Why MAGA wants the Epstein list — and won’t settle for less



What’s happening with Donald Trump and Pam Bondi’s mishandling of the Jeffrey Epstein files is a textbook example of the rake-stepping that tripped up the president’s first term. The timing is worse this time, too — because it stands in sharp contrast to the mostly smooth, high-functioning operation of Trump’s second term so far.

Something’s clearly going on behind the scenes — something so sensitive that it’s backing this administration into corners that no number of Ben Shapiro explainers can easily talk us out of. I won’t speculate here on what exactly that “something” is. You’ve earned the right to connect your own dots in this post-COVID, post-trans-the-kids world.

We are in a civil war — spiritual, political, cultural. And the last thing we can afford right now is to split our ranks over a human toilet like Jeffrey Epstein.

But the politics of this mess? That’s what I want to talk about.

A movement that’s moved on

As someone who came of age politically reading Buckley, Kirk, Friedman, and Reagan — before I ever knew the gospel — I’ve often found myself at odds with parts of the MAGA movement. My political DNA was shaped by ideas. MAGA has shifted into something else entirely, something rawer, more primal. Less interested in debating the “oughts” and more obsessed with exposing the corruption and rot.

In that sense, DeSantis vs. Trump wasn’t just a primary — it was a proxy war. And MAGA told people like me, flat out: We’re not ready for your high-minded conversation. First, we’ve got to name names and slash some tires.

One of those names, from the very beginning, was Epstein — and anyone who set foot on his infamous island.

Trump himself promised to release the Epstein list more than once on the 2024 campaign trail. So did members of his inner circle. That pledge became a symbol — a MAGA line in the sand. Break it, and you break trust. Think Bush 41’s “read my lips” betrayal, but this time with the stakes multiplied by a base that’s already been burned too many times.

The movement wants its perp walk. And until it gets it, as the prophets Hetfield and Ulrich once said, nothing else matters.

The fracture under way

Still think this is just internet drama? Then explain why George Conway is reposting Glenn Beck. Did you have that on your 2025 bingo card?

 

Or why Jake Tapper — yes, that Jake Tapper — thinks this is his comeback moment. He’s calling for the release of the Epstein list and the tapes, not because he cares about justice, but because he knows exactly how deep the wound could go. He sees the opportunity to turn a hairline fracture in Trump’s base into a compound break.

RELATED: The Epstein case proves one thing: The elites are protected

  Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

And here’s the thing: He might succeed.

Unless someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or the Justice Department decides it’s worth risking serious chaos in the GOP, this issue won’t just fester. It’ll metastasize.

If this controversy had erupted while Trump was pushing votes for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act or preparing to bomb Iran, would the base have stood firm? Maybe not. Because this hits differently. This feels moral. Existential. A test of whether Trump’s still serious — or if power has tamed him as it tamed so many before.

The clock is ticking

And what happens in 2026?

Republican turnout in the low 90s won’t cut it — not with a deflated, demoralized base that sees Epstein accountability as a promise on par with Trump’s other major blunders. COVID. Fauci. The shots. Pile on Elon Musk’s third-party siren song, and that’s maybe just enough to peel off five points, and you’ve got a perfect storm of apathy, betrayal, and collapse.

This is the math no one wants to run — but it’s already penciled in.

The Trump team’s answers are getting the red-pen treatment in real time. The political class can pretend this is a sideshow. It isn’t. It’s the main stage, and the spotlight’s burning hot.

We are in a civil war — spiritual, political, cultural. And the last thing we can afford right now is to split our ranks over a human toilet like Jeffrey Epstein.

Redistribution comes for Harvard — and it’s glorious



If you’ve endured a university humanities class in the past decade, you’ve probably encountered something closer to a revival for secular dogma than a center of learning. The professors preach cultural Marxism in cap and gown. Saints include Che Guevara. Sinners: white, heteronormative males. Sacred rites: pronoun rituals and land acknowledgments.

At the heart of this faith lies one central mantra: “The rich must pay their fair share.” The chant rings through classrooms and protests alike, uttered with all the subtlety of a Gregorian monk — though with far less harmony and far more self-righteousness.

Let the endowment taxes roll. Let the lawsuits fly. And may the gates of our so-called higher learning institutions be broken open to the higher truths they’ve long tried to suppress.

Let’s be fair. If everyone pays the same tax rate, the rich still pay more in absolute dollars. But that kind of equality doesn’t satisfy the high priests of redistribution. They demand “equity,” which in this context means punishing the successful with steeper percentages. Anything less is deemed injustice. Anything less is oppression. Anything less confirms you didn’t graduate with a gender studies degree and an enduring grudge.

I don’t bring this up just to trigger memories of a feminist philosophy professor scolding you for your privilege. I mention it because, at long last, I agree with them. Yes, the rich should pay a higher rate. And I know exactly where to start: with the universities themselves.

Here’s the irony — a brand of justice so rich even a tenured literature professor could see it. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act delivers on the universities’ own demands. The new graduated endowment tax will slap elite schools like Harvard and Yale with a levy of up to 8% on their investment income.

That’s not chump change. That’s enough to make a development officer cry into his ethically sourced, carbon-neutral latte.

These institutions — which idolize Alfred Kinsey, stack 95% of their faculties with leftists, and teach students to hate America — are finally getting a taste of the redistributionist medicine they’ve long prescribed to others. After decades of turning our culture into a grievance-riddled mess, they’re now paying the price. Literally.

RELATED: Trump and Linda McMahon are crushing DEI in law and medical schools with a brilliant approach

  The Washington Post/Getty Images

Call it poetic justice. Better yet, call it providential irony. Let these institutions finance the repair of the very foundations they’ve spent years undermining.

But don’t stop there.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon should give students a clear legal path to demand refunds for failed educations. If a business promises a product and fails to deliver, customers deserve their money back. Why not apply the same principle to overpriced degrees in grievance studies?

And Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should open the floodgates to lawsuits against professors who, without any medical training, diagnosed gender dysphoria and pushed irreversible surgeries as cures for teenage angst. These people couldn’t diagnose a flat tire, but they felt confident calling your daughter a boy and your son a pansexual moon sprite.

Only when faced with real consequences — financial and legal — might these institutions begin to take their responsibilities seriously again. Only then might they stop operating as what John Calvin once called “idol factories” — churning out false gods and vain imaginations at record speed.

Let the endowment taxes roll. Let the lawsuits fly. And may the gates of our so-called higher learning institutions be broken open to the higher truths they’ve long tried to suppress.

Trump can’t let Reagan’s greatest mistake become his legacy



Charlie Kirk reported this week that President Trump faces growing pressure from GOP donors to cut a bipartisan deal offering amnesty to illegal aliens working in agriculture and hospitality. The donor class has long hated Trump and especially his supporters’ demand for real border security and immigration enforcement.

Big business pushing for cheap labor isn’t surprising. What’s alarming is Trump echoing their rhetoric.

What was effectively Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty doomed California. It transformed a red stronghold into the Democrats’ electoral anchor. Trump can’t afford to make the same mistake.

Donald Trump says a lot of things. Anyone who gets emotionally exasperated at any single statement will start to look like a hysterical journalist. Salena Zito’s sage advice — “Take Trump seriously, not literally” — still applies. He might joke about annexing Canada, but those lines rarely lead to action.

At the same time, Trump takes public opinion seriously. He gauges crowd response and often walks back proposals that don't land. That makes it important to push back on bad ideas without losing perspective.

Trust the plan — but verify the plan regularly.

Kirk understands this. That’s why he’s mobilized opposition now to any amnesty deal, real or imagined. He wouldn’t act unless he sensed real movement inside the swamp. Corporate America has tolerated immigration enforcement as long as it targeted gang members and drug dealers. But when Immigration and Customs Enforcement started raiding farms and hotels, the donor class panicked.

Suddenly, Trump began repeating talking points from Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about farmers and hotel owners losing their “best workers.” He promised to help them get the labor they need. His administration quietly issued guidance exempting farms and hotels from immigration raids.

The online backlash came fast — and fierce. The administration reversed course and rescinded the exemptions.

But Trump didn’t quite drop the issue. He kept talking about farmers’ need for labor. In the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which delivered major funding for border security, Beltway insiders started floating a pivot: tack back to the center and strike a deal.

That whisper campaign likely prompted Kirk to sound the alarm.

Special carve-outs for illegal labor would betray MAGA’s core promise. Maybe 10 years ago, building a wall and deporting the worst offenders would have been enough. But after eight million illegal aliens surged across the border under Biden’s illegitimate regime, the situation changed. Democrats intentionally flooded the country to shift its demographics and tilt elections. If we don’t reverse that flood, they win.

RELATED: Where the left gets its rage against borders

  Photo by Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images

After Kirk’s warning, Rollins re-emerged to promise that mass deportations would continue. The base cheered. But she added that future enforcement would be more “strategic” — a telling hedge. Trump followed up by insisting he opposed amnesty, then immediately floated a new “worker program” to help farmers. That language did not reassure.

The United States already has legal guest worker programs. Farms that ignore them and hire illegal aliens are breaking the law. They don’t deserve special treatment. They deserve prosecution.

The truth is, letting illegal aliens stay and rewarding them with American jobs is amnesty. Redefining the term won’t change that.

Conservatives have heard this pitch before. At this point, it’s almost comical. Every “immigration reform” ends the same way: Illegal aliens stay, and the floodgates reopen. It starts with the workers, then families follow. Chain migration becomes mass migration.

Trump was elected because he promised to break this cycle. He built his legacy on tough immigration policies — mass deportations, the wall, an America First agenda. To flirt with a Reagan-style amnesty now would be an incredible betrayal.

What was effectively Ronald Reagan’s 1986 amnesty doomed California. It transformed a red stronghold into the Democrats’ electoral anchor. Trump can’t afford to make the same mistake.

He must shut down this talk — shut down Rollins especially — and remember why voters chose him over the establishment in the first place. The donor class got Trump wrong in 2016. If he listens to its members now, they’ll take him — and the country — down with them.

Stop pretending the Democrats are imploding



Democratic leaders aren’t inciting attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers out of pure hatred for Donald Trump and his administration. Their motives are strategic. Practical. By undermining immigration enforcement, they protect a pipeline of future Democratic voters — including violent criminals like the “family man from Maryland.”

Once these illegal aliens receive driver’s licenses, they’ll land on voter rolls. They already count in the census, inflating congressional representation in blue states teeming with illegal immigrants. Democrats didn’t bring these “newcomers” here just to deport them.

Republicans imagine that all or at least most Americans are on the same wavelength with them. But that may not be the case.

If activists now ambush and shoot ICE agents, Democratic leaders seem to treat that as a price worth paying to preserve their long-term electoral advantage. And they can count on the corporate left-wing media to help them.

The press operates as an extension of the Democratic Party, not just in the United States but across the Western world. CNN, NBC, and MSNBC broadcast the same spin you’ll hear on CBC, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and France 4. With this media backing, Democrats face little scrutiny — even when they tacitly abet violence against federal agents.

Right now, public support for deportations hovers around 50%, and it might be higher if the media didn’t stage-manage the narrative. Watch a few minutes of network television or skim the New York Times, and you’ll come away thinking border czar Tom Homan’s raids target preschoolers and migrant field hands.

Fox News insists the anti-Trump mobs are just fringe radicals. They’re not. A massive leftist electorate just nominated Zohran Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York City, and if the polls mean anything, he just might win in the fall. Other major cities are led by mayors only slightly less radical — Karen Bass in Los Angeles, Brandon Johnson in Chicago, Michelle Wu in Boston. When it comes to immigration, they’re just as hostile to ICE and just as gushingly sympathetic to illegal aliens as Mamdani.

The “people” voted for these multicultural, America-be-damned leftists. The fantasy that Democratic voters are victims of a hijacked party is infantile nonsense. A growing share of the American electorate has radicalized — including black voters, government employees, and especially college-educated white women, who dominate the culturally leftist bloc in my own Pennsylvania borough.

Despite years of street violence, riots, and inflammatory rhetoric, the Democrats haven’t collapsed. They still hold a slight edge in the generic congressional ballot. RealClearPolitics polling shows the GOP ahead by only seven points. The Democrats may have lost ground — but they’re far from finished.

RELATED: ‘The Suicide Squad’: How Democrats keep blowing themselves up

  Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

Let’s not forget: In the last presidential election, Democrats lost the popular vote by just two million votes, running a hapless candidate against an incumbent with enormous political energy. That’s how effective the Democratic machine remains — even in a lopsided matchup.

No one should mistake this for incompetence or insanity. Yes, the party boasts plenty of scatterbrained motor mouths such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). But don’t confuse theatrics with disarray. Democratic leaders push grotesque policies — mutilating children with “gender-affirming” surgeries, putting men in women’s sports, promoting race-based discrimination — but voters haven’t punished them for it.

Republican observers tend to judge the other side by their own standards. They also imagine that all or at least most Americans are on the same wavelength with them. But that may not be the case. Democrats don’t even pretend to feel regret when ICE officers take a bullet or when anarchists torch city blocks. They know their base relishes in the havoc.

This is calculated politics. Democrats want to expand their base through mass migration and lawfare, not persuasion. That’s cold strategy, not insanity.

If Republicans want to win, they need to stop imagining their opponents are self-destructing lunatics. They aren’t. Democrats play to win. The GOP must prepare for a real fight — not fantasyland.

Republicans should offer Biden’s doctor immunity — under these circumstances



Former President Joe Biden’s White House doctor pled the Fifth to every question asked by House Oversight Committee experts Wednesday. He doesn’t want to cooperate, but more, he is worried that he’s in real legal jeopardy. He should be worried, and Republicans should play hardball but also keep one thing in mind: Dr. Kevin O’Connor is just a mob doctor — and they’re after the bosses.

The scope of O’Connor’s evasiveness in video released by the committee is wild to watch. Citing his lawyers, he begins by asserting his right not to self-incriminate under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to questions as basic as whether he understands the rules of how questioning will work, a request that he speak clearly and respond to questions verbally, instructions for him to ask for clarity if he doesn't understand a question, and a warning that if he lies or conceals the whole truth, he can be charged with perjury.

Who knew about all this? Who told Biden’s doctor what, and when did they do so? Those people matter more than the doctor, but he could prove useful in getting to them.

Then they got to the meat of it, asking whether there’s “any reason” he would not be truthful in his answers, whether he had ever been asked to lie about the president’s health, and whether he ever believed the president was unfit to “exercise his duties.” Fifth, Fifth, Fifth. Oh, and his lawyers finished up with a statement citing his duty to protect the privacy of the patient-doctor relationship.

Except that wasn’t his only duty. The White House doctor is a military officer charged with legitimately private matters, such as if the president is suffering from some embarrassing discomfort, but also his fitness for exercising the constitutional duties of his office. If the doctor believes the president is unable to serve, he’s required to report this to the Cabinet and potentially answer to Congress. O’Connor clearly felt differently.

“On the advice of counsel, I must respectfully decline to answer in reliance on my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution,” he repeated, verbatim, to every question asked. “I am not a lawyer and must follow my lawyers’ advice on this matter.”

Democrats set a powerful and recent precedent when they charged former White House officials Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro with contempt of Congress and sent both men to prison with thousands of dollars in fines. There are consequences for defying Congress, and the example is fresh in Washington's minds.

Republicans should take this precedent seriously, and by all signs, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is taking it seriously. Prison should be on the docket, and the committee should loudly and publicly make this clear. But putting the doctor in prison should not be the actual goal.

O’Connor is just the equivalent of a mob doctor, and you don’t put mob doctors in prison when you can get more out of them than that. If he needs to plead the Fifth at all, there’s good reason to believe his lawyers know he’s in deep trouble. When he has to plead the Fifth to questions about being asked to lie, it’s a very strong indication that the president’s mental decline was more broadly known — and potentially illegally hidden — from lawful oversight.

We know a neurologist who specializes in Parkinson’s disease visited the Biden White House at least eight times, and we know the White House spokeswoman refused to answer why. So what was the reason?

Who knew about all this? Who told Biden’s doctor what, and when did they do so? Those people matter more than the doctor, but he could prove useful in getting to them. So while Republicans should publicly (and seriously) threaten prison time, in private, they should offer Dr. O’Connor immunity.

There are different types of immunity they can offer, too. There’s transaction immunity, or blanket immunity, from prosecution in exchange for useful evidence that helps the committee move up the totem pole.

Then there's use immunity, which would protect O'Connor from being prosecuted over things he reveals in his testimony or evidence derived from that testimony. That way, if he fails to disclose important details that investigators uncover independently, he can be prosecuted for those — and thus has reason to be entirely and totally truthful and helpful.

There’s even limited-use immunity, which would promise a legal shield over violating certain laws within certain periods of time.

The doctor’s got a lot on his hands here. More, he’s friends with the Biden family, not just a randomly selected military attaché. That bodes poorly for him, but don’t let that distract from the goal of unraveling the plot to the highest levels possible.

The available tools here are extensive. Congress just has to use them.

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Sometimes the most Christian thing to do is shut up



I didn’t want to write this. I still don’t.

The push notification lit up my phone while I was working out — campers swept away as the Guadalupe River surged dozens of feet in under an hour. I walked out of the gym and teared up in my truck.

Now I’m stuffing sunscreen and swimsuits into two trunks. My older two kids head off to sleepaway camp next week. How do I tell them the adventure they’re so giddy about just turned fatal for other families? What can a keyboard jockey like me offer when other parents are living a nightmare? My first instinct was to close the laptop, whisper a prayer, and stay quiet.

But silence isn’t always the faithful response.

Entire campsites — from Kerr County to the back roads of Texas Hill Country — have been wiped away. Parents who expected mosquito bites and ghost stories are now scanning riverbanks for anything recognizable. They don’t need punditry. They need the rest of us to witness their grief without turning it into the next battleground in the culture war.

That’s the part I dread most.

Within hours of the first siren, the internet erupted in blame. Was it climate change? Outdated flood maps? Local negligence? Federal failure? Pick your camp, rack up your retweets, move the score marker. The bodies weren’t even identified before the hashtags started trending. It’s as if we’ve forgotten how to mourn without also trying to win.

'Where was God?' feels like the only honest question when the water rises. But storms don’t mean vengeance, any more than sunsets are God’s apology.

Then there’s that phrase believers lean on — “thoughts and prayers.” “Ts and Ps,” as Gen Z sneers. If I lost one of my kids, those words would feel like a whispered lullaby in a room suddenly emptied of breath — tender, well-meaning, and painfully inadequate.

Not because prayer is pointless. Because the cliché is.

When calamity struck, Job’s friends “sat with him on the ground seven days … and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.” No carbon emissions debate. No X threads. Just presence. Silence. Solidarity.

Maybe that’s the posture we need now — especially along a river whose name, Guadalupe, traces back to “river of the wolf.” Creation still has teeth. Even waters we picnic beside can turn predator in a single thunderstorm. Wolves hunt in packs. They also protect their own. Maybe that’s the symbolism: The same river that devoured so many calls the rest of us to move as a pack — toward the survivors, not away.

Real faith doesn’t show up as a hashtag. It comes in the form of casseroles and chain saws, spare bedrooms and Venmo links. It hauls soggy photo albums into the sun. It listens more than it lectures. When Jesus met Mary and Martha at the tomb, He wept before He preached. Maybe that’s the order we’ve lost.

RELATED: Liberal women quickly learn what happens when you say vile things about little girls killed in the floods

  Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

So what can we do from a distance?

Give until it pinches — money, blood, bottled water, even unused PTO if your workplace allows donations. Relief crews will need support for months, not days.

Go if you can. Student ministries, church groups, skilled contractors — this work doesn’t end when the cameras leave.

Guard these families’ dignity. Share verified donation links, not drone footage of recovered bodies. If you wouldn’t show the image to your child, don’t post it.

Grieve aloud. Let your kids see adults who don’t numb tragedy with mindless scrolling.

And yes, pray— not as a substitute for action, but as its source. Prayer is oxygen for those on their feet. When the apostle James said, “Faith without works is dead,” he might as well have been looking out the window of a rescue chopper.

I get the temptation to shake a fist at heaven. “Where was God?” feels like the only honest question when the water rises. But storms don’t mean vengeance, any more than sunsets are God’s apology. Scripture calls Him a refuge and redeemer, not a puppet master yanking strings to break hearts. Turning away from God now is like fleeing the only lighthouse in a gale.

If grief makes prayer sound hollow, answer the hollowness with action — and with the stubborn belief that the Creator remains good, even when creation feels cruel.

I still don’t want to write this. I’d rather tuck my kids in tonight and pretend rivers respect property lines and holiday weekends. But if this piece offers anything, let it give permission to mourn without politicizing. For one day — one hour even — let grief be grief. Let dads hold their kids tighter. Let moms remind us that safety doesn’t come with a zip code. Let the church prove it’s more than a Sunday address.

With the sparklers of Independence Day barely cooled, maybe the most patriotic thing we can do is recover the lost art of compassionate presence. No monologue — including this one — can fill a bunk bed left empty. But through gifts, sweat, silence, and prayer, maybe we can shoulder a sliver of the weight.

If you’re reading this in a dry living room, remember the families whose furniture is floating somewhere downriver.

Before you post, pause.

Before you debate, donate.

If “thoughts and prayers” still feel hollow, add two more words: “Here’s how.”

Then go do it.

Trump’s mining plan is smart — but China remains in the room



The Trump administration, to its credit, is prioritizing the development of mining and critical minerals to protect U.S. economic and defense interests and secure a reliable domestic supply.

At the center of this effort is President Trump’s recent executive order “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production.” The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, now known as the Permitting Council, spearheads these administration efforts.

America needs to get real about sourcing its domestic critical mineral supply and supporting reliable mining partners in their operations abroad.

Thankfully, it’s now increasing “transparency, accountability, and predictability for the permitting review process for ... critical mineral production projects.”

Abroad, the administration is also pursuing strategic deals, particularly by supporting mining operators in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A newly signed minerals agreement between the Congo and Rwanda — brokered as part of the U.S.-backed peace treatymarks “a success for Trump against the backdrop of U.S.-China competition over critical minerals.”

With all this activity in the global mining sector, it’s essential that the U.S. government adhere to the following principle: Support and partner with real — and reliable — mining operators.

America can’t afford to gamble with startups backed by tech billionaires with no mining experience nor mining companies that are backed by China. We need to be realistic about supporting the mineral needs of “USA Inc.” Moreover, policymakers must not fall for the slick PR and flashy AI claims currently inundating the industry.

It’s time to stop the madness.

Flashy ‘mining’ startups

So who are the culprits driving this frenzy? The first is KoBold Metals, a California-based startup backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg. The company’s trio of green activist billionaire backers should raise significant concerns within the administration. Gates, for instance, was in Singapore recently touting the ill-advised return of support for “climate reform.”

A deeper problem lies in KoBold’s misleading image. The company calls itself a mining firm, but it has never run a mine.

Its strength lies in artificial intelligence and data harvesting, not excavation, logistics, or engineering. KoBold claims to lead “the world’s largest exploration R&D effort” using AI and novel hardware. The language sounds impressive. The reality is far less so.

KoBold lacks the infrastructure, operational know-how, and supply chain muscle needed for serious mineral exploration and production. At its core, it’s an AI platform masquerading as a mining company.

RELATED: Graham says Ukraine has trillions of dollars of 'critical mineral assets' and could be 'the best business partner'

  Temizyurek via iStock/Getty Images

Even more troubling, the administration appears to be assisting KoBold in advancing a lithium mine in the DRC. According to Bloomberg, the announcement came after the DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi met with Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior adviser for African affairs, to discuss potential American investment and security assistance in the DRC's fight against a rebel group in the east, which is backed by neighboring Rwanda.

I am confident Boulos, who also happens to be the father-in-law of President Trump’s youngest daughter, will soon come around and realize what’s real and what’s not.

Lining China’s pockets

Given the stakes, the administration must weigh reliability when deciding which mining companies to back. Rio Tinto doesn’t make the cut.

Yes, Rio Tinto is a real mining company. It’s been around since 1873 and operates on a global scale. But it doesn’t serve U.S. interests.

The Aluminum Corporation of China Ltd., or Chinalco, holds a 14.56% stake in Rio Tinto. Chinalco is a Chinese state-owned enterprise. That makes Beijing the company’s largest shareholder — and that alone should disqualify Rio Tinto as a potential partner.

Propping up Rio Tinto would only tighten China’s grip on the world’s critical minerals supply — at America’s expense. As international policy and trade analyst Dewardric McNeal recently wrote:

The United States must now treat critical minerals not as commodities but as instruments of geopolitical power. China already does. Escaping its grip will require more than mine permits and short-term funding. It demands a coherent, long-term strategy to build a complete supply chain that includes not only domestic capabilities but also reliable allies and partners.

Exactly right. The U.S. needs a strategic, grounded approach — not one riddled with internal contradictions.

America needs to get real about sourcing its domestic critical mineral supply and supporting reliable mining partners in their operations abroad. The clock is ticking, and neither flashy startups nor Chinese-backed companies are the keys to solving this puzzle.

The Epstein files may be Trump’s biggest liability yet



President Trump snapped at a reporter who asked him about Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday.

Trump is massively misreading his base on this one — and it could cost him the midterms.

President Trump should not underestimate how much goodwill he’s lost among his base due to Pam Bondi’s mishandling of the Epstein files.

People care about the Epstein story, not only because of his sickening crimes against children but because evidence exists of a government cover-up.

Evidence like Epstein’s autopsy showing injuries incongruent with suicide; evidence like Buckingham Palace’s response to ABC’s nuked report on Epstein, Prince Andrew, and President Bill Clinton; evidence like former federal prosecutor Alex Acosta saying he was told to back off because Epstein “belonged to intelligence” and then discovering his Justice Department emails had mysteriously disappeared.

And now, government officials are telling us to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes and believe them — without evidence. Nope. Not happening. We voted for radical transparency and justice. We’re not letting it drop.

The president should not underestimate how much goodwill he’s lost among his base due to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s mishandling of the Epstein files. People are furious. I would know — I was collateral damage in Bondi’s infernal Epstein binder debacle. She should have been fired on the spot.

Country singer John Rich tells a story about eating dinner with Trump, who turned to him and asked — genuinely curious — “Why do people boo at my rallies when I brag about the COVID vaccine?” And then Trump listened to Rich’s answer: People were hurt by that jab.

President Trump should listen to his base about Epstein, too.

We have been hurt by the deep state weaponizing the government against us: calling us terrorists, censoring us when we questioned the outcome of the 2020 election, or the origin of COVID, or rejecting transgender ideology. Trump’s base has been insulted, targeted, subject to violence, arrest, and political persecution for supporting him and our America First agenda.

RELATED: The Epstein case proves one thing: The elites are protected

  Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Forgive us if we refuse to believe government officials now who are asking us to accept a narrative that contradicts the evidence we can see. We will no longer be subject to gatekeepers. Don’t insult our intelligence. Don’t belittle us.

We voted for President Trump because he promised justice.

Justice isn’t dismissing those crimes and moving on. Justice means arresting the swamp creatures who perpetrated the crimes and dismantling the corrupt institutions that enabled them to do so.

That’s why the Epstein case is foundational. That’s why Trump’s base has a visceral reaction to being told we would get the Epstein files — and now we are told we’re getting nothing.

Bondi didn’t tell us the truth. She seems more interested in being a Fox News star than keeping promises. Something is fishy about the Epstein stuff — his racket, his death, his friends, his alleged intelligence agency connections. Patting us on the head and telling us “nothing to see here” is infuriating. It will not do.

President Trump should not underestimate the significance of this moment. He’s losing goodwill by the day — and Bondi is to blame.

Trump is smart. He cares about his base. He listens. He should listen now, so that it doesn’t cost him the midterms.

New massacre, old problem: How Syria can protect its religious minorities



As Syria’s Christian community mourns its dead, we are compelled to confront the barbaric act committed against the Orthodox Christian community and the persistent dangers facing other minorities in the region. To understand this tragedy and chart a path forward, we must first revisit the turbulent history of Syria and the Levant.

In the early 20th century, Syria stood at the crossroads of empire and identity. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I gave way to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which carved up the Levant into spheres of European influence.

In Syria, federalism could succeed if implemented with fairness, robust minority protections, and international support to prevent external meddling.

Syria fell under French mandate in 1920, a betrayal of promises for an independent Arab kingdom. Instead, it became a colonial outpost shaped by European interests rather than the aspirations of its diverse peoples: Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, Druze, and others. The French exploited sectarian divisions to maintain control, sowing seeds of mistrust that would linger for generations.

When Syria gained independence in 1946, it inherited a fragmented society with no clear framework for governing its complex population. The decades that followed were marked by coups, political instability, and the rise of the Ba’ath Party, which promised secular socialism but delivered authoritarianism instead.

Hafez al-Assad’s ascent in 1970 cemented a dynastic rule that concentrated power in a narrow, Alawite-dominated elite. While the regime claimed to protect minorities, it often sidelined or suppressed other ethnic and religious groups, fostering resentment beneath a veneer of secular nationalism.

A brutal turning point

The Arab Spring of 2011 shattered this fragile order. Peaceful protests against authoritarianism were met with brutal repression, igniting a civil war that drew in foreign powers and fractured the nation.

Amid the chaos, extremist factions like ISIS emerged, targeting religious minorities as enemies of their radical vision. Christians, whose presence in Syria dates back two millennia, faced systematic persecution, with historic churches destroyed and communities displaced.

This past year, the trauma deepened. Last month, a suicide bomber opened fire during Sunday mass in a small church in western Syria, killing 22 worshippers and wounding 63 in an attack reminiscent of ISIS’ atrocities in Qaraqosh and Maaloula.

The Druze minority in the south faced similar threats from Islamic groups within the coalition that ousted the Assad regime. To their credit, the Druze, with support from Israel, armed and defended their communities. The Alawite minority endured revenge killings in the wake of regime change, while the Kurds, battle-hardened but geopolitically isolated, remain vulnerable due to Turkey’s hostility.

These incidents underscore a grim reality: Syria’s minorities are pawns in a larger geopolitical game, their survival perpetually at risk.

A new solution: Federalism

This is not a moment for empty platitudes. Syria needs to confront a painful truth: A unitary, centrally governed state has repeatedly failed to protect its people, especially its minorities. The alternative, however, is federalism.

A federal Syria would not mean partition but rather an organized decentralization of power. Regions could govern themselves according to their cultural, ethnic, or religious identities, while national unity would be preserved for issues like foreign policy and defense. Christians, Druze, Alawites, and Kurds could administer their affairs, ensure their security, preserve their heritage, and rebuild trust in governance.

Such a system would empower local communities to protect Christian populations, preventing the decimation of ancient communities as seen in Iraq after 2003. A federal structure would foster resilience against external threats, allowing minorities to safeguard their futures.

RELATED: Syria’s new rulers: From jihadist terror to ‘moderate’ media rebrand

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Federalism, though imperfect, has stabilized other post-conflict, multiethnic societies. Iraq’s Kurdish region, despite challenges, enjoys significant autonomy. Bosnia’s power-sharing model, while complex, has maintained peace. Even Switzerland’s federal system, rooted in linguistic and cultural diversity, provides a blueprint for striking a balance between local autonomy and national cohesion.

In Syria, federalism could succeed if implemented with fairness, robust minority protections, and international support to prevent external meddling.

A break from the past

Pan-Arab nationalism and centralized rule, imposed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, failed to deliver either stability or pluralism. Syria’s latest church attack adds to a long history of betrayals against its minority populations.

To survive as more than a failed state, Syria must adopt a structure that protects the vulnerable and manages its divisions, not one that tries to crush them. Federalism won’t solve everything, and many will resist it. But Syria has already tested the alternative — consolidated power, endless violence — and that path led to ruin.

‘The Suicide Squad’: How Democrats keep blowing themselves up



Donald Trump, now in his second term, has executed a political masterstroke — cornering Democrats into the unpopular side of nearly every 80/20 issue. From transgender athletes in women’s sports and the DOGE to the airstrike on Iran’s nuclear sites, he’s boxed them in. But Trump isn’t the Democrats’ biggest threat. Their worst enemy is themselves — and the radical candidates they continue to put forward.

The truth is that the left has always flirted with the absurd. Leftists rant that the rich must “pay their fair share,” but can’t define what “fair” means. They champion equity over equality and preach that government handouts — not markets — will lift the poor and working class. This worldview teeters between naivete and madness.

The Democratic Party isn’t just drifting — it’s accelerating toward the cliff. And no one pushed the Democrats. They drove themselves.

Then came 2018, when “the Squad” stormed Congress and dragged the party from the edge of absurdity into full-blown lunacy.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — raised in a comfortable New York suburb — rebranded herself as “Alex from the block” in the Bronx. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota dismissed 9/11 as “some people did something” and still won a seat in Congress. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan was censured — by both parties — for chanting “from the river to the sea” after Hamas massacred Jews on Oct. 7, 2023. In 2020, Jamaal Bowman of New York joined their ranks and was later caught on video pulling a Capitol fire alarm to delay a budget vote. His excuse? He thought it would “unlock a door.”

Some Squad members have lost re-election bids, but the core group marches on, peddling the Green New Deal, defunding police, and attending Fighting Oligarchy rallies via private jet.

Meanwhile, Soros-backed prosecutors decriminalize shoplifting, eliminate cash bail, and release repeat offenders. These are not policy missteps — they are self-inflicted wounds. And Republicans couldn’t ask for better material.

Enter Zohran Mamdani — the 33-year-old Democratic Socialist running for New York City mayor. His platform makes Bernie Sanders look centrist.

Mamdani wants to defund police, make New York a sanctuary city, and jack up the minimum wage to $30 an hour. He calls for rent freezes, free buses, and city-run grocery stores — as if the Soviet model didn’t already prove that government-run markets lead to scarcity and dysfunction.

RELATED: Vance on Mamdani: ‘Who the hell does he think that he is?’

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Even more alarming is his plan to “shift the tax burden” from homeowners in the outer boroughs to “richer and whiter neighborhoods.” That’s not policy — that’s race-based redistribution.

And his foreign policy? Mamdani wants to “globalize the intifada.” That’s a genocidal rallying cry, and New York’s Jewish community should treat it like the five-alarm fire it is.

So can the Democrats still correct course? Can the party of JFK and FDR find its footing again?

One glimmer of sanity remains: Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Despite his hoodie-and-shorts aesthetic, to say nothing of the stroke that nearly killed him in 2022, he has emerged as a lonely voice of reason. He has called out the party’s excesses. But will anyone listen? Or will the Democrats toss him aside for failing the purity test?

The Democratic Party isn’t just drifting — it’s accelerating toward the cliff. And no one pushed the Democrats. They drove themselves.