no interest in Epstein until Trump was sworn in for his second term.

For four years under the Biden administration, no Democrat said a word about Epstein. It went back to being the crossword puzzle answer for “Horshack’s sweathog pal,” as far as they were concerned.

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It looks an awful lot like the Democrats and their little mascot Massie have focused so much attention and energy on Epstein, not to support victims, which they could have done under Biden, but to harm Trump politically.

We know there is truth to this because everything the Trump administration does, be it bombing Iran or investigating fraud in Minnesota, is treated by Democrats as a “Wag the Dog” situation where the president’s real goal is to distract from Epstein.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on social media this week called Trump the leader of the “Pedophile Protection Party,” and called for his execution, even though, as we saw above, Trump tried to stop Epstein for decades.

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At the Grammy’s, alleged comedian Trevor Noah falsely claimed that Trump partied on Epstein island, and every foreign social media bot account funded by our enemies is gleefully parroting the Democrats’ lies about Trump.

There is only one thing left that Trump could do to bring more light to Epstein’s evil, and that would be to grant Maxwell the clemency she is seeking in exchange for her testimony about Epstein and his associates. But it’s unclear where Democrats stand on this.

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I reached out to Khanna, who, to his credit, will generally text you back if you ask what he had for breakfast, to see if he could support a deal for Maxwell, given his belief that there are men guilty of child sexual abuse who still need to be punished.

This time, I got no reply from Khanna. I suspect that was because there is no good answer. If this was a mob trial, you’d flip Maxwell to jail bigger fish, but if that happens, the Democrats lose Epstein as a political cudgel with which to lie about Trump.

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In all likelihood, just as with the John F. Kennedy assassination, there will always be a sizable chunk of the populace that believes all kinds of Epstein conspiracies for a very long time, maybe forever. We still debate how, or even if, Roman emperors were murdered.

But one thing is entirely clear to any fair observer: For 20 years, in and out of office, Donald J Trump has been exposing the evil crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, and he still is.

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STEVE FORBES: Radical ideology replaces competence at the NYC Health Department

New York City is facing serious public health challenges. Drug overdoses are surging. Mental illness is rampant. Emergency rooms are under strain. Life expectancy in parts of the city has declined.

So what are some employees at the New York City Department of Health reportedly studying? The effects of “global oppression” on health.

This is not a joke. It is a disturbing example of how ideology has displaced competence in city government — and how taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill.

A public health department has a straightforward mission: protect people from disease, respond to health emergencies and ensure basic safety standards. It exists to prevent outbreaks, combat addiction, improve maternal health and keep food and water safe. It is not a political theory workshop.

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Every hour spent theorizing about “global oppression” is an hour not spent addressing tuberculosis outbreaks, fentanyl deaths, or mental-health crises. These problems are not academic abstractions. They are immediate, measurable, and — when ignored — lethal.

This episode fits a broader pattern under New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration. From day one, City Hall has signaled that ideological alignment matters more than operational performance. Agencies are encouraged to pursue political narratives rather than focus relentlessly on outcomes. Business confidence has weakened, regulatory pressure has increased and accountability has become diffuse. Instead of prioritizing growth, safety and efficiency, the mayor’s team has embraced a worldview that treats markets with suspicion and bureaucracy as an engine for social transformation. The result is a city government that talks a great deal about justice but delivers far too little in the way of results.

Under this governing philosophy, nearly every challenge is explained away as the product of abstract systems of oppression. That may play well in activist circles, but it offers no guidance for running a complex city of eight million people. It cannot reduce overdose deaths, speed emergency response times or restore public confidence in basic services.

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What it does is to try to divert attention from real problems.

New York is already one of the most heavily taxed and regulated cities in America. Businesses are leaving. Families are rethinking whether they can afford to stay. Tourists — once taken for granted — are increasingly uneasy about safety and quality of life. Against this backdrop, diverting scarce public resources toward ideological exercises is not merely irresponsible — it is self-defeating.

Public trust depends on focus and accountability. When citizens see health agencies chasing political theories instead of protecting public health, confidence in government erodes. And once lost, that trust is exceedingly difficult to rebuild.

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The tragedy is that New York knows how to do better. The city has thrived when leaders emphasized competence, growth, and accountability. When government focused on expanding opportunity rather than assigning blame, New York became a magnet for talent, investment and innovation.

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A serious administration would immediately refocus the Department of Health on its core mission. It would demand measurable outcomes, strict oversight and a clear separation between public service and political activism. Taxpayers are not funding ideology — they are paying for results.

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New Yorkers deserve a government that treats public health with urgency and seriousness. Studying “global oppression” may satisfy ideological appetites, but it will not make the city healthier, safer, or more prosperous.

It’s time for City Hall to stop chasing fashionable theories — and start governing again.

MIKE DAVIS: Red-state senators must pick up the pace to get Trump judges confirmed

Since President Trump resumed office, leftists have run to the courts in a desperate attempt to stop — or, at the very least, stall — his agenda. To defeat this lawfare, President Trump needs the Senate’s help to put constitutionalists on the bench. Democrat senators’ obstruction is unsurprising; not even one has voted for one of President Trump’s appellate court nominees. Many Republican senators, however, are lagging in streamlining nominations. The most serious breakdown is in filling district court vacancies in deep-red states, especially Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. With the midterms rapidly approaching, this glacial pace must accelerate in short order.

District courts are the engines of the federal judiciary, and vacancies there create immediate and tangible harm. These courts handle the bulk of federal litigation, from immigration to criminal prosecutions to constitutional challenges. Yet confirming district judges often proves harder than confirming Supreme Court justices. The problem lies in the blue-slip process. Home-state senators have a de facto veto on district court nominees, U.S. attorney nominees and U.S. marshal nominees.

For over a century, U.S. senators have had the power to hand-select the U.S. attorneys who could prosecute them, U.S. district judges who could oversee their trials, and U.S. marshals who could escort them to prison. Senators will never give up this veto power. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a lame-duck Republican who sits on the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, made it crystal clear that he will oppose any nominee who lacks support from both home-state senators. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley can do nothing about blue-slip obstruction when even one committee Republican can team up with Democrats to block any nominee.

There are roughly 15 district court vacancies in states with at least one Democrat senator. Because the blue slip is not going anywhere, it is unlikely that President Trump can fill many of these vacancies. Democrats are more obstructionist than ever. They caused the longest government shutdown in our history just a few months ago.

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The far more troubling problem is the sheer number of vacancies in states represented by two Republican senators. Staggeringly, there are nearly two dozen district court vacancies in red states (i.e., states with two Republican senators). The most dire vacancy crises lie in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. There are seven vacancies throughout Texas’ several judicial districts, for example. Texas deals with a massive amount of immigration litigation because it is a border state. There is no excuse for a deep-red state like Texas, which President Trump won by 14%, to have seven vacancies.

Texas sadly is not alone when it comes to an unacceptably slow pace in filling vacancies. Other deep-red states combined have over a dozen: one each in South Carolina, Louisiana, Alaska and Alabama; two each in Ohio, Oklahoma and Florida; and three in Kansas. President Trump won each of these states by double digits and most by over 20%. These states deserve judges who are strong constitutionalists in line with President Trump’s vision of the law.

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If Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reassumes the position of majority leader next year, he will grind the Trump judicial-confirmations train to a screeching halt. Grassley is a workhorse, so it is certain that he will expeditiously streamline President Trump’s nominees through the process this year. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has demonstrated remarkable efficiency in getting nominees swiftly confirmed. No judicial nominees remain on the Senate Executive Calendar. Only four remain in the Judiciary Committee, and they just had their confirmation hearing last week, meaning they will be on the floor and ready for a vote by the end of the month. Leader Thune and Grassley cannot process nominations if there are no nominees.

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Republican home-state senators need to focus on this crucial task and understand the urgency of the moment. Since the Senate sits only 3.5 days a week in most weeks, floor time is limited. Should a Supreme Court vacancy arise, Judiciary Committee time and resources must be invested overwhelmingly in confirming President Trump’s nominee. Delay is a recipe for disastrous defeat, and it must end instantly.

Republican senators must get moving in filling judicial vacancies.

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Project Vault: Trump’s bold plan to stop China from starving our military

Since the COVID pandemic, Americans have had a crash course on the importance of rare earth elements and recognized the unpleasant reality that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has a near stranglehold on their mining and processing. Practically everything we manufacture in the modern world, from fighter jets to medical equipment to cameras, now requires some quantity of these materials, and we are almost entirely at the mercy of the PRC for them.

Recognizing that this dependency is a potential national security crisis, President Donald Trump has directed an all-of-government initiative called “Project Vault” to protect the American people from immediate shocks while building up our ability to supply ourselves in the future.

The Chinese regime has shown itself very willing to use its rare earths advantage as blackmail against the United States as well as manufacturing allies such as Japan. At the end of President Trump’s first term, China issued veiled threats about limiting their exports to retaliate for U.S. tariffs on Huawei. Those threats became realities last year as China announced export controls and then outright bans on the export of rare earth elements to foreign militaries. When President Trump issued tariff threats of his own, the PRC backed down, but the scale of our vulnerability was clear.

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To be sure, much of this problem has been of our own making. After World War II, at the dawn of electronics manufacturing, the United States was dominant in rare earths, which were primarily extracted and processed at the Mountain Pass facility in California. In 1980, under President Jimmy Carter, however, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission placed some rare earths under the same rules as radioactive materials, severely restricting their extraction and processing and making even these limited activities prohibitively expensive in the United States.

The resulting decline in production was accelerated by the Mountain Pass wastewater spill in 1996, which resulted in the closure of that facility in 2002 on environmental grounds. Additional projects were not developed as permitting times average 29 years in America and so would have been economically unviable. Mountain Pass only resumed operations in 2017, but now, with the support of the Trump administration, will expand its facilities in 2026. But it will be a long and difficult battle to regain the advantage America once squandered in the name of climate purism.

Meanwhile, China seized the advantage with a much more permissive regulatory and permitting environment that allowed them to capture as much as 70% of extraction and 90% of processing of rare earths. During his first term, President Trump started righting this disproportionate advantage with Executive Order 13817, which identified 35 key elements and laid out a strategy to secure a ready supply of them. In 2020, the President declared a national emergency regarding rare earths, directing an interagency process to increase domestic production.

After President Trump’s re-election, his administration has taken further action to alleviate China’s staggering advantage through agreements with producing allies such as Australia that will give us a much more secure and reliable supply chain than buying from Communist China. Now, Project Vault is designed to further insulate America from dependence on the PRC for these vital materials.

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Modeled on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established in 1975 to protect the U.S. from the energy shocks caused by the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Project Vault establishes a stockpile of rare earths for the use of the U.S. military and private sector in the event that China cuts off supplies.

In addition, the administration is continuing the hard work of deregulation and permitting reform that will allow American companies to begin to extract and process rare earths again here at home, unburdened by Biden administration “environmental justice” efforts such as the Justice40 Initiative that prevented them from taking meaningful action in this space.

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In order to counter the PRC predatorially preserving its rare earths monopoly, as a matter of national security, President Trump has directed the Export-Import Bank to support Project Vault with a $10 billion dollar loan that will support both the establishment of the stockpile and guarantee sufficient new American-controlled rare earth production at a rate that will ensure our defense industries are no longer at the mercy of PRC supply chains.

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ExIm has established a public-private partnership called Vault Company to oversee the project and ensure taxpayer money is responsibly invested so that the American extraction and processing sector can be quickly re-established and render further investment unnecessary.

As such, ExIm is an indispensable national security tool for repairing all the damage China has done in its campaign to corner the market on rare earths and use their dominance to blackmail America. Congress should therefore move swiftly to reauthorize the Bank to ensure that not only Project Vault succeeds, but also that ExIm can continue to support President Trump’s efforts to keep the American people safe from Chinese aggression.

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MORNING GLORY: President Donald Trump’s most important decision is coming

One door is marked “Truman/Reagan” and the other door is marked “Carter/Obama/Biden.”

President Donald Trump has to choose one. Again. And this time, the choice will define Trump’s place in history.

On three different occasions, the 45th and 47th president of the United States has walked through the first door.

Trump ordered the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, on January 3, 2020.

IRAN POSES A FAR MORE DANGEROUS MILITARY TEST FOR THE US THAN VENEZUELA, EXPERTS WARN

Trump followed that up with his second-term order to conduct Operation Midnight Resolve against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities in June of last year and again with Operation Absolute Resolve to snatch Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro in January of this year.

President Trump ventured boldly three times and won big for the United States three times, restoring American deterrence along the way.

Trump had to restore American deterrence in 2020 because the Iranian regime had thoroughly worked over former President Barack Obama with the infamous “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” of 2015, a plan that secured for Iran billions in cash, hundreds of billions in sanctions relief and a guaranteed path to nuclear weapons. It was a surrender of the Middle East to the mullahs disguised in dense language and absurd timelines. But the Iranian theocrats knew they had won.

TRUMP’S LEADERSHIP CREATES ‘RARE OPPORTUNITY’ FOR CHANGE IN IRAN, FORMER IRANIAN POLITICAL PRISONER SAYS

President Trump has called the JCPOA the “worst deal in history” scores of times, and he’s always been right. It was the equal of the “Munich Agreement” between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. The damage to the world was immense.

While President Joe Biden’s disastrous and chaotic retreat from Afghanistan did not concern Iran directly, it did deeply damage America’s standing in the world and define the Biden presidency as one mired in catastrophic failure from the jump.

President Trump worked to reverse the damage created by the JCPOA with the strikes on Soleimani and the Iranian nuke facilities.

IRAN PROTESTS PROMPT NEW TRUMP WARNING OVER DEADLY GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWNS

Now, however, the Iranians are countering with thousands of ballistic missiles which already threaten American bases across the Middle East, Israel and our Gulf allies. The nature of the regime has been fully revealed even to the appeasers on Team Obama and Team Biden: The ayatollahs ordered tens of thousands of their citizens gunned down or murdered with machetes this January. Does anyone doubt they would turn their missiles on American cities as soon as they develop the range? Crazed killers are going to kill, again and again and again.

Because of Presidents Obama and Biden, Ayatollah Khamenei and his IRGC thugs believe America always “blinks” in the end. They still don’t believe Trump is different from Obama and Biden. They see the one-day missions from Trump as brief aberrations from the Obama-Biden pattern of appeasement. The Iranians do not fear Trump. Yet.

The Iranians build enormous missiles with enormous warheads. There are more than a thousand missiles in their arsenal already, and they have accelerated the production of thousands more after the Trump strike on their nuclear weapons facilities last year.

IRAN RESPONDS TO TRUMP PRESSURE WITH WARNING OF RETALIATION: ‘FINGERS ON THE TRIGGER’

The Iranians are working to extend the range of their missiles. The longest range Iranian missiles can probably reach Europe now. They will threaten the U.S. sooner rather than later, and we don’t have Trump’s “Golden Dome” — yet.

So Trump must decide now what to do about those missiles and about the mass murderers who run Iran. Trump has ordered an immense build-up of American military assets build-up of American military assets within striking range of Iran, and deployed the defensive systems that we have to protect our bases and our allies.

Now he has to decide which door to walk through.

HEGSETH SAYS DEPARTMENT OF WAR ‘WILL BE PREPARED TO DELIVER’ WHATEVER TRUMP WANTS FOLLOWING IRAN WARNING

Truman and Reagan (and both Bushes) would order the strike.

Carter, Obama and Biden would back down and pretend they had defused a crisis when, in fact, they had decapitated American deterrence.

Rarely do we see such a stark choice presented to a president — a fork in his personal road as far as history is concerned, and very much a fork in America’s road for its future.

Trump can be remembered as the man who brought help to the Iranian people after nearly 50 years of fanatical dictatorship and secured America from an unfolding threat, or as the president who backed down more spectacularly than any president before him.

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On August 26, 1990, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher talked to President George H.W. Bush about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. “This was no time to go wobbly,” the PM told the president.

That was probably the least necessary encouragement ever, as the old fighter pilot from WWII was not the sort of man to back down. (HW was shot down twice and back flying his missions after both.) But Thatcher’s line went down in history because it is both so very British and so very useful in many contexts.

IRAN’S COLLAPSE OR SURVIVAL HINGES ON ONE CHOICE INSIDE THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD

It is useful now. President Trump simply cannot go wobbly no matter how attractive the Carter/Obama/Biden door looks as an exit. Put another way, Trump “cannot go Obama.”

To repeat: President Trump’s choice will define his place in history. Everything else in his eight years will be secondary to what he decides in the near term.

Every other achievement will be secondary. Every criticism will be irrelevant when destroying the Iranian regime’s threat to the world is put on the table.

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President Trump can choose to do what no other president since Jimmy Carter has dared to do: Cripple or end the fanatical regime in Iran that already works to threaten and destabilize the Middle East every day and which will soon be able to threaten the U.S. if not stopped.

Pray he chooses wisely. America’s national security and the hope of the Iranian people and the future of the Middle East depends upon this decision.

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Border on the brink as cartel drones force US to act after years of paralysis

The sudden closure of airspace over El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, Feb. 11 was a big deal — but likely not for the reason you think.

For years, the Federal Aviation Administration has blocked meaningful action against rogue drones — whether mysterious swarms over sensitive U.S. military bases or increasingly bold incursions by Mexican drug cartels. The FAA’s perennial fear? That military countermeasures, from electronic jamming to kinetic options, might endanger civilian or commercial aircraft.

This paralysis persisted even as threats mounted.

MEXICAN CARTEL DRONES BREACH US AIRSPACE, ARE DISABLED BY WAR DEPARTMENT, DUFFY SAYS

I wrote about this bureaucratic inaction in October 2024, when unidentified drones — some up to 20 feet across — buzzed Langley Air Force Base in Virginia for 17 consecutive nights in late 2023. These intruders flew over the headquarters of Air Combat Command, home to F-22 Raptors, and neared the world’s largest naval station in Norfolk and other critical sites. The Biden-Harris White House was briefed, yet nothing was done. Suggestions to jam signals, deploy directed energy or simply shoot them down were rejected as too risky or unauthorized. A risk-averse culture prioritized avoiding mistakes over defending American soil.

The Feb. 11 incident in El Paso marked a dramatic break from that pattern — and a significant victory against the growing cartel drone threat.

Mexican cartels have grown alarmingly sophisticated in drone operations. Department of Homeland Security data show more than 60,000 cartel drone flights along the border in the second half of 2024 alone — an average of about 330 per day.

And these aren’t toys.

WESTERN HEMISPHERE DEFENSE CHIEFS CONVENE AFTER BORDER DRONE SCARE PROMPTS AIRSPACE CLOSURE

Cartels use them for three primary missions along the southern border: counterreconnaissance to track Border Patrol and military positions; aerial denial, deploying swarms to threaten U.S. aircraft and create de facto no-fly zones for smuggling; and direct drug delivery, with some drones carrying large payloads.

Reports indicate cartel operatives have even traveled to Ukraine, volunteering on the front lines against Russia, to master advanced drone tactics — including fiber-optic-guided FPV drones immune to jamming. Those same techniques have appeared in Mexico’s cartel wars, with gangs targeting rivals using precision explosives.

What happened over El Paso? The Department of War claims cartel drones breached U.S. airspace near El Paso International Airport and, critically, approached sensitive military facilities, stressing an urgent need to act.

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In response, on Tuesday night, according to media reports, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford decided to close the airspace for 10 days without alerting the White House, the Pentagon or local officials. Whether on his own or at the urging of career FAA employees, the FAA’s overreaction reeked of malicious compliance — bureaucrats following the letter of policy while producing an absurd, counterproductive result.

The Department of War swiftly neutralized the intruders, reportedly at least one cartel drone and, by some accounts, a stray party balloon.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed the operation: “The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”

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Reacting to the 10-day airspace closure, local leaders, including Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, highlighted the economic damage it would cause in a border city of nearly 700,000 residents.

Thankfully, within hours, after officials confirmed the threat had been eliminated, the restrictions were lifted and normal flights resumed. Common sense prevailed — for now.

This incident comes amid intense pressure from the Trump administration on Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, and her ruling Morena party. With Venezuela and Cuba — which Mexico provided energy and financial support to in exchange for authoritarian governance lessons — now largely neutralized by U.S. policy, and the USMCA trade deal on hold, Sheinbaum faces a stark choice: rein in the cartels or face consequences.

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But cartels must make money, and backing down is not in their nature. Escalation may be on the table. But what if the U.S. hits back? 

Mexico maintains the world’s largest consular network in the United States — 53 consulates — that have at times served as hubs for political agitation and influence operations within America’s immigrant communities. Those networks could amplify domestic unrest beyond current disturbances in cities such as Minneapolis.

And lurking in the background are America’s adversaries. China and Iran have clear interests in a chaotic southern border — whether through fentanyl precursors or violent proxy disruption.

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The El Paso action is welcome and long overdue — another step in last summer’s call by President Donald Trump for military action against the cartels. But one skirmish does not win a war. America must sustain this momentum: Equip Border Patrol and the military with robust counter-drone authority, streamline rules of engagement and hold Mexico accountable.

Our sovereignty and security demand nothing less.

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PETER NAVARRO: If we defund ICE, the body count of American lives would be too high

House and Senate Democrats are trying to turn two tragic federal shootings in Minneapolis into cause célèbres to shackle, slash and ultimately break the budgetary back of ICE. But let’s not pretend this political firestorm is about compassion or accountability. 

If Democrats are successful in abruptly halting the deportation of what some estimates put at as many as 20 million illegal aliens imported under President Joe Biden, hundreds of additional American citizens would be murdered and thousands raped, assaulted or robbed by a violent subset of Biden’s illegal-alien horde. 

Here is the statistical story behind America’s latest true-crime nightmare. 

Numerous studies have analyzed the link between illegal aliens and crime. Using large administrative data sets, researchers have calculated — with surprising precision — the rates at which illegal aliens commit various crimes. From those rates, it is simple arithmetic to estimate how many Americans would fall prey to new illegal alien violence.

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Start with homicide. 

The Cato Institute has examined one of the largest and most credible data sets available, drawn from the border state of Texas, and found that for every 100,000 illegal aliens, about 2.2 Americans are murdered. Using essentially the same Texas data, the Center for Immigration Studies corrects for delayed identification and other methodological issues and arrives at a homicide rate of roughly 3.9 per 100,000 in one illustrative year. 

Apply those rates to Biden’s 20 million new illegal aliens, and the result is stark: between 440 and 780 additional Americans would be murdered.

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That’s not a statistic. That’s a slaughterhouse. 

Past victims already have names. 

Laken Riley, 22, murdered in Georgia after prosecutors said she resisted a rape attempt by José Ibarra, a Venezuelan illegal alien previously released after arrest.

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Jocelyn Nungaray, 12, was strangled to death in Houston in June 2024. Two Venezuelan nationals — Johan Jose Martinez-Rangel and Franklin Jose Peña Ramos — are charged with capital murder. Both had entered the United States illegally, were apprehended near El Paso, Texas, and were released with notices to appear before the killing. They remain in the Harris County Jail awaiting trial, and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. 

Rachel Morin, raped and murdered on a Maryland trail by the El Salvadoran Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez. 

Apply those rates to Biden’s 20 million new illegal aliens, and the result is stark: between 440 and 780 additional Americans would be murdered.

Kayla Hamilton, a 20-year-old Maryland woman with autism, raped and strangled by Walter Javier Martinez, an illegal alien from El Salvador who had entered the United States only months earlier.

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Future victims would have names, faces, families and dreams, too — every bit as sympathetic as Renée Good and Alex Pretti. 

And homicide is only the tip of Biden’s illegal alien iceberg. 

According to a National Institute of Justice–funded study published in 2020 using Texas Department of Public Safety arrest data (2012–2018), felony arrest rates per 100,000 undocumented immigrants were 11.3 for felony sexual assault, 77.8 for felony assault, 18.2 for felony burglary, and 136.0 for felony drug violations.

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Scaled to 20 million illegal aliens, that arithmetic implies roughly 2,260 more Americans would be sexually assaulted, 3,640 American homes burglarized, 15,560 Americans violently assaulted and 27,200 felony drug arrests involving dealers, traffickers, smugglers and hard-core possession cases. 

These are the kind of inconvenient statistics Hill denizens like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and Democrat Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and sanctuary politicos like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker and Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz don’t want to compute — and pure evil they don’t want you to see. 

As misdirection, the left also loves to point out that many studies conclude crime rates among illegal aliens are marginally lower than those of American citizens. But that is the wrong yardstick.

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Even if illegal aliens have a lower crime rate — and the data is far from clear — when millions of illegal aliens enter the country, the absolute number of crimes increases. You don’t need to be a mathematician — or illegal alien crime victim — to understand that. 

There is also this: the older data sets used by many analysts today almost certainly understate the danger posed by the most recent Biden-era wave. Why? 

Because countries around the world like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela deliberately opened their prisons and released violent criminals during the latest border breakdown — both to reduce crime at home and export crime to America.

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That’s the statistics. Here’s the politics. 

The strange bedfellows coalition out to kneecap ICE is led by Democrats playing the long electoral game who view illegal aliens as political pawns and funded by corporate interests that benefit from cheaper labor and wage suppression. Throw in the drug and human-trafficking cartel supply chains and a legacy media blinded by Trump Derangement Syndrome, and you have today’s government shutdown crisis.

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Future victims would have names, faces, families, and dreams, too — every bit as sympathetic as Renée Good and Alex Pretti. 

It is our job to resist. Because “defund ICE” doesn’t just mean fewer deportations. 

It means more empty seats at dinner tables. More funerals. More shattered lives — in addition to all the jobs American citizens lose.

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Republicans must do a far better job holding ranks on Capitol Hill and messaging these essential Secure Border Trump truths. 

And Democrats would do well to remember one of the major reasons why they lost the last election. A supermajority of Americans wants both secure borders and mass deportations. For their safety. For their jobs. For their wages. For their culture. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM PETER NAVARRO

Border airspace breached: Cartel drones test US defenses and raise new fears

When the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shuts down the airspace over a major American city for “special security reasons,” Americans should pay attention.

On Feb. 10, the FAA grounded flights in and out of El Paso International Airport. The original notice referred to a 10-day flight restriction, but it was rescinded the same day. Flights resumed. The questions, however, remain.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later stated that the FAA and the Department of War had acted to address a cartel-related drone incursion, neutralizing the threat before reopening the airspace. No further operational details were released.

Subsequent reporting suggested the closure may have been precautionary and that full operational details have not been publicly disclosed.

Even without those details, the episode matters. It indicates that federal authorities assessed the drone activity as serious enough to affect civilian aviation. 

MEXICAN CARTEL DRONES BREACH US AIRSPACE, ARE DISABLED BY WAR DEPARTMENT, DUFFY SAYS

Cartels Are Adapting

For decades, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have moved illicit narcotics — including fentanyl — into the United States. Federal assessments consistently identify synthetic opioids as one of the deadliest threats facing American communities.

Cartels adjust when enforcement pressure changes. As land routes tighten and maritime interdiction increases, new methods emerge.

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In 2024, NORAD Commander Gen. Gregory M. Guillot testified that more than 1,000 drone incidents per month were occurring along the southern border, primarily for surveillance or smuggling. If routine drone activity has been tolerated along the border, then federal officials concluded the El Paso incident warranted halting operations at a major American airport. 

Commercial drone platforms are widely available and attractive to criminal organizations. They are inexpensive, difficult to detect and capable of carrying meaningful payloads. Around the world, similar systems have migrated from recreational use to combat applications.

Their use by cartels is not speculative.

AMERICA’S SKIES ARE WIDE OPEN TO NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS, DRONE EXPERT WARNS: ‘WE HAVE NO AWARENESS’

What appears new is the decision to disrupt commercial aviation in response.

That raises an obvious question: Was this an escalation in capability, proximity or perceived threat? Absent further disclosure, the public cannot know.

The Broader Drone Environment

Conflicts abroad have demonstrated how low-cost unmanned systems can be adapted for surveillance, targeting and even kinetic missions. Non-state actors learn from those examples. Criminal organizations are no exception.

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None of this establishes that weaponized cartel drones are operating over American cities. There is no public evidence of that. But the technological threshold continues to decline.

The airspace over the Southwest is no longer immune to innovation.

TRUMP’S WAR ON CARTELS ENTERS NEW PHASE AS EXPERTS PREDICT WHAT’S NEXT

A Shift in U.S. Policy

The El Paso incident also fits within a broader change in how Washington frames cartel activity.

In January 2025, the Trump administration designated several major drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. That classification moved cartel networks beyond a purely criminal framework and into the national security category.

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Federal agencies were directed to apply structural pressure against cartel enablers — financial systems, coordination networks and international supply chains.

The FAA decision did not occur in isolation. It occurred within a posture that treats cartel activity as a cross-border security threat.

What the El Paso Shutdown Tells Us

Several conclusions follow.

First, federal authorities assessed an aerial threat serious enough to affect civilian aviation.

PENTAGON EXPLORING COUNTER-DRONE SYSTEMS TO PREVENT INCURSIONS OVER NATIONAL SECURITY FACILITIES

Second, the Department of War was prepared to respond.

Third, public transparency remains limited. Members of Congress, including Rep. Veronica Escobar, have noted that drone incursions along the border are not new. If this episode reflected a heightened or qualitatively different threat, that distinction should be explained clearly.

When civilian airspace is restricted, clarity strengthens public trust.

Temporary closures of this magnitude should remain exceptional — not routine.

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Policy Implications

Border Airspace

The United States needs a defined border airspace doctrine. That includes persistent detection capability, streamlined counter-UAS authority for DHS and DoD near the border, and clear standards for when civilian airspace restrictions are justified.

HEGSETH SAYS US STRIKES FORCE SOME CARTEL LEADERS TO HALT DRUG OPERATIONS

Reactive shutdowns are not strategy.

Deterrence

If drone incursions continue, interception alone will not suffice. Disabling individual aircraft addresses the symptom, not the network behind it. Financiers, suppliers and planners enabling these operations must face sustained financial, legal and diplomatic pressure.

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Deterrence requires credibility. The United States has both the authority and the obligation to defend its territory and airspace. Persistent aerial incursions cannot become normalized.

Mexico remains central to a durable solution. Joint enforcement and intelligence cooperation are preferable to confrontation. But history shows that when cross-border threats harm Americans, the United States responds.

Cartels adjust when the cost of operating rises. The objective is to restore control before escalation becomes necessary.

Mexico’s Role

Mexico’s cooperation is indispensable.

Public escalation benefits neither nation. Quiet coordination—shared intelligence, joint surveillance, and coordinated counter-drone efforts—offers a more stable path. Quiet coordination, shared intelligence, joint surveillance and coordinated counter-drone efforts offer a more stable path.

TRUMP ADMIN TELLS CONGRESS IT DETERMINED US ENGAGED IN FORMAL ‘ARMED CONFLICT’ WITH ‘TERRORIST’ DRUG CARTELS

At the same time, persistent violations of U.S. airspace cannot be ignored. Bilateral security cooperation will either deepen or strain under pressure.

The Strategic Choice

The El Paso shutdown may prove to be an isolated episode. It may also mark the first visible sign that cartel operations have expanded decisively into the air domain.

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If criminal networks can probe American airspace without consequence, they will continue assessing its limits.

The administration now faces a choice: respond incident by incident — or establish durable control of the skies along the southern border.

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The ground border has dominated debate for years. The airspace above it may soon demand equal attention.

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DAVID MARCUS: Yes, even White, Irish illegal immigrants must be deported

Seamus Culleton, an illegal immigrant from Ireland was arrested last September by ICE, pursuant to a deportation order after he overstayed his 90-day visa by nearly two decades. Now, for the most cynical of reasons, he is the Left’s new anti-ICE cause celebre.

The pro-Culleton argument is that he had a work visa, a pending green card application, is married to an American and has committed no violent crimes. But none of this changes the fact that his underlying 20-year stay was illegal, and there was an active deportation order against him.

Culleton was given a chance to be taken directly to Ireland, but chose to stay and fight deportation, which he must and should do while in detention. Honestly, the only thing remarkable about this case, and here comes the cynical part, is that he is White and Irish.

A central allegation against Trump’s deportation efforts is that they are essentially racist, that ICE is out there rounding up Brown and Black people based on their skin color. It’s an allegation the Department of Homeland Security vehemently denies and which has not been substantiated.

DEMOCRATS CAN RUN, BUT THEY CAN’T HIDE: AN IMMIGRATION RECKONING IS NEXT IN 2028

Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie opined on X regarding the detention, “This is appalling and I hope cuts through to the ‘heritage American’ types who otherwise could care less about due process for immigrants.” 

The assumption here is that racist supporters of President Donald Trump and his deportation policies will embrace Gillespie’s libertarian pro-illegal immigrant stance to protect a White guy. But it’s absurd, facile, and not happening.

Because there Culleton is in custody, and he’s not the only one. He told Irish radio in a recent interview that, in fact, he and his fellow English-speaking detainees are discriminated against by the mostly Hispanic staffers, who give extra food to Spanish speakers.

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION VICTORY IN A MINNESOTA COURT IS A WIN FOR ALL LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS

Whether that is true or not, it is clear that the Trump administration is not recognizing any White privilege in this situation. Immigration status, not ethnicity is what matters.

The fact is, that if ICE raided midtown Manhattan, it is likely that dozens of Irish pubs would close instantly.

Now, I love tucking myself into an Irish pub for some shepherd’s pie as much as the next guy, but the law has to be the law, whether a restaurant plays Bad Bunny or the Clancy Brothers. If it employs illegals, they are subject to deportation.

TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN IN THE SPOTLIGHT AHEAD OF MIDTERMS AS FATAL MN SHOOTINGS IGNITE BACKLASH

Culleton is being presented as a kind of “model illegal alien,” leading many to ask, not entirely unreasonably, if the system should let him stay. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t.

If we allow affable Irish bartenders and tradesmen such as Culleton to skirt the rules, then so too can cartel members, or foreign terrorists, so long as they don’t get caught committing crimes. That’s not acceptable.

The Democrats and the political left think they have a winner here because they assume that conservatives are racists and will say, “Oh no, not a White Irish guy! That’s not who we want deported!” But that isn’t happening.

MORNING GLORY: TRUMP CAN END THE DREAMER STANDOFF BY TAKING ON SANCTUARY CITIES

Part of the purpose of the very public detentions that ICE has engaged in is to scare those in the country illegally into self-deporting, and according to DHS over 2 million did just that in 2025, while the monetary incentive to self deport has been raised to $2,600.

So, an Irish bartender, an Italian bricklayer or a Russian Uber driver in this country illegally have to ask themselves, “Is my immigration status in order, and if not, should I take the money, go home and come back the right way instead of risking detention?”

Over the past three months, including the period of all the mischegas in Minneapolis, Trump’s approval rating has remained remarkably steady after taking about a six-point hit in November. There has been no electoral backlash to deportations.

MINNESOTA SHAKEUP SHIFTS LEADERSHIP NOT STRATEGY, WHITE HOUSE SAYS, PUSHING BACK ON ‘RETREAT’ CLAIM

As one woman I spoke to in Virginia this week told me, “Sometimes it’s sad. I hated seeing that 5-year-old [who was detained by ICE after his father fled], but we have to have a border.”

If Democrats want to stop the deportations Trump was elected to do, they need to come to Republicans in Congress with a broad immigration plan that has more concessions in it than a VIP suite at the Super Bowl.

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For those in the country illegally, there must be no path to citizenship, hence no eventual voting, and some sort of penalty for being in the country illegally. But frankly, even that is probably not enough at this point.

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Joe Biden and his feckless administration allowed more than 10 million illegals into the country in four years, almost certainly under the impression that it could never be undone, that it was too many people to remove.

Maybe it is too many to actually remove, but Trump was elected to try and try he is, even if the illegal immigrant has a lovely, lilting Irish brogue.

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We’re Democrats. From food to housing, costs keep rising — here’s a serious fix

For millions of Americans, affordability is not an abstract policy debate. It is the daily stress of choosing between groceries and prescriptions, rent and childcare, gas and electricity. Families feel it everywhere, and they are right to demand answers.

More than a year past his self-imposed “day one” deadline to lower costs, President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have not only failed to lower the cost of groceries, housing or healthcare, but are actively and intentionally making life more expensive for hardworking Americans.

The American people need a real plan to make life more affordable. Instead of addressing the problem, the president has dismissed affordability as a “fake narrative” that “doesn’t mean anything.” But there is nothing fake about families falling behind, workers stretching paychecks or seniors worrying about whether they can afford to age with dignity.

That’s why we’ve worked with our colleagues in the New Democrat Coalition to craft the New Dem Affordability Agenda, which lays out a commonsense roadmap to lower the five core costs that are crushing working Americans: healthcare, housing, energy, family care and everyday household goods like groceries.

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: GOP TARGETS AFFORDABILITY WITH RECONCILIATION 2.0 PLAN AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

The New Democrat Coalition is the largest Democratic ideological caucus in the House of Representatives, with 115 lawmakers focused on breaking through gridlock and getting things done. Our agenda isn’t just another white paper wish list — it’s a workable path forward grounded in competition, expanded supply and policies that put working families first.

Groceries and Household Essentials

Prices at the checkout line remain high, in part because supply chains are fragile and markets are increasingly concentrated. President Trump’s trade policies have made matters worse. Broad tariffs function like a sales tax on everyday goods, and we all pay the price. Recent analyses estimate that tariff-related costs add roughly $1,600 per year to the average household’s expenses. The Affordability Agenda strengthens domestic supply chains, supports family and small farmers, and promotes competition to lower prices.

AFFORDABILITY: THE ISSUE THAT BOOSTED TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS IN 2024 DEFLATED THEM IN 2025

Healthcare

Healthcare costs continue to rise faster than wages, squeezing families and employers alike. Recent Republican healthcare legislation would make matters worse by shifting costs onto households and small businesses. Independent estimates project that more than 15 million Americans will lose coverage, while premiums double or triple for 22 million more. When coverage disappears or becomes unaffordable, families delay care, and employers face higher costs that limit hiring and wage growth. Our approach protects healthcare coverage, increases transparency, enforces accountability and expands competition so health care is affordable and predictable.

Housing

TRUMP ROLLS OUT ‘GREAT HEALTHCARE PLAN,’ URGES CONGRESS TO SLASH COSTS FOR AMERICANS

The United States faces a severe housing shortage, estimated at roughly 4 million homes nationwide, and the consequences are playing out in rising rents and fewer paths to homeownership. Years of red tape and outdated regulations have limited new construction. Our agenda cuts those barriers and commits to building at least 4 million new homes over the next decade. More supply will not fix everything overnight, but without it, affordability will continue to slip out of reach.

Energy

Household energy bills are rising, driven by underinvestment, permitting delays and uncertainty that slows progress. Families should not be left wondering whether next month’s utility bill will blow their budget. Our plan accelerates responsible energy development and modernizes the electric grid to keep power reliable and affordable.

HOUSE PASSES BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL AS TRUMP ZEROES IN ON AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

Family Care

Childcare and elder care costs are forcing families into impossible choices. Too many parents cut back hours or leave the workforce entirely because care is unavailable or unaffordable. Too many seniors worry about how they will age safely. We’re working to expand access to child and elder care so that families can afford to work, care for loved ones and plan for their future.

Affordability is a core component of the government’s promise to the American people: if you work hard in this country, you should be able to provide a safe and comfortable life for yourself and your family. 

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We believe everyone should be able to afford the essentials — housing, healthcare, food, childcare, education, a retirement and more — with enough left over to buy that car, take that vacation and save for your future.

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That’s what our Affordability Agenda is about: renewing the promise of affordability to every American, not just to get by, but to get ahead. 

This is not about ideology. It is about whether Washington is willing to take affordability seriously and act with urgency. Families across the country are asking for relief. The New Dem Affordability Agenda is our answer.

JONATHAN TURLEY: NY Times columnist sinks to sick new low mocking JD Vance’s mom

In an age of rage, it is often difficult to stand out from the mob, as so many pander to the perpetually irate. However, New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie has found a way to win the race to the bottom. In a post on Bluesky, Bouie mocked the addiction of the mother of Vice President JD Vance, saying that she should have sold her son for drugs.

Bouie used Bluesky — a digital safe zone for viewpoint intolerance on the left — to post one of the most reprehensible attacks on Vance. Bouie wrote that “this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.” That is hardly notable on today’s rage scale. However, he then decided to use the painful addiction history of Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins, against her son: “No wonder his mom tried to sell him for Percocets. I can’t imagine a parent who wouldn’t sell little JD for Percocet if they knew he would turn out like this.”

Vance wrote a celebrated bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, about his difficult childhood with a mother who became addicted to pain medication and eventually found herself stealing drugs from her patients. It was a tragic account of how addiction tore their family apart, but also a tale of redemption: “I knew that a mother could love her son despite the grip of addiction. I knew that my family loved me, even when they struggled to take care of themselves.”

JD VANCE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SOLD BY HIS MOTHER FOR DRUGS, NYT COLUMNIST SAYS

In April of last year, Vance celebrated his mother’s decade of sobriety.

As I discuss in my new book, Rage and the Republic,” a common element of past radical movements is the dehumanization of political opponents. In calling others “Gestapo,” “fascists” or “Nazis,” you gain a certain license to say and do things that you would ordinarily never say or do. By stripping them of their humanity and any right to empathy, you are free to discard the limitations of decency and civility.

Rage is itself a type of drug. It is addictive — and, while they never admit it, many relish it.

JD VANCE TELLS DEMS OUTRAGED OVER YOUNG REPUBLICANS’ LEAKED GROUP CHAT TO ‘GROW UP’

Bouie displays a striking lack of self-awareness in his hateful posts, objecting that “this is a wicked man who knows he is being wicked and does it anyway.” It is the ultimate example of transference; a self-description projected onto those he hates.

Rage is itself a type of drug. It is addictive — and, while they never admit it, many relish it.

On his New York Times biography page, Bouie insists that “I come from a left-leaning, social democratic perspective, but I strive for honesty, fairness and good faith in my writing.” He adds that “I abide by the same rigorous ethical standards as all Times journalists.” 

A THERAPIST’S WARNING: TRUMP DIDN’T BREAK AMERICA — PERMANENT OUTRAGE DID

If using Vance’s tragic childhood and his mother’s addiction is an example of the “fairness and good faith” of The New York Times, it is a chilling prospect.

In his book, Vance observes that the children of broken and impoverished homes often give up hope, as he did: “Psychologists call it ‘learned helplessness’ when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”

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He found that choices do matter in shaping your life. We all make such choices, as did Bouie in becoming another voice of rage — and as did the New York Times in choosing to amplify him.

It is the same choice that the Times makes in barring a U.S. senator and firing editors for exposing readers to alternative viewpoints while publishing those who advocate repression or rationalize political violence. To the apparent satisfaction of its readers, the paper now peddles outrage to feed a national addiction.

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In the end, Vance and his mother have overcome far greater challenges than this vicious columnist or the hatefest of Bluesky. From adversity, they found strength and a bond that has inspired many who are struggling with such addictions and poverty.

It is clear who is “wicked” in these postings. Perhaps it is even unintentionally edifying — and self-condemning. As Victor Hugo observed, “The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.”

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Gradually, then suddenly, blue state America is heading for financial disaster

In his famous 20th century novel “The Sun Also Rises,” Ernest Hemingway’s character, Mike Campbell, was asked by a friend how his financial ruin had happened. Campbell replied to the question simply, “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”

Just a cursory look at today’s headlines and one can see this very idea of “gradually and then suddenly” playing out in the fiscal health of many blue states. California, the poster child for a state heading down the road to financial ruin, is slated to lose four congressional seats in the 2030 census due to population loss.

Moreover, major companies such as Wells Fargo and Quantum, with others surely to follow, are moving their headquarters out of the Golden State to Florida. In fact, Miami was recently labeled by one national outlet as the “new Silicon Valley.”

Two of the other largest out-migration states in the country? Illinois and New York. Ken Griffin, the multibillionaire who runs the largest and most successful hedge fund in America, Citadel Hedge Fund, left Chicago in 2022 and moved his headquarters to Florida. Meanwhile, both Illinois and New York are slated to lose between two and four congressional seats in 2030 due to population loss.

BURGUM CALLS CALIFORNIA A ‘NATIONAL SECURITY RISK’ AS ENERGY CHIEF WARNS BLUE STATES ARE SKEWING COST AVERAGES

So, what is going on here? Well, in short, individuals and companies have had it with blue state taxes, wild spending, suffocating regulations and draconian environmental policies that stifle innovation and entrepreneurship. They are moving to red states like Florida and Texas that value capital, markets, free exchange and opportunity. Florida and Texas, incidentally, are projected to gain four congressional seats in 2030. 

Using any measure — GDP growth, job creation, capital investment, employment rates or the all-knowing U-Haul index of in and outmigration — red states litter the top 10 places to move with the occasional purple states of Arizona or Nevada breaking into the mix.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned California, Illinois, New York and many other blue states reside at the bottom. Americans have simply had it with bloated government and the nanny states that want to control every aspect of one’s money and life. And those Americans are voting with their feet.

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The left likes to say that warm weather and beaches are the reasons citizens are moving to red states, but that belies the truth. Last time I checked, Utah, Idaho and Montana had neither warm weather nor beaches and yet these states are routinely in the top 10 of these indices.

What does all of this tell us? Well, we’ve seen this coming for some time. California hasn’t gained a congressional seat since 2000. Illinois and New York? Last century. Blue states have seen their economies weaken and their populations slowly shrink since then, but politicians in those states refuse to acknowledge the reasons why.

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Now reality is sinking in, and with the loss of electoral votes comes the loss of political influence in Washington D.C., let alone financial ruin. 

Mike Campbell probably knew little of electoral politics, but he did know a thing or two about bankruptcy, and his acknowledgment of its occurrence being “gradually and then suddenly” is a cautionary tale for America. Blue states should take heed.

Federal welfare spending is a fraud magnet — and taxpayers are paying the price

Investigators have found a large underworld of fraud in Minnesota’s welfare programs. In one scandal, 57 people were convicted of stealing benefits from a children’s food program. In another scandal, investigators allege that Medicaid programs for housing, autism and assisted living have been looted. A third scandal is the apparent widespread fraud in daycare programs, as profiled by a YouTuber.

Republicans have jumped on the Minnesota scandals to highlight how the fraud spread in the Somali community under a Democratic governor. But there is a deeper lesson from Minnesota, stemming from the fact that the fraud-plagued programs in the news are all federally funded and administered by the state: State policymakers have little incentive to combat fraud when they are spending “free” money from Washington. Meanwhile, federal policymakers act as if they can borrow and spend without limits, and they focus on steering funds to their districts, not routing out waste.  

As a result, many federal aid-to-state programs — which account for $1.1 trillion in spending — suffer from fraud. In the $110 billion food stamp program, for example, there has been an explosion of “card skimming.” Since 2023, more than 670,000 households have had their food stamp benefits stolen by criminals rigging checkout terminals with fake card readers.

USDA IMMEDIATELY SUSPENDS ALL FEDERAL FUNDING TO MINNESOTA AMID FRAUD INVESTIGATION

State governments could have solved this problem years ago by putting food stamp benefits on smartcards. But very few states have done so because the costs of fraud are covered by the federal budget, not by state taxpayers.

Another spigot of funding susceptible to fraud is the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s $60 billion in state aid. Last year, the New York City Housing Authority — which is two-thirds funded by HUD — was rocked by scandal as 70 employees were convicted of taking bribes for steering contracts to chosen vendors. The bribery scams had gone on for at least a decade, likely because federal policymakers were not paying attention and the housing authority was mainly spending federal money, not New York’s.

Much of HUD’s community development spending flows to thousands of nonprofit groups with opaque finances, which creates a breeding ground for scammers. Last year in Delaware, for example, leaders of the Dover Interfaith Mission for Housing pleaded guilty to stealing $600,000 of HUD funds. In another case last year, two Amarillo city workers were convicted of stealing more than $500,000 from HUD-funded homelessness programs.

In California, billions of dollars of HUD and state homeless aid to anti-poverty groups has gone missing. One company called Shangri-La allegedly stole $2 million in grants that were supposed to build low-income housing. A federal prosecutor said that he is finding massive fraud and criticized California leaders for letting corruption fester for years.

MINNESOTA DHS WHISTLEBLOWER DETAILS ‘SMEAR CAMPAIGN’ AFTER REPORTING FRAUD CONCERNS TO STATE

With all these scandals, the Trump administration’s crack-down on fraud is clearly needed. But executive actions won’t solve the underlying problem: the states have no incentive to be frugal with federal funds while federal lawmakers deficit-spend with no restraint.

The only durable way to slash fraud is for Congress to transfer the funding of welfare to state governments, which face the discipline of having to balance their annual budgets. It is true, however, that cutting federal welfare funding faces major political hurdles.

First, members of Congress build political support by steering federal spending to anti-poverty groups in their districts. Second, pro-spending lobbies know that the deficit-fueled federal budget is less constrained than state budgets, so they push to move welfare funding up to the federal level.

TREASURY SECRETARY ANNOUNCES CASH REWARDS FOR MINNESOTA FRAUD WHISTLEBLOWERS

Third, liberals fixate on tax distribution, fully aware that federal taxes hit the wealthy harder than state taxes. As such, they favor federal funding of welfare over state funding.

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Finally, liberals favor federalizing programs to curtail interstate competition. If the states funded their own welfare systems, many would decide to have leaner programs and lower taxes. Liberals fear such diversity, so they press for top-down programs that burden all the states equally with bloated programs.

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These are powerful barriers to reform but, strangely, partisanship may break down those barriers. Trump is targeting fraud because Democratic states and Democratic-favored programs are in the news. For taxpayers, this is good news, but even better news would be if Democrats launched their own fraud investigations of GOP-favored programs. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that up to 10% of federal spending gets stolen in fraud scams each year. In the near term, we need more auditing of both Democratic and Republican favored programs. But over the longer term, Congress should end funding of the most fraud-prone programs — and many of those are aid-to-state welfare programs.

Gov Pritzker ignored my letter — after his sanctuary policies killed my daughter

I am a lifelong Illinoisan, and I have met my social contract. I’ve done everything properly. I’ve been law-abiding and I’ve been productive. And if I didn’t do these things, I would have been punished. So I’ve met my side of the bargain. But I want my governor to know that he hasn’t met his end of the bargain.

Recently, I sent Gov. JB Pritzker a letter asking straightforward questions about the sanctuary policies he champions — policies that protected an illegal alien who went on to kill my daughter. I asked for a response by January 19, 2026, the one-year anniversary of Katie’s death. To this day, I have received nothing.

The pain our family has experienced in the past 12+ months since Katie’s death is beyond description. I wish I could explain it to people. The pain is so unbearable at times it has made me almost unable to function. I am haunted by the knowledge that I will never walk my daughter down the aisle, I’ll never hold her children, I’ll never see her again. I would give anything – anything – and the rest of my days for just one more hour with her.

AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT KILLED MY DAUGHTER — LEFTISTS MARCH FOR RENEE, NOT FOR KATIE

My questions to the governor were not ideological questions. They were factual, basic, and rooted in public safety. Among the 11 questions I asked, three stand out:

First, in federal court on November 23, 2025, it was stated that Julio Cucul-Bol is currently receiving treatment through the Illinois Department of Corrections for an incurable communicable disease, HIV. What medical screening protocols, if any, were in place when he entered Illinois?

Second, it has since been revealed that Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national, was using the alias “Juan Jahaziel Saenz-Suarez,” falsely identifying himself as a Mexican national. Federal law-enforcement authorities were aware of this identity fraud. Why was an individual known to be using an alias allowed to remain in Illinois communities without meaningful verification?

We ask why this individual was in the country, in the state, and in our communities to begin with. Gov. Pritzker wants the public to stop asking that question. I will not.

Third, Cucul-Bol possessed an Illinois driver’s license despite being illiterate and unable to read or write in any language. How did he pass the written driver’s examination?

GRIEVING FATHER SAYS DAUGHTER’S DEATH BY ILLEGAL ALIEN SHOWS COST OF SANCTUARY POLICIES

These are simple questions. They deserve answers. You can read my entire letter here.

Gov. Pritzker was elected to represent me, my family and every citizen of this state. Instead of responding, he chose silence. And when pressed by the media, his office attempted to deflect responsibility by pointing to a DUI narrative raised by Katie’s mother — as if intoxication somehow erases the fact that the man who killed my daughter should never have been here in the first place.

It does not.

Drunkenness cannot be separated from presence. If an illegal alien stabs someone to death while drunk, we do not excuse the crime by blaming alcohol alone. We ask why that individual was in the country, in the state and in our communities to begin with. Gov. Pritzker wants the public to stop asking that question. I will not.

ICE WARNS ILLINOIS IS RELEASING VIOLENT CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS DESPITE DETAINERS, RISKING PUBLIC SAFETY

On January 19, 2025, my youngest daughter, Katie Abraham, was killed in Urbana, Illinois. She was only 20-years-old — brilliant, loving, full of promise and planning a future that will now never come. She died instantly when the car she was riding in was rear-ended at nearly 80 miles per hour by a drunk driver, Julio Cucul-Bol, an illegal alien.

Cucul-Bol was using an alias while in Illinois and went undetected under a system unprepared — and unwilling — to enforce immigration law. First responders had to pry open the vehicle to reach Katie’s lifeless body.

She was gone before we could say goodbye.

GRIEVING MOTHER BLASTS PRITZKER FOR ‘PROTECTING’ CRIMINALS AFTER DAUGHTER’S DEATH TIED TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT

The driver fled the scene but was later apprehended in Texas. He pleaded guilty to a 30-year prison sentence for killing two women, including my daughter, and injuring three others. Some say this is justice. It is not. When that sentence is divided among the five lives shattered that night, Katie’s life is effectively valued at about ten years. And because Illinois is a sanctuary state, we are forced to worry that even this sentence may not be fully served.

Gov. Pritzker likes to say immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government. Yet in practice, he nullified federal immigration law and replaced it with his own. Without legislative consent or meaningful public accountability, he facilitated the entry and protection of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens — without adequate vetting, without health screenings and without a realistic plan for public safety.

Katie was more than a statistic or a talking point. She was vibrant, kind, creative and deeply loved. She had dreams and plans that were stolen — not only by one man’s recklessness, but by a political system that valued ideology over human life.

Yes, Julio Cucul-Bol chose to drink and drive. But Governor Pritzker chose policies that allowed an illegal alien — using an alias, lacking basic verification and somehow licensed to drive — to live freely in Illinois. Those choices intersected on January 19, 2025. When policy decisions directly contribute to foreseeable harm, responsibility does not vanish. There is blood on the hands of those who refused to act.

VICTIM’S MOM SLAMS GRAMMY SPEECHES AFTER DAUGHTER, BOYFRIEND KILLED IN ALLEGED DUI CRASH BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT

This past year has been the most brutal of our lives. Every “first” without Katie has reopened the wound:

• Her 21st birthday, March 28
• Family birthdays
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• New Year’s

Katie was more than a statistic or a talking point. She was vibrant, kind, creative and deeply loved. She had dreams and plans that were stolen — not only by one man’s recklessness, but by a political system that valued ideology over human life.

Gov. Pritzker has never acknowledged Katie’s life or her death. No call. No letter. No response. Silence.

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Silence is not neutrality. Silence is a choice.

For families like mine, that choice speaks volumes.

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STEPHEN MOORE: From Dow 800 to 50,000–Reagan, Trump and the supply-side miracle

When I first arrived in Washington in 1982, the Dow Jones hit a low of 800. You may not believe that, so feel free to look it up.

If anyone had predicted that in a little more than four decades the Dow would surpass 50,000, they might have been admitted into a mental institution. But U.S. stocks have grown 60-fold (not counting inflation). Even accounting for inflation, the Dow is up about 12-fold. We have lived through the greatest period of wealth creation in perhaps the history of the world.

No other nation has come even close in modern times. Consider that American publicly traded companies are now worth more than $70 trillion.

TRUMP PREDICTING 100K ON DOW BY TIME HE LEAVES OFFICE, CLAIMS HE WAS ‘RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING’

Is China catching up? Yes, but they’ve got a lot of work to do despite having four times more people than we do. The market cap of all Chinese companies is estimated at roughly $11 trillion. The market cap of all European Union countries is roughly $16 trillion. Japan’s companies are worth $7 trillion.

We are worth roughly as much as the rest of the world combined, even though we only have 5% of the world’s population. THAT should get you out of your chair shouting, “USA, USA, USA!”

We have lived through the greatest period of wealth creation in perhaps the history of the world.

This wealth spurt didn’t happen by accident. It’s the triumph of good economic policy — including the steep decline in tax rates and tame inflation bookended by two of our greatest pro-business presidents, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.

STEPHEN MOORE: ECONOMISTS KEEP MISSING THE TRUMP BOOM — AND THEY WON’T ADMIT IT

Rewind to 1981 when Reagan came into office: Inflation was running at about 12%, the top income tax rate was 70%, the corporate rate was 46%, the estate tax was 70%, and the capital gains rate was 28%. The economy was in a state of collapse.

Today, inflation is roughly 3%, the top income tax rate is 39.6%, the corporate rate is down to 21%, the estate tax is 40%, and capital gains taxes are taxed at 23.4%.

Supply-siders like Steve Forbes, Arthur Laffer and Larry Kudlow should take a bow. They were right about lowering tax rates and inflation, igniting growth and prosperity. The income redistributionists were wrong that the rich would pay much less taxes. They pay more. The top 1% now pay roughly 40% of the income tax.

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That’s the good news. The bad news is that so many Democrats haven’t learned the lesson that lower tax rates create more prosperity. By the way, the evidence also shows that even with these lower tax rates, the richest 1% pay a higher share of the tax burden than ever before.

The city in the U.S. with the highest combined federal/state/local income tax rate is New York City. The new mayor, Zohran Mamdani was elected promising that millionaires and billionaires would pay more taxes to close a $10 billion deficit.

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California is our most populous state. The liberal Democrats want to put a first-in-the-nation wealth tax on the ballot that has already created an exodus of millionaires and billionaires out of the state.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., Trump is predicting the Dow will reach 100,000 by the time he leaves office. That’s a bit of a moonshot, for sure, but the last four decades prove supply-side miracles can come true.

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Nicki Minaj broke free from identity politics — and the left can’t stand it

As I make my way from Alabama into Mississippi on my Walk Across America, I’ve been thinking a lot about the chains that bind us. I’m not thinking of the visible chains of poverty, drugs and violence, but the invisible ones that shackle our minds. Just as great ideas set our minds free, there are destructive notions that keep us imprisoned. It seems far too many of us prefer this imprisoned mindset — and why?

What got me thinking about this was the recent attacks on Nicki Minaj. This Trinidad-born rapper, who rose from the streets of Queens to worldwide fame and wealth, dared to step outside the identity politics script by publicly supporting President Donald Trump. 

Predictably, the left unleashed a torrent of attacks with the explicit aim of “canceling” her. All for what? An individual expressing her opinion? Or, more accurately put, a Black individual expressing her own opinion?

NICKI MINAJ FANS SAY THEY’RE LEAVING DEMOCRAT PARTY AS RAPPER’S POLITICS SPARK BACKLASH AND PRAISE

Is this politics, or something deeper — like White guilt manifesting as control over Black thought? It’s a tired pattern we’ve seen before, from the vilification of thinkers like Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele. Even I was vilified when I came out in Chicago as a Black conservative. I lost more than half of my church, and my family had to go into hiding due to death threats.

When Minaj appeared at a recent U.S. Treasury event promoting “Trump Accounts” for children’s financial futures, she didn’t mince words. She declared, “I am probably the president’s number one fan, and that’s not going to change.” 

She addressed the backlash head-on: “The hate or what people have to say — it does not affect me at all. It actually motivates me to support him more.” And she didn’t stop there, calling out the “bullying” and “smear campaigns” against Trump, saying, “We’re not going to let them get away with bullying him. … It’s not going to work.”

JOY REID SAYS GOP USING NICKI MINAJ AS A ‘HOUSE PET’ TO PUT ‘BLACKFACE’ ON MAGA

Minaj, an immigrant who came to America as a child, was once a Trump critic. But in her recent posts on X, she has not shied away from questioning the Democratic establishment, asking why key figures like Jay-Z stayed silent when Trump pardoned a Roc Nation executive. 

She’s also called for voter ID, exclaiming, “What sensible, forward-thinking, cutting-edge, leading nation is having a DEBATE on whether or not there should be VOTER ID?!?!!!!”

This isn’t just celebrity gossip. This is a woman in a position of great influence, with millions of fans, who has chosen her own path and opinion. 

TRUMP CALLS NICKI MINAJ ‘A WINNER’ AS RAPPER DEFIES HOLLYWOOD MOLD

The response? A full-scale assault from the left in hip-hop and entertainment circles, where mindless submission to progressive orthodoxy is demanded.

Fans and critics have piled on. One X user lamented, “Nicki Minaj sold her soul for a Trump gold card. … She sold out Black fans, queer fans, immigrant fans.” Another accused her of becoming “anti-immigrant” and “embarrassing” for supporting Trump. 

Even at the Grammys, host Trevor Noah took a swipe: “Nicki Minaj not here — she’s still at the White House with Donald Trump.” 

NICKI MINAJ ACCUSES CALIFORNIA GOV NEWSOM OF ‘TRYING TO BE TRUMP’ IN SCATHING INTERVIEW

Reports claim she’s lost millions of followers due to fan “backlash” and her “MAGA-fication.” One critic even wrote, “She’s such an embarrassment & her fans don’t even care.” The Democratic Party’s official account even quoted a stan page to diss her — a rare and revealing move against a celebrity.

Is this all White guilt at play? Absolutely. White liberals, in their zeal to “protect” Black people from themselves, often end up patronizing and controlling us. They assume we must all think alike, vote alike and speak alike — or else we’re traitors. On the other hand, Black elite liberals shame us into groupthink to keep their hold on power — or else we’re labeled race traitors.

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Steele, in books like “White Guilt,” exposes how liberals use racial guilt to maintain power, treating Blacks as perpetual victims who need their guidance. White guilt is never about actual guilt — no White person today can feel personal guilt for what past Whites did. Instead, White guilt is solely about power, and it has been the tool of progressive elites to keep their tribal agenda alive. As Steele says, White guilt is Black power.

White guilt isn’t benevolence. It’s a cage. It says, “We’ll forgive your history if you let us dictate your future.” But when a Black person like Minaj breaks free — endorsing Trump on issues like economic empowerment or border security — White guilt turns to rage. They can’t handle a queen who crowns herself. Instead of debating her ideas, they bully, mock and erase. This isn’t progress. It’s plantation politics in modern dress.

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I see hope. If I had listened to the progressive left, I would never be in the middle of building my life-changing community center on Chicago’s South Side. That is why I admire Minaj’s defiance. It echoes the spirit of those who’ve always fought for true liberation — thinkers like Sowell and Steele, who remind us that freedom includes the right to disagree. 

Blacks are not a monolith. We can support Trump on policies that build wealth for our kids, like those Trump Accounts, without losing our soul. The left can’t silence us or blind us to the truth. As Minaj said, the hate only motivates more — and let that be our fuel for a far better future for us all.

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American seafood is national security — and Washington is failing fishermen

I have spent my life working on the water as a commercial fisherman. Today, I serve as the chairman and chief strategist of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, (NEFSA) representing fishermen who fish the waters of the North Atlantic and the New York Bight, along with their families, business and industry associations and members of the public who support wild-caught American seafood. I speak for people who work these waters every day and for communities that depend on them.

We see ocean conditions as they exist, not months later in reports. Yet policy too often prioritizes theory over experience and paperwork over outcomes. Commercial fishermen are not line items. We live with the consequences of every decision made in Washington. On the water, those decisions can make fishing less safe, manage fish poorly and drive American commercial fishermen out of business.

AMERICAN SEAFOOD IS AMERICAN FOOD SECURITY

In 2026, it is time to clearly recognize that U.S. wild-caught seafood is U.S. food security. America controls one of the largest and most productive ocean food resources in the world, and commercial fishermen make it possible to feed this country under some of the highest standards anywhere.

COAST GUARD IDENTIFIES 7 VICTIMS ON BOARD GLOUCESTER COMMERCIAL FISHING BOAT THAT SANK OFF MASSACHUSETTS

At the same time, we are forced to compete against cheap imported seafood flooding U.S. markets and undercutting American harvesters. Much of this product comes from overseas operations with weak or nonexistent environmental and labor standards, yet it is marketed as fresh or sustainable. Meanwhile, American fishermen following the rules are slowly being pushed out.

American farmers know this problem well. Domestic food producers who follow strict regulations are routinely undercut by imports that do not. Commercial fishermen, like farmers, are a pillar of national resilience. Any new food policy must rebuild and protect domestic seafood production, so American fishermen can feed American consumers under American standards.

OFFSHORE WIND EQUALS FOREIGN INDUSTRIAL TAKEOVER OF OUR OCEANS

We cannot credibly claim to support domestic seafood or food security while allowing the industrial takeover of our ocean. Offshore wind destroys habitat, displaces fishing from historic grounds and embeds permanent industrial hazards into working waters. It would be like setting our farm fields on fire and calling it progress.

Commercial fishermen warned from the beginning that these projects would compromise offshore safety. Offshore wind degrades marine radar, interferes with search-and-rescue capability and disrupts military and homeland defense systems. When radar and rescue systems fail offshore, lives are put at risk. Infrastructure that causes those failures has no place in working waters or national security zones.

Once built, the damage is permanent. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to eliminate American commercial fishing jobs so foreign energy companies and private equity firms can industrialize the waters that feed this country.

FIXING GROUNDFISH FROM THE GROUND UP

Our New England groundfish fishery is in turmoil. Fishermen face quota swings that shift from feast to famine, often driven by incomplete surveys or outdated data. A stock can be abundant one year and effectively unavailable the next, not because the fish disappeared, but because the survey failed to capture reality.

When that happens, fishermen cannot simply pivot. If the fishery they depend on is suddenly closed and they do not hold permits for others, boats tie up, crews are sent home and coastal businesses suffer despite healthy fish in the water.

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Restoring confidence starts with better assessments. Better science does not mean more models divorced from reality. It means cooperative, industry-based research, with fishermen working alongside scientists over time. On the West Coast, industry-chartered vessels and fishing crews have partnered with scientists for decades to improve surveys, reduce uncertainty and produce more reliable management outcomes.

A COMMON-SENSE PATH FORWARD

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The choice before the nation is clear. We can continue policies that push American commercial fishermen aside and replace domestic seafood with imports and industrial ocean uses, or we can follow the direction set by the president’s executive order and put America’s food producers first. Through President Trump’s leadership, the federal government has recognized that domestic seafood production is a matter of national interest, economic resilience and food security.

Commercial fishermen stand ready to meet that call. With a clear vision from the White House and policies grounded in real-world experience, we can protect and strengthen fisheries that are already sustainable, restore working waterfronts, and once again make American seafood a backbone of our national food supply. We are a nation of fishermen ready to roll up our sleeves, do the work and get the job done with the president’s help, feeding America first and leading the world by example.

MORNING GLORY: Legacy media didn’t lose readers, it drove them away

Readers will always read, and news junkies will always find and especially read news. Reading is simply faster than broadcast, so news delivered by text is always going to have a market. That reality does not, however, guarantee any platform the loyalty of a subscriber.

“Journalism is a craft, not a profession,” the late Michael Kelly would routinely state in the blessed years when he was a weekly guest on my radio program. Kelly was the equal of any American journalist of his generation, having worked for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The New Republic and The Atlantic. 

Michael was killed covering the American invasion of Iraq in April 2003. The point he was making was that anyone could be a “journalist,” as there is no licensing involved in American journalism as there is with professions such as medicine and law. Getting paid to “be a journalist” — that was the trick, and as the internet exploded, so did the opportunities to work in the craft.

WASHINGTON POST CEO STEPS DOWN AMID ONSLAUGHT OF BACKLASH FOLLOWING MASS LAYOFFS

The craft survives and thrives in the United States unlike anywhere else in the world because of the First Amendment. The ongoing, never-ending creative destruction of capitalism (thank you for the phrase, Joseph Schumpeter) is the constant companion of every business, including journalism. Freedom of the press, as guaranteed by the Constitution, makes the rise and fall of platforms for journalism particularly robust. There is hardly any “state” media left with the demise of federal funding for National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the vast universe of media continues to expand, and the “news media” within it.

In the aftermath of the big layoffs at The Washington Post, there has been an explosion of commentary — again — about the decline and often the death of newspapers. But if you are reading this, it came to your attention via some means other than a subscription to a legacy newspaper. And there, in a sentence, is the dilemma for legacy “news,” and indeed any written product for which a reader has to pay: There is so much “free” content that it is very, very difficult for a high-overhead text product that depends on subscriptions to succeed. By “succeed,” I mean at least break even.

EX-WASHINGTON POST CHIEF BLASTS ‘GUTLESS’ BEZOS AS PAPER ROCKED BY MAJOR LAYOFFS

For as long as I’ve been a broadcast and print journalist — and that dates to 1979, when I first was paid to write by a newspaper, and 1990, when I first broadcast over the airwaves — I’ve been a critic of legacy media in general for its liberal and then left-wing bias. I have tried to do so without dumping on former employers or colleagues. So this column is not specifically about The Washington Post, for which I wrote columns from February 2017 to October 2024.

The late Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor who hired me, was a splendid editor and person, as are Ruth Marcus and David Shipley, who supervised the Opinion pages in turn after Fred’s death. All three proved terrific people to work for and with, as did all of my editors at the paper.

After I left the Post, however, I also stopped subscribing to it. That’s not intended as anything other than a statement of fact. Over the past five years, I have also discontinued subscriptions to The Telegraph and the Financial Times in the U.K., as well as The New York Times and most subscription-based products that existed 20 years ago as newspapers, other than The Wall Street Journal and Cleveland.com. (The Journal is owned by Fox News Media’s sister company, News Corp.)

WASHINGTON POST JOINS OTHER NEWS OUTLETS IN LAYING OFF RACE-BASED JOURNALISTS

The Journal has excellent reporting on every major story covered by legacy media, and Cleveland.com super-serves any fan of Cleveland’s Browns, Cavaliers and Guardians, as well as the Ohio State Buckeyes.

That second subscription to a “legacy platform” (the former Cleveland Plain Dealer) makes a key point: The sports editor for Cleveland.com, David Campbell, has done a masterful job cultivating the absolutely essential revenue driver for any formerly “regional paper” that needs a far-flung fan base to be satisfied — and indeed tied even more deeply — to its sports addictions. The podcast and text options available for a couple of bucks more, or for free with a quick ad or two, present a model to be studied by any struggling paper. 

Campbell has kept the dean of Cleveland sports analysis, Terry Pluto, working — and now podcasting — along with a dozen veteran beat reporters, while developing a new generation of journalists serving each team’s “verticals.” I assume, but do not know, that successful platforms in every sports-blessed region have done something similar — and have thereby kept many journalists outside the sports section working.

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I hold up The Journal and the sports section of Cleveland.com as models for what still works for primarily text-based products that depend upon subscription revenue but compete for readers’ eyeballs with quality non-subscription text and audio-video. 

Quality matters most of all, but niche readership super-service, particularly in areas like sports news and opinion, is a close second. In this era of abundant free information, it was inevitable that the winnowing that began with the rise of internet-based blogs — then internet-based newsletters without legacy platforms’ sunk costs — and then Substack and podcasts would take a toll on every legacy platform that owed its origins and legacy audiences to a now-extinct quasi-monopoly status and continued reliance on subscription revenue.

Writers and reporters can still get paid to write and report. Andrew Sullivan — arguably the single most influential journalist of the past 50 years because he helped bring about the institution of same-sex marriage through a sustained effort to persuade, while also pioneering the stand-alone, one-writer subscription model — is no longer alone among writer-reporter-columnists who work for themselves. Such journalists are now, in fact, legion. But they must work for their readers, or the revenue will go away.

The journals and subscription websites that have thrived or arrived in this era are best served by a commitment to both quality and the super-service of niches. Bylines have long been brands, and it is very useful to have some of those as well. The new platforms that have flourished, and the old ones that have survived, must earn subscriber support at least annually. They cannot alienate or drive readers away. It’s just the business. 

The abundance of “free and good” is deadly for the “not free, no matter how good” — and certainly for the “not free and redundant,” or worse, the “not free and just bad.” Free beats not free every time, just as quality beats slop.

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Text-only platforms remain abundant, and news delivery platforms are many and varied. The number of working journalists has probably increased since the arrival of the web. Merriam-Webster’s primary definition of a journalist is broad — “a person employed to gather, write, or report news for newspapers, magazines, radio, or television” — but not broad enough. Slash the second half off to make the definition current: Anyone employed to gather, write or report news is a journalist, even if employed directly by readers or viewers. 

In America, at least, the Golden Age of Journalism has begun: There are zero gatekeepers.

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LIZ PEEK: The trans fever is over — and America is reckoning with the damage done

Trans fever has broken. All it took was a president with the guts to call out the evil being done to children across America and a shocking $2 million settlement awarded to a young girl whose body was mutilated by the grown-ups supposedly looking after her.

Bless President Donald Trump for tackling the trans issue head on in his current term, defying the woke police. In his first few weeks in office, he issued a number of executive orders that reset the issue of gender “fluidity”, declaring that henceforward, agencies would acknowledge two sexes — male and female. No more marking passports with an “X”; no more biological men locked up in women’s prisons. 

Trump demanded that schools stop pushing gender ideology in their curriculums (no more picture books like “When Aiden Became a Brother” targeting 4-year-olds) and using pronouns based on gender identity rather than sex. Trump also challenged the granddaddy of transgender issues by declaring that the “policy of the United States [is] to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports…as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.” 

I WAS 15 AND TRUSTED THE ‘EXPERTS’ ON GENDER CARE. TURNS OUT, THEY WERE WINGING IT

Most importantly, the president declared the government would “not fund, sponsor… or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another.”

An estimated 4,000 children aged 12 to 18 have endured trans surgeries over the past four years in the U.S., a period during which many countries in Europe moved away from such procedures, declaring them “experimental” and the medical evidence supporting them unreliable. 

As The Economist wrote in 2023, “Some older studies suggest that, left alone, most children will naturally grow out of their dysphoric feelings.” They also reported that the longer-term impact of puberty blockers are unknown but might include problems with “brain development and decreasing bone density.”

Why didn’t America’s doctors investigate the revealing studies and reach the same conclusions as their colleagues in Britain, or Sweden or France? Maybe because concerns about botched diagnoses and harmful surgeries were dismissed by people like Rachel Levine, former President Joe Biden’s assistant secretary for health, who claimed that such reports were just anecdotal. Levine, herself a trans person, claimed, in a radio interview, that, “There is no argument among medical professionals…about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care.” Except, actually, there was.

PLASTIC SURGEON CITES ‘EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL,’ POOR EVIDENCE IN WARNING AGAINST YOUTH GENDER SURGERIES

As this shameful chapter in American medicine comes to a close, let us hope that a veritable tsunami of lawsuits follows, charging doctors, parents and educators with having ruined the lives of far too many children.

Adults who were either too ignorant or too craven to confront the madness of the moment, and who turned a blind eye to the ghastly “gender-affirming” cruelty that was ruining the lives of (mainly) young girls. They have no excuse. The transgender craze, and gender confusion was, from the beginning, very much a fad.

In 2023, when a staggering 38% of students at Brown University declared themselves “not straight”, compared to only 7% of Americans overall, didn’t anyone at that Ivy school imagine that something was screwy?

PRISHA MOSLEY: DOCTORS TOOK MY BODY APART FOR GENDER ‘CARE.’ NOW THEY ADMIT IT WAS WRONG

And yes, there are people who suffer from genuine gender dysphoria, and who need help. But doctors should know the difference between that rare condition and normal adolescent explorations and confusions.

Like most fads, this concept of gender fluidity is fading. The number of kids claiming to be neither male nor female has plummeted. According to one researcher, “The transgender share among university students peaked in 2023 and has almost halved since, from nearly 7 percent to under 4 percent.” Do we really think the biological makeup of young people changed radically in a matter of a few years? Of course not; young people simply moved on. 

But a number of girls and women in our country cannot move on. One of those is Fox Varian, the 22-year-old from New York state who sued her psychologist and plastic surgeon for performing a double mastectomy on her when she was only 16. She won a $2 million lawsuit against the doctors who recommended the procedure; the jury agreed that the treatment was ill-advised and that Fox, who had a multiyear history of mental health issues, was not given proper care.

DETRANSITIONER PREDICTS MASSIVE WAVE OF LAWSUITS AFTER LANDMARK $2 MILLION VERDICT

There are a number of similar lawsuits in the pipeline, lodged by women whose breasts have been removed or were prescribed puberty blockers at a young age and who later regretted their decision. Chloe Cole is one of the most vocal “detransitioners” who underwent radical surgery and trans treatment beginning at 13 years of age. As she said in an affidavit, “The worst part about my transition would be the long-term health effects that I didn’t knowingly consent to at the time.” 

In a recent interview on Fox News, Chloe said she expected the recent decision would prove a “massive precedent” and that similar lawsuits would flood the country. Let us hope so. 

It is not an easy path to challenge woke gender orthodoxy. Chloe Cole has been doxed and shamed by the trans community; they despise anyone who believes this transition should be left only to adults capable of making such a profound decision.

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The American Society of Plastic Surgeons issued a statement after the Varian verdict admitting that, “there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.” In other words, the medical basis for such life-changing interventions is garbage.

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The American Medical Association, the country’s largest physician group, has also pivoted, declaring that children should not receive surgical gender-realigning treatments. Surely the American Academy of Pediatrics, which reaffirmed their backing of trans mutilations as recently as 2023, will follow suit.

Too little, too late for some women who will forever live with the consequences of a nation and a medical community afraid to tell the truth.

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Ronald Reagan’s granddaughter, Kevin McCarthy honor late president’s legacy on his 115th birthday

Hundreds gathered Friday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to honor the late president on what would have been his 115th birthday — a tribute especially poignant with the death of his son Michael Reagan earlier this year.

Among those in attendance was Reagan’s granddaughter, Ashley Reagan, who said the annual commemoration helps maintain the legacy her father Michael spent much of his life preserving.

“Even with his passing recently, it was very important to my whole family to make sure we were here to honor my grandpa and his legacy and everything it represents,” she said.

“What he lived for was making sure that my grandpa’s legacy lived on,” she said. “So now, it’s carrying on my grandpa’s legacy and my dad’s legacy.”

MICHAEL REAGAN, ELDER SON OF FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, DIES AT 80

The annual commemoration in Simi Valley, California drew family members, political leaders and longtime admirers of the former president.

Fox News Digital spoke exclusively with Ashley Reagan and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to reflect on Reagan’s legacy and the relevance of his leadership in today’s deeply divided political climate.

Ashley spoke candidly about her father following his death on Jan. 4 after a battle with cancer. He was 80.

“He was definitely a big personality. He spoke his mind. You always knew where he stood with politics as well,” Ashley said. “He was somebody that always spoke the truth.”

Ashley said her father, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, shared the ability to connect with people from all walks of life, “no matter who they were.”

“I think it came from a lot of years of watching and observing and kind of watching how my grandpa interacted with people, how he communicated with people and his communication wasn’t based on who somebody wasshe explained “It’s why he was able to accomplish what he was able to accomplish when he was in office.”

Ashley also emphasized that the version of Ronald Reagan Americans saw on the national stage as president was no different than the “grandpa” she knew at home, characterizing him as the “heart of the earth.”

“The person that you saw was the person he was with us,” Ashley told Fox News Digital. “We rode horses with him; we went to his house and had lunch with him all the time, and he was just, he was Grandpa.”

A SPEEDING TICKET LED ME TO RONALD REAGAN’S HOMETOWN AND A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF AMERICA’S PRESIDENT 

When speaking about how Reagan would perceive today’s political climate, both Ashley and McCarthy said it bears similarities to the turbulent period Reagan faced when he took office in the 1980s, theorizing that history is repeating itself.

“I think it mirrors when he took over in the ’80s,” Ashley said. “I think if you go back in history and you kind of look at where the country was at before he came into office, it mirrors that time frame.”

“High inflation, America embarrassed what happened with our hostages, the challenge that you had a sitting president believe the best days were behind us… A lot of similaritiesMcCarthy added.

Ashley said her grandfather would have emphasized unity, particularly at a time when political divisions run so deep.

“I think he would encourage us to reach across the aisle a little more, but unfortunately, I think we’re watching history repeat itself in a lot of ways,” she said.

“He was all about unity, and he always said the only way you can get things accomplished is by reaching across the aisle and working with the other side. And he was able to accomplish so much because he didn’t just focus on people that agreed with him, but he worked with everybody,” she added.

McCarthy, a keynote speaker at Reagan’s 115th birthday commemoration, told Fox News Digital that the former president played a big influence in determining his political philosophy.

“I grew up in a family of all Democrats,” the speaker said. “He and Abraham Lincoln are the reason why I’m a Republican. I rejected what I heard at home.”

“I remember in elementary school watching Jimmy Carter tell me the best days were behind me and he [Reagan] walks up to a podium, say no pastels, fly the bold colors, and go to that shiny city on the hill. That’s who I wanted to follow. And that’s what brought me to the Republican Party,” McCarthy added.

The speaker also described Reagan as a “happy conservative” who believed strong principles brought more freedom — the kind of leader, he said, America needs today.

“He actually welcomed more people to the party,” McCarthy said. “We had what we called were the Reagan Democrats. These people just got educated through him and said, ‘I wanna be with him. I want America to be better.’ Those are the type of candidates we should look for.”

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Ashley said part of how she continues the Reagan legacy is through her work with Young America’s Foundation (YAF), which operates the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California – a site she explained as deeply personal to the family.

“With my dad’s passing, it only makes us more involved in that sort of thing because we don’t want to miss that connection with Ronald Reagan,” she said.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, YAF’s President, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said, “Young people still draw inspiration from President Reagan’s words on freedom. Drawing attention to his birthday draws attention to his remarkable influence even today.”