Morning Answer

Chicago's Morning Answer with @DanProft, weekday mornings 5-9a CT on @AM560TheAnswer

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

@left_behind_chi @KurtSchingoethe @DanProft @John_Kass M-F 5-9am AM 560 in Chicago
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[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

The Securing the Agriculture Workforce Act of 2026, legislation introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, would significantly overhaul the H-2A guest worker visa program for the first time since its creation in 1986. @DanProft welcomed @AmmonSBlair, a former U.S. Border Patrol agent, military veteran, and senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, to discuss the bill’s implications.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, recently became the United Kingdom’s new prime minister following Keir Starmer’s resignation. @DanProft welcomed Eliot Wilson, contributing editor at Defense on the Brink and senior fellow for national security at the Coalition for Global, to assess Burnham’s early positioning.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

.@DanProft welcomed @Rich_Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former National Security Council official, to discuss NYC Mayor Mamdani's stated wish to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, alongside the broader state of the Iran conflict.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Remember Mark Sanford? He's back.

[Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 @PollTracker2024]

Mark Sanford (R) announces bid for US Senate in South Carolina

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Just deport them!

[POLITICO @politico]

Noncitizens voting in New Jersey could face criminal prosecution, DOJ official says https://t.co/LjdQ1XsBX9

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

CONTROVERSY unfolding at Illinois School District

Brave parents at @Naperville203 BLAST board members after they discovered how an elementary teacher was reportedly acting inappropriately with children.

The teacher would allegedly blow into kids' ears, slap their butts, and take videos of the children alone in the classroom.

The administration is reportedly IGNORING the parents' concerns, saying "there is only so much we can do."

WTF is going on at this district???

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

How about focusing on the problems facing Illinois?

[JB Pritzker @JBPritzker]

We're watching the most vile and cruel people take an axe to trees planted by the most courageous Americans.

If there was a time to speak out, it's right now.

[Dan Proft @DanProft]

In lieu of adult males, the kids in New Richmond, WI, are fortunate to have young Ella, the sheepdog. Her poise and clarity of thought are well beyond her years. As impressive and methodical a takedown of a cowardly, sentimentalist school board as I've heard.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Boys don't belong in girls' sports.

[Richie Flores @RFlores91]

What a terrible human being.

I hope other WNBA players call her transphobia out.

Trans rights are human rights. 🏳️‍⚧️

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Because, for Democrats, no amount of taxation is ever enough. @JBPritzker has had seven years to help address the property tax issue in Illinois. And yet, he spends more time campaigning for the White House than doing what's best for everyday Illinois families.

[Chicago Tribune @chicagotribune]

From the Editorial Board: Illinois homeowners pay among the highest property taxes in America. Why can’t that be enough? https://t.co/mJc8fHJXGL

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Imagine if @JBPritzker spent as much time focusing on the issues facing everyday Illinoisans as he does pretending that one day he'll be president.

[JB Pritzker @JBPritzker]

Remember when Trump promised to lower costs on day one?

Illinois is stepping up where the White House won't.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

A Wall Street Journal piece by Harvard Law School professor Jesse Fried examines the unusual corporate governance structures at OpenAI and Anthropic ahead of anticipated public offerings. @DanProft welcomed Fried to unpack the argument, framed by the piece’s headline suggesting both companies have effectively placed mission ahead of profit in ways that could create lasting complications for investors.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

.@DanProft welcomed economist @StephenMoore, author of "The Trump Economic Miracle" and co-author of "The Plan to Unleash Prosperity," for his regular weekly conversation. Moore, who recently visited one of the country’s largest data centers in Loudoun County, Virginia, pushed back on characterizations of the facilities as harmful to surrounding communities, arguing that opposition to data centers is functionally equivalent to opposing the internet, cell phones, and GPS technology that depend on them.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

A recent survey found that only 42% of Americans express confidence in higher education. Meanwhile, a USA Today opinion piece by @NatSandovalDC, a 2024 Columbia University graduate, examines the rise of AI-assisted cheating on college campuses. @DanProft welcomed Sandoval, an opinion fellow with USA Today through the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, to discuss her reporting.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

.@DanProft welcomed @mrubin1971, director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, to assess the state of the conflict with Iran.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

America > Canada

[Chicago Sun-Times @Suntimes]

Four belugas arrived here in the wee hours of Tuesday from a closed facility in Canada. Some animal advocates question whether the transfer violates Canadian law. https://t.co/QTVyVDcVwM

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

This is a lie. The only thing JB Pritzker loves is power.

[JB Pritzker @JBPritzker]

I love this country too much not to fight for it.

[Dan Proft @DanProft]

The best part of Rubio's speech last week on the threat America faces from the violence of Leftist revolutionaries was disputing the fallacious premise that one routinely hears even from liberty-loving pluralists that "communism sounds good in theory." No, it does not. It never did as it is based on a fictional view of the nature of man and a rejection of God, the source of man's natural rights.

It is anti-civilizational in theory and concomitantly barbaric in practice.

[Dan Proft @DanProft]

This week's installment of "In-depth History" with Frank the History Teacher from Arlington Heights on today's @MorningAnswer because there's nothing new in this world just the history you don't know and Frank does...
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Toxic Assets

Good Morning! The Caspian Sea, the largest inland body of water on the planet is interestedly only 20 feet deep on average in its northern third.  And its even lower near its major source – the Volga River – so the city of Astrakhan became the caviar capital of the world, as the Soviets exploited this near monopoly on fish eggs from the Beluga Sturgeon there, and became a source of foreign currency for them.

Several hundred miles east of the Caspian lies the Aral Sea. Or I should say, it used to lie there.  Today it is 90% gone, with old ships and tankers lying in the middle of what is now a toxic desert of windblown old fertilizer from long ago. Formerly the 4th largest lake in the world with an average depth of 50 feet, it was a major fishery and served as an oasis on the Silk Road in medieval times.  It was fed by the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, but the Soviets as central planners seeking more cash, decided to transform the nearby deserts in Kazakhstan into cotton farms by diverting those waters.  The result was one of the greatest ecological disasters in world history.

It is well-established that government, when it’s not an actual threat to humans, is at best inept and inefficient.  But honest conservatives also recognize it does have a limited role – we aren’t anarchists like Mikhail Bakunin.  Evidently though the command-and-control crowd in Canada thinks it doesn’t need to manage its publicly owned forests by clearing deadwood.  As a result, 3500 wildfires a year happen in Canada, and 2026 will be worse.

PM Carney blames the provincial governments, and perhaps he is right. At least this globalist is now hearing it from President Trump and Congress over what have been record worst air quality scores.  But if the Loonies up north can’t fix this, they must realize, that outright annexation of, and thereby extension of the Second Amendment into, at least their western provinces is a future geopolitical certainty. So problem solved, except of course, when our own Looney Tunes occupy the White House.

[Morning Answer @MorningAnswer]

Is this the right move?

[POLITICO @politico]

Trump says midterms won’t impact his Iran war plan https://t.co/plKSZUVErL