The results are in: Tallying up Biden’s immigration damage



Most mainstream press accounts have largely ignored one obvious source of the Los Angeles riots — namely, that the Biden administration released more than enough illegal aliens into this country to populate a wholly new Los Angeles. In the aftermath of those riots, it’s an appropriate time to ask this question: How many illegal aliens did the Biden administration actually let into the United States?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, from 2021 through 2024, a net 10.3 million people immigrated to the United States. That figure reflects the number of (legal or illegal) immigrants who entered the U.S., minus the number who left. As a result of this huge immigration influx, the portion of the U.S. population that is foreign-born hit 16.2%, per the Congressional Budget Office, surpassing the all-time record of 14.8% set in 1890. That mark lasted for more than 130 years, but it couldn’t survive the Biden administration.

One can only wonder how many potential terrorists got across Biden’s porous border without being encountered.

In fact, the percentage of the population that is foreign-born is probably even higher than 16.2%, as that figure was for 2023 (up from 15.6% in 2022). Since a net 2.7 million people immigrated to the U.S. in 2024, according to the CBO, and about 500,000 foreign-born residents die annually (based on the CBO’s estimate for 2023), the foreign-born population rose by an estimated 2.2 million in 2024 — from 55.1 million to about 57.3 million. So the percentage of the population that is foreign-born likely hit about 16.8% last year (57.3 million out of 342 million). In comparison, in 1970, the portion of the U.S. population that was foreign-born was 4.7%, which is just over a quarter of the current rate.

Put another way, on the cusp of next year’s quarter-millennial anniversary of American independence, about one out of every six people now living in the U.S. is foreign-born, versus one out of every 21 on the eve of the bicentennial. That’s a massive population transformation — one unlike anything our country has ever experienced.

Record-breaking numbers

Most of those who were added to the foreign-born population during the Biden years were added illegally. From 2021 through 2024 — a period that coincides almost perfectly with Biden’s presidential term (having 97% overlap) — the net increase in the number of illegal aliens in the U.S., based on CBO estimates, was 7.1 million people. In comparison, the entire population of Los Angeles is 3.9 million.

Note that this represents the net increase. The gross increase in the number of illegal aliens under Biden was likely close to 10 million. The CBO only estimates the gross increase for a portion of Biden’s term, but its partial tallies can yield a reasonable estimate for the whole four-year span.

RELATED: Exclusive: Top immigration official reflects on Biden's failed border policies: ‘An invasion unlike we've seen before’

Photo by Nic Antaya/Getty Images

Citing numbers obtained from the Department of Homeland Security, the CBO estimates that in 2023 and 2024, the gross increase in the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. was 5.9 million, while the net increase was 4.3 million. That’s about four new illegal aliens added (by being released into the country, evading capture, or overstaying a legal authorization) for every one that was subtracted (by leaving or being legalized).

So the ratio between the gross increase and the net increase was about 4 to 3. Assuming the same ratio in 2021 and 2022 — when the CBO estimates that the net increase in the number of illegal aliens was 2.9 million — suggests the gross increase over that span was about 3.9 million. Adding the 5.9 million cited above reveals a gross increase of about 9.8 million illegal aliens across Biden’s four years. That’s more than the population of New York City — or all of New Jersey.

The CBO switched from using fiscal-year figures for 2023 to using calendar-year figures for 2024 in estimating the gross increase in the number of illegal aliens (and the releases, evasions, and overstays that compose that gross increase). But the number of encounters along the southwest border was very similar in FY 2023 as in CY 2023 (being 3% higher in CY 2023), so this switch likely had little effect on the CBO estimates. Indeed, for the net increase in the number of illegal aliens, the CBO provides both FY 2023 and CY 2023 numbers, and they differ by just 0.1 million.

The vast majority of these roughly 10 million illegal aliens didn’t overstay their visas, per the CBO. Rather, they either evaded capture and escaped across the border or were released by the Biden administration into the country’s interior.

Released with no accountability

By far the biggest cohort was deliberately released. As U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell wrote during a Biden-era case, U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz “testified that the current surge differs from prior surges that he [has] seen over his lengthy career in that most of the aliens now being encountered at the Southwest Border are turning themselves in to USBP officers rather than trying to escape the officers.”

Ortiz, whom the Biden administration selected as Border Patrol chief, said at the time that aliens are likely “turning themselves in because they think they’re going to be released.”

They were generally right. The CBO estimates that in 2024, Biden’s DHS released more than 1.5 million aliens into the U.S. — 570,000 were encountered along the open border and released, and another 960,000 were encountered at ports of entry along the border and released — while another estimated 800,000 escaped across the border.

RELATED: Street riots can’t set US immigration policy

Photo by Jon Putman/Anadolu via Getty Images

In FY 2023, DHS released about 2 million aliens into the U.S. — 1.1 million of whom crossed the open border and were released, 900,000 of whom were released at ports of entry — while another estimated 860,000 escaped across the border. That’s a total of 5.2 million evasions or releases over two years (specifically over FY 2023 and CY 2024, the periods for which the Congressional Budget Office provides figures). During the same 24 months, 715,000 people overstayed their legal authorizations to be in the country, per CBO estimates.

In other words, about seven-eighths (5.2 million out of 5.9 million) of those who joined the ranks of illegal aliens over those two years either evaded capture or were released into the country, rather than overstaying their visas. Applying that same seven-eighths figure to 2021 and 2022 — when the gross increase in the number of illegal aliens was about 3.9 million — suggests that about 3.4 million illegal aliens evaded capture or were released over those two years. That brings the estimated four-year tally to about 8.6 million releases or evasions under Biden (5.2 million plus 3.4 million) — a number larger than the populations of 38 individual states.

A president-approved invasion

To sum up, about 10 million illegal aliens were added to the U.S. population during the Biden administration. Of those, about 8.6 million came across the southern border — usually being released but sometimes evading capture — rather than overstaying their visas. After accounting for illegal aliens who either left the country or became legalized, the result was a net increase of 7.1 million illegal aliens during the Biden years, per the CBO.

That net increase of 7.1 million illegal aliens equals about two-thirds of the overall net increase of 10.3 million (legal or illegal) immigrants during Joe Biden’s tenure. After four years of Biden, the foreign-born population now makes up a higher percentage of the overall U.S. population than at any time on record, including during the great waves of immigration in the 19th century.

But it’s not just how many but who came into the country that matters. During the three full fiscal years (FY 2018-2020) immediately preceding the Biden administration, there were a total of nine encounters along the open border between Border Patrol officials and noncitizens on the terrorist watch list. During the three full fiscal years (FY 2022-2024) that took place entirely during Biden’s term, there were 370 such encounters — a 41-fold increase. Across all four years of the Biden presidency, the number of such encounters was approximately 400. One can only wonder how many potential terrorists got across Biden’s porous border without being encountered.

On his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order prioritizing “equity.” His DHS soon quoted that order, made clear it would apply it “in the immigration and enforcement context,” and thereafter refused to enforce federal immigration law requiring the detention of asylum-seekers. Such “equity”-driven actions were, in the words of Judge Wetherell, “akin to posting a flashing ‘Come In, We’re Open’ sign on the southern border.”

As a result of that neon invitation, 7.1 million more illegal aliens entered the U.S. or overstayed their visas than left the U.S. or became legalized while Biden was in office — more than the combined populations of Los Angeles, D.C., Boston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Miami. This was a deliberate result of Biden’s “equity” agenda, and Americans are paying the price.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act hides a big, ugly AI betrayal



Picture your local leaders — the ones you elect to defend your rights and reflect your values — stripped of the power to regulate the most powerful technology ever invented. Not in some dystopian future. In Congress. Right now.

Buried in the House version of Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a provision that would block every state in the country from passing any AI regulations for the next 10 years.

The idea that Washington can prevent states from acting to protect their citizens from a rapidly advancing and poorly understood technology is as unconstitutional as it is unwise.

An earlier Senate draft took a different route, using federal funding as a weapon: States that tried to pass their own AI laws would lose access to key resources. But the version the Senate passed on July 1 dropped that language entirely.

Now House and Senate Republicans face a choice — negotiate a compromise or let the "big, beautiful bill" die.

The Trump administration has supported efforts to bar states from imposing their own AI regulations. But with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act already facing a rocky path through Congress, President Trump is likely to sign it regardless of how lawmakers resolve the question.

Supporters of a federal ban on state-level AI laws have made thoughtful and at times persuasive arguments. But handing Washington that much control would be a serious error.

A ban would concentrate power in the hands of unelected federal bureaucrats and weaken the constitutional framework that protects individual liberty. It would ignore the clear limits the Constitution places on federal authority.

Federalism isn’t a suggestion

The 10th Amendment reserves all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government to the states or the people. That includes the power to regulate emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

For more than 200 years, federalism has safeguarded American freedom by allowing states to address the specific needs and values of their citizens. It lets states experiment — whether that means California mandating electric vehicles or Texas fostering energy freedom.

If states can regulate oil rigs and wind farms, surely they can regulate server farms and machine learning models.

A federal case for caution

David Sacks — tech entrepreneur and now the White House’s AI and crypto czar — has made a thoughtful case on X for a centralized federal approach to AI regulation. He warns that letting 50 states write their own rules could create a chaotic patchwork, stifle innovation, and weaken America’s position in the global AI race.

— (@)

Those concerns aren’t without merit. Sacks underscores the speed and scale of AI development and the need for a strategic, national response.

But the answer isn’t to strip states of their constitutional authority.

America’s founders built a system designed to resist such centralization. They understood that when power moves farther from the people, government becomes less accountable. The American answer to complexity isn’t uniformity imposed from above — it’s responsive governance closest to the people.

Besides, complexity isn’t new. States already handle it without descending into chaos. The Uniform Commercial Code offers a clear example: It governs business law across all 50 states with remarkable consistency — without federal coercion.

States also have interstate compacts (official agreements between states) on several issues, including driver’s licenses and emergency aid.

AI regulation can follow a similar path. Uniformity doesn’t require surrendering state sovereignty.

State regulation is necessary

The threats posed by artificial intelligence aren’t theoretical. Mass surveillance, cultural manipulation, and weaponized censorship are already at the doorstep.

In the wrong hands, AI becomes a tool of digital tyranny. And if federal leaders won’t act — or worse, block oversight entirely — then states have a duty to defend liberty while they still can.

RELATED: Your job, your future, your humanity: AI just crossed the line we can never undo

BlackJack3D via iStock/Getty Images

From banning AI systems that impersonate government officials to regulating the collection and use of personal data, local governments are often better positioned to protect their communities. They’re closer to the people. They hear the concerns firsthand.

These decisions shouldn’t be handed over to unelected federal agencies, no matter how well intentioned the bureaucracy claims to be.

The real danger: Doing nothing

This is not a question of partisanship. It’s a question of sovereignty. The idea that Washington, D.C., can or should prevent states from acting to protect their citizens from a rapidly advancing and poorly understood technology is as unconstitutional as it is unwise.

If Republicans in Congress are serious about defending liberty, they should reject any proposal that strips states of their constitutional right to govern themselves. Let California be California. Let Texas be Texas. That’s how America was designed to work.

Artificial intelligence may change the world, but it should never be allowed to change who we are as a people. We are free citizens in a self-governing republic, not subjects of a central authority.

It’s time for states to reclaim their rightful role and for Congress to remember what the Constitution actually says.

The real land-grab isn’t Mike Lee’s — it’s Biden’s ‘30 by 30’



Something ugly is unfolding on social media, and most people aren’t seeing it clearly. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — one of the most constitutionally grounded conservatives in Washington — is under fire for a housing provision he first proposed in 2022.

You wouldn’t know that from scrolling through X. According to the latest online frenzy, Lee wants to sell off national parks, bulldoze public lands, gut hunting and fishing rights, and hand America’s wilderness to Amazon, BlackRock, and the Chinese Communist Party. None of that is true.

Lee’s bill would have protected against the massive land-grab that’s already under way — courtesy of the Biden administration.

I covered this last month. Since then, the backlash has grown into something like a political witch hunt — not just from the left but from the right. Even Donald Trump Jr., someone I typically agree with, has attacked Lee’s proposal. He’s not alone.

Time to look at the facts the media refuses to cover about Lee’s federal land plan.

What Lee actually proposed

Over the weekend, Lee announced that he would withdraw the federal land sale provision from his housing bill. He said the decision was in response to “a tremendous amount of misinformation — and in some cases, outright lies,” but also acknowledged that many Americans brought forward sincere, thoughtful concerns.

Because of the strict rules surrounding the budget reconciliation process, Lee couldn’t secure legally enforceable protections to ensure that the land would be made available “only to American families — not to China, not to BlackRock, and not to any foreign interests.” Without those safeguards, he chose to walk it back.

— (@)

That’s not selling out. That’s leadership.

It's what the legislative process is supposed to look like: A senator proposes a bill, the people respond, and the lawmaker listens. That was once known as representative democracy. These days, it gets you labeled a globalist sellout.

The Biden land-grab

To many Americans, “public land” brings to mind open spaces for hunting, fishing, hiking, and recreation. But that’s not what Sen. Mike Lee’s bill targeted.

His proposal would have protected against the real land-grab already under way — the one pushed by the Biden administration.

In 2021, Biden launched a plan to “conserve” 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. This effort follows the United Nations-backed “30 by 30” initiative, which seeks to place one-third of all land and water under government control.

Ask yourself: Is the U.N. focused on preserving your right to hunt and fish? Or are radical environmentalists exploiting climate fears to restrict your access to American land?

RELATED: No, Mike Lee isn’t paving over Yellowstone for condos

JohnnyGreig via iStock/Getty Images

As it stands, the federal government already owns 640 million acres — nearly one-third of the entire country. At this rate, the government will hit that 30% benchmark with ease. But it doesn’t end there. The next phase is already in play: the “50 by 50” agenda.

That brings me to a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t even heard of: the Sustains Act.

Passed in 2023, the law allows the federal government to accept private funding from organizations, such as BlackRock or the Bill Gates Foundation, to support “conservation programs.” In practice, the law enables wealthy elites to buy influence over how American land is used and managed.

Moreover, the government doesn’t even need the landowner’s permission to declare that your property contributes to “pollination,” or “photosynthesis,” or “air quality” — and then regulate it accordingly. You could wake up one morning and find out that the land you own no longer belongs to you in any meaningful sense.

Where was the outrage then? Where were the online crusaders when private capital and federal bureaucrats teamed up to quietly erode private property rights across America?

American families pay the price

The real danger isn’t in Mike Lee’s attempt to offer more housing near population centers — land that would be limited, clarified, and safeguarded in the final bill. The real threat is the creeping partnership between unelected global elites and our own government, a partnership designed to consolidate land, control rural development, and keep Americans penned in so-called “15-minute cities.”

BlackRock buying entire neighborhoods and pricing out regular families isn’t by accident. It’s part of a larger strategy to centralize populations into manageable zones, where cars are unnecessary, rural living is unaffordable, and every facet of life is tracked, regulated, and optimized.

That’s the real agenda. And it’s already happening , and Mike Lee’s bill would have been an effort to ensure that you — not BlackRock, not China — get first dibs.

I live in a town of 451 people. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, housing is unaffordable. The American dream of owning a patch of land is slipping away, not because of one proposal from a constitutional conservative, but because global powers and their political allies are already devouring it.

Divide and conquer

This controversy isn’t really about Mike Lee. It’s about whether we, as a nation, are still capable of having honest debates about public policy — or whether the online mob now controls the narrative. It’s about whether conservatives will focus on facts or fall into the trap of friendly fire and circular firing squads.

More importantly, it’s about whether we’ll recognize the real land-grab happening in our country — and have the courage to fight back before it’s too late.

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The political future of Elon Musk



The world’s richest man’s call to tank President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act by swinging resources behind its opponents and pouring money into races against its proponents is the sort of thing that typically gets Washington to listen closely. Only this time, Elon Musk’s demands were broadly met with indifferent shrugs and questions about how serious his latest round of online fights with the president really was.

If he’s paying attention, Elon Musk is about to get a crash course in how Washington really works — a lesson other libertarian billionaire businessmen have learned the hard way. Power in D.C. doesn’t flow from money alone. It comes from organizing voters and proving you can be counted on.

Counseling humility to a man who builds rockets, launches them into space, and lands them upright may sound absurd. But political gravity works differently.

Washington has no shortage of young libertarians — idealistic staffers who devoured Ayn Rand in college and believe Reason magazine when it tells them that the Cato Institute and Mercatus Center are on the front lines of liberty.

The real problem? No sizeable bloc of voters stands behind these guys.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), perhaps the most consistent libertarian in the Senate, barely registered during his 2016 presidential bid. He pulled less than 5% in Iowa and dropped out soon after.

Libertarian Party candidates haven’t fared much better. Across seven presidential elections since 2000, they’ve averaged just 1.1% of the vote — a number buoyed by Gary Johnson’s 3.3% finish in 2016.

The party’s internal dysfunction aside, the bottom line remains: No hidden libertarian majority waits in the wings to back a Musk-led third party. Political outsiders like Andrew Yang or Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) might bring novelty, but not numbers.

Musk is hardly the first to figure this out the hard way, either. When billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch jumped back into presidential politics around the time of the Tea Party revolt, they believed Americans were finally waking up to the moment they’d long championed.

David, who died in 2019, had run on the 1980 Libertarian Party ticket against Republican California Gov. Ronald Reagan and Democratic President Jimmy Carter. He got 1.06% of the popular vote. This time they were going to remake the Republican Party in their own image.

They had the think tanks and donor networks. They had taken back control of Cato from the imperial president they once supported. And they believed the grassroots movement was more than just a backlash against a detached progressive elite.

I remember sitting in a room in 2011 when Charles acknowledged that reshaping the post-Bush Republican Party would take years — full of setbacks and frustrations. “We’re in this for the long haul,” he said.

Five years later, disillusionment had set in. He pulled back large portions of his political ad spending. That summer, at the network’s plush donor retreat, Brian Hooks — the man Koch tapped to lead the operation — ordered American flag imagery and a photo of a coal miner removed from the conference hotel’s lobby displays. Too partisan, he said. In the retreat bookstore, JD Vance’s best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy” sat alongside Milton Friedman’s collected works and Charles Koch’s own “The Science of Success.”

Five months later, Donald J. Trump won the presidential election, and they were out. In those short five years, they’d succeeded in alienating Republican politicians and even a goodly number of the nonprofits they’d funded along the way, piling money in and pulling it out without warning as Hooks’ deep-seated liberalism and Charles’ fickle commitments ebbed and flowed. National Football League and Major League Baseball legend Deion Sanders spoke.

Every year, they roll out new plans to re-engage and make a difference. But it’s too late for that. In politics — a trust-based field — no one earns credibility by being unreliable or duplicitous, no matter how lofty the rhetoric.

This story deserves attention because it explains why the world’s richest man can vow to pour boatloads of money into the midterms next year and still come across as little more than a social media sideshow.

Both Charles Koch and Elon Musk stepped into the center of American power believing politicians simply needed smart business minds to fix the country. They expected gratitude. Instead, they found inertia. When change didn’t come quickly, they grew frustrated and alienated allies along the way.

Musk still has time. He’s young and brilliant, and despite his quirks and blowups, he brings real value to American political life. Counseling humility to a man who builds rockets, launches them into space, and lands them upright may sound absurd. But political gravity works differently.

Both Musk and MAGA could benefit a great deal from working together. But first, Musk will have to absorb a few hard lessons.

Conundrum Cluster: Musk's rebellion illustrates the danger of political inexperience in an existential struggle

Blaze News: Vance casts tiebreaking vote after Republican defections from Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'

Byron York in the Washington Examiner: Elon goes off again

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After the bombs, Iran sharpens its digital daggers



The footage was unmistakable: plumes of smoke rising over Iran’s nuclear sites, a fiery punctuation mark on years of brinkmanship and intelligence coups. With one sweeping air campaign, the United States delivered a message: The Islamic Republic won’t cross the nuclear threshold.

But anyone assuming the threat has been neutralized is mistaken. Iran’s nuclear humiliation may hasten a shift already under way — from building bombs to waging war through digital disruption.

Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

Even as diplomats celebrate a ceasefire, cybersecurity experts remain on alert. In 2025, a regime doesn’t need enriched uranium to paralyze an enemy. It needs a cadre of skilled hackers, access to stolen exploits, and no scruples about targeting civilian infrastructure.

Iran’s cyber playbook didn’t appear overnight. In 2012, the Shamoon virus devastated Saudi Aramco’s systems, wiping tens of thousands of computers. Since then, Tehran has steadily advanced its cyber operations.

Today, Iran commands a capable and motivated digital force. With its nuclear facilities in ruins, the regime has every reason to flex other muscles. Cyber warfare offers something the mullahs crave: the ability to humiliate, disrupt, and retaliate without risking direct military confrontation.

They’re not the first to embrace this model.

Russia, long dominant in the cyber realm, has hammered Ukraine with digital attacks targeting power grids, satellites, and financial systems. Criminal groups like Conti and Black Basta operate under Moscow’s protection, extorting ransoms and leaking stolen data to sow chaos.

This blending of espionage, sabotage, and state-backed crime has become a blueprint for autocracies under pressure. Iran, hemmed in by sanctions and unrest, doesn’t need to invent the model. It just needs to adopt it.

Most Americans still think of cyberwar as an abstract threat — something IT departments handle behind the scenes. That complacency works to our enemies’ advantage.

Take zero-day vulnerabilities: flaws in software even the developers don’t yet know exist. They’re sold on dark markets for eye-watering sums and let hostile actors bypass traditional defenses undetected.

Then there’s Chaos RAT, a remote access trojan capable of burrowing into a network and sitting dormant for months. Once triggered, it can steal sensitive data, erase backups, or crash entire systems on command.

Iran possesses both the motive and the skill to deploy these weapons — and the timing couldn’t be better for the regime. With its nuclear program crippled, it needs a new front to demonstrate relevance.

RELATED: Google confirms Iranian hacking group targeted Trump, Harris presidential campaigns

daoleduc via iStock/Getty Images

China’s cyber militias show what’s possible. Groups like APT Silver Fox specialize in patient infiltration, building access over years. Iran lacks Beijing’s global reach, but the methods are accessible. Tehran’s hackers borrow code from Russia, shop the same black markets, and lease infrastructure from the same digital underworld.

The global cyber arena now functions like a black-market bazaar: fluid alliances, shared tradecraft, and few rules. Almost everything’s for sale.

So while headlines tout the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, they miss the next act. No truce binds a nation’s hackers. Cyber operations offer deniability by design. When a hospital network locks up or a power grid fails, Tehran’s response will be predictable: denial, distraction, and a smirk about the West’s poor “cyber hygiene.”

Expect Iran to probe how far it can push in cyberspace without drawing more missiles in return. And unless the West prepares accordingly, those probes may succeed.

America still leads the world in conventional firepower. But cyber defense remains its soft underbelly. Agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have made strides, but critical infrastructure — power plants, water systems, hospitals — still run on aging software and patchwork security.

Iran doesn’t need to destroy a city to spread fear. A flip of a switch in a power station or the theft of sensitive government files can inflict lasting damage — and create leverage.

This imbalance between battlefield dominance and digital vulnerability demands urgent correction.

Cybersecurity must move from an IT line item to a strategic national priority. That means building AI-driven detection systems, developing real deterrence for cyberattacks, and forging public-private partnerships to defend vital infrastructure.

Iran’s nuclear setback matters. But no bomb erases a hacker’s know-how. No missile strike disables an ideology that thrives on asymmetrical warfare.

The coming months will test whether the West has learned anything. Tehran’s leaders need to prove they still have teeth. While their nuclear ambitions smolder, their cyber arsenal remains sharp — and likely emboldened.

The next war may not begin with jets roaring over deserts. It may start silently in the fluorescent-lit halls of a data center, where intruders already hide behind blinking servers, waiting.

In that theater, the rules are different — and the consequences no less severe.

Voters loved the socialist slogans. Now comes the fine print.



Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo in last week’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary catapulted a full-bodied Democratic Socialist program onto the national marquee. In his midnight speech, he claimed, “A life of dignity should not be reserved for a fortunate few.” His win marks Gotham’s sharpest left turn in a generation — and that’s saying something.

The recipients of his promise are slated to receive an economic makeover that treats prices as political failures. His platform freezes rents on more than 1 million apartments, builds 200,000 publicly financed “social housing” units, rolls out city-owned grocery stores, makes buses fare-free, and lifts the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, all bankrolled by roughly $10 billion in new corporate and millionaire taxes.

If Mamdani’s program collapses under its own weight, the case for limited government will write itself in boarded-up windows and outbound moving vans.

A week later, reality is beginning to set in.

Mamdani means what he says. On his watch, public safety would become a piggy bank. During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Mamdani posted, “No, we want to defund the police.” He wasn’t being metaphorical. His current blueprint would shift billions from the NYPD into a new “Department of Community Safety” — even as felony assaults on seniors have doubled since 2019.

Mamdani’s program may feel aspirational to affluent progressives, yet to many New Yorkers it lands like an ultimatum.

Forty-two percent of renter households already spend more than 30% of their income on shelter; now they are told higher business taxes and a slimmer police presence are the price of utopia, which helps explain why tens of thousands of households making between $32,000 and $65,000 — the city’s economic backbone — have left for other states in just the past few years.

Picture a deli cashier in the Bronx. She’s not reading City Hall memos, but she feels the squeeze when rent rises and her boss mutters about new taxes. She doesn’t frame her frustration as a debate about “big government” — but she knows when it’s harder to get by and when it’s less safe walking home. The politics of the city aren’t abstract to her. They’re personal.

Adding insult to injury, the job Mamdani wants comes with a salary of roughly $258,750 a year — more than three times the median city household income — plus the chauffeurs, security details, and gilt-edged benefits package that accompany the office. Telling overtaxed commuters that their groceries will now be “public options” while banking a quarter-million dollars in guaranteed pay is the policy equivalent of riding past them in a limousine and rolling down the window just long enough to raise their rent.

Layer onto that record a set of statements many Jewish New Yorkers regard as outright hostility. Mamdani is one of the loudest champions of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement; last year he pushed a bill to bar certain New York charities from sending money to Israeli causes and defended the chant “globalize the intifada,” drawing sharp rebukes from city rabbis. The day after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, he blamed the bloodshed on “apartheid” and “occupation.”

All this lands in a metropolis with the world’s largest Jewish community outside Israel — about 1.4 million residents — whose synagogues, schools, and small businesses have weathered a steady rise in hate crimes. For them, a would-be mayor who treats Israel as a pariah and shrugs at chants of intifada isn’t dabbling in foreign policy; he’s telegraphing contempt for their safety and identity at home.

Republicans see an inadvertent gift. Mamdani’s New York will soon be measured against the lower-tax, police-friendly model many red states — especially my home, Florida — have advertised for years.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Law Enforcement Recruitment Bonus Program has mailed more than 7,800 after-tax checks of $5,000 to officers relocating from 49 states, including hundreds from New York precincts, while Florida touts a 50-year low in index-crime reports and unemployment below the national average. IRS data shows Florida netted 33,019 New York households in the latest year, with average adjusted gross income near $185,000.

Project those trend lines a few years and Mamdani’s New York grows grim: a shrunken police force responding to more 911 calls; fare-free buses draining MTA dollars and stranding riders; municipal groceries undercutting bodegas until subsidies vanish; office-tower vacancies sapping property tax receipts just as social housing bills come due. The skyline still gleams, but plywood fronts and “For Lease” placards scar street level. Meanwhile states that fund cops, respect paychecks, and let entrepreneurs stock the shelves siphon away residents and revenue.

RELATED: Don’t let rural America become the next New York City

Terraxplorer via iStock/Getty Images

Republicans running in 2026 scarcely need to draft the attack ads, yet they must pair fiscal sobriety with moral urgency — protecting the vulnerable, rewarding work, and defending faith. Mamdani’s primary victory shows romantic egalitarianism still electrifies young voters; statistics alone won’t counter a pledge of universal child care and rent freezes. This indeed won’t be a case of “promises made, promises kept.”

If his program collapses under its own weight, the case for limited government will write itself in boarded-up windows and outbound moving vans.

Should the city somehow thrive — safer streets, balanced books, real wage gains — progressives will demand that Congress replicate Mamdani’s policies nationwide. That is federalism at its most honest: two competing philosophies running side by side under the same national sky, with citizens free to relocate from one laboratory to the other.

For now, the lab results favor the model that backs the blue, protects the paycheck, and keeps the ladder of opportunity in good repair. Voters — and U-Hauls — are already keeping score. By decade’s end, the scoreboard will show which vision truly loved New York’s working families and which merely loved the sound of its own ideals.

This 7% of Earth’s surface burns more fuel than anywhere



The ruling class trades in carbon outrage like it’s gold. Sanctimony fuels its crusade against oil, gas, and coal — never mind that those very fuels built the modern world. The comforts we take for granted — from longer lives and stocked shelves to clean water and lifesaving medicine — all trace back to the energy abundance that hydrocarbons made possible.

Still, the decarbonization faithful press forward. They dream of a carbon-free Eden, even as the global power grid, still humming on fossil fuels, refuses to cooperate.

Critics keep forecasting a shift away from fossil fuels. Reality keeps proving them wrong.

You won’t find a clearer contradiction than in the Yuxi Circle.

Draw a circle with a 2,485-mile radius around the southern Chinese city of Yuxi. British geographer Alasdair Rae did just that — and inside it resides 55% of the world’s population: some 4.3 billion people crammed into just 7% of Earth’s surface. The region includes China, India, much of Southeast Asia, and parts of Pakistan. Some of it — like the Tibetan Plateau and the Taklamakan Desert — is barren. But the rest is packed with cities, factories, and the aspirations of hundreds of millions clawing their way toward modern life.

Why does this matter? Because this region now anchors the world’s biggest fight over energy, growth, and climate policy.

While bureaucrats in Brussels sip espresso and activists glue themselves to the pavement in London, the real action plays out in Asia’s economic engine. In cities like Shanghai, Delhi, and Tokyo, energy demand soars — and fossil fuels do the heavy lifting. Coal and gas plants keep the lights on, while wind and solar trail far behind.

China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. India burns more than the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom combined. The 10 ASEAN countries rank third. Oil use tells the same story: China and India sit alongside the U.S. atop the global leaderboard of consumption. Economic growth, it turns out, runs not on hashtags but on hydrocarbons.

Critics keep forecasting a shift away from fossil fuels. Reality keeps proving them wrong.

Hundreds of millions in the Yuxi Circle are still striving for what Westerners call a “decent life.” That means refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioning — and with them, a dramatic spike in electricity demand.

RELATED: Climate orthodoxy punishes the West

Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images

For context: The average American consumes 77,000 kilowatt-hours of energy each year. The average Indian uses a 10th of that. A Bangladeshi? Just 3% of what the average Norwegian consumes.

Now multiply that gap by a population of billions, and you begin to understand what’s coming.

The living room revolution is only the start. An industrial boom is building behind it — factories, office towers, and shopping malls all hungry for electricity. The coming surge in energy use across the Yuxi Circle will make the West’s climate targets look like a quaint relic of the past.

In this part of the world, the green fantasy runs headfirst into human need. Wind and solar can’t meet the moment. Coal, oil, and gas can — and do.

Just as they did for the West, these fuels now power the rise of the rest. And no amount of Western guilt or climate alarm will change that.

Supreme Court: Kids deserve protection from porn, period



The Supreme Court last week delivered not just a legal decision but a resounding moral affirmation: Children deserve protection from online pornography.

For decades, I’ve been told that “free speech” includes the right to exploit. I’ve watched Big Porn hide behind the First Amendment like a shield, as if this billion-dollar industry, built on addiction, abuse, and shattered innocence, was a sacred American institution. But on Friday, in upholding Texas’ pornography age-verification law, the court drew a line in the sand.

For children, exposure to pornographic material isn’t a neutral event. It reshapes the brain. It numbs empathy. It seeds confusion, fear, and addiction.

And I say: Thank God.

As the brother of a child survivor of sexual exploitation, I know firsthand the consequences of a culture that normalizes sexual harm. I know what it’s like when an industry like porn sees children as commodities. I’ve seen too many young people stumble into the world of violent, degrading content with nothing more than a click. No gatekeepers. No warnings. No protection.

That ended last week.

Texas’ age-verification law was never about silencing speech. It was about defending the voiceless and restoring the most basic responsibility we have as a society: to guard our children from harm.

That’s why my team at Jaco Booyens Ministries joined this case as a friend of the court. Our team submitted a brief to the Supreme Court that shared the lived experiences of survivors, the neurological science on childhood trauma, and the irrefutable consequences of exposure to online pornography.

As our brief stated in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton: “There is no liberty in trauma. There is no freedom in addiction. When minors are exposed to pornography, they are not exercising constitutional rights, they are being wounded by the unchecked rights of others.”

Still, the porn industry screamed “censorship.” Companies sued, claiming this was a violation of their “rights.” But what about our children’s right not to be harmed? What about the parents fighting to keep predators out of their homes?

The court acknowledged what every honest parent already knows: Access to this kind of content isn’t harmless. It isn’t “education.” It is psychological, emotional, and spiritual violence. During oral arguments, Justice Amy Coney Barrett captured the heart of the issue when she asked, “Why should it be so easy for a 12-year-old to access this kind of material online, when we all know it can be incredibly damaging?”

That wasn’t a rhetorical flourish; it was a recognition of truth.

For children, exposure to pornographic material isn’t a neutral event. It reshapes the brain. It numbs empathy. It seeds confusion, fear, and addiction. I can no longer pretend this is just about speech. This is about harm. Real harm. And the court, at long last, chose to see it.

RELATED: Supreme Court slaps down Big Porn — putting kids before profit

Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

I can’t change what happened to my sister. But I can fight to make sure it doesn’t happen to someone else. I can help protect the next generation. I can work to make it harder for exploitation to find its way into our living rooms, our schools, our smartphones. I can help make justice more than just a word. I can help make it action.

To the justices who stood with us: Thank you. You did not bow to corporate pressure. You honored the Constitution as a document of liberty, not license. You remembered that freedom must be rooted in truth, and the truth is that unrestricted pornography destroys lives.

This victory isn’t just for Texas; it’s a win for every child in America. It sends a clear message to every state in this nation: You have the power to protect your children. You can draw the line. You don’t have to wait for permission. And beyond our borders, this ruling sends a powerful global signal: I still believe — and I know many others do too — that children are worth protecting, that their innocence is not up for sale, and their safety is not negotiable.

Let this ruling be a turning point — for our families, for our faith, for our future.

Why leftism attracts the sad and depressed — and keeps them that way



By now, the trope of the “sad leftist” has become so popular that it’s essentially a meme. Multiple studies show leftists are, on average, far less happy than conservatives. That aligns with the experience of many who observe self-professed leftists exhibiting more anxiety, gloom, and hostility than others.

It’s not difficult to understand why. If your main news sources tell you the president is a fascist, half of your countrymen are bigots, and the world is about to end due to climate change, you’re bound to feel — and vote — blue. Yet, even in Democratic administrations, leftists never seemed content.

People latch onto progressive narratives because they offer someone to blame. That brings short-term relief, but it quickly fades.

This suggests the root of their discontent isn’t merely political messaging but something deeper. Rather, the ideas implicit in leftism seem antithetical to a happy life and human flourishing — even if well-intended. Leftists push for diversity, equity, and inclusion in place of meritocracy, support a more powerful state to implement those ideals, advocate open borders to globalize them, and demand wealth redistribution to fund them. In the sanitized and euphemistic language they often prefer, leftists are about fairness, progress, and kindness.

Sad people lean left

Nate Silver recently weighed in on the happiness gap between conservatives and progressives. His take? People might have it backward. It’s not that leftism makes people sad but that sad people gravitate toward leftism: “People become liberals because they’re struggling or oppressed themselves and therefore favor change and a larger role for government.”

If this is true, it still doesn’t explain why leftism is correlated with sadness and why it offers no remedy. Conservatives, for their part, offer a diagnosis and a cure: Leftism is foolish and destructive — so stop being a leftist. That’s the gist of Ben Shapiro’s infamous line, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

While clever and catchy, this oversimplifies the problem. People who ascribe to liberal or leftist causes don’t merely do so because they prioritize feelings over facts. Yes, some are true believers, but most are reacting to powerful cultural pressures and personal struggles. These feed destructive habits that, in turn, make them more susceptible to leftist propaganda.

After all, the narratives that comprise leftist propaganda are easy to understand and adopt since they lay the blame of all society’s ills on someone else. People are poor because rich people exploit them; people of color are marginalized because white people are racists; queer people are depressed because straight people don’t accept them; third world countries are dysfunctional because Americans and Europeans meddled in their affairs too much or too little; and leftists are unpopular because Trump and other conservative populists are effective con men.

The media’s vicious cycle

These narratives not only offer paltry short-term solace — they breed resentment. Instead of directing their efforts to personal improvement, leftists are encouraged to push their anger outward — sometimes through direct violence (vandalism, looting, even political violence) and sometimes indirectly by cheering on those who perpetrate it. In this way, left-wing media weaponizes its audience.

Nevertheless, the principle motivation behind leftist propaganda is not necessarily weaponization. It’s monetization. Beyond adopting leftist narratives and positions, audiences need to continue consuming leftist media and become addicted to it.

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Karolina Grabowska/Pexels

As Georgetown professor and computer scientist Cal Newport explains in his book “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World,” society has now entered the era of the “attention economy,” where media companies do everything in their power to hold people’s attention — for forever. In conjunction with tech companies, these outlets turn otherwise healthy people into helpless junkies enslaved to the apps on their smartphones.

Like any addiction, this one feeds a destructive cycle. People latch onto progressive narratives because they offer someone to blame. That brings short-term relief, but it quickly fades. The need for comfort drives them to consume even more leftist content, which distorts their view of the world and fuels resentment. Anxiety deepens. Misery spreads.

As their emotional state deteriorates, they seek comfort in even more content. Eventually, this behavior sabotages their ability to function. They become dependent on the very content that made them feel worse in the first place. Many even join the performance, filming themselves crying, ranting, and broadcasting their despair for clicks.

Meanwhile, the titans of the attention economy grow wealthier and more powerful. They refine their algorithms, suppress dissent, and tighten their grip. The last thing they want is for their users to wake up — to take Newport’s advice, unplug, and rediscover meaning in the real world. They might just find happiness. And stop drifting left.

Model a different life

This presents an opportunity for conservatives hoping to transform the culture. The answer isn’t just a matter of advocating time-tested ideas but of modeling the habits that reinforce these ideas. Rather than view leftists as incorrigible scoundrels and idiots who refuse to open their eyes, conservatives should see them as unfortunate people who have been seduced, reduced, and enslaved by powerful corporate and government interests.

This means that conservatives should do more than offer political arguments — we must pull them away from the vicious cycle through modeling a better life. Leftists (and many on the online right, for that matter) must be reminded that being perpetually online and endlessly scrolling is a recipe for sadness. In contrast, church, family, friends, and meaningful work are what empower people. They are what make us human — and happy.

Once the cycle is broken — and the leftist has regained some control over himself — the case for conservatism becomes much easier. If Nate Silver is right that sad people gravitate to the left, then it’s only logical to assume happy people should be attracted to the right. Conservatives should cherish those values and habits that make them, on average, happier and more fulfilled. It’s time to stop drinking leftist tears and help them out of their malaise.

Sackler cash can end fentanyl carnage — if we use it right



In a long-overdue reckoning, the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma have agreed to pay $7.4 billion as partial atonement for unleashing America’s opioid crisis. This historic settlement offers more than symbolic closure. If allocated wisely and aggressively, the funds could signal the beginning of the end for the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history.

Once fueled by prescription pills like OxyContin, the opioid crisis has evolved into something far deadlier. Illicit fentanyl and its analogs now kill more Americans ages 18 to 49 than any other cause. These drugs claim lives faster than guns, car crashes, or COVID-19 in many demographic groups. Children as young as 12 are overdosing on fentanyl-laced substances. The crisis isn’t looming — it’s already here.

We can’t afford to keep confusing addiction with criminality or leaning on obsolete tools while the chemistry of death evolves.

Fentanyl packs 50 times the potency of heroin and 100 times that of morphine. Just two milligrams — akin to a few grains of salt — can kill. Carfentanil, used to sedate elephants, is even more lethal. New synthetic opioids like nitazenes now appear in toxicology reports nationwide, catching users unaware. Xylazine, a veterinary sedative not approved for human use, is increasingly found in street drugs, leading to skin ulcers, amputations, and deaths that don't respond to naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug.

Yet harm reduction efforts lag behind. Most of the country relies on outdated, fragmented, and dangerously insufficient infrastructure. The system meant to save lives barely functions — just as the death toll keeps rising.

For years, America’s harm reduction efforts have stumbled through a maze of failures and contradictions. Even when available, fentanyl test strips often miss the mark, lacking the sensitivity to detect tiny — but still lethal — amounts. Many publicly funded programs still hand out tools that can’t catch analogs like carfentanil or nitazenes. Others depend on clunky, lab-grade machines only found in major cities, leaving rural and underserved communities wide open to catastrophe.

State laws make matters worse. In several places, outdated statutes still label drug-checking tools as “paraphernalia,” turning safety into a crime and criminalizing the very people trying to protect themselves and others.

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Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The A47 test from the Fentanyl Test changes the game. These are the only commercially available tools that detect trace levels of fentanyl and its analogs — down to a single grain of salt. They also identify nitazenes, xylazine, carfentanil, and a growing list of synthetic poisons, all with speed, accuracy, and field-tested reliability.

This is beyond innovation. It’s lifesaving intervention at the molecular level.

To eradicate fentanyl poisonings, America needs a bold, coordinated strategy. That means universal access to ultra-sensitive testing kits like A47. It means decriminalizing drug-checking tools nationwide, building real-time data and distribution networks, and launching mass public education campaigns about synthetic opioid risks. State and federal governments must guarantee free access to testing in every community — rural and urban alike.

This plan doesn’t require trillions. A fraction of the Sackler settlement could fund it. What we can’t afford is to keep confusing addiction with criminality or leaning on obsolete tools while the chemistry of death evolves. The Sackler-Purdue deal isn’t just restitution — it’s a once-in-a-generation chance to build a system that saves lives before they need saving.

The choice is clear. The money is available. Now we need the courage to act.