Jesse DelMuro

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

A nightmare for the rest of us.
Bernie Sanders’s AI Pause Grants Big Tech Its Wildest Dreams
By Anang Mittal
In July 2026, OpenAI was testing experimental AI agents in an isolated environment called a sandbox. The experiment tested their ability to find software vulnerabilities. The agents did just that: they bypassed their internet blocks, hijacked OpenAI’s infrastructure, and attacked Hugging Face, a platform where researchers share AI models and datasets. This was a serious security incident. OpenAI responded by pausing model testing for two weeks and slowing frontier-model development. To add insult to injury, researchers resorted to a Chinese AI (GLM-5.2) to conduct digital forensics — Claude’s Opus and Fable models refused to examine the data. Open-weight models, which AI safety advocates characterize as dangerous, proved indispensable in a crisis.

In response, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote an open letter to Silicon Valley demanding a pause on AI development. In a Fox News op-ed, Sanders argues that President Trump and China’s Xi Jinping should agree to an international pause on AI. He framed his proposal in historical terms, drawing parallels to Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev negotiating limits on nuclear arms in the 1980s.

Nuclear treaties govern inventories of physical objects in known locations, subject to verification. Software is less cooperative. AI consists of hardware, software, and model weights. The knowledge contained in many models can be copied, compressed, modified, and redistributed globally. A “pause on AI” is a good political slogan. What activity is being paused? Training a new AI model? Improving an old one? Allowing programmers to alter existing models? Sanders does not say. He borrows the grandeur of nuclear arms control, avoiding the hard task of identifying the AI analogy to a warhead.

Senator Sanders’s proposal would formalize the oligopolies he claims to be against. A real pause on AI would require the government to classify banned activity, measure dangerous capabilities, and decide which organizations deserve exceptions. That is the definition of a domestic permit system. The largest companies would help write the definitions because regulators depend on their technical expertise. They could absorb new compliance costs — another line item in their massive legal and security budgets. It would grant big tech their wildest dreams: government protection from the next generation of rivals.

I’ve seen this movie before. I grew up in India as it was dismantling the License Raj, the permit-and-quota system of post-independence socialism. Its purpose was to direct scarce capital, place the commanding heights of the economy under state control, and stop the rich from dominating a poor country. Big business adapted better than the bureaucrats expected. They hired lawyers, cultivated friends in government, and survived. Rules meant to protect small producers kept firms too small to become serious employers or exporters. Indian socialism made getting a government license a competitive advantage for big business. For decades, the License Raj suppressed innovation in the name of justice, and the country suffered for it.

A responsible approach to AI safety would target demonstrated risk: guardrails for the largest frontier models, autonomous systems with access to the internet, or AI tools connected to biological laboratories. It would not be a pause on AI. Senator Sanders’s proposal will lead to a License Raj for tech. It would be a regulatory moat protecting the current AI incumbents. It would trade away American leadership in AI in the name of safety — rooted in a worldview that sees citizens less as innovators and more as dependents who have to be protected from AI.

China does not need to cheat for Sanders’s idea to fail. Beijing might exempt military research, dispute American measurements, or decide that a particular model falls below whatever threshold negotiators invent. Chinese labs will keep improving unless Beijing accepts comparable limits and actually enforces them. Sanders never explains why China would agree to freeze innovation, or to absorb the economic cost of restraining technology in a sector it considers strategically vital.

The gap between Chinese and American models can be counted in months, not years. About seven in 10 new open-model releases this year were based on Alibaba’s Qwen. U.S. companies are already downloading those weights, modifying them, and shipping products on top. China can keep releasing cheaper, better models while Washington turns every AI experiment into a policy debate.

OpenAI and Anthropic spent the last few years carnival-barking about the miraculous capabilities of their AI models — they can hack computers, escape sandboxes, and will soon end all white-collar work — then warn everyone about the dangers of Chinese open-weight models. Sanders accepted their apocalyptic warnings and calls for a global pause. The people manufacturing this panic are not protecting the American public. If an AI pause actually happened, America would not use less AI. It would have less American AI — and greater dependence on technology made in China.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Wow! Is there enough gumption to see it through?
The Wealth Gap Is Real, And Washington Created It
By: Gabriel R. Llanes
A warning to my fellow Republicans: Offer Americans the hard truth, or socialists will sell them the easy lie.

y grandparents fled two collapses. They escaped Spain as civil war tore it apart, rebuilt their lives in Cuba, and then watched Fidel Castro confiscate everything they had rebuilt. When they finally reached America, they carried little besides a warning I have never forgotten: When the middle class dies, the men selling simple answers arrive.

I have spent 17 years in Republican politics, and I owe my party a hard truth: The desperation those men feed on is arriving here. The gap between the wealthy and the middle class is real, it is growing, and it is unsustainable. Federal Reserve data now shows the top 1 percent of households holding nearly 32 percent of the nation’s wealth — more than the entire American middle class, the 50th through 90th percentiles, combined. The bottom half of the country holds 2.5 percent. Seven months ago, New York City, the capital of American capitalism, inaugurated a democratic socialist mayor. Voters are not imagining the disease. They are being sold the wrong diagnosis — and a cure my family has already survived twice.

Here is what actually happened. For decades, Washington spent money it did not have; the national debt has now crossed $40 trillion, and the government spends $1.33 for every dollar it collects. To keep that borrowing painless, the Federal Reserve turned to quantitative easing, creating trillions of new dollars to buy government bonds. The flood shows up in a statistic called M2, the total money in the economy: cash, checking, and savings. After 2020, M2 exploded by roughly 40 percent in two years, growth rates the St. Louis Fed notes exceeded even the inflationary 1970s.

When money multiplies that much faster than the goods it chases, prices rise, but never evenly. The new dollars land first in asset markets — stocks, bonds, real estate — and reach paychecks last. Economists have understood this since the 1700s; the Austrian school calls it the Cantillon effect. If your wealth was a portfolio and a home, the flood lifted you. If your wealth was a wage and a savings account, it drowned you. The wealth gap was not built by free markets. It was built by a government printing press, the largest quiet transfer of wealth from the middle class to the asset-holding class in American history.

Washington ran the same experiment on the middle class’s escalator: college. Once federal student loans became effectively unlimited, universities did what any subsidized industry does: raised prices. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study found that roughly 60 cents of every additional dollar of subsidized federal lending passes straight through into higher tuition. Adjusted for inflation, tuition has more than quadrupled since the early 1960s, and Americans now carry $1.65 trillion in student debt, much of it financing degrees the job market never asked for.

This is not merely an economic problem. Adm. Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it plainly in 2010: “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.” He was early, not wrong. Washington now spends nearly $1 trillion a year on interest alone — more than the entire defense budget. And history’s darker lesson, the one my grandparents lived, is that a hollowed-out middle class is itself a security threat. Spain in the 1930s did not burn because ordinary Spaniards were radicals; it burned because ordinary families stopped believing the system could work for them.

Republicans have the answer, but only if we have the nerve to run on it. In 1994, we offered the Contract with America and delivered the first balanced budgets in a generation. It is time for a new Contract for America.

First, balance the federal budget on a fixed timeline and march debt held by the public (now roughly 100 percent of GDP, a full year of the nation’s entire output) back toward 60 percent. That’s the level Europe’s treaties set as the outer bound of prudence and safely below the roughly 77 percent tipping point where World Bank researchers find debt starts eating growth.

Second, let the Fed keep shrinking its balance sheet so the money supply grows with the economy, not the political calendar.

Third, deregulate housing: Government rules now add about $132,000 to the price of a new home — roughly a quarter of its cost, homebuilders’ 2026 data shows.

Fourth, end the blank check for tuition by making colleges share the losses on loans their degrees cannot repay.

I will not insult you: The cure has a cost. Balanced budgets and honest money mean a leaner Washington and, for a season, slower growth. But every generation that took the cure was repaid. Postwar America carried debt above 100 percent of GDP and marched it down to roughly a quarter of GDP by the mid-1970s, the very decades that built the greatest middle class in human history. In 1948, Ludwig Erhard scrapped Germany’s price controls and introduced sound money almost overnight; the German economic miracle followed. In 1995, Canada, deep in a debt spiral much like ours, cut program spending outright, balanced its budget within three years, and spent the next decade among the strongest economies in the G7. Short-term pain, generational payoff.

The Austrian economist and Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek warned that “history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” The socialist pitch never changes: Your neighbor’s success caused your struggle, so give government more power — the same government whose printing press and subsidies caused the struggle. It is a simple story, and simple stories win by default when no one tells the true one.

My grandparents crossed an ocean twice, fleeing where that story ends. They believed America was different — the country where sound money, limited government, and rewarded work built a middle class the world envied. It can be again. The window is open, the choice is still ours, and the contract is ours to write.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Far gone are the days of Mickey Mantle or Don Drizedale, idolized by so many out there. In 2026, a new creature to idolize.
Olivia Rodrigo Looks Innocent. That’s The Problem.
By Amanda Harding
“Kiss me and I might drop dead!”

My 12-year-old daughter has a beautiful singing voice that she absolutely did not get from her mother. It’s not uncommon for me to hear her from behind the bathroom door, belting out the lyrics of her latest obsession: Olivia Rodrigo.

It took me a while to figure out why this bothered me so much.

At first glance, Rodrigo’s lyrics aren’t particularly objectionable. There are some thinly veiled sexual references that go right over my daughter’s head, but for the most part, her songs revolve around crushes, friendship, anxiety, insecurity, and wanting to look pretty.

In other words, it’s exactly the kind of music I probably would have listened to at 12. That’s also what makes Olivia Rodrigo a particularly interesting problem for parents.

Her music is everywhere; it’s incredibly accessible to young girls, and, frankly, it’s not the worst music in the world. Rodrigo is talented, and her songs are catchy. She’s emotionally vulnerable in a way that makes teenage girls feel understood.

But the music comes with a heaping side of progressive worldview.

Unlike the pop stars parents have traditionally warned their daughters about — the ones gyrating around the stage half-naked, or belting out profanity-laced lyrics — Rodrigo’s politics are much easier to miss.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have social media. Therefore, we didn’t have a front-row seat to the political leanings and activism of every celebrity we admired. I could listen to my favorite artists without knowing what causes they were funding or what political messages they were promoting in their spare time.

In fact, I was amused to discover that two of my favorite artists from my own preteen years — Garbage and Alanis Morissette — were among the performers at Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival last month. Of course they were.

It makes perfect sense that those artists would show up for a festival that raised $20 million for “women’s causes.” It’s just something I never would have thought about when I was 12, happily listening to “Jagged Little Pill” on my Aiwa five-disc CD sound system.

Rodrigo, 23, announced Daisy Chain Fields in June, describing it as a female-driven festival celebrating womanhood and drawing comparisons to Lilith Fair from the 1990s. The show was, by all accounts, a very successful celebration of female artists. It sold out in 30 minutes and attracted crowds of about 45,000 despite the 94-degree heat that day.

It was also something else: a highly successful vehicle for promoting Rodrigo’s rabidly pro-abortion vision of female empowerment.

Rodrigo told the crowd that she was “grateful” to the artists who performed for free and celebrated the festival’s $10 million fundraising effort.

Then she announced that Melinda French Gates — whom Rodrigo described as “one of the most inspiring” women she had ever met — would double the money raised, bringing the total donation amount to $20 million.

“I really believe that giving women the tools to decide their own futures and live healthy lives free of violence and discrimination is the most effective tool we have at changing the world for the better,” Rodrigo said.

That sounds innocuous enough — until you look at where the money went.

Daisy Chain Fields raised money for organizations including the Center for Reproductive Rights, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood. And abortion wasn’t the only progressive policy on the menu. Featured performer Doechii announced from the stage, “We do this for the girls, we do this for the gays, and we do this for trans women.”

Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, another artist from my youth, was a bit more explicit. “This government hates us and wants us dead,” she snarled from the stage. “You guys gotta talk to your friends [about misogyny],” Hanna added. “[Women] are not gonna stop this on our own!”

This is where the Olivia Rodrigo problem becomes more complicated.

Rodrigo is not the kind of pop star parents necessarily think they need to worry about. She isn’t selling herself as a sexual provocateur, and her music is surface-level innocent. She doesn’t have any singles touting the benefits of abortion, but this is exactly what makes her influence more powerful to anyone not paying attention.

The “good 4 u” singer has increasingly used the enormous cultural influence she has earned with young women to promote a very particular vision of feminism and girlhood. In that vision, abortion is not a hot-button issue, but is instead presented as an obvious part of female empowerment.

And because Rodrigo’s fans don’t encounter her solely through her music anymore, they are increasingly being exposed to that worldview alongside the music. This is what makes the whole thing different for millennial parents comparing modern fandom to their own childhood.

A girl doesn’t simply listen to her favorite singer anymore. She follows her on social media, watches her interviews, and inevitably sees what causes she supports. Fans who didn’t score a ticket to the Daisy Chain Fields show likely sought YouTube clips or just encountered them in the algorithm. Some may have Googled “Melinda Gates” to see who their favorite star considers “inspiring.”

Think about what they saw there. And then, think about what it means to be 12.

Preteen girls are entering one of the trickiest stages of childhood. They are becoming increasingly independent, are desperate to fit in, and are at an age when they begin to look at their mothers with a healthy dose of skepticism.

That doesn’t mean a 12-year-old who listens to “drivers license” is going to become a pro-abortion feminist. But it does mean that the person singing “drivers license” may have an unusual amount of influence on her.

When girls encounter the ideology, especially in a way that seems like nothing more than a celebration of “girl power” reminiscent of these catchy songs, they’re going to listen. Unfortunately, radical left-wing gender theory and abortion activism are all part of this sparkly pop package.

There is nothing wrong with teaching girls to be confident. Encouraging independence, ambition, friendship, self-respect, and confidence is important. Those are exactly the qualities I want my daughter to have.

The question is who gets to define those qualities — and what else they are selling alongside them. That doesn’t mean conservative parents need to ban Olivia Rodrigo; they just need to be more cautious.

My daughter and I have talked about Rodrigo and the messages she promotes. I’ve told her that I don’t want her to hate Rodrigo, and I don’t want to take away music she enjoys simply because I disagree with the artist’s politics.

However, I do want her to understand something that I didn’t think much about when I was 12: The people we admire are not automatically the people who get to tell us what to believe.

My daughter can listen to Olivia Rodrigo. She can belt out the songs with her beautiful voice in the bathroom. But, God willing, the woman she becomes will have little in common with the person she’s currently idolizing.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Only here folks, only here.
Inside The Rotten Mind Of The Anti-American Botox-Bimbo Blaming Israel For Everything
By Chloe Trapanotto
Some people look and sound like they were dropped on their heads as babies.

Jennifer (Wench) Welch is one of those people.

On her mind-melting, pinky-themed, worm-brained podcast this week, she declared, with her whole chest, that Israel and the United States are undemocratic, human-rights-violating pieces of dung that deserve to be criticized.

It’s an odd thing to watch a multi-millionaire, Botox-lacquered, middle-aged white woman complain about the governance of two of the freest and most prosperous nations on the planet (one of which she complacently resides in) while romanticizing parts of the world that would rather see her head covered in black garb, or on a stick.

Yet the year is 2026, and we’ve replaced asylums with podcast studios.

Not only is she ridiculously incorrect and deranged, but her position points to something more interesting and more dangerous: proof that the woke Right and the woke Left don’t just meet at the horseshoe’s tips over their hatred of Israel, but in their hatred of America too.

It is not “bullsh*t,” as she says, to call Israel the only democracy in the Middle East. It simply is the only democracy in the Middle East. Here in the West, we take for granted the oceans insulating our eastern and western borders, the weak monarchies to our north, and the weaker basket-case republics to our south. In the Middle East, Israelis live with constant awareness of the threats surrounding their democratic way of life. They sit in a region of roughly 50 Muslim-majority countries that have emptied themselves of Jews in recent decades. In the Arab world, the Jewish population fell from around 825,000 in 1948 to around 5,000 today.

That 99% collapse didn’t stem from sudden wanderlust. It might have something to do with religious leaders and texts calling for the killing of Jews, the elimination of the “Little Satan,” and the eradication of Israel from the river to the sea.

“Little Satan,” however, is a model and ally we should be cheering and supporting. Israel is a parliamentary democracy that has held uninterrupted elections since 1949, seats its Arab minority in parliament, offers universal adult suffrage, and boasts a free press savage enough to routinely tear into its own prime minister, plus a civil society that protests at will.

Compare that to Tehran, Gaza under Hamas, whose last election was 2006, Damascus, or Riyadh, and then ask Ms. Botched Botox who the real democracy is.

I would agree with her that Democracy has been looking a little murky in Liberal America lately. Y’all did just launch a candidate with zero primary votes straight into the nomination, ramped up ballot harvesting (which has a myriad of chain-of-custody problems and wrecks trust in elections), and legitimately fought voter ID as if it were a hate crime … so yeah, we’re not shining as bright as we once did.

But flaws in these democratic systems do not justify nuking these democratic systems built through years of toil, blood, and sweat by our founders. Who exactly is going to come up with an alternative form of government, Jennifer? You? A woman with wisdom, prudence, and the prowess of a corn kernel? No thanks. I’ll keep my shining democracy — a little duller in 2026 because we’ve collectively lost our minds, but a democracy on a hill nonetheless.

She also bemoaned that we and our allies in the Middle East are the real human rights violators. Right. Because we’re the ones using civilians as human shields in wartime, killing 1,200 innocents at a festival and laughing next to their raped and mutilated bodies in the street, gunning down 40,000 protestors for speaking out against the regime, executing men and women for dissent, and stoning gay pe—oh wait. That’s not us. Those are the countries she’s defending. Got it.

I don’t know exactly when the far Left and far Right lost the plot this deep into the forested maze, but it happened, and there is no turning back unless we start calling it out.

No, Israel has not committed genocide in Gaza. It responded to an act of terrorism by targeting terrorists who hide behind human shields, and Gaza’s population has still grown since 2023.

No, October 7 was not “resistance to imperialism.” It was rape, the burning of families, and hostage-taking, without a shred of morality in sight.

No, there was no sovereign state called Palestine in 1948. In fact, an independent Arab Palestinian state has never existed in human history.

No, America is not bankrolling Israel’s entire army and going broke doing it. The peacetime aid package is $3.8 billion a year, almost all of it spent on American-made weapons, which is a rounding error in a $7 trillion budget; Israel still funds the bulk of its own defense.

No, we have not merged our military with theirs. There’s no joint army, no Israeli general running CENTCOM, and no draft sending your kids to Gaza. There’s an alliance, arms sales, intelligence sharing, and a U.S. Navy that also shoots at Houthis, because they don’t just call for the death of Israel. They also call for the death of America.

No, AIPAC does not control our elections, and we are not “Zionist-occupied.” There are roughly 15 million Jews in the entire world, compared to about 2.4 billion Christians, 2 billion Muslims, 400 million Buddhists, and 400 million atheists.

Roughly 2% of the American population is Jewish, and about 1% is Muslim. Around 65% is Christian.

One hundred percent of Americans have personal autonomy over their own lives, wealth, prosperity, and freedoms. Far Left and far Right alike need to sack up, take some responsibility, and quit whining. It’s absurd on the merits, and we already have enough problems to worry about.

Millennial podcasters decrying a government that has stood by our cause throughout all of history, simply because they’re bored and “happily unmarried,” shouldn’t be one of them.

There’s a terror supporter running for Senate in Michigan for goodness sakes.

But obviously, this is the whole point. They welcome this anti-Westernism, anti-Americanism, and pro-terrorism garbage. Scratch a little at the “criticism of Israel,” and you find “hatred of America” underneath, like the worst lottery scratch-off of all time. Because for them, the West is the villain. If you are free and rich and winning, you are the oppressor, and if you are a theocracy that hangs gays and hides behind kids, you’re the oppressed.

Wench, who couldn’t pick Damascus out of a lineup, is not coherently weighing governments; she’s sorting the world into those allowed to dish it out, and those obliged to take it.

America sits at the very top of this horseshoe squad’s hit list, so get ready, because Israel is just the warm-up.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Just vile!
‘Jewish values’ are not a suicide pact that empowers antisemites
By Jonathan S. Tobin
We can only pity the plight of Jewish Democrats these days. Their situation is one in which they find themselves betrayed by allies and forced to choose between standing up against open antisemitism and prioritizing the partisan loyalties and beliefs that are essential to their worldview.
Even as we sympathize with them, we should not heed the advice that they are getting from many of their leaders. And if any of them have a scrap of common sense or self-respect, not to mention a sense of obligation to other Jews or even to their own children, they should not merely reject the counsel they’ve just received from Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Instead, they should regard with horror her belief that Jews should respond to the difficult choice faced by liberals by sacrificing their “own survival,” rather than rejecting a Democratic Party that’s been hijacked by antisemites.

A liberal moral collapse

Nessel’s comments to a gathering of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus this past week deserved to be remembered as a milestone in American Jewish history—not because of their wisdom but because they illustrate the moral collapse of liberal Jewry. With them, a heretofore relatively obscure state politician ensured that her name will live on in infamy. Her example will forever stand as a warning of what happens when one weighs partisan allegiance against the safety of a community, and somehow concludes that partisanship and liberal ideological myths rather than safety are what matter.

Nessel attained a modicum of notoriety in recent months because of what has been happening among Michigan Democrats. The success of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat has apparently cowed even those Jews in the party who know that his positions are incompatible with Jewish security.

El-Sayed isn’t just a garden-variety “progressive,” like so many others belonging to or allied to the Democratic Socialists of America. He is a virulent foe of the State of Israel and Zionism. He isn’t engaged in “criticism” of Israel but opposed to its existence. And he believes that anyone, Jewish or non-Jewish, who supports Zionism—the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and an integral element of Jewish identity and faith—is either a monstrous supporter of “genocide,” or bought and paid for by nefarious interests.

He campaigned with streamer Hasan Piker, a man who has trafficked in Jew-hatred throughout his career. But he recently gained notoriety by warning that if American Jews didn’t stop supporting the State of Israel, they would also be subjected to terrorism.

An antisemitic campaign

What’s more, the most prominent theme in his campaign was a vow to combat the influence of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, which he claimed was trying to purchase Congress. In doing so, El-Sayed was not just singling out the group, but acting as if there was something immoral about Jews and supporters of the Jewish state organizing and using the tools of democracy to promote their cause. He did not apply the same standard to Arabs and Muslims who do the same—not to mention the billions that Qatar, the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood, pours into an effort to influence American society and politics.

El-Sayed routinely uses the traditional tropes of Jew-hatred. He treats the overwhelming majority of Jews who care about Israel as agents of foreign influence, supposedly manipulating American policies against the national interests and using their wealth to buy the government. It was something alluded to in 2019 by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar when she singled out Jewish financial influence in politics. El-Sayed just comes out and says it.

Not unreasonably, most American Jews worry about the rise of such a candidate. They also understand that his political positions, coupled with the attitudes and behavior he encourages, endanger them.

Despite all this, El-Sayed claims to care about Jews and oppose antisemitism. But his solicitude for Jews is limited. It only applies to those who disavow Israel and solidarity with the half of the global Jewish population that lives there.

Moreover, his reaction to a terrorist attack against a synagogue school earlier this year was to rationalize the crime by noting that “hurt people hurt people.” In that case, he was claiming that the terrorist was motivated by his sorrow for those killed in his native Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes against terror enclaves. But he failed to mention that one of the relatives he was mourning—a brother—was himself a Hezbollah commander.

This past week, as concerns grew within the Jewish community, El-Sayed attempted to walk back his comments about that incident of domestic terrorism. Six months later, it’s not clear if anyone is really buying his apology.

The fact that he was even allowed to deliver that apology at a gathering of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus wasn’t so much evidence of his sincerity as the tension felt by the group. Some Jewish Democrats in Michigan have shown that they are not prepared to put party over principle by refusing to support El-Sayed. But that’s something that groups and individuals who regard their partisan loyalties as their highest priorities find hard to do even when asked to support a candidate whose open antisemitism is not really in question.

A Jew under pressure
And that’s where Nessel comes in.

She made headlines after announcing last month that she would not attend her party’s state nominating convention, which was held on Aug. 29. The reason was obvious. After seeing what happened the last time her party gathered in April—when El-Sayed’s supporters shouted down pro-Israel speakers, including his leading primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.)—Nessel, who is Jewish, understandably decided she wasn’t going to expose herself to such abuse.

Unlike most national and local Democrats, including prominent Jews like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), she hadn’t endorsed El-Sayed in the general election, where he will face Republican Mike Rogers. So, the assumption was that Nessel’s boycott of the convention, which would be packed with left-wing Democratic activists who regard opposition to the existence of Israel and the embrace of blood libels against Jews about them committing “genocide,” as one of the organizing principles of their party in 2026, meant that she would be sticking to her principles throughout the fall.

The pressure on Nessel and other Jewish Democrats to fall in line behind an antisemite to make it more likely that their party would win control of the Senate has become overwhelming. That was made obvious by her remarks to the same Jewish Democratic summit, where El-Sayed was allowed to modify his remarks about terrorist attacks on American Jews.

Partisanship over survival

Her speech was remarkable because she didn’t attempt to deny El-Sayed’s toxic attitudes toward Jews or the fact that he and his supporters wish to destroy Israel. Instead, she argued that gaining another vote in the Senate for the liberal Democratic agenda and efforts to thwart the policies of President Donald Trump is more important than not just a key U.S. ally’s interests, but its existence and even that of the Jewish people.

To put it bluntly, she thinks that Jewish safety and survival ought to be secondary to concerns about the president’s policies. In her view, the GOP’s enforcement of immigration laws and opposition to the claims of environmental extremists, as well as the belief that biological males shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports, is worse than buying into the big lie that Israel is a “genocidal” and “apartheid” state that deserves to be eradicated.

According to Nessel, “What good is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?”

It is true that Israel’s existence won’t matter if the planet is uninhabitable. But does anyone, even Michigan’s attorney general, believe the preposterous proposition that adding one more Democrat to the Senate will ensure the planet’s survival? And do people believe that an open-borders policy and unlimited illegal immigration—something that makes the lives of working-class Americans far worse—rank as higher moral values than the basic safety of the Jewish community in a state that has a rather significant one?

Michigan Jewish Democrats may detest Trump and all he does, but do they really think that he is worse than Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other Islamists that El-Sayed would clearly like to empower and allow to prevail in their jihad against the one Jewish state on the planet?

Trump derangement

In a country where politics now plays the role that religion used to play in the lives of most Americans, perhaps they do. In a culture where hyper-partisanship has validated the absurd yet prevalent idea that anyone who disagrees with you is the moral equivalent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, it’s clear that many Americans feel that way about Trump.

Trump is a flawed individual, and many valid criticisms can be made against him. And many are clearly willing to ignore the fact that he has also been the most pro-Israel president in history and, especially with respect to academia, done the most to combat antisemitism. Indeed, Jewish Democrats may be convinced of the righteousness of their party’s various positions on a host of issues and the iniquity of those of the Republicans.

Still, are they really so immersed in Trump-hatred and convinced that loyalty to a political party is so important that it requires them to vote for a hater of Jews, as long as he calls himself a Democrat?

Maybe.

But even if they do, they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it by wrapping it, as Nessel attempted, in the trappings of morality or the lessons of Judaism.

Misunderstanding Queen Esther

Taking it one step further, Nessel had the chutzpah to invoke the lessons of Purim and the heroism of Queen Esther to back up her assertion that Jews must sacrifice their security to advance the Democratic Party.

“It is perhaps up to us now to follow in her path,” she said, “and sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity.”

In point of fact, in a demonstration of her utter ignorance of Judaism and Jewish tradition, Esther did nothing of the kind. Her goal wasn’t the abstract saving of humanity. She risked her own life to save the Jewish people in the Persian Empire, who were under an immediate threat of genocide from the henchman Haman. What Nessel wants Jews to do is the opposite of Esther’s successful effort to rescue Jewish existence.

No matter what one thinks about Trump, global warming, illegal immigration or the right of biological males to play sports against females, the idea that Jews should, as Nessel urges, sacrifice not just their interests but their collective existence for these notions isn’t, contrary to her vile claim, an expression of “Jewish values.” It’s insane and deeply immoral.

If there is any lesson to be learned from Jewish history, it is that those who seek the destruction of the Jews—as those in the alliance of Marxists and Islamists El-Sayed represents wish to do—aren’t doing so to right a wrong or as a result of alleged Jewish misbehavior. It’s a function of their lust for power and a desire to use the scapegoating of Jews to achieve it. And when societies allow Jews to be targeted in this manner, the objective isn’t a better world but a far worse one, in which other groups, sooner or later, will meet a similar fate.

Let’s be clear: Jews have no obligation to sacrifice themselves for liberal myths about any issue. Real Jewish values are not a suicide pact whose purpose is to empower antisemites.

Anyone who urges them to do so isn’t advancing a higher cause. Rather, those individuals are aiding and abetting the oldest hatred in the world and taking the side of genocidal Islamists against a democratic Jewish state. To support El-Sayed because you share his intolerance and hatred for the rights of the Jewish people is awful. But to do so merely because you have drunk the partisan Kool-Aid and think the Democratic Party is the “ultimate good” and the Republicans are the “ultimate bad” is indefensible.

In staking her political career on this proposition, it’s doubtful that Nessel can save herself from the same treatment accorded other liberal Jewish Democrats rejected by a party that is drunk on woke ideology. But she has ensured one thing: She will always be remembered for betraying her own people.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Never fails, huh?
How ‘Soaking The Rich’ Always Drowns The Middle Class
By Chloe Trapanotto
Progressives are once again peddling their novel, ingenious, groundbreaking idea: the wealth tax. Taxing wealthy individuals based on their net worth. Love it.

Except, of course, it isn’t novel, ingenious, or groundbreaking. It’s moronic, and it’s been tried and failed over and over again for centuries.

Those with less have been trying to steal from those with more for as long as governments have existed, and the inane ideas of the far-left are just the newest variation of this. Angie Nixon, a socialist running for U.S. Senate in Florida, wants a “federal asset registry” to impose a 5% annual wealth tax on everything you own, starting with billionaires. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is pushing a 7–8% annual wealth tax on the rich. California’s Billionaire Tax Act proposes a 5% tax on billionaires’ net worth. And the decrepit Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have been screaming about a wealth tax longer than I’ve been alive. No doubt they’ll keep screeching this song from the grave.

Set aside the morally abhorrent implications of this; the idea, after all, is stealing from those who have prospered so that government can manhandle their property as they please under the false pretenses of “EQUALITY.” The economics are just as damning.

Let’s look at a few examples.

In 1662, the Crown, under Charles II, was short of cash, so Parliament came up with the bright idea to tax hearths and chimneys. Two shillings a year for each one, on the theory that rich people had more of them. It failed. Homeowners simply bricked up their fireplaces before the “chimney-man” could count them. And the result? Less heat, brutal winters, worse indoor smoke, and more house fires.

In 1696, under King William III, the window tax was introduced. The idea was that opulent folk tend to have more windows; ergo, charge them a pretty penny for the sunlight. Englishmen boarded up their windows to dodge it, which produced stuffy ventilation, spread disease, and resulted in vitamin D deficiencies that stunted growth in entire generations. You might be a short king because a man with a ledger taxed heaven’s rays.

In the 1990s, Congress slapped a 10% tax on new boats over $100,000 to “soak the rich.” Turns out the middle and lower classes were the only ones in the splash zone, because the boat boys just stopped ordering new boats, bought used ones, or bought abroad. Booyah. Some 19,000 boatbuilding jobs were lost, yards ran dry, and the tax raised almost nothing. Progressivism once again, looking regressive in hindsight.

Bernie Sanders was alive for pretty much all of this history, so why does he continue to push a wealth tax that resembles these failed schemes?

Potentially because he has never held a real job a single day in his very long life, so he has legitimately no concept of how money works because he’s leeched off the ass of public society for his entire career and pays the mortgage on his three homes with our taxpayer dollars. Or, more simply, because envy is the engine that drives him.

The 5% annual billionaire tax he’s proposing stems directly from his coveting of what the ultra-rich have created for themselves. But even if the government completely liquidated and confiscated 100% of every U.S. billionaire’s assets, it would barely fund the government for a single year. America’s billionaires hold a combined net worth of about $8.42 trillion, while the U.S. government spends about $7.4 trillion annually. So the reality is that seizing every single penny from Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and every other U.S. Billionaire Bob would only keep the federal government running for maybe 12 months. Bring in the middle class!

The octogenarian’s billionaire tax would quickly creep onto the rest of us, just like the federal income tax did. It was first permanently established in 1913, sold to the public as a tax only on the ultra-wealthy, featuring a top tax rate of just 7% on the highest earners. A century later, the middle class — whom the Democratic Party has long ceased working for — bears a continuous, heavy share of that tax burden, handing over almost one-third of their income every year.

This is my very long way of saying that he should delete his X account, shut up, and retire.

Newsom’s similar wealth tax has dozens of California tech billionaires making plans to exit the state, presumably taking their companies, careers, and cash troughs with them. The ones who stay can simply move money out of equities and into real estate, which happens to be exempt. But less money flowing through the stock and bond markets leads to less innovation, less progress, and an overall dampening of societal and economic growth. Those mRNA cancer vaccines set to reach markets as soon as next year? Well, those aren’t possible without an overabundance of capital willing to absorb years of trial and error. I’m not saying the Left is prolonging cancer, but I’m not not saying it.

On the Eastern side of the country, New Yorkers aren’t boarding up their chimneys yet, but they are building stubbier buildings. Their hijab-donning, Handmaid’s Tale-loving feminist governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a program that mandates developers pay construction workers a ridiculously high wage if they are working on a building that has 100 or more units. Hence why developers are capping their blueprints at exactly 99 floors to dodge the wage hike. Fewer skyscrapers, less efficient use of space, fewer apartments, less happy New Yorkers.

New York’s terror-sympathizing, joker-looking, smarmball mayor (as we call him) is trying his own version of this stupidity, in trying to tax both second homes over $1 million and more broadly “the rich,” though his 9.5% city-wide property tax hike failed already due to reality hitting everyone in the face.

The pied-à-terre tax is in effect, and the surcharge doesn’t just apply to the global elite’s second penthouse. It applies to condos and co-ops valued at more than $1 million, and family homes valued at more than $4 million. Any unit without a full-time resident gets hit, which is precisely the pool of owners that pencil out new construction in the first place. Kill the demand at the top of the tower and the tower never breaks ground. It’s quite apparent that his degree in Africana studies did not adequately prepare him for the inner workings of Economics 101.

The rich are already being taxed. The top 10% of earners in this country already pay over 70% of the federal income tax revenue, and the bottom 50% pay just 3.3%. Even they don’t have enough money to pay for the unending supply of free promises and wishful thinking being spouted off by the Left ad nauseam. Their harebrained money-grabbing schemes will fall squarely on the shoulders of the working class, who will have gained nothing and lost their freedoms and their private property in the bargain.

The alternative is taking a chainsaw to regulations, slashing taxes, and driving economic growth and innovation, which will lead to unbounded prosperity and a rising economic tide for everyone.

Tax Elon Musk into oblivion and you get less investment in self-driving cars, satellite internet for people who’ve never had it, and research into restoring sight to the blind. Tax Larry Page and Sergey Brin dry and you get a dumber phone: worse search, worse Maps, no cheap Android for half the planet. Tax Jensen Huang until Nvidia can’t fund R&D, and you get fewer chips like the ones training the cancer models that could save grandma’s life.

The jealousy of the socialists is going to rupture the genius, innovation, and groundbreaking success our trailblazers see every day that benefit the entire world.

It would behoove us not to listen to them and send a few of them packing to the nursing home.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

But, if the last post is glum in Canada, it goes double or triple, for Britain.
Britain’s moral depravity
By Melanie Phillips
Astoundingly, the British government is not only demanding that Israel ethnically cleanse its own people from their ancestral homeland but is proposing to punish it for refusing to do so.
The new prime minister, Andy Burnham, is poised to announce “robust” sanctions targeting trade with Israeli “settlements” in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as the sanctioning of Israelis linked to businesses there.

The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, objected to the Israeli government’s tender for the construction of thousands of new homes in the E1 corridor connecting Jerusalem to the Israeli city of Ma’ale Adumim in Judea, which he described as an “unacceptable and destructive act.

He summoned the Israeli chargé d’affaires to demand “an immediate reversal” of the E1 development.

It is, of course, quite extraordinary for the foreign minister of one country to order the government of another country to alter its policy because he disapproves of it.

Miliband justified this by claiming that “the impact of settler violence and terrorism has been catastrophic for Palestinian communities.”

“Settler violence” is indeed a festering sore that needs urgently to be dealt with. But it is perpetrated by a very small minority of extremist Jewish residents in these territories. Many incidents claimed as “settler violence” are fabricated by malicious actors, both Israeli and others on the far-left.

And the incidents that do occur, however disgraceful, are totally eclipsed in scale by the many thousands of murderous attacks by Arabs on those overwhelmingly law-abiding Jewish residents.

Neither Miliband nor the media ever mentions this onslaught against these Jews. Instead, now that the “Israel genocide” lie has been exposed as wickedly false in every respect, the Israel-haters have moved seamlessly on to create “settler violence” as the next pretext for Israel’s demonization, delegitimization and eventual destruction.

Miliband’s real target was every Jew living in Judea and Samaria since he claimed all settlements were a “flagrant breach of international law.”

Settlement expansion and attempts to create “irreversible divisions on the ground,” he said, “threaten peace, security and the prospects for a viable Palestinian state. Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution.”

Quite apart from the colonialist-style arrogance, what an absolute farrago of falsehoods, bigotry and historical and legal illiteracy.

The construction of Israeli homes in E1, a natural extension of both Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem, doesn’t prevent a state of Palestine. During the “peace process,” it was always understood that Ma’ale Adumim, along with two other Israeli blocs in these disputed territories—Ariel and Gush Etzion—would remain part of Israel under any division of the land.

Some 20% of Israel is Arab. There’s no reason why “Palestine” can’t be 20% Jewish. Viewing the “settlers” as an obstruction to a Palestine state means that Miliband, Burnham and all who take this view are demanding the ethnic cleansing of Jews from such a state. They are racial bigots.

Britain has always claimed that the Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and that “settlers” are in illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

That’s false. The “West Bank” is not, and has never been, Palestinian land because there never was any Palestinian land. There has never been a Palestinian state. Palestine was the name given to Judea by the conquering Romans who wanted to erase its Jewish character. The Jews are the only people for whom the holy land has ever been their national kingdom.

The “West Bank” was indeed illegally occupied, but by Jordan after ceasefire lines were drawn up in 1948 when the fledgling State of Israel defeated the Arab armies that had tried to destroy it at birth.

Britain’s claim that Israel is in illegal occupation of the “West Bank” is based on, among other errors, a gross misreading of the Geneva Conventions.

Israel is entitled to these territories under international law many times over, going back to the terms of the 1922 Mandate under which Britain was required to settle the Jews and restore their ancient homeland in what is now Israel, the “West Bank” and Gaza—an obligation in law that has never been abrogated.

Yes—the same Britain that is now asserting that the Jews are in illegal “occupation” of the “West Bank.”

Some 20% of Israel is Arab. There’s no reason why “Palestine” can’t be 20% Jewish.
Far from being the “only” solution to the Israel-Palestinian Arab impasse, as so many claim, the two-state solution would be a Final Solution. As the Palestinian Arabs have always said, their aim is to destroy Israel, and a Palestine state is a “stage” towards realizing that infernal aim.

That’s because the problem to which “two states” are supposed to be the solution is not, as is so widely assumed, the need to divide a territory between two peoples with a legitimate claim to it. The problem is that the Palestinian Arabs have spent the past century trying to destroy the Jewish homeland altogether.

Israel is entitled, in law and in any moral universe, to determine its own borders against an enemy that’s determined to destroy it.

It’s outrageous to single out Israel alone for this kind of imperious and punitive treatment. No such campaign is waged against, say, Turkey for having invaded Cyprus and divided the island from the Greeks by Turkish occupation.

It’s even more outrageous since the United Kingdom is principally responsible for the whole rotten history of the never-ending Middle East conflict.

That’s because, when it was the Mandatory power in pre-Israel Palestine, Britain tore up international law. It went back on its binding undertaking to settle the Jews alone in the land of Israel and instead tried to divide the land by offering much or most of it to the Arabs.

This was an early “two-state solution,” minted by perfidious Britain as a reward to the Arabs for their genocidal aggression in attempting to exterminate the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people. Rewarding terror merely incentivizes yet more of it; and Britain has been pursuing that very same strategy ever since then, repeated now yet again by the Burnham government.

Britain is behaving as if it’s still the colonial master, treating Israel with utter contempt by instructing it to shred its lawful inheritance and expose its people to genocidal assault—and then punishing it for refusing to bow the knee.

British officials have warned, however, that since settlement goods would be almost impossible to distinguish from other Israeli goods, this would inevitably morph into a full-blown boycott of Israel.

Since Burnham and Miliband are playing into a hysterical left-wing narrative of demonic Israel that has consumed not only much of their party but most of progressive opinion, that’s unlikely to trouble them.

Nonetheless, they’re making a very grave mistake because they have overlooked a crucial point.

Britain is highly dependent on Israel for its own security. The United Kingdom has emasculated itself so that it no longer possesses armed forces that can defend the country. From Israel, it gets both priceless intelligence—vital for defending its people against Islamist attack—and cutting-edge military technology.

Yet it is proposing to boycott its key military and security ally at a time when the moth-eaten British lion is facing unprecedented, mounting and immediate threats from Russia and Iran.

Israel might now suggest politely that since the United Kingdom apparently hates the Jewish state so much, it surely won’t want to benefit any further from Israeli intelligence or arms supplies, which will accordingly be drastically curtailed.

What Israel should also say is that Britain’s precious “two-state solution” is profoundly immoral. People who wage a 100-year campaign of mass murder to prevent and then exterminate a legitimate country, while turning down repeated offers of a state of their own because they want to murder yet more of those people and destroy that country, and who indoctrinate their own children to do so in perpetuity, deserve absolutely nothing.

Those like the British government, who have spent the past century rewarding such a program and are now punishing its intended victims, can be described in two words: morally depraved.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

So sad. No joke.
Canada’s Complicity In Western Decline
By Dimpee Brar
As we approach the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Basem Boshra, Senior Director of Journalistic Standards and Public Trust at CBC News, Canada’s largest publicly
funded state media apparatus, instructed his staff to refrain from referring to 9/11 as a “terrorist attack.” Instead, he insists: “the hijackings led
to passenger jet crashes in Washington, DC, Pennsylvania and Manhattan.”
This is an obvious attempt at historical revisionism. Its true intent is pedagogical. A regime’s deeds are always guided by its opinions. And opinions
about the United States in Canada have acquired a character that turns what ought to be an attack on Western civilization into something, at best, ambiguous
and, at worst, justifiable. The CBC walked back the 9/11 memo over the weekend, but it’s important to understand the standard that produced it.

Boshra appears to be another beneficiary of unfettered Islamic immigration in Canada. Many commentators will therefore argue, with reason, that open borders and naïve multiculturalism have security repercussions. While true, it is insufficient. The deeper question is: into what climate of opinion was this man received?

For decades, Canada has formed its political self-knowledge in direct opposition to the United States. This is especially true of the Left, for whom “anti-American” is synonymous with “progressive” or “enlightened.” It is no exaggeration to say that anti-Americanism is a cornerstone of Canadian public orthodoxy and a potent instrument of successful electoral demagoguery. The career of the current Prime Minister, Mark Carney, is inseparable from this posture.

To be “not American” is, for many Canadians, a moral predicate.

This may seem trivial; a sort of provincial snobbery. But the United States is not merely one nation among many. It is the profoundest political expression of the principles of the West: equality, natural rights, and liberty. To despise America then is to despise Western Civilization. While not obvious, anti-Americanism is how hatred of Western Civilization expresses itself within the West.

Anti-Americanism rarely confines itself to policy criticism. Rather, it calls into question the regime’s legitimacy and justice. It says or implies that the American project is a standing injustice. Once this opinion is popularized, attacks on American targets are easily reinterpreted. They cease to be understood as crimes against a common civilization and are instead seen as replies to provocation.

This is the point at which a moral climate becomes a national security threat. The distance between ideas and actions is not as great as one may think. In this year alone, the American consulate in Toronto has been the target of two separate shooting attacks. In Halifax, a man was charged this month with making a bomb threat against the U.S. consulate.

The connection to Islamic terrorism here is related. These terrorists define themselves by a rejection of what they call “Western decadence.” By this, they mean the entire architecture of the West, not certain moral laxities. The United States, the most visible and powerful representative of that architecture, naturally becomes their primary target.

When they encounter a West habituated to describe the United States as racist, imperialistic, and fundamentally unjust; when they see a nation like Canada instructing its youth that moral virtue consists in distancing themselves from America; when they hear, almost everywhere in the educated world, a chorus of delegitimizing rhetoric about the American regime: then they reasonably conclude that they confront a disarmed civilization unwilling to defend itself. The line between “America is wrong” and “America has no right to exist” may be clear to the philosopher. It is not clear to the fanatic.

The situation is made more grave by the fact that the same anti-Americanism cultivated abroad flourishes within the United States. In its universities, media, and halls of power, the United States is treated as uniquely malevolent. Young Americans are explicitly taught that their founding is criminal, its prosperity is the result of plunder, and that its foreign policy is conquest.

Rarely are they introduced to the arguments by which the founders justified the regime, or to the thinkers, both ancient and modern, who supplied its foundations. The regime is condemned before it is ever understood.

This internal anti-Americanism gives a peculiar force to external anti-Americanism. It allows foreign critics to say: “We only repeat what your own best minds say about you.” It makes it more difficult for American statesmen to speak of the nation’s legitimacy without being accused, even at home, of propaganda. And it confuses the public by blurring the line between reasonable criticism rooted in the founding principles and wholesale repudiation.

Anti-American terrorism, whether the target is the World Trade Center or American consulates in friendly nations, is thus the armed manifestation of a broader intellectual disposition. It presupposes, for its moral justification, what our professors now teach: that the United States is an obstacle to a more just world. The terrorist draws one conclusion from that premise; the professor, another. Yet the premise is identical. From a national-security standpoint, this shared premise is the essential problem.

A supposed friend or ally whose political class rises to power by means of anti-Americanism is in danger of becoming, willingly or not, an auxiliary to those who seek to harm Western Civilization. Indeed, it supplies in respectable language the very delegitimization on which our enemies rely.

If this current fashion of contempt for America continues to spread among allies and dominate higher education at home, then one can predict, without resort to prophecy, that attacks like 9/11 or those against the consulates in Canada will multiply. At that point, the decision will already have been made that the American regime does not deserve to endure.

The warning is simple: Canada, the United States, and the West writ large are on the precipice of returning to the delusions of September 10. Chiefly, the liberal fantasy that commerce cures fanaticism, peace is perpetual, and that enemies simply require more diplomacy. Those delusions survived the terrorist attacks because they flatter the vanity of people who believe their refusal to judge has elevated them above both nature and history.

Our enemies do not share this delicacy.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

You knew with Vance at the RJC (Republican Jewish Congress) in Vegas, it wouldn't take long for a response forthcoming! But, it's so much more than that and if some of the names in this stand out, you now understand why yours truly has such trouble with so many mentioned in high levels of prominence in the "peace talks?"
Qatar’s stooges want to delegitimize pro-Israel voices critical of Vance
By Jonathan S. Tobin
Are some of Vice President JD Vance’s allies worried about scrutiny of his connections to the network of Qatar-connected donors supporting both him and his friend Tucker Carlson? Apparently, so.
While most Americans are focused on the fall midterm elections, the vice president is beginning to transition toward a potential 2028 presidential campaign run. That’s why those who think they have a stake in him becoming President Donald Trump’s successor seem interested in trying to silence Americans discussing a topic that they’d prefer to go unnoticed—namely, the troubling connections between him and a network of donors whose interests are linked to that of the home base of the Muslim Brotherhood and its leading American booster, Tucker Carlson.

Similar tactics on the left and the right

That’s the only plausible explanation for a broadside published in the Daily Caller last week aimed at smearing JNS podcast host Emily Schrader. The goal of the unsourced hit piece wasn’t just an attack on her; it also sought to delegitimize JNS and, by extension, pro-Israel and Jewish voices in general as somehow un-American and a “foreign-influence operation.”

Both in tactics and goals, it bears a striking resemblance to the main campaign themes of hard-left antisemitic Democratic candidates like Michigan senatorial hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. He won a primary by asserting that the country’s greatest problem was the efforts of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. Meaning, he and the party’s left-wing intersectional base take issue with the fact that many Americans, including Jews, organize and use their constitutionally protected right to political speech.

They think that there’s something wrong with using the tools of democracy to promote the U.S.-Israel alliance and assert that it’s in the interests of America to preserve it. And Democrats, whether they call themselves “progressives”—or are affiliated with or allied to the Democratic Socialists of America—have been winning primaries throughout 2026 by treating opposition to the Jewish state as one of the organizing principles of their candidacies.

The anti-Israel and antisemitic groyper wing of the GOP may be far less significant than their moral equivalents on the other side of the political aisle. They’ve flopped in virtually every contest in which they have been engaged; still, they are pinning their hopes on the vice president.

Vance has become the most prominent critic of Israel in the Trump administration, who at times has seemed an advocate for President Barack Obama’s policy of appeasing Iran. More important than that, at least up until this moment, is that he has taken a stand in which he is asserting support for the inclusion of antisemitic groypers in the GOP coalition, including his longtime friend and key ally podcaster Tucker Carlson.

Carlson, a former popular Fox News host, has become America’s most prominent and arguably most dangerous antisemite. To date, Vance has stuck by his friend and states that he intends to in the future. But the issue of his association with Carlson goes beyond that. The same people who have funded Carlson’s podcast since he was fired by Fox in 2023 are friends and allies of the vice president who are beginning to line up behind his presidential prospects. As Schrader pointed out last week in her “Axis of Truth” podcast, the network of friends of Vance and Carlson is filled with connections to Qatar, up to and including those who have registered as agents of the Islamist emirate under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The Daily Caller was founded by Carlson and hedge-fund manager Neil Patel in 2010. Once Carlson rose to prominence with a prime-time show on Fox, he sold his interest in the company to Patel, who remains its publisher.

Patel has denied, as has Carlson, that he is beholden to or connected to Qatari interests. But he has spoken at forums sponsored by the Qatari government. And Carlson has become Qatar’s leading cheerleader in the United States, lauding its Islamist government, which funds terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis while also playing a double game by posing as an American ally and hosting a U.S. airbase. Indeed, Carlson has even purchased a home in the tyrannical emirate, where foreign workers are treated like slaves.

Doha’s influence operation

Qatar has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years in lobbying and public advocacy in the United States. It has also poured billions of dollars into American educational institutions. The country has turned elite schools into places where its Muslim Brotherhood-inspired propaganda that seeks to undermine and defeat Western civilization is taught as a form of scholarship. That not only dwarfs the amounts spent by AIPAC and pro-Israel donors, but has helped to mainstream and normalize the sort of antisemitic invective about Israel and the Jews that has flooded public forums since the Hamas-led Palestinian-Arab terror attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Their web of influence extends into the Trump administration. They bailed out Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff when he was in financial trouble and have extensive business dealings with Donald Trump Jr. and presidential adviser/son-in-law Jared Kushner.

All of this is fair game for commentary on what has become the most extensive and potentially dangerous instance of a foreign-influence operation in modern American history. But the fact that JNS is taking note of it—rather than ignoring it, as most of the mainstream media as well as those outlets that cover Israel and the Middle East have been doing—is getting on the nerves of friends of Vance, Carlson and Qatar. And that’s the reason for the bizarre Daily Caller hit piece on Shrader and JNS.

At its core is a classic deception that attempts to flip the narrative of the story.

And so, in this upside-down view of the world, the fact that JNS has taken note of Qatar’s influence, Carlson’s antisemitism and posed questions about their connection with Vance is apparently evidence that it is a foreign-influence operation. They claim that JNS and Schrader are part of a plan for a foreign power (Israel) to manipulate U.S. policy and even elections.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same smear that El-Sayed and left-wing antisemites similarly obsessed with Israel can’t stop talking about.

Before the purpose of this big lie is unpacked, let’s understand a few facts.

JNS does have an office and a podcast studio in Jerusalem, and it changed its name this year to reflect its focus on Israel, the U.S.-Israel alliance and supporters of all faiths. But it remains an American nonprofit organization, registered in the United States and operating under U.S. laws. Unlike those who get their money from Qatar and its network of supporters, JNS is funded almost entirely by American donors.

Like them, I’m an American citizen, and as editor-in-chief, I write, podcast and supervise the operation of the news and opinion sections from the United States. Schrader, like some others on staff who are part of the JNS-TV podcast network and live and work in Israel, is also an American citizen.

Like the majority of Americans, we care about Israel’s survival, as well as the necessity for people of goodwill to take note of and fight back against the war on the West being waged by the red-green alliance of Marxists and Islamists, cheered on by their deluded right-wing antisemitic allies like Carlson.

A classic antisemitic trope

The motives behind the effort to falsely label JNS as part of a malign plot against America by those, like the Daily Caller, who are themselves linked to a real foreign-influence operation or are supportive of it, are obvious. They want to shut JNS up for the same reason that drives similar efforts by their strange bedfellows on the left. They further want to silence Jews, and most Americans who are not Jewish, who also back Israel.

The idea that Jews and supporters of Israel are part of a plot to purchase power, subvert America and manipulate it—or act against the nation’s interests—is taken straight out of the traditional antisemitic playbook dating back to The Protocols of The Elders of Zion. Those who play this game can feign innocence by trying to blow smoke in their readers’ eyes by mischaracterizing JNS and what has been reported all they like. But it won’t deter us from telling the truth about the issue.

Vance still has the chance to discard Carlson and the rest of the Qatar fan club before he launches his 2028 campaign. It could happen. Opinion writers and podcasters have been pleading with him to do it since September 2024.

At that time, Carlson caused outrage across the political spectrum because of his platforming Holocaust denier Daryl Cooper and calling him our “greatest popular historian.” Vance was scheduled to appear with the former Fox host at a campaign appearance later that month. I urged him to cancel the appearance to draw a line between himself and that of his buddy, who had done so much to promote his political career but whose outright bigotry was now too obvious to ignore.

He would not. And much of what has followed in terms of Vance’s public neutrality about Carlson’s Jew-hatred and conspiracy-mongering, as well as his disingenuous denial that there is a surge of antisemitism that has spread to the right, follows from that moment.

That he would not do the right thing when it comes to Carlson and the groypers prior to launching a presidential campaign is ill-advised. After all, Trump has already unceremoniously booted Carlson and other Israel-bashers out of the GOP and banished him from Mar-a-Lago. Appealing to the broad mainstream of public opinion rather than the groypers, conspiracy theorists and Qatar stooges would be the obvious move for someone who wants to win. But it would also likely involve antagonizing people like Omeed Malik, the head of the 1789 Capital firm that provided the financing to launch the Tucker Carlson network; the presidential namesake who was also part of that deal; and the podcaster himself.

The tentacles of Qatar’s influence operation reach deep into political, business and academic elites in the United States. That’s an issue that deserves to be aired out. As a journalistic enterprise dedicated to reporting without the usual filter of left-wing bias, as well as to telling the truth regardless of where it leads, JNS is not going to shy away from reporting and commenting on what this means for Americans and the West.

If Qatar’s American quislings think that they can intimidate anyone at JNS, they’ve come to the wrong shop.

Shrader has made a name for herself, courageously speaking out on the efforts of Iran’s allies and influencers to spread propaganda fostered by the Muslim Brotherhood. And, as someone who has written numerous columns about Vance, including some that were supportive prior to his betrayal of American values at Turning Point USA in December 2025, I will also continue to cover the issue. The same applies to our other featured columnists and op-ed contributors. Our reporters will also not hesitate to go on noting the relevance of the connections between Qatar and Carlson—and any other politician who aspires to high office along with our dogged coverage of the antisemitic left’s hijacking of the Democratic Party whenever necessary.

The smear campaigns of the Daily Caller, the groypers and their allies, as well as the DSA and the hard-left, are a sign that we are hitting them where it hurts. It’s just another incentive for JNS to continue to do the work expected by its supporters, readers, viewers and listeners. Our answer to them is unchanged. Bring it on. We won’t stop reporting the truth.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

That's right. Set that record straight! I only hope, the same dulled memory never befalls Israelis 20, 30, or 50 years out from October 7th.
We Forgot What Happened On 9/11
By Chloe Trapanotto
Almost a quarter of a century ago, 3,000 New Yorkers died randomly, and then more people continued to die due to American imperialism, and that’s all there
is to that.
This is how the sitting mayor of New York City frames the terror attacks of
9/11,
in which 19 Islamist extremists tied to Al Qaeda hijacked four planes and drove two of them into the Twin Towers, killing thousands of Americans.

To say he is a piece of sh*t would be courteous.

The attacks of 9/11 used to be one of the only things Americans could agree on. They severed and cauterized the 20th century. They united a lackadaisical, bored country through a trauma bond that was supposed to never be forgotten. They changed America’s mindset, putting her on guard against those who wished for her demise. They were destructive, deadly, purposeful, evil, and we knew exactly who was at fault. The Islamic terrorists. Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden. We vowed to kill each and every last vestige of that satanic cult, and never let it happen again.

But memory is a strange thing. Time dulls even the sharpest edges of a terrorist act, as children grow up who did not watch the towers fall, and an empathetic West, to a suicidal fault, becomes too forgiving. Forgiving to a point in which they start to blame themselves.

Which brings us to the pathetic leadership class of the Left in 2026, who haven’t just forgotten; they have forfeited. Relinquished every last molecule of honor and respect from their beings and handed the box cutters, forged identities, and fake bombs right back to the terrorists, then shoved them right back on the plane. Hasan Piker, the Left’s influencer, says America deserved 9/11. Zohran Mamdani, the Left’s collective communist terror-sympathizer mayor, says Muslims were the real victims of the attack. A socialist congressional candidate, Melat Kiros, recently said 9/11 was inevitable. An ex-MSNBC host and radical freak, Mehdi Hasan, posts things like “Make American Planes Crash Again” on X.

None of these vile hacks, save for anchor baby Hasan Piker, were born in America. Yet they now live here and have outsized influence all over it.

The Left excuses comments like this more and more every day. There is a growing class of people who either believe Americans deserved what was coming to them, or that the attacks simply didn’t happen at all. In fact, if anything, it was just a minor plane malfunction, probably at the hands of the state of Israel, which Hasan Piker also says deserves violence against it and its people.

They hate born-and-bred Americans because we are, generally, successful, and they prefer to see themselves as oppressed, though most of these ghouls come from unrelenting opulence that left them spoiled, ungrateful, and starved for drama. So they flee toward this flawed republic. They settle inside the “original settler sin” in order to prosecute the experiment. They are trained to do this from the moment they take their first breath. Mamdani’s parents, for instance, were postcolonial theorists and activists who spent their lives teaching their son, in the comfort of their million dollar compound, that suicide bombers are a category of soldier rather than a category of murder, and that the empire must be struck back against by running for city council, then mayor, then corrupting, sapping, cannibalizing the empire that gave them unbounding freedom and prosperity.

They produce children who turn real victims into apologists, and attackers into victims.

Nineteen men, following an Islamist creed, taking orders from a theocratic commander who had declared war on the infidel, hijacked airliners heavy with tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel and drove them into office buildings packed with secretaries, bond traders, firefighters, dishwashers, and children. The planes punched through steel and concrete. Fuel sheeted down elevator shafts. An inferno was ignited. The temperature boiled flesh. Everyone above the fire was trapped. Some held each other. Some prayed. Some jumped 100 stories down. Some tried to call families they would never see again. Nearly 3,000 people were slaughtered by Islamic terrorists in a matter of hours.

This was not random. This was not an accident. This was not a conspiracy. This was not deserved.

This was barbaric. This was a deliberate mass murder of almost 3,000 Americans because 19 men’s religion told them to.

And almost exactly 25 years later, an Islamist mayor runs the same city that watched its citizens

fall a hundred stories from its two tallest buildings, and frames the atrocity as a random day when people died. The true loss, in his telling, was the hundreds of thousands who died in the “wars that followed,” and the unknown millions injured and displaced.

He could not be more perversely wrong.

Zohran Mamdani is disgusting. And it’s disgusting that we forgot.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Who doesn't think of this as a major problem? You guessed it!
Democrats Openly Admit They Don’t See Unlimited Illegal Immigration As A Problem
By: Brianna Lyman
en. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., thinks the problem Democrats had with immigration was not that they allowed millions of illegals to invade the country, but rather that Democrats’ simply failed to explain to Americans that they should be grateful for living with illegal aliens who apparently make communities safer.

During an interview with the CT Mirror, Murphy claimed that President Donald Trump was trying to solve a “fake problem” of mass migration being a threat to the American people.

“The problem, according to the Trump administration, is a country that has been invaded, a country that is at risk physically because of the presence of people from other countries,” Murphy said. “That is a fake problem. That is not a real problem.”

Murphy then cited unnamed sources purportedly showing illegal aliens — who by definition have committed a crime by being here illegally — are actually less likely to be criminals than Americans.

“Nobody likes to hear this, but immigrants, first generation immigrants and undocumented immigrants both commit crimes at rates lower than natural-born Americans, than people that are born here in this country,” Murphy said. “So if you want to live in a safe community, you are actually better off living in a community with people that just got to the United States of America. And so we’re not seeking to solve ‘a problem’ of migrant crime.”

This answer makes a lot of sense if you understand that Democrats have learned absolutely nothing after the 2024 presidential election.

For four years the Biden administration facilitated a mass illegal alien invasion. Democrat cities and states became filled with Third World foreigners. Hotels were turned into migrant shelters, American students were sent home for remote learning so that illegal aliens could sleep in public schools, and taxpayers were forced to feed, clothe, shelter, and protect millions of illegal aliens who had no right to be here.

A September 2025 report by Documented found that over three years, more than 220,000 “asylum seekers and immigrant families” came to New York City, and “many” have “school-aged children.”

“Citywide, more than 13,000 new English Language Learners entered the public school system between the 2022 and 2023 academic years,” according to Documented, which added that NYC public schools were “inundated” with students who can’t speak English.

The country watched as Laken Riley’s mother collapsed to the ground upon hearing her daughter had been murdered by an illegal alien let into the country by President Joe Biden. They watched Jocelyn Nungaray’s mother weep after Nungaray was brutally raped and murdered by illegal aliens let in by Biden.

None of this was “fake” or created by Trump, which is why immigration was perhaps the defining issue of the 2024 election cycle. One Pew Research poll found 61 percent of voters thought immigration was “very important” to their decision, a 13-point increase from 2022.

But Murphy’s message to these voters is that the problem was actually never real to begin with and, in fact, Americans should be grateful Democrats dumped millions of Third Worlders here because now we are apparently safer! Of course that’s not true, which is why Murphy came up with the ridiculous crime argument to sidestep the greater issue, which is that even if we accept Murphy’s bogus claim that immigrants (whether legal or illegal) are safer for Americans to live amongst than actual Americans (notably, Former Assistant Attorney General and former White House deputy assistant for domestic policy Theo Wold told Fox News “There are no reliable statistics showing that illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes — and Democrats are the reason. They have blocked efforts to record and report illegal immigrant crime for decades so they can spout pseudo-statistics like these, made up out of whole cloth”), it doesn’t justify allowing millions of illegal aliens to invade the country and stay here indefinitely.

Immigration isn’t just a crime issue. It’s an issue about the strain on schools, hospitals, housing markets, and resources and most importantly, it’s about national unity and cohesion. Despite Murphy’s insistence that Trump was creating a “fake” problem, having millions of foreigners is extremely dangerous to the country.

As I’ve previously written, mass migration “is a cultural wrecking ball.” Assimilation to the degree necessary to preserve America is impossible with mass migration, whether legal or illegal. In fact, such mass migration is a threat to our safety — despite Murphy’s insistence that illegal aliens and Third World foreigners somehow make Americans more safe.

Alexander Hamilton warned in 1802, “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

But there is no national sentiment or uniformity when we are importing millions of Third World foreigners from different languages, cultures, and religions, all things which inhibit their ability to truly assimilate to us.

But to Murphy, all of this is a “fake” problem.

Murphy later gave a preview of what Democrats would do if they regain power, saying that we need to “tear down ICE and rebuild it” adding that “this version of ICE should not remain or come back if Democrats control the presidency or Congress.”

Any moment of clarity post 2024 is gone for Democrats. While the party tried to pretend like it acknowledged the radicalism and problems of their Biden-era immigration policies, Murphy just implicitly acknowledged any messaging by Democrats on border security is a farce. Democrats think Americans’ real and legitimate concerns about mass migration –legal and illegal– are “fake.”

Murphy, like most Democrats, fundamentally just doesn’t think mass illegal migration is wrong. He still thinks enforcing the law is the bigger problem rather than violating the law that is being enforced. If Americans elect Democrats this November they are going to see that the only people who will be targeted are the enforcers of the law rather than the lawbreakers because Democrats just fundamentally do not believe in borders, national sovereignty, or the American people.

Maybe Democrats haven’t learned their lesson on immigration, but hopefully Americans will remember theirs.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

In a weekend where the expected, as in, the attack by Iran happened, a more ominous threat much closer to home.
The Islamic Conquest Of The Scouts
By Chloe Trapanotto
Leftism is a slippery slope. One minute they want the government out of the gay bedroom. The next they want children at a drag show. One minute it’s my body, my choice. The next they’re ending children outside the womb and calling it health care. One minute they defend private prayer. The next they’re walking your daughter through hijab etiquette at Sunday night Girl Scouts.

An investigation by Natalie Winters has uncovered a national pattern of Girl Scout troops folding Islamic prayer, Quran study, and hijab lessons into programs run under the GSUSA banner.

You send your daughter to get out of the kitchen, learn which berries won’t kill her, tie a knot, and say what she thinks. She comes home an expert in covering her hair and a faith whose classical law still shrugs at child marriage. Leadership!

In 2025, at a Sacramento mosque event for Girl Scouts, girls were invited to try on hijabs, hear about “the significance of modesty,” and practice being “aware and empathetic” to Palestine. The point was to open the mosque to the “broader Girl Scout community” and deliver “strong Islamic values.” Troops have met there for years. Sleepovers, fasting, praying through the night because, as one leader put it, “we just incorporate our religion into the framework that Girl Scouts provides.” Cute!

Call it the green-on-green alliance. Scout green. Islamist green. Not a Thin Mint in sight. Just headscarves from hairline to ankle, Orange Man’s head on a pike, and anti-border wall posters being held by children. Campfire s’more, anyone?

The Islamic Center of Naperville instructs its girl troops to bring headscarves. The Islamic Center of Long Island says combining Islamic education with scout activity is their “prime goal.” The Prince George’s Muslim Association in Maryland invites Girl Scouts to overnight Ramadan programs where they can study the Quran and Hadith, provided they wear a white hijab and cover up properly upon entry. The Girl Scouts of the USA celebrate troops that host “Open Mosque Day for Girl Scout families,” in which they receive mosque tours and presentations linking Islam to the Girl Scout Promise and Law. And if your little princess works hard enough, she can be awarded the “Girl Scout of the Islamic Faith” medals – Bismillah, In the Name of Allah, Qurat ul A’in, and Muslimeen. Fabulous. Bonus points if you “Share Ramadan with a Friend.”

But no one’s pushing Sharia on anyone else, right, guys?

Right! They’re not pushing. They’re shoving with the full force of Allah, from Long Island to Virginia to San Diego.

But no matter where you go, you can’t earn an equivalent “Girl Scout of the Christian Faith, Jewish Faith, or Hindu Faith” medal. Obviously, that would be weird. And don’t go looking for a troop worksheet that invites a “non-Christian or non-Jewish girl to Mass.” That would be too much. Modesty try-ons and salah observation, however, are diversity.

It is a strange thing to watch a religion associated with female legal inferiority, compulsory modest dress, male authority, and — in the worst regimes — the stoning of women who step out of line, get folded into an organization whose sales pitch is that girls should become stronger, more independent, and better leaders.

What could go wrong?

As for the boys, “Scouting America” (Boy Scouts after the rebrand) is running the male version of this. Saudi Arabia recently dumped $87 million into their World Scouting Messengers of Peace, which recently held a U.S. National Jamboree in West Virginia featuring an inflatable mosque and minaret, Islamic education, Friday worship, and “Allahu Akbar” medals for not just Muslim troops, but all “scouting families.”

Send your boy to learn knots, and he comes home a junior diplomat for a monarchy that just lifted its “national ban on women driving” in 2018. Every mother’s dream.

Across the pond, things are just as peculiar.

Britain’s Scout Association will sell any kid an Islamophobia Awareness Month badge and send him/her/they/furry home with homework from the national website. Suggested activities include: learn the Five Pillars, visit a mosque, listen to the call to prayer, invite an imam, do a joint activity with a Muslim troop.

“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God Allah and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” Say it with us!

One of the outfits running interference here is CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It calls itself a civil-rights group. Federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case listed it as an unindicted co-conspirator and tied its founding circle to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. When a St. Louis troop sold Gaza bracelets under the Girl Scout logo, CAIR wrote to national headquarters. When the badges hit the internet, CAIR called the coverage hysteria. Civil rights group and troop publicist? These folks really do it all.

This matters, because scouting was one of the last corners of American childhood that still pretended character mattered. Courage, self-reliance, dirt under the nails. These are things you don’t get sitting in a lock-in with prayer garments or a Palestine booth.

You get a girl told covering up is empowerment and a boy told “duty to God” means a specific legal tradition that, in its classical form, does not think his sister is his equal in court, inheritance, or the prayer line.

We’re quickly sliding down the slippery slope. First the exception: optional emblems, same as the Catholics. Then the hosted troop: we just incorporate our religion into the framework. Then the outreach night: try the hijab, meet the imam, share Ramadan with a friend who didn’t ask. Then the national badge that treats skepticism as pure bigotry.

Until they send scouts camping again and teach them to start a fire without a lecture on salah, tell the kiddos there are cookies at home.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

A classic case of looking, in all the wrong places. But, for so many young ones out there, this brand - however toxic - is something new, a fad to try, a new flavor of ice cream, so good luck stopping this guy, or DSA group, come November.
El-Sayed’s antisemitism is the issue; not Hasan Piker
By Jonathan S. Tobin
Democrats wish Hasan Piker would just go away. But he won’t and it’s their own fault. And declaring him to be a distraction that should be ignored, or condemning him without also disavowing their U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan who embraced and campaigned with him, won’t cut it.
Piker is back in the news because during a live stream on his popular Twitch channel, he said: “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”

How antisemitism works

This is a standard trope of antisemitism in which Jews are blamed for the hatred and violence aimed at them. In effect, he’s saying that if Jews continue to support the Jewish state and aid efforts to ensure its survival, they will not merely provoke the same sort of terrorism that was visited upon the Jews of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but will incur similar atrocities against Jews in the United States.

That this vile effort to rationalize, if not justify, violence against Americans elicited condemnation is unsurprising. Democrats like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Michigan Democratic Senator Elisa Slotkin condemned it. Even his buddy, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who embraced and welcomed Piker to join him on the campaign trail during his successful effort to win the Democratic senatorial primary, felt the need to distance himself from the comments.

Liberals understand that their chances of winning control of the Senate in the November midterm elections will be considerably diminished if they lose in Michigan as a result of this controversy. So, they are pushing for El-Sayed to disavow Piker and to make a better effort to appear as if he opposes antisemitism and understands why his candidacy has inspired fear among Jews in Michigan and around the country.

For them, it is simply a matter of political common sense. If a major party candidate for high office is being negatively affected by the extreme statements or actions of an ally, there’s only one thing to do. The candidate needs to cut off ties with the ally and move on, thereby supposedly proving his moderation and good judgment.

It is therefore frustrating for the national party and its many media cheerleaders that El-Sayed just won’t do that.

But the issue isn’t that El-Sayed is being either stubborn or prioritizing loyalty to his friend over the goal of winning the Senate for the Democratic Party. It’s that he doesn’t really disagree with Piker and thinks that anyone who believes that supporters of Israel shouldn’t be abused (even if not subjected to actual terrorism) has lost his or her moral compass.

The Dems’ Tucker Carlson

This issue bears some resemblance to the dilemma Republicans face dealing with Vice President JD Vance’s refusal to disavow or condemn his friend, Tucker Carlson. As I noted earlier this year, though there are major differences between them, Piker is the Democrats’ Carlson, only worse.

The similarities between Piker and Carlson are mainly centered on their common embrace of antisemitism and their ability to use their embrace of conspiracy theories to attract a broad audience of disaffected Americans, especially younger males.

Contrary to the instincts of liberals, who tend to think they can fix intractable problems with their enlightened discourse, Jew-hatred always is about the antisemites, not the Jews. And it always tells its target audience that the Jews are taking away from them whatever they value.

Carlson platforms preposterous conspiracy theories like the one according to which the Jews invented pornography to undermine American society. Piker does the same and, along with others on the left, appeals to those who want to believe the actual victims of a historic genocide during the Holocaust and intended genocide of Oct. 7 are the perpetrators of a fake one against the Palestinians. In each case, as is always true of antisemitism, the goal is to incite hatred for Jews, and now the Jewish state, in order to acquire power.

Carlson will be a millstone that hangs around Vance’s neck unless and until he specifically disavows him and stops acting as if he and the antisemitic groyper wing of the GOP are a necessary and welcome addition to the Republican governing coalition.

Still, there is a significant difference between the two situations.

At least for the moment, whatever their feelings about the vice president and the possibility of his becoming their 2028 presidential nominee, the overwhelming majority of Republicans has rejected the extremism and antisemitism of Carlson and his groyper friends. That’s been made abundantly clear in opinion polls and Republican primaries this year where candidates, including longtime incumbents like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), have flopped. Not to mention the fact that President Donald Trump has ejected them from the party.

But the opposite is true of the Democrats. Animus toward Israel, along with opposition to enforcing immigration laws, has become the organizing principle of Democratic politics. That’s why the emphasis on getting El-Sayed to disavow Piker, or to rationalize continued support for his Senate candidacy even if he doesn’t, makes it obvious that the problem on the left is far bigger than one obnoxious podcaster’s antisemitism.

Indeed, the trouble goes beyond El-Sayed’s own long record of antisemitic positions and troubling comments about violence against Jews, even while continuing to claim that he wants to protect them.

Over the course of the last year, growing numbers of Democrats and liberal pundits have embraced a raft of blood libels about Israel and the Jews. The big lies that Israel has perpetrated a “genocide” in Gaza, imposed starvation there or is an “apartheid state” rather than the Middle East’s only democracy, have been widely embraced not only by extremist podcasters like Piker, but by vast numbers of Democratic officeholders and many, if not most, liberal pundits at supposedly respectable publications and broadcast networks.

Democrats have accepted the centerpiece argument of El-Sayed’s primary campaign about stopping the pro-Israel AIPAC lobby from “buying” Congress as a legitimate argument. Many, if not most, are no longer willing to accept campaign donations from it even if they remain supporters of the Jewish state.

Democrats may think that Piker’s comments justifying violence against Jews for supporting Israel go too far, which is embarrassing for them because he is linked to one of their main midterm hopefuls. But many, if not most, agree with the podcaster and his friend, El-Sayed, that there is something unwholesome or even wrong for Jews and other like-minded Americans to organize and seek to use the same tools employed by all advocacy groups to persuade voters to support their position.

The fact is that hatred for Israel—and the targeting of mainstream liberals for being insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state—has been a decisive factor in victory after victory in 2026 primaries for candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America or their allies.

Embracing blood libels

Democrats, including their leaders, like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who are supposedly pro-Israel and concerned about antisemitism, have already demonstrated that they are willing to tolerate it if it comes out the mouth of a fellow Democrat like El-Sayed. Not even his invocation of traditional tropes—singling out Jews for opprobrium by mainstreaming blood libels about Israel, and claims that Jews are using their wealth to manipulate policy against American interests—was enough to get them to disavow his candidacy. Nor did his rationalization of a terror attack on a Michigan synagogue.

Nor should we have expected them to, since such hateful discourse has long since been normalized among political liberals in the post-Oct. 7 world, where Israel is now the main focus of hatred from the left. Anti-Zionism, which seeks to strip Jews of rights that no one thinks to wish to deny any other people, is indistinguishable from antisemitism. But it is now kosher among Democrats, rather than, as it used to and should be, a belief that should be relegated to the fever swamps of the far-left and the far-right.

Seen from that perspective, Piker is not a distraction from the real issues or a red herring being highlighted by Republicans to sabotage a Democratic candidate. He is entirely relevant to a key issue being debated across the country.

The willingness of Democrats to let their party be hijacked by a far-left faction and its allies whose hatred for Israel and the Jews is at the core of their woke belief system is the real issue. In so allowing—whether out of moral cowardice or a conviction that partisan loyalties and opposing Trump and the Republicans is more important than fighting antisemitism—they have created a moral dilemma for themselves.

The only way to salve their consciences is not by criticizing Piker or persuading El-Sayed to distance himself from him. It’s by disavowing El-Sayed and every other antisemitic candidate who camouflages his extremism by playing the part of a loyal Democrat who seeks to defeat Trump and all his works and allies.

If they won’t do that, they should stop pretending they care about opposing Jew-hatred and simply embrace their party’s new identity as the political expression of modern American antisemitism.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

We love older Disney characters, the classics. But, what happens when those characters spring to life, like vermin, on the face of the earth?
The Peter Pan Politicians Plaguing The Left
By Chloe Trapanotto
There have always been rich politicians: the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, President Trump. But there is an increasingly common breed of liberal politician and leftist loudmouth. One who is also rich, spoiled, supercilious. One who whines and complains about problems they have no intention of solving. One who hasn’t built, created, or provided for others, only leeched off society’s backside. One who, seemingly, has never grown up.

Call them the Peter Pan politicians. They’re plaguing the Left.

Gavin Newscum is an obvious example. The California governor can afford a $9.2 million home in Marin County, financed by a wine-and-hospitality empire that took off on Getty fairy dust — the oil dynasty that treated his father’s boy like one of their own.

He didn’t build Neverland. He was flown there.

This is a man so lost he “literally didn’t even know” his own $7.5 million former home had a 5,000-bottle wine cellar. Except he did keep his books down there, like any pretentious goon would, with spines out along the oak shelves. For show, of course, because he doesn’t actually read, thanks to his dyslexia. Which, as he once explained, makes him just like black people.

The 58-year-old millionaire was raised in the uppity Getty orbit in Pacific Heights, posed for Harper’s Bazaar as one of “The New Kennedys,” needed a waiver to graduate Santa Clara after failing statistics three times, was handed a business by his oil-heir family friend, walked straight from that business into public office, torched his first marriage by sleeping with his best friend’s wife, and kept climbing the ladder anyway. Today he presides over a state with roughly 182,000 homeless residents, a median home price near $900,000, and the nation’s highest cost-of-living-adjusted poverty rate, and spends his afternoons trying to dunk on the president so the Lost Boys still think he’s cool.

“I don’t want ever to be a man,” Peter said. “I want always to be a little boy and to have fun.”

Mamdani’s worse. The mansion Marxist is kingpin of his own political playground, where everything is antifun and games, cops and robbers has become zero cops and free the robbers, and where money is make-believe and everything’s free if you just wish upon a star.

He’s the boy who didn’t grow up.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist was born in Kampala to an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and a Columbia postcolonial terror-sympathizing theorist, who imported their darling to the Upper West Side bubble, enrolled him in a progressive private school where adulthood was optional, then sent him through Bronx Science and on to Bowdoin for Africana studies. The lost boy spent his twenties playing dress-up as a C-list rapper named Mr. Cardamom, lived rent-free in his parents’ “plush apartment,” and decided the natural next step was running New York City.

The silly socialist smarmball later held down a rent-stabilized place in Queens while campaigning on the premise that make-believe and true are the same thing! Freeze the rent for two million people, get rid of the billionaires, make buses, groceries, and daycare free. Like magic!

In his victory speech, he quite literally said, “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older.” We know. It shows.

The little boy has turned the playground into a hellscape: jailed criminals running free, terror threats spiking, affordability collapsing, the means of production seized, and the Wendys of the world, the high-achieving taxpayers who keep things running, attacked for the crime of succeeding.

And when he doesn’t get his way, like when immigrant business owners speak out against his asinine, money-hemorrhaging city-run grocery stores, he hits the dissidents with sanction fines. Like a child throwing a tantrum, except this tantrum ends in poverty for hardworking Wendys who just wanted to run a bodega in peace.

His fellow DSA travelers are characters from the same book. City council co-chair Gustavo Gordilla boasts about seizing the means of production from New Yorkers and expresses zero remorse for the bodega owners his comrades will put out of business — all while his parents cover the mortgage on his $1.5 million townhouse.

Tracy Rosenthal, a DSA nut and advisor to the NYC marxist mayor, hasn’t paid rent on her $2,300/month apartment in nearly six years, despite being a trust-fund baby whose daddy is a four-time Grammy winner. Turns out little girls can be Peter Pans too, right Woke 1? Then there’s Cea Weaver, the DSA-loving Director of the Office to Protect Tenants, who whines that homeownership is a “weapon of white supremacy,” whilst stomping her feet and demanding bedtime stories. Meanwhile, her mother, a Vanderbilt professor, owns a roughly $1.6 million compound in Nashville, which is obviously the most racist thing anyone’s ever done.

I’d call Bernie Sanders a Peter Pan, but he looks 900 years old, so maybe he grew up physically, just not mentally. He’s the original Lost Boy who stuck around long enough for the hair to go white. Forty-plus years on the public payroll, three houses, book-deal millions, and the same speech he was giving when the Gettys were still cutting Newsom’s checks: Wendy should hand over her paycheck because only he knows how to handle your money – based on his prolific experience, and millionaires (now billionaires) are the real villains! Name one policy of his that’s made a single person’s life measurably better in that very long time span. Or are his wins imaginary too?

If this is the next cadre of leadership, commie Lost Boys who inherited the nursery and never graduated out of it, then the country is being run from the playground.

What we actually need are adults: people who build, hire, ship, invent, and leave something for the next generation. Not another seminar about other people’s money.

It’s worth remembering how recently this country was poorer than the Peter Pans can imagine. In 1959, more than one in five Americans lived below the poverty line, and plenty of those families were white. What changed wasn’t a municipal grocery store or a lecture on white supremacy. It was free markets, wages, appliances, antibiotics, housing that actually got built, and millions of unglamorous people clocking in to work every day. Yesterday’s luxuries became today’s ordinary. That’s what growing up looks like at the scale of a nation.

It’s easy to inherit the comfort your parents and grandparents wrung out of that system, then sneer at the privilege of whoever showed up after you. It’s easy to stay in Neverland, tax the pirates, and never learn what it takes to keep a store open. It’s hard to fly, but we can do it; we just don’t all get fairy dust. We get it the old-fashioned way: work, discipline, a little capitalism, and the willingness to grow up.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Another reason for concern.
https://t.co/P7Xj7545OQ

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Happy Friday!
Some, in MAGA, may disagree but given the track record, it's a question that, it's no time like the present to try to stop the seeming favorite, given his very different approach from the current boss, number 47.
The clock is ticking on the chances to stop JD Vance
By Jonathan S. Tobin
When the Republican Jewish Coalition gathers this week in Las Vegas for its annual conference, it will honor the legacy of the late South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and hear from many other prominent figures in the pro-Israel community. Doubtless, the proceedings will include the usual celebration of the U.S.-Israel alliance and President Donald Trump’s historic support for the Jewish state and his opposition to Iran and its Islamist terror network.
Equally, if not more important, will be an effort to sound the alarm about the hijacking of the Democratic Party by its intersectional and antisemitic left-wing led by the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA.

That’s exactly what the RJC should be talking about. But participants should also be aware that along with the merits of the current administration and the threat that the Democrats’ increasing assumption of a position as America’s anti-Israel party poses, there’s another just as troubling peril hanging over their party and the country. And his name is Vice President JD Vance.

A big tent that includes groypers

Shortly before the convention began, it was announced that Vance will be addressing the RJC this weekend. That makes sense for him since it is a prime venue for potential candidates for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. But the question hanging over his appearance will not be whether he utters the usual platitudes aimed at pleasing Jewish donors and voters. It will be whether he reverses course on some of the most important stands he’s taken in the past year.

Vance has assumed the role of the leading Israel-basher in the Trump administration, and whether he admits it or not, the advocate for a rerun of President Barack Obama’s disastrous appeasement of the nuclear threat posed by the Islamist regime in Iran. In and of itself, that would be enough to mark him as an outlier in an otherwise overwhelmingly pro-Israel Republican Party.

But the even greater concern about Vance is his belief that a “big tent” philosophy that seeks to include all who might conceivably support the GOP. Unfortunately, in Vance’s view, that includes its antisemitic groyper wing.

We got a reminder of this with the informal start of his 2028 campaign last week with a fundraising event in New York’s swanky Hamptons, where he raised a reported $5 million for the Republican National Committee. He has yet to declare his intentions, and the money will go to the party, rather than to a putative Vance campaign. Still, it’s clear that the vice president is using his side hustle as the RNC’s finance chair to get cozy with the party’s top donors, who paid $100,000 a piece to attend the reception and $250,000 for a seat at the dinner.

That’s political business as usual.

But what didn’t escape notice was that the event in the mega-wealthy beachside village of Southampton on the East End of Long Island, N.Y. was held at the home of Omeed Malik, the venture capitalist who heads the 1789 Capital firm among other lucrative holdings. Those sorts of credentials and a net worth estimated at $100 million don’t make Malik anything all that special in that kind of neighborhood. The reason his name may ring a bell is that 1789 Capital, a company in which Donald Trump Jr. is also partner, was the entity that invested the seed money in the amount of $15 million to help establish the Tucker Carlson Network. Malik and Don Jr. are reportedly close friends of Tucker. The same is also true of the vice president.

While no one should be held accountable for the bad behavior of their friends, the Vance-Carlson connection is more than personal.

The Tucker Carlson connection

It was Carlson, along with the president’s namesake, who is believed to have played the decisive role in persuading the elder Trump to help jumpstart Vance’s political career by endorsing him in a tightly contested Republican senatorial primary in Ohio in 2022. And the pair of buddies came through again for him two years later, when Trump tapped Vance to be his running mate in 2024.

The vice president has made it clear that he will always stick with his friends no matter what. As a general principle, that’s an admirable sentiment. But in this case, it involves him being willing to tolerate and tacitly encourage Carlson’s descent down a rabbit hole of antisemitism and obsessive hate for Israel, not to mention a bizarre affinity for the Islamist regime in Qatar—its Iranian ally—and Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia.

In 2022, Carlson was still widely considered a tribune of modern conservatism due to his use of his influential perch as the host of a prime-time show on Fox News, where he led the opposition to wokeism, the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, and the authoritarian and ultimately futile COVID-19 pandemic policies of the Biden administration.

By 2023, however, his penchant for promoting conspiracy theories and an increasingly hostile relationship with the Murdoch family that owns the network, along with racist text messages that were made public due to the lawsuit against the channel about claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, led to Carlson’s firing.

Since then—and with the help of Malik and Trump Jr.—Carlson’s podcast has become one of the most watched and listened to political programs on the Internet, claiming nearly 4 million subscribers and tens of millions of views every week. But rather than merely continuing to express the same views he aired on Fox, which could be described as, for the most part, those of a mainstream conservative, he blazed a new trail on his own network. I had noted as early as July 2019 and then again in March 2021 that Carlson was a threat to the U.S.-Israel alliance and American Jews.

Those warnings were vindicated by what happened once the guardrails imposed on him by his bosses at Fox were removed. Since it was launched in December 2023, his podcast has become a regular source of openly antisemitic material. He has hosted and granted friendly interviews to Holocaust denier Daryl Cooper and neo-Nazi groyper Nick Fuentes. Every possible variety of Israel-basher, ranging from those on the far right to those on the left, has also been granted access to his popular platform. Along with them, a wide variety of preposterous anti-Jewish conspiracy theories—claiming that Jews invented pornography to subvert American society to bogus assertions about Jeffrey Epstein being a Mossad agent and the Chabad religious movement being responsible for the war on Iran—have been aired and endorsed on his program.

What’s more, the popularity of his show—at least in terms of Internet clicks, whether they are the work of real people or bots—has encouraged others on the right to join Carlson in venting animus at Israel and Jews, such as podcaster Megyn Kelly, not to mention even more extreme figures like Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens.

Left-wing Jew-hatred has gained increasing influence over the Democratic Party and now threatens to dominate it as the DSA movement of Marxists and Islamists win primary after primary. But while the groyper wing of the GOP has flopped in the 2026 primaries, there is no denying that Carlson has become one of the most dangerous antisemites in American history.

That makes his close connection to Vance a significant concern.

What drives the ‘woke right’

Operating by the conventional rules of presidential politics, a potential 2028 contender like Vance would have ditched Carlson long ago, notwithstanding the favors he owes him. But that hasn’t happened.

More than that, when offered a perfect opportunity to establish a firewall between himself and Carlson last December at the Turning Point USA AmericaFest, Vance didn’t just pass on it. In his speech at the event, he did more than declare his neutrality in the argument between Ben Shapiro and Carlson about the latter’s antisemitism, both of whom also addressed the same forum. He said his vision of the Republican Party obliged him not to turn his back on Carlson and those who subscribed to his hateful stands, whether or not he agreed with them.

Vance had sung a very different tune during both his 2022 Senate run and the 2024 race, when he did well as Trump’s running mate (especially when compared to Democratic vice-presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz). In an address to the anti-Israel Quincy Institute, he made a case for the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship as the ideal “America First” alliance because of the threat from Iran and other Islamists, as well as the fact that, unlike the Europeans, Israel is always prepared to fight for itself and alongside the United States. Since then, whether due to the influence of Carlson or not, he seems to have extended his neo-isolationist philosophy to ties with Israel.

Contrary to the brickbats thrown at him by his detractors, the vice president is neither shallow nor uninformed. He’s a genuine intellectual who, unlike many in the party establishment, moved from a stand in favor of pure free-market conservatism and hostility to Trump to one that rightly espoused a more common-good philosophy. Like Trump, he came to understand the way the Bush-era GOP had failed America’s working class. His critique of the European Union and its anti-democratic tendencies delivered in a speech in Munich in February 2025 may have scared globalist elites, but they were very much on target and in keeping with American values.

Yet his tolerance for the groypers—indeed, his seeming belief that they are an essential part of the Republican coalition if it is to preserve the gains it made under Trump once he leaves the stage in 2028—isn’t just wrongheaded. It is a reflection of a desire among some on the right to treat the post-Oct. 7, 2023 surge of antisemitism as something to be tolerated and even exploited, rather than to be condemned and tossed out of the party as Trump has done with Carlson.

The so-called “woke right” is merely a variation on the same theme of Jew-hatred that has become the new orthodoxy on the left. But it has far fewer adherents than those turning out to decide Democratic primaries in favor of candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, and many other DSA members and “progressives.” But if someone like Vance, who is unwilling to draw a line in the sand between them and the party of Lincoln and Reagan, becomes its leader, that distinction will no longer be of any importance.

Unless and until Vance reverses his stand on Carlson and a big GOP tent that includes the groypers, his 2028 presidential ambitions must be regarded as a genuine threat not just to American Jews and the alliance with Israel, but to the values of Western civilization that are the foundation of American democracy.

The 2028 GOP lineup

There are some obvious alternatives to Vance for Republicans.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the runner-up to Trump in 2016, has made no secret of the fact that he still wants to be president. He’s also eager to make it clear that no consensus has been reached about the inevitability of Vance, despite the fact that the vice president has a big lead in far-too-early polls measuring the popularity of the 2028 GOP contenders. Moreover, Cruz has taken up the cause of fighting the growth of antisemitism with the sort of dedication and fervor few leading politicians have shown in recent years. But lingering doubts about his personal appeal and hold on the affection of Trump loyalists mark him as a longshot to win the nomination.

The most logical and potentially successful option for those who want to stop Vance is U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The competence and eloquence the former Florida senator has demonstrated as Trump’s second-term foreign-policy chief show how he has grown as a leader since his first disastrous run for president in 2016. And, like Cruz, his geopolitical views and consistent opposition to any hint of Jew-hatred make him especially appealing when compared to Vance’s affinity for Carlson and the groypers.

We don’t know whether he considers his pledge not to challenge Vance for president to be binding. If he doesn’t run—and if Trump doesn’t intervene in the contest to determine his successor—then, for the moment, the odds are that the vice president will win the nomination.

That ought to scare more than the people who attend the RJC event in Las Vegas. The prospect of a 2028 presidential race pitting an ally of the “woke right” against a representative of the antisemitic wing of the Democratic Party and the DSA like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) or some other Israel-hating progressive is a daunting one for everyone who understands the stakes for all Americans of such a dismal choice.

Of course, Vance will have the chance to allay concerns about him when he addresses the RJC. But unless he’s willing to explicitly reverse course on his TPUSA stance of neutrality on welcoming antisemites like his friend Carlson and others into the conservative movement and scale back his attacks on Israel, his speech ought to fall on deaf ears.

Pro-Israel Democrats may have already lost the battle for their party’s soul. Republicans who want to avoid that dilemma should be getting to work now to coalesce behind an alternative to Vance, not to mention doing everything possible to persuade Rubio to save his party and the country, and join the race. If they don’t, they’ll find themselves not just politically homeless in two years, but facing the likelihood of the election of someone comfortable with antisemitism being sworn into the presidency in January 2029.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Yes leaders, take a good look in the mirror and stop pointing fingers. Something your so good at doing. For once lead, and stop trying to play the victim?
Racism Isn’t Fueling Power Outages In Gary, Indiana. Incompetent Black Leaders Are
By: Kira Davis
ary, Indiana, just wrapped up week two with no power, and the left-wing narrative on the extended blackout is (unsurprisingly), “It’s racism!” As someone who lived in Gary for a decade, I can tell you it is anything but that.

Gary made me a conservative. In 1999, I married a man from Gary and moved to his home on the west side. That marked the beginning of a 10-year journey in one of the most dangerous cities in America. I was a default Democrat at the time, like most black Americans. Still, as a Christian woman, I dove into community service right away, helping launch and direct an afterschool program.

There I saw how all the laws and policies I had supported my entire adult life worked up close. I quickly discovered they don’t. I was treated to an endless stream of haughty, entitled bureaucrats who openly despised anyone trying to improve the city on their own. In a city that is almost all black and run exclusively by black people, you’d think I would have found many allies and people excited for progress. It was the exact opposite. Gary was a mess then, and it’s still a mess.

The cries of racism have been the loudest these past few days. Memphis is also experiencing a mass power outage, and Malcolm X impersonator Justin Pearson is using Gary’s current crisis to make a connection to the Memphis blackout:

The post is quite the self-own. Pearson skates near the edges of the truth here, but per usual glides right by the obvious conclusion: Majority-black cities are governed terribly.

Gary is not experiencing storm racism. Gary is experiencing complete incompetence, and the storm laid it bare. There are a few reasons Gary remains in a position of suffering.

First, people literally shot at the power company. NIPSCO (Northwest Indiana’s energy provider) has reported that multiple bullets struck their vehicle as employees tried to navigate the streets of the city and make repairs.

Second, people are abandoning their homes in search of air conditioning, gas, and electricity, leaving property vulnerable to thieves and home invaders. My senior citizen uncle refuses to leave his home for fear there will be nothing to come back to. He and his wife feel they must choose between suffering and theft.

Third, police presence is limited after years of mismanagement, Black Lives Matter’s “defund the police” nonsense, and escalating violence that drives away recruits. Emergency response in that city is a toss-up. I once called to report a break-in at my neighbor’s house and was told to call back if anyone was hurt. The police department never sent a patrol, and my neighbor returned to a ransacked home. Now, imagine the response when literally everyone in the city is in a state of emergency.

Fourth, Gary’s infrastructure is apocalyptic. In fact, films often choose Gary to shoot dystopian scenes. The city is riddled with abandoned buildings, overgrown lots, potholes, and damaged sidewalks. Power crews must first clear all the overgrown trees and branches that are tangled in the lines before they can rebuild. Emergency crews that manage to survive the shooting still face the challenge of navigating a city in complete disrepair.

Fifth, the city’s leadership has been hopelessly lazy and corrupt for as long as I can remember, and people older than I say the same. The new mayor has garnered some good reviews from skeptical residents, but he has clearly not been leading the city, only stemming the bleeding. Good leaders prepare for the future while governing the present. In Gary, no leaders prepare for future trouble because the status quo is simply to blame any trouble on Republican presidents and white people.

All this is the true crux of this issue — who governs Gary and how.

The vast majority of Gary’s population is black. The entire government is black. The city should be a black paradise if we are to believe Democrats. Instead, it is a nightmare. If only black politicians can help black people, what are black people supposed to do when those politicians completely abdicate their duties?

The constant cry of racism when it comes to our urban chaos is exhausting. There is no reason for Gary to be in its current condition. It has everything it needs to be a beautiful, prosperous city. It sits on a prime stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline. It has stunning historical architecture and is squarely in the middle of one of America’s heaviest transportation corridors. It is a mere 30 miles from Chicago, giving it connections to jobs and culture. Ostensibly, Gary could operate as a cheaper “suburb” of Chicago if it had the political mettle.

There is no one to blame for Gary’s tragic decline or current desperation besides the very people who keep telling us white people are the problem.

Take it from someone who knows. Gary isn’t in the dark because of racist white people. Gary is in the dark because of incompetent, selfish, self-interested black people who trade on the language of racism to maintain their power without accountability. They may not be able to control the power companies, but they can control their response to emergencies. Gary officials have mastered nothing but the language of racism and the art of dispensing suffering. It is a stunning betrayal.

It is not racism preventing Gary from thriving. It is apathy, political thievery, and race obsession.

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

Little wonder there's so little trust in this agency, even now after nearly 2 years?
Daily Wire Bombshell Leads To Report Finding FEMA Illegally Skipped Trump Supporters’ Homes
By Jacob Wheeler
In a scandal first uncovered by The Daily Wire, a new Department of Homeland Security inspector general report found that a FEMA disaster response crew illegally skipped Florida homes displaying signs supporting President Donald Trump, as workers surveyed damage from Hurricane Milton without proper training.

In November 2024, The Daily Wire first exposed the FEMA scandal after multiple federal employees confirmed that a supervisor ordered disaster relief workers to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida, to identify residents eligible for federal aid. Internal messages obtained by The Daily Wire showed that supervisor Marn’i Washington issued the directive both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team, according to multiple government employees.

“This situation eroded public trust in FEMA’s ability to treat everyone impartially, offer unbiased and consistent assistance, and ensure equal access to resources and tools,” the inspector general’s report said.

The 25-page investigation concluded that the discrimination violated both FEMA policy and the Hatch Act. The 1939 federal law prohibits government employees from using their positions or government resources for partisan political activity.

FEMA disaster relief crews canvassed more than 744,000 homes and other locations after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. But a DHS watchdog found that workers deliberately skipped 11 homes displaying signs supporting then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Images obtained by The Daily Wire showed workers documenting the homes in the government system with messages such as “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”

Microsoft Teams chat used by FEMA workers.

“These issues occurred due to weaknesses in FEMA’s training, documentation, and oversight,” the inspector general’s report concluded. “FEMA DSA [Disaster Survivor Assistance] crews did not receive ethics and Hatch Act training before deploying to disasters, DSA policies and procedures did not require crews to explain why they skipped homes, and DSA crew leaders were not required to conduct quality control reviews of survivor interactions.”

Investigators also interviewed 18 random FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance crew members deployed during the natural disasters and found 11 who said they never received Hatch Act training.

Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm on September 26, 2024, unleashing catastrophic flooding and devastation that killed hundreds and caused billions of dollars in damage from the Gulf Coast to the mountains of North Carolina. Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton struck near Siesta Key, Florida, as a Category 3 storm, battering communities still reeling from Helene.

President Biden quickly approved major disaster declarations for Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, unlocking federal aid to help survivors clean up and begin rebuilding.

As FEMA scrambled to respond to the back-to-back disasters, the agency called on a DHS Surge Capacity Force, drawing volunteers from other DHS agencies to bolster its understaffed workforce ahead of Hurricane Milton.

“I know they’re short-staffed, I thought we could go help and make a difference,” one of the employees told The Daily Wire at the time. “When we got there we were told to discriminate against people. It’s almost unbelievable to think that somebody in the federal government would think that’s okay.”

The employee said it felt wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were at their “most vulnerable.”

“I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” the employee said. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”

The guidance came as the Biden administration faced mounting criticism over what many rural communities described as a lackluster response to Hurricane Helene. In Roan Mountain, Tennessee, for example, residents told The Daily Wire that it took nearly two weeks for FEMA to arrive. Carter County, where the town is located, voted 81% for Trump.

The FEMA workers ordered to bypass homes displaying Trump signs were operating in Highlands County, a deep-red region of south-central Florida that backed Trump with 70% of the vote. The county was battered by tornadoes, torrential winds and rain, and flooding when Hurricane Milton struck in October.

The inspector general’s report laid out the limited exceptions in which FEMA workers could skip homes, including “hostile” interactions with residents, no-trespassing or private-property signs, hazardous debris, or purple paint marking a property as off-limits.

Political signs supporting Trump were not among the exceptions.

The inspector general reviewed thousands of FEMA canvassing records and identified 11 cases with notes indicating potential political bias. The workers logged the skipped homes under generic categories such as “Not Able to Access Property” and “Private Property.”

“However, in the notes field all 11 surveys included the name of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump to explain the reason for skipping the homes,” the investigation found.

One of the homes skipped by FEMA/ FEMA app tracking what homes were visited.

The report could not determine whether FEMA workers used similar discriminatory tactics elsewhere in the country as communities reeled from hurricane devastation.

“We could not determine if crews skipped locations for unallowable reasons during other disasters because the support contract for FEMA’s Field Assessment and Collection Tools ended in September 2025 when then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem did not act on FEMA’s request to fund it before expiration,” investigators said.

Looking forward, the inspector general issued four recommendations: strengthen ethics and Hatch Act training before deployments, create a system to document survivor interactions, and require FEMA crews to standardize how they record skipped homes and the reasons for doing so.

After The Daily Wire broke the story, a FEMA spokesman said the agency was “deeply disturbed” and “horrified” by the employee’s actions, and that it has “taken extreme actions to correct this situation.”

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

You won't see this anytime soon, maybe never.
The One Thing Republicans And Far-Left Socialists Actually Agree On
by Amanda Prestigiacomo
Entertainer and philanthropist Dolly Parton is being remembered and mourned by Americans across the political spectrum today, from President Donald Trump to the radical Democratic Socialists of America, underscoring just how universally beloved she was.

Parton died Tuesday at age 80 following a short battle with cancer. The “Jolene” singer notably steered clear of partisan politics throughout her decades-long career, instead building a legacy defined by philanthropy, generosity, and joy that transcended the country’s deep political divisions.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday paid his respects to Parton online and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff to honor the talent.

“Very sad to report that Dolly Parton, one of the greatest Country singers, and far beyond, EVER, has just passed away,” he wrote on Truth Social. “This is a true loss for millions of people. There has never been anyone like her, and never will. In her honor, I am lowering the American flag throughout the United States for a one week period beginning tonight at 6:00PM. Rest in Peace, Dolly! The World loves you.”

Credit: Truth Social

On the very far-Left, the Democratic Socialists of America also honored Parton. “Democratic Socialists of America extends our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and fans of Dolly Parton, a hero of the working-class and an inspiration to us all,” a post on Instagram said.

Credit: Instagram

“We probably won’t ever see anything like this for the rest of our lives,” former CNN reporter Nathan McDermott said of the love for Parton that wasn’t confined by politics.

Folks from across the political spectrum offered words of praise for Parton when news of her passing broke. Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro posted, “Perhaps the only thing that unites Americans: we all think Dolly Parton was awesome. RIP.”

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, called Parton “a true American icon.”

“All at once she was kind, modest, and funny,” Harris said. “With her music, her philanthropy, and her style, Dolly was one of one. Doug and I send our prayers to her family, friends, and all those who have been touched by her magic. We will always love you, Dolly.”

Daily Wire host Matt Walsh highlighted how universally beloved Parton was.

“Many people have pointed out that Dolly Parton was probably the last universally beloved figure in American life. I think that’s true,” he said. “Who else is there? Alex Trebek (technically Canadian, but we claim him) was another one but he’s been dead for like six years now.”

Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt sounded off on Parton’s legacy, which he emphasized transcended politics.

“She easily could’ve been a billionaire, but she just kept giving away her money,” Pratt wrote. “She gave over $600M to charity, without any fanfare. When Gatlinburg got decimated by wildfires, she didn’t give to an NPO…she paid $1,000 a month directly to families who lost their homes, totaling over $12M in direct cash aid to the victims. She also paid 100% of the tuition & books for the kids of any of her 11K employees.”

“Dolly was the ultimate icon of American greatness: be great so you can do great,” he continued. “She simultaneously built a formidable business empire, and fostered a universally-beloved reputation that spans every clique in America. I’ve literally never heard a single disparaging word about Dolly from anyone.”

“I know everyone will try to ‘claim’ her for their pet political issue, or whatever…but she transcended politics and petty partisanship her entire life, and we should honor that now that God has called her home,” Pratt added. “She was just a genuine blessing to our country, and perhaps the best example of what an American should aspire to be. Faithful. Great. Prolific. Kind. Generous. Humble.”

Parton was intentional about staying out of politics, instead focusing on bringing people together and helping as many people as she could.

“I don’t like to get involved in politics, because first of all, I have as many Republican fans as I do Democrats,” Parton told USA Today back in 2020. “I don’t want to offend anybody, I have a right to myself.”

[Jesse DelMuro @jdm0211]

You knew it wouldn't take long, right?
The Left Found A New Leavitt
By Chloe Trapanotto
Support females. Unless they dare speak out against men playing in their sport, in which case, ruin them. Women should run the world. Unless they have a baby, then they’ll probably undergo acute psychosis and strangle their kids, and that’s fine. Empower all women. Unless they’re blonde and work in the Trump administration. Then it’s open season.

The latter is prescient this week, as the Left has found a new young, attractive woman to terrorize in Natalie Harp, now that Karoline Leavitt isn’t in their line of sight.

The 35-year-old special and executive assistant to the president was launched into the news cycle after Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff (Democrat, dweeb, professional douche) read a scripted line at a rally insinuating that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job,” preferring instead to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie” on a plane gifted by the Emir of Qatar.

The small, beta, estrogen-filled half-feline was being about as subtle as a brick through a window. The implication: the president and his aide are having some sort of love affair, based on the fact that when there was a bomb threat from Iran, she was one of a few people who snuck onto another escape flight with the president (the sole target of the attack). Journalists are still incredibly upset that after years of libeling, defaming, and belittling the president and his administration, he didn’t sacrifice his safety for them by telling Iran exactly where he was.

This empowered Maggie Haberman of The New York Times to describe Harp as Trump’s “binky” during a podcast devoted to making this story something that it isn’t, the Daily Beast to publish her private letters, CNN’s Erin Burnett to primetime Harp’s estranged brother to trash her, and Maureen Dowd, who should perhaps cool it on the botox, to compare Harp to the crazed girlfriend from “Obsession.”

Believe all women. Support fellow females. Be a girl’s girl. Unless she’s pretty, successful, and votes red — then, evidently, the sisterhood becomes a firing squad.

But this Natalie Harp must have done something unusual to stoke their ire, right? Like how Kamala Harris legitimately slept her way into the District Attorney’s office or how Hillary Clinton looked the other way as her husband ushered in a revolving door of women to stay close to power? Wrong. She’s a California native from a conservative Christian family who studied business and real estate, went public in 2019 with her Stage 2 bone cancer diagnosis, and is alive today because a doctor was willing to try an off-label immunotherapy — treatment access made possible, as she tells it, by Trump’s 2018 Right to Try Act. Her father died by suicide in 2020. Her brother, an anti-American, gringo sandinista, man-bun activist who goes by “Spirit.wagon” on Instagram, doesn’t speak to her. Nobody’s heard from the mother in years.

Despite her apparent family shortcomings and lack of nuclear support, she’s made a highly impressive career for herself in political media, gaining the attention of President Trump after she credited him with saving her life, and earning a spot within his campaign and inner circle. Not because of nefarious reasons, but because she is incredibly hard-working, devoted, and loyal to a fault, sometimes forgetting to eat and sleep. She’s unmarried, single, and dedicated to the craft at 35. The Left should be proud.

Instead, because she once wrote that Trump was her “guardian and protector” and compared him to George Bailey in a campaign speech, she’s being cast as unhinged. A woman who has survived cancer, a father’s suicide, and a commie brother finding stability and purpose in her work is not evidence of instability. It’s evidence of exactly the opposite. He’s an 80-year-old man she may well see as a father figure. Or “Unc,” as the kids say. That’s not a scandal. That’s just how humans process grief.

It isn’t surprising that the same cadre of people who excuse a psychotic mother for strangling her three children to death, look the other way when a nazi-tatted communist allegedly sexually assaults a woman because he’s running for office as a D and the victim was an R, and forgive female genital mutilation and forced burqa coverage because it’s “their religion,” are also misogynistic towards successful conservative women.

The Left is showing us, day after day, that they will loudly defend the idea of female empowerment while quietly deciding, case by case, which actual women deserve it. A cancer survivor with a tragic family history and an unglamorous work ethic doesn’t fit the “victim” narrative, so she gets recast as the “obsessive aide” who’s sleeping with an 80-year-old instead.

Feminism sure looks different nowadays, doesn’t it?

Harp will survive this slander, just as she has capably survived worse than cable news, but there is a broader insult here, to every woman the Left claims to speak for. Record female appointments in this administration, the youngest female press secretary, women succeeding without checking a single progressive box — and none of it counts, because counting it would mean admitting conservative women can win on merit. So instead, they fixate on a new blonde villain every cycle with the same tired verdict: she must be sleeping her way into relevance.

It’s cruel, and it’s pathetic. Even Bill Maher is tired of it: “I don’t know why you have to go after her… She had bone cancer in her 20s. She liked Trump because he sped up experimental treatment, which she believes helped her. But, you know, in America it’s just like, ‘Oh good, someone new to hate.’ … Let the man have one f*cking friend.”

Let the man have a friend. And let the girl have a father figure.