Joy Behar’s TrumpRx rant shows how elites think



Joy Behar’s elitist meltdown on “The View” exposed exactly why disconnected celebrities fail ordinary American families. She hysterically claimed “we’re all going to die” because President Trump launched TrumpRx.gov to slash prescription drug prices.

While Behar lectures from her insulated bubble, millions of parents are choosing between groceries and lifesaving medicine for their sick children.

Reducing prescription drug prices by cutting out middlemen and forcing better pricing is not a death sentence. It is relief.

Behar warned viewers that the president uses TrumpRx to “put his name” on prescription drugs. Then, as a consequence, she declared, “we’re all going to die.”

Seriously?

Co-host Sunny Hostin piled on.

“He is not doing this out of the goodness of his heart,” Hostin told ABC’s nationwide audience. “He’s doing this to make money.”

No, President Trump does not profit from TrumpRx. The president receives no royalties, fees, or equity. TrumpRx is not a private entity. Several websites refer to it as “the government’s drug purchasing portal.” As anyone can see from the website address, trumprx.gov, it is a government operation.

TrumpRx delivers real relief through direct-to-consumer discounts, most favored nation pricing, and partnerships such as Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, which cut out middlemen and deliver major savings.

Consider children and individuals with serious medical needs.

Regeneron’s groundbreaking gene therapy, Otarmeni, treats a rare genetic form of deafness. Under the TrumpRx deal, it is available at no cost to American families, restoring a child’s hearing without bankrupting parents.

Families facing juvenile idiopathic arthritis or pediatric Crohn’s disease can access Humira through TrumpRx for about $950 per dose instead of nearly $7,000. That life-changing savings allows children to stay active and avoid debilitating pain.

Fertility drugs like Gonal-F dropped from hundreds of dollars to as little as $168 per pen, helping families begin the journey of conceiving and starting a family. Bevespi Aerosphere, an inhaler used to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, fell from $458 to $51. Airsupra, an inhaler used to treat asthma symptoms and attacks, dropped from $504 to $201. Trulicity, used to manage type 2 diabetes, fell from $987 to $389.

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For many families, those savings are immediate and concrete.

TrumpRx also lowers costs on dozens of other brand-name and generic medications for diabetes, asthma, migraines, and rare diseases that strike children and adults. Parents no longer have to skip refills because the price is impossible. Behar’s reflexive hatred of Trump blinds her to the suffering of working families crushed by prior high prices.

That is the real scandal.

The women of “The View” are not angry that medicine costs too much. They are angry that Trump found a way to cut costs and gets the credit for it. Their politics matter more than the families who benefit.

For a nurse, that is impossible to stomach. Families do not care whether a lower price arrives with Trump’s name attached to it. They care whether they can fill the prescription, pay the mortgage, and keep their child healthy.

TrumpRx is not perfect. No government program is. But reducing prescription drug prices by cutting out middlemen and forcing better pricing is not a death sentence. It is relief.

Behar and Hostin can sneer from the studio. Parents at the pharmacy counter know better.

John Cornyn’s defeat could be the end of the GOP establishment



As soon as polls closed in Texas on Tuesday, the Associated Press called a decisive victory for state Attorney General Ken Paxton, presumably ending Sen. John Cornyn’s 35-year political career. The 30-point margin was also another feather in Donald Trump’s cap.

“Last night was very powerful,” the president said at the start of Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting at the White House. In an earlier Truth Social post, he called Cornyn a friend and promised to headline “big, beautiful rallies” for Paxton in the upcoming months.

For the rest of the day, Trump posted screenshots of news outlets covering a 100% success rate in primary endorsements so far this year.

'It’s an all time total collapse and embarrassment for the GOP establishment.'

In addition to showcasing Trump’s endorsement weight, the runoff election results also exposed the weakness of the Senate Republican establishment. For months, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott took to the morning news shows extolling Cornyn’s virtues while insisting that he was the key to keeping Texas safely red. The NRSC posted lists of Paxton’s various personal and professional scandals, as Cornyn called his opponent an embarrassment.

In his concession speech Tuesday night, Cornyn committed to supporting Paxton as the party’s nominee, despite spending months calling him scandal-ridden and morally unqualified to hold office. Chastened Senate Republicans are likewise reversing course.

“A vote for Ken Paxton in November is a vote for a safer, stronger, and more prosperous America. He has my endorsement and support,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) posted to X on Tuesday night. He had previously endorsed Cornyn. “[James] Talarico is too radical for Texas. Ken will be a key member of our Senate Republican majority fighting for America First.”

The same night, the NRSC deleted every critical post of Paxton it had made over the past year, even though its statement on the general election does not mention him by name. Some conservative activists now want the organization to clean house. Breitbart News Washington bureau chief Matthew Boyle personally tagged NRSC staffers in posts on X, needling them for backing the wrong horse.

“It’s an all time total collapse and embarrassment for the GOP establishment,” Boyle wrote.

The NRSC faced a dilemma that Paxton’s backers will now confront. One of the most senior Republicans in the Senate, Cornyn has been a GOP fundraising heavyweight — a potentially significant factor in what is shaping up to be a strong Democratic year. He was also a former NRSC chair in 2010 and 2012. He could have largely funded his own race.

Paxton, however, will need party money to keep pace with newly emboldened Democrats who are pouring money into Talarico’s campaign. Furthermore, Paxton’s impeachment, messy divorce, and fraud allegations provide plenty of fodder for Democrat attack ads.

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Trump delivered his endorsement for Paxton on May 19 on Truth Social, after early voting had already begun in Texas. He did not notify the NRSC or Senate Republicans in advance of his post.

“He essentially let them know he didn’t care about their preferences at all,” Josh Blank, director of research for the Texas Politics Project, told RCP. “From a Republican elite perspective, not only does it look like you have to spend more money in Texas now, but you have to convince your donors that Ken Paxton is a good vehicle for that money — and Paxton has a challenging past to reconcile.”

As if on cue, the first Talarico ad dropped by Democrats detailed the many controversies that have dogged Paxton’s career. His wife filed for divorce in 2025, citing adultery. Former staffers have testified that he used his office to convince a friend to give his mistress a job.

In 2023, the Texas House of Representatives impeached Paxton on 20 articles for bribery, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power, but the state Senate voted to acquit and reinstate him. In 2024, he paid $300,000 and completed community service to settle an indictment for securities fraud.

Nevertheless, Cornyn’s re-election bid was already flailing even before Trump weighed in. Conservative voters were not enamored with his 2022 efforts to pass a bipartisan red-flag law. Last year, the National Association for Gun Rights PAC endorsed Paxton. In 2023, Cornyn suggested Trump might not be electable any more, a comment he walked back in 2024 and last year. But Trump remembered.

“I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough,” Trump wrote in a congratulatory post for Paxton.

Despite outspending the Paxton campaign 17-1 in advertising alone, Cornyn remained in a statistical tie with his opponent for most of his campaign.

“I think Paxton probably still could have won without Trump’s endorsement, but not at that magnitude. It was a blowout,” Conservative Partnership Institute Vice President of programs Rachel Bovard told RCP. “The Senate Republican conference is the chummiest place in America. Their political loyalties are to each other. So I think the dynamic is going to shift a little bit. The conference is being remade, and I don’t know that it’s going to be much help to Trump for the rest of the year.”

RELATED: How Trump can fix his endorsement problem

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From the beginning of Paxton’s bid, it became clear that the race would become about who could relate better to Trump. Cornyn was never the thorn in the president’s side that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) or Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) often were.

But things came to a head when some media reports indicated that Trump was about to endorse Cornyn, at the urging of Senate Republicans. Then Paxton delivered a public promise to drop his campaign if the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voting reform bill that would require proof of identity and citizenship to vote.

“That was a pivotal moment in this election cycle,” Blank said. “Paxton demonstrated to Trump the lengths he would go to support his agenda and a key distinction between himself and Cornyn.”

The SAVE America Act passed the House but has not yet moved through the Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said there is not enough support in the Senate to use a filibuster to pass the bill. Cornyn was one of several institutionalist members who said it is important to keep the 60-vote threshold, even if it means not passing the legislation. In March, Trump insisted that he would not sign any legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, and he told the Senate to “kill the filibuster” to get it done.

“Cornyn long held that he did not think the filibuster should be changed because he held a certain amount of fealty to the institution of the U.S. Senate. Paxton demonstrated his fealty to the president, and that was ultimately much more persuasive,” Blank said.

Some analysts say this further cements Trump’s political kingmaker status, at least within the Republican Party, even while his popularity is sinking.

“There is zero doubt tonight that Donald Trump is in complete and total control of the Republican Party,” pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz posted on X on Tuesday night.

He can beat just about any Republican in just about any state in just about any primary. He is chief strategist, chief advocate, and chief voice of the GOP. His name may not be on the ballot in November, but make no mistake: Nothing and no one will have a bigger impact on voter behavior.

Trump’s involvement hardly guarantees Paxton’s win in November. The attorney general has advantages with name recognition and his record of winning statewide elections in the past. But Talarico is surging with his own fundraising, and Texas Republicans sometimes have a turnout problem in years when Trump is not on the ballot.

“We would expect most Cornyn-supporting Republican voters to support Ken Paxton come November, because they’ve voted for him in the past,” Blank said. “But if even a small share of Republicans decide that Ken Paxton is ethically unfit for office, as John Cornyn argued and spent nearly $100 million promoting, that makes a competitive election that much more competitive.”

In a Wednesday appearance on "The Hugh Hewitt Show," Thune described the GOP’s newfound advocacy for Paxton.

“Obviously, we are making the pivot,” Thune said.

“He’s all-in, ready to go for the fall election, and not taking any time off, already on the phone raising money and all the things you’re going to have to do to be successful.”

Editor's note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Caregivers should not have to lie to prove compassion



“Why not just stay in your lane and focus on caregivers?”

A listener to my radio program for family caregivers reached out recently with that question. He appreciated the program, he said, but felt troubled when I “went political.” Then he added, “I reached out because I thought you would listen.”

People retreat from politics because the noise exhausts them. But avoiding politics and refusing to morally examine the world unfolding around us are not the same thing.

Fair enough. So I did. I listened while doing dishes and folding laundry because that is caregiver life. Then he asked what I thought.

I spend my days speaking with families navigating catastrophic injury, dementia, trauma, chronic illness, memory care centers, prosthetics, bureaucratic failure, and exhaustion. Caregivers do not have the luxury of pretending reality is negotiable. Family caregivers now provide more than $1 trillion worth of unpaid care annually in the United States. We sit at kitchen tables staring at medical bills, insurance statements, pharmacy receipts, and impossible spreadsheets while trying to keep another human being alive, safe, and cared for.

We pinch pennies. We know what groceries cost, but we also know the price of wound care supplies. We know what one wheelchair repair can do to a monthly budget. Meanwhile, we keep discovering billions in taxpayer dollars flowing through fraud and “quality learing centers” bilking people already struggling to pay the IRS.

Caregivers notice things like that because caregiving quickly introduces a person to reality. So yes, I have become exasperated watching people in power lecture the country about “compassion” while families quietly drown at their kitchen tables.

Recently, I was at a cancer center preparing for prostate treatment. Before I reached the medical history section, the form opened with questions asking what sex I identify as and what sex I was assigned at birth. I sat there staring at the page for a moment and thought: This whole trans movement seems built for virtue signaling until “she/her” has to get “her” prostate checked.

Prostate cancer does not care how I identify.

Then I asked the caller a question: “Which political worldview do you think put that language on that form?” When a civilization loses the ability to say plainly what a man or woman is, even inside medicine, something foundational has broken.

My wife lost both legs after years of struggling with catastrophic injuries from a car accident decades ago. Not once did either of our sons say, “I think I should amputate my leg to look like Mom.” Had they done so, I would have sought psychiatric help immediately. If a physician had offered to remove healthy body parts from a confused child, I would have reported that doctor immediately.

Again, I asked the caller, “Which political party aligned itself with removing healthy body parts from children?” In his silence, I pressed further: “And you’re wondering why I’m not staying in my lane?”

I told him I am not here to carry water for the Republican Party. But right now, only one major political movement seems increasingly hostile to objective, biological, and theological reality. That matters to caregivers because we deal in reality every day.

I asked him point-blank, “What do you actually like about the Democratic Party?” He repeated a phrase I have heard for years: “Democrats seem to be the party that cares.” The word “seem” leapt out.

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So I asked what exactly was caring about any of this. What is caring about allowing millions of illegal immigrants to overwhelm already strained schools, hospitals, and social systems while corporations benefit from cheap labor and America absorbs the consequences? What is caring about enabling addiction and destructive behavior? What is caring about encouraging irreversible medical interventions for confused children? What is caring about demanding that citizens deny biological reality to prove compassion?

Political parties do not care. They exist to wield power. Government’s role is not to love us. Its role is to preserve equal justice, protect liberty, and provide conditions where citizens can work, worship, raise families, and pursue opportunity. That is very different from emotional branding.

I also shared the moment something changed for me as a broadcaster. I watched Barack Obama stand before Planned Parenthood as president of the United States and say, “God bless Planned Parenthood.” I remember thinking: Which God? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? The God who said, “You shall not murder"?

I asked the caller, who professed Christianity, “How do you shake hands with that?” He said he agreed with much of what I said. “How would anyone know?” I asked. “I guess I have to say something,” he replied. “And that’s what I do on my show.”

Then, I asked him to name one major idea currently being advanced by Democrats that he believed would genuinely strengthen the country. “They’re not in power,” he protested. “Ideas are power,” I countered. “Give me one. Not opposition to Donald Trump. An actual idea.”

Finally, he admitted, “I can’t think of anything, and I haven’t been paying attention to the news.”

I told him, “You have my number. If you come up with one major idea being advanced by Democrats that makes you say, ‘This is genuinely good for America,’ let me know, and I’ll talk about it on my program.”

People retreat from politics because the noise exhausts them. I understand that. But avoiding politics and refusing to morally examine the world unfolding around us are not the same thing. I do not drift into politics for sport. I was preparing for prostate cancer treatment when politics invaded the top of the questionnaire.

Caregivers deal with reality every single day.

And in the exam room, reality should have the last word.

Ranked-choice voting’s losing streak gets longer



It has been a dismal year for ranked-choice voting.

RCV allows voters to rank candidates instead of choosing one. It then runs multiple rounds of counting, adjusts rankings, and discards “exhausted” ballots to determine a winner.

Lawmakers, courts, cities, and voters are increasingly rejecting a system that makes elections harder to understand and easier to distrust.

Two states have already banned it. One state’s pilot program was phased out. A statewide ballot proposal failed to qualify. Several city councils rejected it. A state supreme court struck down an expansion bill. And the year still has months to go.

The states that banned RCV this year were Indiana and Ohio. The Ohio legislature first introduced a ban in 2023. It passed the Senate but not the House. This year, lawmakers passed it through both chambers on the second attempt, with Sens. Theresa Gavarone (R) and Bill DeMora (D) leading the effort. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bipartisan bill into law in February.

Indiana acted even faster. Lawmakers introduced a similar ban and enacted it two months later. The legislation reflected growing concern that RCV makes elections less transparent and harder for voters to trust.

“It is important to ensure Indiana’s voting system is secure and accurate for Hoosier voters. Having to rank each candidate could end up being a vote against the voter’s intended candidate, creating confusion and frustration, which is why we need this law in place,” said state Sen. Blake Doriot (R), the bill’s sponsor.

RCV supporters also suffered a setback in Utah, where the pilot program ended this year. Before the program closed, more than 20 cities tried it, but supporters never moved the state toward broader adoption. Multiple cities dropped out before the program ended.

In Michigan, Rank MI Vote’s RCV ballot proposal fell 200,000 signatures short of qualifying. RCV donors can find one consolation: At least they will not have to spend millions on another failed ballot measure, as they did in six states in 2024.

RELATED: Trump’s endorsement power keeps saving the wrong Republicans

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Albuquerque, New Mexico, also rejected RCV. The city council voted it down 6-3. The bill’s sponsor claimed switching from the current runoff system would save money, but the proposal failed because of concerns over system upgrades, staff training, and a long public education campaign. Similar proposals also failed in Vista, California, and Appleton, Wisconsin.

The District of Columbia offers another warning. Voters approved RCV, but the city has struggled to prepare for implementation. District residents will use the system for the first time in June, and a recent Opportunity D.C. survey found that 43% of voters remain unaware of the change. To address the confusion, the Board of Elections is spending $50,000 to educate voters.

D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder introduced emergency legislation to delay implementation until 2027. The bill failed, so voters and election workers will have little time to prepare.

Finally, an effort to expand RCV in Maine was struck down in March when the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled the bill unconstitutional. Because the Maine Constitution requires a plurality for state elections, RCV remains limited to federal elections.

Every year, ranked-choice voting’s backers promise simplicity, fairness, and reform. This year showed the opposite. Lawmakers, courts, cities, and voters are increasingly rejecting a system that makes elections harder to understand and easier to distrust.

When the government takes everything without proving anything



Imagine you founded a company with a stop-smoking product that actually works — no nicotine, better than anything on the market. You are the largest investor. You take no salary. You build it into something real, serving 756,000 customers. You are doing exactly what America is supposed to reward.

Then one night, without warning, without a trial, without any finding of wrongdoing, the federal government comes. The government freezes every account you own or are even associated with — personal and business accounts, life insurance, and retirement savings. A court-appointed receiver sells your office furniture. They tell you that you no longer have Fourth Amendment rights. They come for the wedding ring on your wife's finger.

This attack sounds like some hypothetical scenario. It is my story.

I am writing this so that every American understands just what weaponization by the government really means.

The Federal Trade Commission came for me in 2018 using Section 13(b) of the FTC Act — a provision Congress created for injunctions only, not for seizing assets or freezing accounts. The receiver the agency installed consumed nearly $4 million of my money in fees before anyone proved the FTC did not have legal rights to my assets.

When I went to court and asked for access to my own frozen money just to pay lawyers and keep my home, the government's response was: You can go live under the freeway for all we care.

While this was happening, inspired by President Trump's Made in America initiative, I built VPL Medical — the world's first made-in-USA three-ply surgical face mask manufacturing operation, based in California, where I was born and raised.

This was before COVID. When the pandemic hit, VPL Medical was ready. The Department of Health and Human Services awarded us a $14,500,000 contract to deliver 20,000,000 American-made masks to the Strategic National Stockpile. The factory was going to employ 400 Americans. The country didn't want masks from China, and we were ready to deliver.

Then the FTC came for VPL Medical, too. The factory went dark for three months while Americans died and hospitals begged for PPE. The FTC's offer to reopen: Pay the receiver $25,000 per week to run my own company under a law that didn't authorize the demand. I refused. The receiver's first act was to cancel the HHS contract. Twenty million American-made masks and 400 American jobs gone.

In April 2021, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in AMG Capital Management v. FTC that the commission had no authority to seek monetary relief. Nine justices. Zero dissents. My civil FTC case collapsed. The district court returned my company to me. Zero dollars — after four years of destruction, a factory closed during a pandemic, a $14.5 million federal contract canceled, and nearly $4 million consumed by a fraudulent receiver.

There is no mechanism to get that back. You win. And you are still destroyed.

My family and I moved to Ireland to take a break. We were through the nightmare and wanted to recover. Or so we thought.

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When I flew home to see my dying father, I was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport. The Biden DOJ had indicted me for the same conduct the FTC had litigated for four years and won nothing from — conduct the prior Trump administration's DOJ had already reviewed and declined to charge.

The Trump administration's own 2018 “No Piling On” directive explicitly prohibits this practice. The alleged consumer harm: approximately $154, across 756,000 customers who all received their product or a refund. My criminal defense costs: in the millions and climbing.

What is happening in my case now has no precedent in American federal prosecution. The supervising AUSA withdrew in April 2025. No replacement has appeared in 14 months. There is no confirmed U.S. attorney supervising the case. The DOJ unit employing the trial attorney was abolished in September 2025. Thirty-one demands for that authorization have gone unanswered. The prosecution continues anyway.

Six fully briefed motions to dismiss — covering fraud on the court, due process, double jeopardy, evidence suppression, and the “No Piling On” violation — have all been denied by District Court Judge Jesus Bernal, an Obama appointee.

Every player in this case, with the exception of myself, is a Biden or Obama appointee. This is what Biden-Obama weaponization looks like — a rogue agency, an unauthorized prosecution, and politically appointed judges, all targeting an American entrepreneur who built American manufacturing and supported President Trump.

I have filed a restitution claim with the DOJ Anti-Weaponization Fund. I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking for what the rule of law promises: that the government must prove its case before it destroys you. Right now, for me, that promise has not been kept. I am writing this so that every American understands just what weaponization by the government really means.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.

Newsom would rather pick fights than fix California’s fraud problem



California is being ripped off. The state is losing billions of dollars to fraudsters every year, and the state’s leaders have done too little to stop them.

While California’s population has dropped since 2020, Medi-Cal spending has doubled over the same time frame. How is this even possible? One reason is that per initial federal estimates, one out of every four Medi-Cal dollars is lost to fraud, for a whopping $50 billion in losses per year. This is an amount larger than the entire economy of some states.

If federal estimates are correct, the state has lost some $200 billion to Medi-Cal fraud under Governor Newsom, not to mention other kinds of fraud using taxpayer dollars.

The federal government must ensure that federal funding will be spent wisely by the states, not lost to fraudsters.

In California alone, federal auditors have found 1.2 million ineligible individuals on Medicaid, with another 3.2 million enrollees found to be potentially ineligible.

Auditors have flagged hundreds of thousands of individuals who were enrolled in Medicaid in multiple states at the same time — many of whom were flagged for fake or stolen Social Security numbers. Even worse, hundreds of millions of Medicaid dollars have funded benefits for the deceased.

Fortunately, the Trump administration is taking on fraudsters like no administration in American history and holding California’s leaders accountable. Earlier this year, the White House announced it would withhold roughly $10 billion in federal funding from five states, including California, until they make reasonable plans for reducing fraud.

This step is absolutely necessary: The federal government must ensure that federal funding will be spent wisely by the states, not lost to fraudsters.

Remarkably, Governor Newsom’s response has been to attack the Trump administration for its anti-fraud efforts and even blame President Trump for California’s carelessness and laxity toward criminals, all while casting himself as an anti-fraud champion.

This tactic might play well on Bluesky, but it is completely divorced from the facts and does nothing to solve the very real problem of taxpayer dollars being stolen.

Unless the governor gets serious, California taxpayers could end up paying an even higher price as soon as President Trump’s new welfare reform law goes into effect. The president’s new law requires states to clean up their rolls and reduce improper payments or risk losing the share of the federal dollars that support Medicaid.

RELATED: The Trump administration is cracking down on fraud

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With these shocking rates of waste, fraud, and abuse, California could lose a large amount of federal funding while it continues to bleed billions of dollars to fraudsters. California has wisely had a balanced budget amendment to the state constitution for more than a century, but this means that every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from other priorities.

California can’t just print money. Fraudsters are stealing directly out of taxpayers’ pockets, and right now they are doing so on a massive scale.

The good news is that there is a common-sense solution on the table right now in the State Assembly. Republican Assemblywoman Alexandra Macedo has introduced the Protect the Promise Act to help California reduce Medicaid fraud and lower the state’s improper payment rate.

The bill would simply require more eligibility checks using more data. For example, it would require officials to cross-check Medi-Cal enrollment data with federal Medicaid enrollment data to ensure that people aren’t enrolling in multiple states, which is illegal. It would require the state to take immediate action when discrepancies are found.

The bill wouldn’t affect Medi-Cal benefits in the slightest. But by dramatically slashing payments to ineligible people, it could save Californians billions of dollars by reducing fraud and preventing a loss of federal funds. In a balanced-budget state like California, this would free up more resources for other priorities.

Medi-Cal was started to help Californians in need — not to enrich fraudsters with Californians’ hard-earned tax dollars. It is time for the state’s leaders to end the fraud crisis and finally protect the promise for the truly needy. Otherwise, Californians will pay a high price — one that is only getting higher.

Trump’s endorsement power keeps saving the wrong Republicans



For a decade, not one lukewarm Republican incumbent senator or governor has lost a primary and been replaced by a more conservative challenger under Donald Trump’s leadership of the GOP. That changed Tuesday night.

Four-term U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) did not merely lose to state Attorney General Ken Paxton. He got routed by 28 points.

The Paxton endorsement and Cornyn’s defeat should have marked a turning point in Trump’s political strategy. Instead, they look like the high point of the cycle.

The decisive factor was obvious: Trump finally endorsed the challenger instead of the RINO incumbent. Now, imagine what the party might look like if he had done that over the past five election cycles.

The point is not to dwell on missed opportunities. Upcoming primaries in red states will determine whether conservatives retain any real statewide fighters.

Paxton’s victory proves Trump could finish his term by draining the swamp. Sadly, he more often sides with the swamp or stays silent long enough for moneyed interests to crush more principled candidates.

Most insurgent challengers lack Paxton’s name recognition. But if Trump’s endorsement could move Paxton from a close race to a 240-county rout, it could make lesser-known challengers competitive against weak incumbents. In open seats, a grassroots conservative with Trump’s backing would be nearly unbeatable.

Several upcoming races offer conservatives a chance to make red states actually govern like red states. Too often, Trump is absent or on the wrong side.

Start with Iowa.

Gov. Kim Reynolds is retiring, and Democrats have fielded a credible challenger pretending to be a moderate while running against land grabs. Republicans need a non-corporatist nominee who does not carry the baggage of the status quo Republicans in Congress.

Betting markets have RINO Rep. Randy Feenstra as the heavy favorite for the GOP nomination because he has the most money and name identification. Conservatives have fielded multiple candidates, but with only days until the election, Zach Lahn has the most traction and the clearest message against data centers and land grabs.

Thankfully, Trump has not endorsed Feenstra. But if he endorsed Lahn, Lahn could win outright without a runoff.

The Iowa Senate race shows the opposite problem. Former state Sen. Jim Carlin challenged Sen. Joni Ernst after she obstructed Pete Hegseth’s nomination. Trump should have endorsed Carlin. Instead, he encouraged Ernst to run again. Then, when Ernst retired thanks to Carlin’s hard work, Trump endorsed RINO Rep. Ashley Hinson, ensuring no improvement over Ernst.

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Trump made a similar move in Louisiana. Sen. Bill Cassidy was already politically wounded, with conservative challengers in the race. Trump could have helped finish him. Instead, he helped clear the field for Rep. Julia Letlow, a carbon capture supporter backed by major AI money who declined to run when the race looked difficult.

South Dakota presents the next major red-state test.

Sen. Mike Rounds represents everything MAGA claims to hate on social, fiscal, and national security policy. Yet Trump endorsed him last year, clearing the field and guaranteeing no serious opposition. This has become a familiar pattern. A Trump endorsement effectively cancels the primary.

The biggest prize in South Dakota is the governor’s race. After MAGA Inc. promoted Kristi Noem as a conservative champion, many of us warned she was a capricious establishment Republican. Her lieutenant governor, Larry Rhoden, took over the term and now seeks a full one. Rep. Dusty Johnson, former leader of the RINO Main Street Partnership, is also running. So is wealthy businessman Toby Doeden, who claims the MAGA label while pushing data centers.

Speaker Jon Hansen is the only conservative in the race. He led the fight against carbon capture land grabs, helped build a conservative majority in the state House, and fought the abortion amendment, marijuana amendment, and COVID tyranny in South Dakota. Now, he is fighting data centers.

A Trump endorsement would likely win the race for Hansen. Instead, conservatives have to worry that Trump might intervene on the wrong side if the race heads to a runoff.

Anyone who thought Trump’s late endorsement against Cornyn signaled a strategic turning point should look at South Carolina. Trump recently reaffirmed his endorsement of Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of the June 9 primary against Matt Lynch and several other candidates.

Trump’s endorsements of Graham in 2020 and again now have driven off stronger challengers. That is clearly why, barring a miracle, one of the most obnoxious Republicans in the Senate will probably remain there until he dies.

Even when conservatives cannot defeat incumbent RINOs, they should at least ensure that open seats produce better Republicans. Montana shows how hard the establishment works to prevent that.

Trump and the RINO establishment that runs the Montana GOP helped execute a sleazy scheme around Sen. Steve Daines’ retirement. Daines announced his retirement on the filing deadline while the establishment had U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme lined up to walk into the seat without a primary. The goal was obvious: avoid a competitive race from a member of the Montana Freedom Caucus.

Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Gianforte, another RINO Trump ally, is at war with the state Freedom Caucus and is spending heavily to defeat conservative incumbents in the legislature next Tuesday.

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This pattern keeps repeating. Trump elevates, preserves, and empowers statewide GOP leaders who hate conservatives. Those leaders then turn their guns on freedom caucus members in their own legislatures.

Idaho proved the point last week. Trump’s endorsement of Gov. Brad Little for a third term helped keep him in power. Little then spent hundreds of thousands of dollars helping defeat five conservatives in the legislature.

North Dakota shows the same dynamic. Trump cleared the field for governor two years ago and helped install Rep. Kelly Armstrong, one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress. Armstrong is not up for re-election this year, so he is using his money and clout to target the few conservatives in a legislature with almost no official Democrats but plenty of undocumented ones.

Trump has generally stayed out of state legislative races. But his long shadow of RINO endorsements now creates a greater headwind against conservative candidates than ever before.

And don’t even get me started on Trump’s endorsement of Byron Donalds in Florida to replace the greatest governor of this generation.

The Paxton endorsement and Cornyn’s defeat should have marked a turning point in Trump’s political strategy. Instead, they look like the high point of the cycle.

From here, conservatives have every reason to worry that Trump will return to his old habit: rewarding the swamp, clearing the field for weak Republicans, and leaving the movement’s best fighters to fend for themselves.

Republicans should take the easy win and stop medical testing on animals



The federal government has spent decades funneling taxpayer dollars into animal testing programs that are increasingly cruel, scientifically obsolete, and wholly unaccountable. Almost no one in Washington has had the courage to say so until now.

In April, roughly 1,000 animal welfare activists stormed Ridglan Farms, a Wisconsin research and breeding facility that has been supplying beagles for biomedical testing. Police fired rubber bullets and pepper spray into the crowd, and the group's leader was arrested.

Why were people willing to get arrested over a dog farm? Because of what was happening inside.

Washington has the images of 2,000 beagles crammed into cages in rural Wisconsin. But the checks keep getting written.

Ridglan housed an estimated 2,000 beagles bred specifically to be sold to research laboratories. The facility had been cited for hundreds of animal welfare violations and ultimately agreed to surrender its state breeding license as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges. However, it continued supplying animals to federally funded labs.

If you're wondering why beagles are the preferred breed for animal testing, it's because of their docile nature. This means they can be tortured without fighting back as other dog breeds might. These dogs never saw a home, a yard, or a family. They lived their entire lives in cages, underwriting a research pipeline that Washington has never seriously scrutinized.

The issue finally started picking up steam last year when RFK Jr. said that reducing unnecessary animal testing would become a priority. While Kennedy has made the right noises, the lag still needs to be addressed.

The FDA announced last year that it would phase out animal testing requirements for monoclonal antibodies. The NIH shut down its last in-house beagle lab in May. In May 2025, the Navy announced it would no longer use dogs or cats in research. Those are serious wins, but the fight is far from over.

White Coat Waste launched a national ad campaign this April calling out Secretary Kennedy directly, documenting how NIH has renewed funding for deadly tests on dogs, cats, and primates. This NIH funding was first approved under Dr. Anthony Fauci and doled out millions more to those same projects. The message to Kennedy is simple: The rhetoric is there. Now show us the receipts.

A 2024 Morning Consult poll commissioned by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine found that 80% of Americans agree the federal government should commit to a plan to phase out animal experiments. Roughly 85% agreed that government funding should prioritize non-animal research methods and that animal experimentation should be phased out in favor of modern alternatives.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), backed by GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) and more than a dozen colleagues, announced his push to ban federal funding for animal experiments in the FY2027 spending bill. The push was prompted by revelations that NIH awarded $584,117 to UC San Diego in FY2026 alone to continue experiments on mice. These taxpayer dollars are being used to surgically mimic transgender humans, subjecting nearly 10,000 animals to invasive surgeries, hormone injections, and skull drilling.

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Just last week, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Nick Langworthy (R-N.Y.) led 34 House members in sending a letter to Secretary Kennedy urging him to close the loophole that allows facilities like Ridglan to receive federal contracts after losing their state licenses for documented welfare violations, simply because they hold a USDA Class A license.

Recent studies have confirmed that the majority of drugs that work on animals ultimately fail in humans, driving up research costs while producing unnecessary animal suffering. AI-driven modeling, organoids, and human cell-based testing are not futuristic concepts. They are available, cheaper, and more accurate.

HHS has acknowledged this fact, with both the FDA and NIH releasing updated guidelines this spring advocating for phasing out live animal models in favor of alternative technologies. The bureaucracy is just moving too slowly to match its own stated goals.

Washington has the data. Washington has the images of 2,000 beagles crammed into cages in rural Wisconsin. But the checks keep getting written.

These programs do not reflect our values, they do not produce real results, and they do not deserve another dime of taxpayer money.

Now, do I think every politician rushing to take a stand on this issue is doing so out of the goodness of their heart? Absolutely not, but here's the thing: I don't care. If political self-interest is what finally gets Washington to stop funding the torture of beagles, then so be it. Use the issue. Grab the headline.

At the end of the day, if the outcome is that fewer animals suffer, fewer taxpayer dollars are wasted, and a broken system gets reformed, then the motivation behind it doesn't matter one bit to the dogs still sitting in cages waiting for someone to act.

Republicans, take an easy win and keep the animal lovers in your corner. Get it done.

The real AI danger is not godless machines but godless men



Pope Leo has entered the artificial intelligence debate with his encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas.” He underscored the need for spiritual guidance by inviting Christopher Olah, co-founder of the AI giant Anthropic, to comment.

“I lead a research team that studies the internal structure of these [AI] models,” Olah said. “What is actually happening inside them? And I will be honest, we keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find evidence of introspection. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, and unease. I don’t know what that means, but I think it warrants ongoing discernment.”

Technology does not arrive morally neutral once human beings begin using it. It magnifies the character of those who possess it.

That is a remarkable admission. Which raises the question: Is this freedom, or is this Frankenstein?

For my part, I hope the pope handles this better than some of his other recent efforts. But that does not mean he lacks a legitimate reason for concern. Quite the opposite.

The problem is not that AI is godless. AI is an object. It can only be godless. It is a tool.

The problem is that many of the people building and directing it are godless. A biblical worldview provides something vital in this universe: a limiting principle.

The two most important truths any person can learn are these: God is God, and I am not. And Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Without those truths, the Anthropic researcher’s warning could just as easily come from a surgeon who has performed years of so-called gender reassignment surgeries: We began tinkering with the most innate, intimate parts of the human person, and we discovered things we did not anticipate.

You don’t say.

Yeah, dummy. When human beings experiment on the deepest realities of personhood without the right limiting principles, chaos follows. It does not follow accidentally. It follows inevitably.

Someone will always rule. Something will always be worshiped. Never forget that.

If you reject the principle that God is God and I am not, guess who usually ends up playing God? You.

That never ends well.

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We have never really left the garden. As a species, we are always in one of two places: the garden or the cross. We are either grasping for forbidden knowledge so we can become like God, or we are kneeling before the God who became man to save us from ourselves.

Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest minds in the history of science, understood this. Yet one of his great obsessions was interpreting Scripture, especially the book of Revelation. Whatever his errors, Newton grasped something modern technocrats often miss: Brilliance needs a boundary.

This world was made for us, but it was not made by us. Our Father has the right to keep some things to Himself. His children do not need to master every mystery. Sometimes, we need to obey because we trust His love and justice.

Will we remember that as AI advances?

Who will oversee the overseers? Who will program the programmers? Who will form the moral imagination of the people training these machines? By what standard will they judge what should be built, what should be restrained, and what should never be attempted?

Can we wield artificial intelligence as a godly people?

Maybe. AI offers real possibilities. But possibility is not permission. A nuclear weapon in the hands of a responsible nation differs from a nuclear weapon in the hands of genocidal maniacs. Technology does not arrive morally neutral once human beings begin using it. It magnifies the character of those who possess it.

That is the question before us.

Will we pursue AI as image-bearers under God, bound by humility, gratitude, and restraint? Or will we pursue it as consumer-driven pod people, trained to believe that whatever can be done must be done?

If we choose the first path, AI may become a tool ordered toward human flourishing.

If we choose the second, the pope’s concerns will become unavoidable, whatever else one thinks of him.

College towns bred the next plague on rural America: The fail-lib



Traditionally, one advantage of living in rural America was the ability to escape insufferable leftists. The trade-offs were obvious: fewer jobs, fewer restaurants, less entertainment, and fewer institutions built for upward mobility. But distance from liberal cultural centers meant the average community could preserve a sane, conservative, patriotic outlook — the kind of place where normal people could still breathe without asking permission from their urban cultural commissars.

That escape has narrowed. As media and universities became more radical, their disciples moved into rural America through government-mandated institutions like schools and libraries. Progressivism became harder to avoid no matter how far someone moved from the city. Thus the hicklib was born.

The fail-lib was promised luxury and elite influence. Now she serves people she despises while searching for any opportunity to make their lives worse.

The hicklib is usually a social outcast, a failson who needs a moral explanation for why he hates the community he never fit into. His resentment searches for a theory that will dignify his rage, and the progressive missionaries installed in local institutions are happy to provide one.

Teachers tell the hicklib his country is evil. His family and neighbors are racist, sexist, backward religious fanatics destroying the lives of minorities who do not even live in town. The white Christian culture that dominates rural America is primitive and responsible for the evils of the world. The hicklib’s failure to fit in becomes proof of moral superiority.

So the hicklib shows up at town council meetings in a Black Lives Matter shirt to denounce minority oppression in a community with no actual black people. That absence, naturally, becomes further proof of the town’s intolerance. He loudly organizes Pride events attended by two other hicklibs. The clique stages protests, distributes flyers, and imitates urban activist rituals.

By practicing the sacraments of their faith, they hope to summon the spirit of the age to judge their reactionary little town.

The hicklib has become one of rural America’s petty plagues. But as the value of college degrees collapses, a new breed is emerging: the fail-lib.

The fail-lib worked hard in high school and gave progressive teachers every approved answer. She wrote her college entrance essay on the oppression of transwomen of color in coal mining. On campus, she became an activist. She secured a degree in some woke humanities discipline and earned straight A’s by repeating everything her communist professors told her.

The path to success was laid out before the fail-lib was born. She followed it perfectly. All that remained was the cushy corporate HR job and her rightful place making ordinary people miserable.

Then the plan failed.

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The college degree that cost $100,000 was supposed to guarantee success. The debt would be worth it because the credential would deliver a salary large enough for an apartment, a car, and monthly student loan payments. But the degree was not merely about financial security. It was also a symbol of status. College graduates were supposed to rule over the simple plebs who never left home.

The degree would confer wealth, power, and privilege. Instead, it turned out that too many people held degrees and too few jobs required them. Corporations began cutting HR departments that wasted resources and reduced productivity. Poor oppressed immigrant workers somehow found work while the fail-lib remained unemployed, though a good progressive would never complain. She could never explain how, but she knew the white Christian patriarchy was responsible for this injustice.

Earlier generations of college students had an insult for the ordinary residents of college towns: townies. The townie was contemptible because he was not merely passing through before collecting a credential and moving on to rule the world. He belonged to the place the student planned to use and abandon.

The arrogance required to insult the permanent residents of a community while you are a temporary visitor is staggering, but the slur was common. It revealed the sneering condescension of the would-be liberal elite. Now the tables have turned.

The college degree was once a ticket to the top. Now it is an expensive lottery ticket with worsening odds. More graduates emerge from extended stays in higher education with mountains of debt and few prospects.

The fail-lib spends a year unemployed, desperately seeking even the entry-level positions her fancy degree was supposed to let her bypass. After burning through savings and taking on more debt, she accepts a management job at the local Starbucks or retail outlet. If she gets lucky, she might run the local Apple Store.

The hicklib may be insufferable, but the fail-lib is worse. She was destined to leave the college town behind and move to a big liberal city like New York. She was supposed to be the person ordering lattes and $30 burrito bowls for important work lunches, not the person making them. Once, she mocked the parochial townies trapped in their backward existence. Now she is stuck among them with no escape.

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The fail-lib is not merely trapped in the backwater town. She is poor and low-status. A management job at Target might provide a decent life in a small town where prices remain low, but the fail-lib has a mountain of student debt she can never repay on a retail wage.

Plumbers, cops, firefighters, and mechanics all seem to make more money and enjoy more status in the community. The fail-lib was promised luxury and elite influence. Now she serves people she despises while searching for any opportunity to make their lives worse.

Artificial intelligence will intensify the problem. The bureaucratic make-work jobs progressive college graduates once dominated are among the easiest to automate, consolidate, or eliminate. The bitter entitlement of a psychology major with $100,000 in debt helping you find the cereal aisle will become more common.

The fail-lib may make less money than you. She may be less respected than you. She may even be despised by the townies she once mocked. But in her heart, she knows she is superior.

Nothing could convince her otherwise.

And she will spit in your burrito just to remind you who was supposed to be in charge.