The road to bunker-busters was paved with delusions



In 1979, as crowds gathered in the streets of Iran to topple the shah, the New York Timesran an editorial describing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as an “enigma.” Bernard Lewis was then America’s leading scholar on the Islamic world. He had read Khomeini’s works, many of which had been translated into English and were easily accessible.

Far from an “enigma,” Lewis concluded that Khomeini possessed the virtue of candor (to put it mildly) and that in every respect he was a perfect lunatic. But Lewis had been largely discredited as a “racist,” so his offer to write a piece for the Timesfell on deaf ears. An editor at the paper said that Lewis was merely a Zionist agent spreading disinformation.

'Khomeini’s ambitions extended beyond Shiism. He wanted to be accepted as the leader of the Muslim world, period.'

Among other things, Khomeini had written that girls should be married off before puberty (“Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house”). His own father — who was stabbed to death when Khomeini was a baby — married his mother when she was just 9 years old. Khomeini himself took his wife when she was 10 years old and had her pregnant by the age of 11. Khomeini blamed poverty in Iran on foreigners and Jews and argued that the idea of nationalism and nation-states was nothing but a Western plot to weaken Islam.

At the heart of Khomeini’s program was conquest. In the words of Vali Nasr, one of the world’s leading authorities on Shia Islam:

Khomeini’s ambitions extended beyond Shiism. He wanted to be accepted as the leader of the Muslim world, period. At its core, his drive for power was yet another Shia challenge for leadership of the Islamic world. He saw the Islamic Republic of Iran as the base for a global Islamic movement, in much the same way that Lenin and Trotsky had seen Russia as the springboard country of what was meant to be a global communist revolution.

No price was too high to pay in the jihadist drive to create a Shiite caliphate. During the blood-soaked Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, an ayatollah named Mehdi Haeri Yazdi approached Khomeini, his mentor, while he was sitting alone on a rug in his garden facing a pool. The hopeless war was consuming hundreds of thousands of young lives, Yazdi said. Was there no way to stop the slaughter?

Khomeini replied reproachfully, “Do you also criticize God when he sends an earthquake?”

The economic costs of creating a caliphate were a secondary concern for Khomeini as well. He famously cried that “economics is for donkeys” and “the revolution was not about the price of watermelons.”

Khomeini’s ideology lives on

This ideology continued long after Khomeini’s death in 1989. In 2021, a former senior Syrian official named Firas Tlass told an interviewer, “The Iranians have an authoritative plan to take control over the entire region.”

Their strategy was as brilliant as it was simple. They went to any country that had Muslims and a political vacuum. There they set up a school system in which they indoctrinated children with their vision of violent, expansionist, radical Shiite Islam. Twelve short years later, they had legions of young fighters eager to do their bidding. The strategy was implemented in an arc of ruin that extended from Lebanon through the Levant and down to Yemen.

The Iranians even attempted to gain a toehold on the European continent in the 1990s, in Kosovo. Tlass added that in the mid-2000s, former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami predicted, in a private conversation between the two, that in 20 years Iran would be the counterweight to the United States.

This prophecy would be realized almost exactly 20 years later during the Gaza War, when the world got its first taste of the radical Shiite coalition. Tehran mobilized its multi-tenacle proxy army. Though Israel ultimately triumphed, as we have seen, the world got its first taste of the dangers of the would-be Shiite caliphate.

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There was unprecedented shelling by Hezbollah, which rendered an entire region of Northern Israel uninhabitable. There was disruption of international shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. And at the very moment that Iraq’s prime minister was in Washington hoping to negotiate a much-needed economic package, a Shiite militia in his country joined Iran’s April 13, 2024, assault that launched hundreds of rockets into Israel. A senior member of Iraq’s security forces named Abdul Aziz al-Mohammedawi made no secret of his allegiance to Iran and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A fundamental misunderstanding

In the face of this challenge, American allies in the region, and particularly the Saudis, were dumbfounded by Washington’s foolishness. Under the banner of “human rights,” the Biden administration undermined Saudi Arabia’s war against the Iranian-backed Houthis of Yemen. As a senior Saudi journalist put it, “You wouldn’t let us fight the Houthis, so now you have to.”

Biden administration envoy Amos Hochstein reportedly offered Hezbollah an aid package to rebuild Southern Lebanon after the war, if the terror group agreed to stop firing into Israel. The administration should have slapped punishing sanctions on Lebanon’s battered economy the minute Hezbollah launched its first rocket.

Even over 130 attacks on U.S. troops by Iranian proxies drew little or no response. On January 28, 2024, Iranian-backed militias killed three American troops stationed in Jordan. The Biden administration carried out a measured response in Iraq and Syria but left Iran out of the fray, even lifting sanctions to permit Tehran to raise oil exports from 300,000 barrels a day to 2 million.

And then there was the Iran nuclear deal. Experts still debate how long it would have delayed Iran obtaining a bomb — the deal, by its very terms, only placed restrictions on Iran for 15 years — but all agree that it gave Tehran access to over $100 billion. To this President Obama said, “Our best analysts expect the bulk of this revenue to go into spending that improves the economy and benefits the lives of the Iranian people.” This statement showed a fundamental misunderstanding of Iranian priorities — a mistake the current Trump administration seems determined not to repeat.

Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from Uri Kaufman’s latest book, “American Intifada: Israel, the Gaza War, and the New Antisemitism.”

Trump’s tariffs take a flamethrower to the free trade lie



The globalist fairy tale is finally unraveling — and not a moment too soon.

For decades, Americans were sold the shiny promise of globalization: open markets, booming trade, cheaper goods, and peace through economic integration. But behind the glittering sales pitch was a brutal reality — the slow, deliberate hollowing out of the American middle class.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

Enough of this.

President Donald Trump’s recent announcement on tariffs sent the elites — those who profited most from this decades-long experiment — into full panic mode, and for good reason. Their gravy train may finally be running out of track.

This isn’t about economic theory. This is about the lives, livelihoods, and dignity of the American people — especially those in towns and cities that once hummed with the sound of industry.

How it started

The North American Free Trade Agreement was the appetizer in a global feast that served American manufacturing to foreign competitors on a silver platter. Even President Bill Clinton, at the NAFTA signing ceremony in 1993, seemed eager to get past the domestic details and embrace the coming wave of globalization.

By the early 2000s, the United States was importing at unprecedented rates. Today, the trade deficit with the European Union alone is $235 billion. That’s not trade — that’s surrender. Our deficit with Europe hasn’t fallen below $100 billion since 2011.

None of this happened by accident.

It began with a handshake in 1972, when President Richard Nixon traveled to Mao Zedong’s China. At the time, China was riding bicycles and rationing rice. No one imagined that opening the door to trade would lead to the economic superpower we face today.

But by 2001, that door had been blasted open. China joined the World Trade Organization, committing to lower tariffs and removing trade barriers. American markets were flooded with cheap Chinese goods — and American workers were left holding an empty lunch pail.

The result was a trade deficit with China that ballooned to $295 billion last year. That’s the largest deficit we have with any country. Our total trade deficit in 2024 was a record $1.2 trillion — the fourth consecutive year topping $1 trillion.

The human toll

The fallout from this one-sided relationship with China is staggering. A 2016 MIT study found that, in the decade following China’s World Trade Organization entry, the U.S. lost 2.4 million jobs — nearly a million in manufacturing alone. The researchers concluded that international trade makes low-skilled workers in America “worse off — not just temporarily, but on a sustained basis.”

You’d think a quote like that would be plastered across every office in Congress. But no. The political class — especially on the left — chose to ignore it.

Instead, they wring their hands in confusion when working-class Americans turn to a leader like Donald Trump. “Why are they so angry?” they ask, while standing atop the wreckage of towns they helped dismantle.

About that wreckage

In Galesburg, Illinois, Maytag once employed 5,000 workers. The last refrigerator rolled off the line in 2004. The site is now rubble and weeds.

Youngstown, Ohio — once a titan of American steel — has lost 60% of its population since the 1970s. Gary, Indiana, once home to U.S. Steel’s largest mill, has over 10,000 abandoned buildings. In Flint, Michigan, over 80,000 GM jobs vanished. By 2016, over half of men ages 25 to 54 in Flint were unemployed. Buick City, once a symbol of industrial might, was demolished in 2002.

Detroit, once richer than Boston, is now 40% poorer. The U.S. auto parts industry lost 419,000 jobs in the decade after China joined the WTO.

Even NPR admitted that “the China Shock created what looked like miniature Great Depressions” in these areas.

From dream to despair

Between 2000 and 2014, America lost 5 million manufacturing jobs — the steepest decline in American history.

Meanwhile, in the same time period, corporate profits soared 600%. CEO pay has ballooned to 290 times that of the average worker. In 1965, it was 21 times. Since 1978, CEO compensation has grown by over 1,000%. Regular worker pay? Just 24%.

They told us the rising tide would lift all boats. Turns out, it mostly lifted yachts. And the rest of the boats? Capsized.

This economic assault came with a steep psychological toll.

A 2017 Princeton study found a link between rising deaths of despair — suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses — and job losses in trade-exposed areas.

Since 1999, overdose deaths in America have increased sixfold. In Ohio, they rose 1,000% between 2001 and 2017. The hardest-hit areas? Deindustrialized, working-class communities.

The American middle class is vanishing. In 1971, 61% of households were middle class. By 2023, it was just 51%. In 1950, manufacturing jobs made up 30% of total U.S. employment. Today, they make up just 8%.

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There are fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than there were in 1941 — before we entered World War II — despite our population more than doubling.

This collapse hit black workers especially hard. Between 1998 and 2020, more than 646,000 manufacturing jobs held by black Americans disappeared — a 30% loss in that sector.

A reckoning long overdue

Trump’s tariff push is a long-overdue confrontation with the failed consensus of globalization. For 25 years, the arrangement has been spectacular — for China and for U.S. corporations chasing cheap labor. But for America’s workers and towns, it has been catastrophic.

Yes, the corporate press is scoffing. CBS News recently “fact-checked” Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s claim that America has lost 90,000 factories since NAFTA. The correct number, they said, was actually 70,500.

Oh? Only 70,500? As if that’s supposed to be reassuring.

These aren’t merely statistics. These are livelihoods — entire communities turned into ghost towns. Every shuttered factory was once a promise of stability, dignity, and upward mobility. And with each closure, that promise was betrayed.

We’ve allowed globalization to crush the backbone of this country — the working men and women who don’t show up on CNBC but who built the very foundation we all stand on.

Trump’s tariffs are not just about trade. They’re about sovereignty. They’re about self-respect. They’re about rebuilding what our elites sold off piece by piece.

This is not a perfect plan. But it’s the first real attempt in decades to confront the human cost of globalization. It’s a wager that America can still choose dignity over dependence, self-sufficiency over servitude.

Let’s hope we’re not too late.

Headhunter federal prosecutors ruined my family to chase a fake win



Headline after headline has slammed President Donald Trump’s recent wave of pardons, claiming they prove America now operates under a two-tiered justice system. But the outrage is manufactured. These critics want you to forget that Trump was a target of the very system they now accuse him of controlling.

With these pardons, Trump isn’t abusing the justice system — he’s beginning to dismantle the weaponized bureaucracy within it. For years, a corrupt faction inside the Department of Justice has twisted its constitutional mandate to serve the personal and political agendas of activist attorneys and the operatives who influence them. Trump’s actions mark the start of holding that faction accountable.

Government lawyers and law enforcement officials have abused their power for personal ambition and gain. They don’t want the truth. They want trophies.

Don’t take Trump’s word for it. Or mine. Critics across the political spectrum have warned for decades about the potential for the weaponization of criminal law by overzealous prosecutors.

President Bill Clinton told the ladies of “The View” that former FBI Director James Comey used his power and “outside influence” to sway the outcome of the 2016 election.

Two-time Attorney General Bill Barr has warned that prosecutors often turn into “headhunters,” obsessed with taking down targets at any cost. That mindset, he said, leads the Justice Department away from its duty to administer justice fairly and according to clear, consistent legal standards.

Joe Biden himself allowed that his Justice Department “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” individuals — choosing targets based on improper criteria and engaging in “selective prosecution.” He was referring, of course, to the federal case against his son Hunter.

This problem goes far beyond politics. Law enforcement, once politicized, can be turned against anyone. Prosecutors armed with the full force of the federal government can destroy individuals, families, businesses, and entire communities.

As Barr put it, the mere act of launching an investigation can be devastating: “People facing federal investigations incur ruinous legal costs and often see their lives reduced to rubble before a charge is even filed.”

Once you understand how the game works, turning your political or corporate rivals into criminal targets becomes easy.

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In my family’s case, Amazon executives hired a former federal prosecutor to pressure his former colleagues at the Justice Department to go after my husband, a former Amazon employee. Their goal: bring federal charges over an obscure “process” crime — violating internal Amazon employment terms.

The Justice Department never filed charges. The investigation eventually closed. But for four excruciating years, prosecutors used civil forfeiture laws to seize every dollar in our bank accounts. FBI agents raided our home while our babies crawled on the floor in diapers. Prosecutors threatened our family members with criminal charges in a scheme to force my husband into pleading guilty to a lie.

We sold our house. We lost our jobs. We spent years in court just to “prove” what was always true: My husband had complied with his employment contract.

The Chrisley family knows this drill, too. After President Trump pardoned Todd Chrisley, his daughter, Savannah, revealed that law enforcement explicitly wrote that they needed a “big fish” — and the Chrisleys were the “biggest fish” in Atlanta. For many prosecutors, a high-profile conviction is just a stepping stone to a cushy law firm job and a seven-figure salary.

My family made it through. So did the Chrisleys. But plenty of Americans are still “in the hunt,” as prosecutors like to say.

Greg Lindberg is one of them. A self-made entrepreneur, Lindberg built a network of insurance companies that employed more than 7,000 people. His mistake? Supporting the wrong candidate for North Carolina insurance commissioner. After the election, the winning candidate got to work, with help from the FBI and Justice Department, setting a trap that would ensnare Lindberg in a manufactured bribery scheme.

Prosecutors took the Lindberg case to court on charges built on lies. As Barr warned, they became obsessed with “getting their guy.” Even after the Fourth Circuit vacated the bogus conviction, the U.S. attorney refused to back down. He threatened Lindberg with new charges and a staggering 540-month sentence, knowing Lindberg was financially drained and couldn’t afford to fight.

This wasn’t just a campaign to destroy one man. The fallout has devastated thousands of families across North Carolina. Lindberg’s insurance companies, once solvent, are now failing. People are out of work. Why? Because the same commissioner who targeted Lindberg handed control to a group of handpicked receivers — politically connected insiders with no accountability.

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Those receivers didn’t just take over Lindberg’s insurance businesses. They seized more than 100 companies. They’ve collected tens of millions in fees while leaving policyholders in limbo and small businesses without payouts. The result? Lost jobs, ruined livelihoods, and a crisis that didn’t begin with Greg Lindberg — it began with the government.

Lindberg is still fighting to clear his name. So are others.

Decorated NYPD veteran and 9/11 hero Michael McMahon now faces prison on the bizarre charge that he spied for China — for $5,000. Trail runner Michael Sunseri could spend six months in jail for breaking a speed record in Grand Teton National Park, on a trail thousands have used before — except the government says it was “off-limits” in his case.

How is this justice?

Government lawyers and law enforcement officials have abused their power for personal ambition and gain. They don’t want the truth. They want trophies. And until that changes, President Trump should keep using his pardon power boldly, unapologetically, and often.

Because the real two-tiered justice system isn’t a myth. It’s the scoreboard — and it’s long past time to even it.

Runaway judges, rogue rulings — and JD Vance is having none of it



Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel recently launched an unexpectedly harsh attack on Vice President JD Vance in her piece, “Vance Courts Trouble for Trump.” Strassel took issue with Vance’s criticism of the Supreme Court — specifically Chief Justice John Roberts — for refusing to rein in lower courts that continue to block the president’s immigration enforcement efforts. Vance had condemned what he called the “profoundly wrong sentiment” that the judiciary exists to “check the excesses of the executive.” Strassel responded by warning Vance to stop bad-mouthing “Trump’s greatest legacy and biggest asset — the Supreme Court.”

But why should Trump muzzle his vice president? Why should he sit quietly while the very judges he fought tooth and nail to confirm — despite often violent opposition from the Democrats — now obstruct his efforts to secure the border and deport criminal aliens?

Yes, the Wall Street Journal prefers to cast itself as a centrist paper taking aim at both sides. But that posture doesn’t match the moment we’re in.

If Vance’s criticisms count as “political malpractice,” then so did the actions of several American presidents. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, pushed through the Judiciary Acts of 1801 and 1802, which cut the number of Supreme Court justices and stripped them of their circuit-riding duties. Jefferson acted to dismantle the Federalist “Midnight Appointments” rushed through by outgoing President John Adams.

In Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Supreme Court claimed the power of judicial review — something not granted by Article III of the Constitution, by the way. Even then, Chief Justice John Marshall, a staunch Federalist, stopped short of challenging Jefferson directly. He didn’t try to compel the president to seat William Marbury, the would-be justice of the peace Adams had appointed in his final hours. Marshall asserted the court’s authority but avoided provoking a constitutional crisis.

Today’s activist judges show no such restraint. Unlike Marshall, they challenge the executive branch at every turn — and always in one direction. Vance’s criticism doesn’t reflect political malpractice. It’s an overdue reality check.

We’re now dealing with a runaway judiciary. Democrat-appointed federal district judges continue to block lawful presidential functions for openly partisan reasons. It’s unclear what authority these judges claim when they prohibit Trump from deporting even violent criminal aliens — many of whom Democrats welcomed in to inflate future voter rolls.

Vance’s expectation — that the Supreme Court, especially the justices Trump fought to confirm, would step in to curb the excesses of lower courts — makes perfect sense. Contrary to Strassel’s framing, Vance isn’t succumbing to some reckless “temptation” by criticizing Chief Justice John Roberts and his Republican colleagues. He’s stating the obvious: The court’s failure to rein in rogue judges undermines the president’s constitutional authority.

Strassel’s shrug-it-off mentality — “win some, lose some” — won’t cut it here. This fight matters. Trump cannot afford to lose.

Consider the hypocrisy. Presidents Clinton and Obama removed removed multitudes of illegal aliens when doing so served their political interests. Back then, Democrats still courted blue-collar workers and didn’t want unskilled illegal labor undercutting their base. They didn’t insist on due process or invite obstruction from the courts. They acted decisively.

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Now, Strassel insists that Trump must accept lengthy hearings before removing even the most dangerous illegal aliens. That’s a formula for paralysis, not justice. Meanwhile, Democrat judges didn’t blink when the Biden administration opened the floodgates and allowed 10 to 20 million illegals to pour into the country. Trump has every right to expect that the Supreme Court — not least the justices he carried over the finish line — would finally restore order and let him carry out the mission he was elected to complete.

And enough with the double standard. The populist right gets lectured about decorum while the left ignores every rule with impunity. Democrats tried to pack the courts with ideologues, launched smear campaigns against nominees, and encouraged mobs to hound justices who ruled against them. Their media allies cheered them on and still call for removing conservative justices like Clarence Thomas any time the court hands down an opinion they dislike.

This isn’t a fair fight. The right is battling from behind, and Strassel’s call for restraint sounds almost unserious in this context. Yes, the Wall Street Journal prefers to cast itself as a centrist paper taking aim at both sides. But that posture doesn’t match the moment we’re in. Vance’s criticism didn’t go too far — it didn’t go far enough. His comments were mild, measured, and overdue. And if they rattled Strassel’s sensibilities, that says more about her perspective than his.

Soros and McCain: The unholy alliance hidden in plain sight



Have we been missing a Soros-McCain family connection in front of our very eyes all this time?

Unlike his father, George, who operated behind the scenes and dismissed scrutiny as conspiracy theory, Alexander Soros flaunts his influence openly on social media. He’s proudly posted photos with Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Democratic leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) — to name just a few. He’s also showcased meetings with newer faces, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), whom he called a “rising star.” Let’s hope he’s right.

What started as a quiet alliance between George Soros and John McCain has now become a visible partnership between their heirs, Alex and Cindy.

To paraphrase “The Big Short”: Alex isn’t confessing — he’s bragging.

His photos with high-profile Democrats have grabbed headlines, but it’s his posts featuring Cindy McCain that reveal something even more telling: a decades-long relationship between the Soros and McCain families.

On May 6, 2024, Alex shared a photo with Cindy at the McCain Institute Sedona Forum. The topic of the forum was “Securing Our Insecure World,” which used the “climate crisis” as a backdrop, and had a roster of speakers that included Democrats and RINOs such as Mitt Romney, Janet Yellen, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), David Axelrod, and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In another tweet with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Alex indicated that stopping Trump was a topic of discussion, referring to Kelly as “inspiring as ever and attentive to the threat posed in November if Trump wins.”

Alex has also shared a photo of himself with Cindy McCain and his father at the Munich Security Conference. The two also appear in a photo discussing the World Food Programme. The earliest image of them together dates back to 2020, when Cindy served as chairwoman of the board of the Munich conference and Alex sat on the advisory council, according to the conference’s annual report.

The McCains have never hidden their disdain for Donald Trump or the modern Republican Party — views that earned them the “RINO” tag and de facto exile from today’s GOP.

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Their ties to the Soros network don't mark a new alliance, but they do prompt questions about how the relationship began. The answer may lead directly back to John McCain himself.

To understand the dynamic between Cindy McCain and Alex Soros, you first need to understand the relationship between John McCain and George Soros.

In 2001, McCain launched the Reform Institute — a nonprofit think tank that operated as a convenient loophole for accepting unlimited, unregulated donations. Many of the Reform Institute’s funders also contributed to McCain’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008 as well as to his Straight Talk America PAC.

Hypocritically, the Reform Institute has claimed it wants to “clean up” campaign finance. In 2008, the Reform Institute even sent out a fundraising appeal blasting George Soros as a Democratic mega-donor. Yet, it was taking Soros’ money as it criticized others for doing the same.

The Reform Institute accepted multiple contributions from George Soros — some as high as $100,000 — as well as from the Soros-backed Tides Foundation. The maverick also took money from Teneo, a firm co-founded by Bill Clinton’s longtime “bag man” Doug Band.

What started as a quiet alliance between George Soros and John McCain has now become a visible partnership between their heirs, Alex and Cindy. Their shared disdain for Trump and mutual investment in globalist initiatives reveal what many prefer to ignore: Real political power often hides in plain sight — until it doesn’t.

With his ascension to the helm of his father’s Open Society Foundations, Alex Soros inherits a political infrastructure from the Democratic Party — and from RINOs like John and Cindy McCain.

Editor’s note: This article, part of a series, has been adapted from Matt Palumbo’s new book, “The Heir: Inside the (Not So) Secret Network of George Soros.”

Where Was Democrats’ Outrage When Obama And Biden Deported Illegal Alien Housekeepers And Gardeners?

No one made a peep when Obama and Biden deported millions of illegal aliens who also merely worked hard, paid taxes, and stayed out of prison.

Congress Should Keep California From Dictating Environmental Rules To The Whole Country

Repealing Biden-era California waivers is an appropriate exercise of congressional powers against executive misinterpretation of the law.

Illegal aliens aren’t just ‘guests’ — they’re future voters



After visiting a nearby resort filled with opulent wokesters, I couldn’t help but notice the signs proclaiming, “Love, not hate, makes America great.” I suspect the signs were meant to remind us of Donald Trump’s supposed nastiness for deporting as many as 50,000 illegal immigrants — most with criminal records. According to the left, such a policy makes Trump a fascist — maybe even the latest incarnation of Hitler.

A "nicer" leader, we’re told, would allow these illegal immigrants — including convicted rapists and other lowlifes — to remain in the country, at least until they exhausted multiple judicial appeals or committed a few more crimes. Why stop there? Let them vote in local elections, receive public assistance, education, and health care. After all, they supposedly enrich our society — or so Democrats insist, as they work tirelessly to provide all these forms of taxpayer-funded hospitality.

When virtue signalers clutch their pearls over Trump’s treatment of ‘nice illegal rapists,’ I have to wonder if they’re playing dumb.

But why did Democratic presidents we’re supposed to venerate — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — get a free pass for far harsher deportation records? Clinton expelled close to a million illegal aliens with minimal judicial involvement, even boasting about his deportations during his re-election campaign. Obama, the left’s beloved heartthrob, threw out over four million illegal immigrants, aided by Trump’s current border czar Tom Homan, all without major interference from Democratic-appointed judges.

Compared to Clinton and Obama, Trump’s deportation numbers look paltry, especially given the legal and media warfare waged against him.

Even as recently as 2006, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — now screaming about Trump’s “cruelty” — eagerly pushed for building a border wall. Thirty years ago, few Democratic senators would have voted against it. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), back then, warned against flooding the country with unskilled foreign labor that would hurt America’s most vulnerable workers. Obama himself praised tougher immigration controls. In 2006, Democrats still held some loyalty to their working-class base. They understood that saturating American communities with third world lumpenproletariat — not to mention foreign gangs — would devastate the working class.

That was before Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Pete Buttigieg, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Rachel Levine became the faces of the rebranded Democratic Party.

Since then, both national parties have swapped electoral bases. Republicans moved away from country-club elites and realigned with the white — and increasingly Hispanic — working class. Democrats abandoned their traditional blue-collar support to embrace progressive white women, the LGBTQ lobby, government bureaucrats, black militants, and now, the cause of illegal immigrants.

For Democrats, the strategy is simple: expand the non-working-class base. Biden’s administration opened the border to as many as 10 million illegal aliens, and anyone with a functioning brain can see why.

Yet, when virtue signalers clutch their pearls over Trump’s treatment of “nice illegal rapists,” I have to wonder if they’re playing dumb. Do they really not know why their party flooded the country with illegal aliens? Do they honestly think slogans about "love" explain why Democrats fight tooth and nail to keep even convicted criminals from deportation?

Every illegal immigrant represents a potential future Democratic voter. If Trump’s administration was allowed to make moral distinctions among the "undocumented," Democrats might lose too many future loyalists. Better, from their view, to defend even a wife-beating, MS-13-affiliated “Maryland man” than risk losing tomorrow’s votes.

Perhaps I’m being unfair. Maybe the Democratic cheering squad doesn’t know — or care — how radically its party reversed itself on immigration. Maybe leftists assume their Democratic heroes always held the same radical social views as Tim Walz and Hakeem Jeffries.

Most live in the present, parroting whatever slogans the media and party elites hand them. If journalists and historians hide the truth, these activists show little curiosity to uncover it.

Meanwhile, the media and judicial attacks on Trump’s supposedly “Nazi-like” immigration policies continue to erode public support. Trump now polls negatively even on immigration, the very issue that propelled him into the White House.

If this delusion holds, Democrats may succeed in securing nearly all of their future voters.

Trump as ‘deporter in chief’? The real numbers might shock you



Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, compared Trump’s immigration policies to Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. He claimed that Hitler didn’t bother with German law — he just hauled people off to death camps in Poland and Hungary. Apparently, that’s what Trump is doing now by deporting MS-13 gang members to El Salvador.

Symone Sanders took it a step further. The MSNBC host suggested that deporting gang-affiliated noncitizens is simply the first step toward deporting black Americans. I’ll wait while you try to do that math.

The debate is about control — weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent.

Media mouthpieces like Sanders and Matthews are just the latest examples of the left’s Pavlovian tribalism when it comes to Trump and immigration. Just say the word “Trump,” and people froth at the mouth before they even hear the sentence. While the media cries “Hitler,” the numbers say otherwise. And numbers don’t lie — the narrative does.

Numbers don’t lie

The real “deporter in chief” isn’t Trump. It was President Bill Clinton, who sent back 12.3 million people during his presidency — 11.4 million returns and nearly 900,000 formal removals. President George W. Bush, likewise, presided over 10.3 million deportations — 8.3 million returns and two million removals. Even President Barack Obama, the progressive darling, oversaw 5.5 million deportations, including more than three million formal removals.

So how does Donald Trump stack up? Between 2017 and 2021, Trump deported somewhere between 1.5 million and two million people — dramatically fewer than Obama, Bush, or Clinton. In his current term so far, Trump has deported between 100,000 and 138,000 people. Yes, that’s assertive for a first term — but it's still fewer than Biden was deporting toward the end of his presidency.

The numbers simply don’t support the hysteria.

Who's the “dictator” here? Trump is deporting fewer people, with more legal oversight, and still being compared to history’s most reviled tyrant. Apparently, sending MS-13 gang members — violent criminals — back to their country of origin is now equivalent to genocide.

It’s not about immigration

This debate stopped being about immigration a long time ago. It’s now about control — about weaponizing the courts, twisting language, and using moral panic to silence dissent. It’s about turning Donald Trump into the villain of every story, facts be damned.

If the numbers mattered, we’d be having a very different national conversation. We’d be asking why Bill Clinton deported six times as many people as Trump and never got labeled a fascist. We’d be questioning why Barack Obama’s record-setting removals didn’t spark cries of ethnic cleansing. And we’d be wondering why Trump, whose enforcement was relatively modest by comparison, triggered lawsuits, media hysteria, and endless Nazi analogies.

But facts don’t drive this narrative. The villain does. And in this script, Trump plays the villain — even when he does far less than the so-called heroes who came before him.

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Trump purges Clinton's $1B woke, audit-failing volunteer agency



The Trump administration on Wednesday placed most of AmeriCorps' full-time employees on administrative leave as it moves to reorganize the Bill Clinton-era volunteer agency.

The independent federal agency was established by Congress in 1993 to connect young Americans with community service opportunities, providing roughly a $4,000 stipend, housing accommodations, food, and a higher education grant, the New York Times reported.

'It is time to admit that this is a failed program that needs a complete overhaul or elimination.'

Despite receiving about $1 billion annually, AmeriCorps failed eight consecutive audits.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) in December accused the agency of having "a long history of abusing taxpayer dollars."

"In 2023, the AmeriCorps inspector general issued a 'Management Challenges' report detailing significant challenges AmeriCorps faces. This includes being unable to detect fraud. We have no real idea when AmeriCorps will be able to have a clean audit again. In fact, this year's audit includes 78 recommendations still open, even after AmeriCorps said it addressed 20 last year," Owens said.

He called for AmeriCorps to be on the Department of Government Efficiency's "chopping block," arguing that it should not receive more taxpayer money while "it continuously fails to meet basic accountability standards."

"We can tell AmeriCorps to modernize and reform until we are blue in the face, but nothing will change unless we recognize the system is built on a flawed idea. It is time to admit that this is a failed program that needs a complete overhaul or elimination," Owens remarked.

Like many other federal agencies in recent years, AmeriCorps has become infiltrated with woke ideology, including climate change and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Fox News Digital reported that the agency's 2024 annual management report listed "advancing racial and economic equity" as one of its key priorities.

"AmeriCorps has a decades-long commitment to advancing racial and economic equity through national service and volunteering," the report read. "These efforts are designed to expand pathways to opportunity for all Americans. Racial and economic equity will be central to AmeriCorps' planning and implementation of all priorities, ensuring AmeriCorps members and volunteers reflect the diversity of the American people and the communities in which they serve."

While Owens supports the elimination of AmeriCorps, a Trump administration official told the news outlet that the agency will receive an operational reset but will remain in existence.

On Wednesday, the White House placed 75% of the AmeriCorps full-time employees — 535 out of 700 staffers — on administrative leave while determining how it will reconfigure the agency. Additionally, agency contracts worth approximately $250 million have been terminated.

Anything else?

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) stated on Thursday that the state would file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop its reorganization efforts.

He wrote in a post on X, "DOGE's actions to dismantle AmeriCorps threaten vulnerable Californians, disaster response and recovery, and economic opportunities."

"California will be suing to stop this," Newsom concluded.

In a separate statement, he called Trump's actions a "middle finger to volunteers serving their fellow Americans."

Earlier this week, Newsom filed a lawsuit against Trump to block the administration from imposing increased tariffs. The governor has set aside $50 million to challenge the current administration.

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