The Ticketmaster scam Trump vows to crush



If you’ve ever tried to buy tickets to a major concert or sporting event, you know the scam. You spend hours in a “virtual queue,” only to watch tickets vanish in seconds. Scalpers and bots scoop up thousands, then flip them for double or triple the price. Fans refresh their browsers over and over, while Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, pocket the profits.

It’s a racket, and for decades the people who keep live entertainment alive — ordinary fans — have paid the price.

Fans don’t want excuses. They want a system that works for them, not one designed to funnel cash into a corporate machine while leaving families priced out.

That’s why President Trump plans to unveil a ticket reform package this month. His proposal promises to take on the corporate monopoly that dominates the industry and restore fairness to fans.

The problem is straightforward: Live Nation and Ticketmaster control roughly 70% of the ticketing and live events business — and about 80% of the primary ticketing market. According to the Justice Department, that dominance has allowed the conglomerate to dictate what fans can buy, what they must pay, and who gets access at all.

As Trump FTC Commissioner Mark Meador explained last year, “Live Nation Ticketmaster created a dominant conglomerate with an unprecedented amount of control over the live ticketing market, resulting in monopoly power it has used to entrench its position in the marketplace.”

Fans lose twice under this scheme. They pay outrageous fees when Ticketmaster sells the tickets the first time. Then they pay again when scalpers resell them — because Ticketmaster takes another cut.

Trump’s plan should target the obvious abuses by cracking down on bots that grab tickets before real people even have a chance, establishing distribution systems that treat fans fairly, and encouraging competition in a market currently controlled by one corporate behemoth.

Those reforms would finally level the playing field. But Live Nation-Ticketmaster has other ideas. The company now wants government-imposed price caps on resale tickets — a move that sounds like “reform” but would entrench its monopoly even further.

RELATED: It’s time to join the fight and expose Ticketmaster

Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images

Former Trump Justice Department official Brian Pandya warned that such price controls would bankrupt Ticketmaster’s smaller rivals, eliminating competition altogether. Meanwhile, the $38 billion conglomerate could take the hit, since it also profits from artist management, promotion, and the 400-plus venues it controls nationwide. Price caps would squeeze everyone else out while leaving the monopoly stronger than ever.

The better path is obvious: Open up the marketplace. Strengthen enforcement against ticket bots. Redirect regulations to protect fans, not corporations. And if necessary, break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly entirely.

Fans don’t want excuses. They want a system that works for them, not one designed to funnel cash into a corporate machine while leaving families priced out of concerts, plays, and ball games.

Trump’s plan could finally deliver that. For once, fans might win — and the monopoly might lose.

Buc-ee’s gets rich by doing everything Wall Street hates



Buc-ee’s may be technically categorized as a “convenience store,” but for millions of Americans, it’s more like a roadside pilgrimage. No matter how big its new stores are, they remain packed. The chain has a fanatically loyal customer base, and it has become a destination for those not fortunate enough to have a Buc-ee's nearby.

What’s the draw? Buc-ee's has enormous restrooms that are immaculately clean, cheap gas with often more than 100 pumps, a kitschy-fun shopping experience, and exceptional food — including Texas barbecue and an in-house bakery. In addition, it’s heavily staffed with low-turnover, career employees.

I shudder to think of the destruction that would be brought upon the Buc-ee's business model if private equity decided to “fix” its operations.

Buc-ee's is thriving by rejecting numerous destructive “best practices” currently embraced by corporate America and private equity.

Fortunately for Buc-ee's, it’s still privately owned by its founders, Arch Aplin and Don Wasek, whose business acumen came from running convenience stores and working directly with customers and employees. They weren’t poisoned by an elite business school education, where modern executives learn that customers are prey and employees are a pestilence whose compensation reduces executive bonuses.

The winning formula

The magic formula to Buc-ee's success is built on a very simple foundation: clean restrooms and cheap gas. It first developed its cult following in Texas by being a place you could always count on for a clean restroom while driving the interstates. Good candies, food, and pastries then added to the appeal.

Nowadays, the same foundation is in place: clean restrooms and cheap gas. But once a customer walks inside to use the restroom, a wonderland of food and products awaits. The food and merchandise are not necessarily cheap, but they’re high-quality, and many customers enjoy making those purchases as part of their Buc-ee's experience. But it’s still possible to visit Buc-ee's for gas and a potty stop without paying a premium.

Standing up to Wall Street

By contrast, Las Vegas tourism is down dramatically — in no small part because of the city's outrageous pricing. The old Vegas model of cheap buffets and affordable rooms to get people into the casinos was not unlike Buc-ee's lure of clean restrooms and cheap gas. But the Wall Street wizards now in control of Vegas have ditched the old model in favor of revenue-mining every possible moment of a visitor’s stay.

As Jeffrey Turner explained on his Substack, “The MBAs and data-crunchers at the corporate casino have installed Disneyland pricing into their models.”

Buc-ee's still understands the power of the previous business model that Las Vegas abandoned: Provide a high-quality “loss leader” — or two — to get the customers in the door, and then provide high-margin products that entice them to open their wallets.

For those who work at Buc-ee's, it’s more than a job — it’s a career. Buc-ee's doesn’t consider its staff to be “unskilled” labor who deserve near-minimum wages. Their excellent compensation results in lower turnover and better customer service. The food at Buc-ee's might be a little more expensive than at a nearby fast-food joint, but it’s of much higher quality and served by professional staff — things customers will gladly pay a premium for.

As I discussed in a recent column, revenue mining has become an all-too-common corporate business strategy these days, especially in private equity. Revenue mining exploits customers while slashing costs to the bone, shipping jobs oversees, firing veteran employees who know the business best, wrecking customer service, downgrading quality, and killing innovation. That pernicious strategy may briefly produce record short-term profits, but it also destroys customer loyalty and brand value.

I shudder to think of the destruction that would be brought upon the Buc-ee's business model if private equity decided to “fix” its operations.

RELATED: Fear the beaver: How a gas station became a cult (and why you should consider joining)

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The famous Buc-ee's restrooms by themselves produce no revenue, and they occupy significant square footage. Its full-time staffers make about $40,000 annually simply to keep these restrooms clean. In other words, the restrooms are a loss leader, drawing customers in but producing no revenue. That’s anathema to private equity.

Private equity would slash the restroom maintenance, eliminate or outsource the cleaning crews, and decrease their square footage. Or maybe they’d try to charge admission to the restrooms. But they would undoubtedly kill the golden goose — the restrooms — and thus lose the golden egg that gets customers to the checkout registers.

A job sign outside a Buc-ee's in Alabama recently showed that several manager positions within a Buc-ee's pay in excess of $100,000 per year, and the store’s general manager can earn more than $200,000 per year. Wall Street or private equity would waste no time in slashing Buc-ee's employee head count and compensation, assuming it would increase the bottom line. But it wouldn’t; it would simply destroy the staffing that makes Buc-ee's success possible.

RELATED: Corporate America is eating its seed corn — and our future

Photo by Tim Grist Photography via Getty Images

Private equity would also be aghast at the “lost revenue” from offering below-market gas prices. Estimates are that Buc-ee's sells about 400,000 gallons of gas per day. Just charging 5 cents more per gallon would bring in an additional $7 million annually, all things being equal.

But all things aren’t equal.

A success story worth copying

Buc-ee's sells such a high volume of gas because its prices are lower. Buc-ee's understands that a lower gross profit per gallon with higher volume produces more gross profit than lower volume at a higher price. But more importantly, those swarms of cars fueling up on inexpensive gas are full of people who stroll inside and purchase high-margin discretionary products. It’s a simple concept that is alien to rapacious financial wizards, but one that’s well understood by retailers on the ground.

Buc-ee's success is a refutation of prevailing business wisdom. May it serve as an example to the next generation of business leaders on the importance of developing a loyal customer base with abundant staff, career wages, great customer service, high-quality products, and an enjoyable customer experience.

Corporate America is eating its seed corn — and our future



“Don’t eat your seed corn.” Every farmer gets it. Every American with common sense gets it. The only people who don’t? The people who run corporate America.

A farmer keeps part of this year’s crop for planting next year. He could sell it now and pocket more cash — but then there’s nothing to plant, nothing to harvest, nothing to live on later. That’s obvious to anyone who works the land.

Capitalism creates wealth. But when wealth is extracted at the expense of the product, the people, and the future — that’s not capitalism. That’s predatory ransacking.

But in today’s boardrooms, the rule is reversed. Short-term profit is all that matters. Strip the future bare, cash out, and leave the mess for someone else to clean up.

The rewards for this corporate vandalism are massive: fat bonuses, stock windfalls, golden parachutes. The damage — lost jobs, gutted industries, shoddy products — is someone else’s problem.

And the fastest way to pull it off? Slash costs to the bone. Ship jobs overseas. Push out the people who know the business best. Wreck customer service. Kill innovation. Downgrade quality until the product barely passes as the same thing you used to make.

Private equity and corporate strategists have a new trick for squeezing customers dry: “revenue mining.” That means cross-selling, upselling, jacking up prices, and hiding the real costs in creative contracts.

At first, it works. Existing customers tend to stick around — inertia keeps them from bolting right away. But each gimmick drives off a slice of loyal business. Combine that with lower service quality and cheaper products, and the exodus accelerates. Before long, the company is stuck with an overpriced product, lousy service, and no easy way to attract new customers.

I’ve watched this play out in my own life. My exterminator. My alarm company. My HVAC service. All wrecked by the same formula. The local phone number? Redirected to a call center overseas — if I can navigate the phone tree. The people I used to know? Gone. The contract? Suddenly much more expensive.

The service I get for my trouble? Less than before. And when the tech finally arrives, all he says is, “Things are much different now.” They might wring one more payment out of me, but I’m already shopping for a local outfit that treats me like a customer instead of prey.

In short, they ate their seed corn. They got one fat harvest out of me, then pushed me straight into the arms of their competition — for good.

At least my dentist is still a one-man shop who owns his own business. But even dentistry is under siege. Private equity-backed dental chains are giving dentistry a bad name, pushing unnecessary procedures just to meet revenue targets.

A USA Today investigation titled “Dentists under pressure to drill ‘healthy teeth’ for profit” uncovered one such example:

Dental Express was part of North American Dental Group, a chain backed by private-equity investors. At least a year earlier, the company had told dentists like Griesmer to meet aggressive revenue targets or risk being kicked out of the chain. Those targets ratcheted up pressure to find problems that might not even exist.

In my professional career, I have seen too many examples of the same pattern: private equity buying and destroying great businesses that had loyal customer bases. To be fair, I have also seen examples of private equity groups buying a business, embracing its product, and continuing to provide good service. I wish it weren’t the exception, though.

More often, private equity groups treat the acquisition as a mine: extract the capital through dividends and existing customers while accruing significant debt. In fact, the funds used to purchase the business are often borrowed and never even repaid.

Dig until empty, leave a crater, and move on.

An X user put it perfectly:

Some private equity is genuinely investing in the business to grow a solid business. This is good, full stop.

Some private equity buys up dying businesses, breaks them up, sells off the valuable bits and sometimes lets the worthless bits go through bankruptcy, taking advantage of bankruptcy laws to profit. This is good, actually, as it recycles the resources of dying businesses into good businesses.

The third type of private equity buys good businesses that are doing OK or even doing well. Then they sell off all the assets, load the company up on as much debt as they can, pay themselves giant dividends, and then take advantage of the same bankruptcy laws to discharge all the debt so they never have to pay it back. This is really bad.

This isn’t just happening to small companies. It’s hitting America’s industrial backbone.

I’ve written before about how Carlos Tavares, the former CEO of Stellantis (corporate parent of Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep), awarded himself a $39 million compensation package for making short-term decisions that briefly maximized profit before revenue and sales collapsed, leaving dealers with overpriced, outdated inventory. He made off with the profits, then left behind a hollow pipeline for the dealers truly committed to Stellantis.

RELATED: Private equity’s losing streak is coming for your 401(k)

Greenseas via iStock/Getty Images

I also covered Boeing’s disastrous $43 billion stock buyback binge. The short-term boost to its share price came at the expense of critical investment in its products — and has cost the aerospace giant $35 billion since 2019. To plug the hole, Boeing had to raise another $15 billion in capital and push back the already overdue launch of the 777, citing “negligent engineering.”

That phrase used to be unthinkable in the aerospace industry. Boeing made it possible by gutting its engineering and technical staff to feed Wall Street.

The consequences keep coming. This month, United Airlines grounded much of its fleet after a failure in its proprietary “Unimatic” flight system. The airline claims it doesn’t know what caused the failure.

But I have a strong suspicion.

In recent years, United has aggressively outsourced its technical operations to contractors using foreign labor — often H-1B visa workers — at lower cost. One subcontractor, Vista Applied Solutions Group, boasts that it helps clients “increase productivity” while achieving “considerable cost savings.”

That’s great — until the system fails and planes can’t fly. United may have saved on salaries. The short-term reduction in salary expense has eaten United’s seed corn, leaving the company with a technology system that can’t keep its planes in the air.

It is imperative for those of us who defend capitalism to also repudiate those engaged in practices that give it a bad name. Capitalism creates wealth. But when wealth is extracted at the expense of the product, the people, and the future — that’s not capitalism. That’s predatory ransacking.

And it deserves our scorn.

Read it and weep: Tariffs work, and the numbers prove it



Just about every influencer, economist, and politician predicted President Trump’s tariffs would unleash an inflation tsunami. Prices would spike and consumers would drown in a rising tide of costs.

Yet here we are, deep into summer, enjoying beach days and backyard barbecues. The price of lawn chairs and beach balls remains well within reach. So where’s the inflation?

Is it worth surrendering political and economic independence just to shave a few cents off the price of some Chinese-made junk?

According to the latest government data, inflation hasn’t surged. In fact, it’s lower than it was this time last year. The experts missed again. Why?

The short answer: Tariffs don’t necessarily drive inflation.

The Walmart effect writ large

Think about how Walmart keeps its prices low. It’s the biggest store in town, so it sets the terms. Producers either cut their costs or lose shelf space. Everyone wants access to Walmart customers, so they play along — and prices fall.

Now scale that logic up. America is the biggest consumer market in the world. In 2024, Americans spent more than $19 trillion on consumer goods, including over $4 trillion on imports.

This gives us leverage. When America slaps tariffs on foreign goods, those producers face a choice: Eat the cost or risk losing access to our market. And they know they’ll get outcompeted if they try to pass the full cost on to American buyers.

That’s exactly what’s happening. Recent surveys show about two-thirds of manufacturers expect their foreign suppliers to eat the tariff costs instead of raising prices on U.S. consumers.

Dodge the tax: Buy American

Here’s the other thing the panic-peddlers don’t say: Tariffs are avoidable. They’re a tax on imports. Buy American, and you don’t pay.

And while $4 trillion in imports sounds massive, it only accounts for about 13% of the U.S. economy. That’s not nothing, of course, but it hardly amounts to the kind of widespread pressure needed to trigger across-the-board inflation.

RELATED: Trump’s latest tariff could tank the very industries he wants to protect

Photo by Andrej Ivanov / Contributor via Getty Images

Instead, tariffs apply pressure in the right places. They force foreign competitors to compete with American producers or lose market share. That creates new opportunities for domestic manufacturers — and when they scale up, costs per unit drop. It’s basic economics — and it just happens to be a win for sovereignty.

Want lower prices? Close the trade gap

The media talk about consumer prices like they’re the only prices that matter. But they ignore the other kind of inflation — the kind tariffs can help tame.

Every year, we import more than we export. That trade deficit doesn’t just disappear. We pay for it by selling off our assets and racking up debt. Foreigners now hold trillions in American real estate, farmland, and commercial property.

In 2024 alone, foreigners bought $42 billion in residential real estate, $8 billion in farmland, and $12 billion in commercial properties. That drives up housing costs and shuts American families out of the market.

Then there’s the debt. Foreign entities hold more than $8.6 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities. We owe them interest. Every year, we ship more than $150 billion abroad just to service that debt. We’re borrowing money from our rivals to buy their products. That’s suicidally stupid.

Cheap isn’t the goal

Even if tariffs raised prices slightly — which the data says they haven’t — so what? Cheap isn’t the mission. National survival is.

That’s the argument I make in my book, “Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home and Revive the American Dream.” America isn’t just an economy. It’s a nation — a people, a language, a culture, a way of life.

We can’t offshore everything and expect to remain free. Tariffs are essential to keep our economy self-sufficient. They secure our borders, protect our workers, and defend our future.

Ask yourself: Is it worth surrendering political and economic independence just to shave a few cents off the price of some Chinese-made junk?

I didn’t think so.

Neocons are back — and they’re botching Trump’s Latin America policy



A quiet but dangerous conflict is brewing within President Trump’s foreign policy team — a battle between the true red America First voices who made his first term successful and the same old neoconservative ideologues who have derailed U.S. diplomacy for decades.

Heightened by the bombing of Iran, this clash made headlines again earlier this month. This time, it was over botched negotiations over the return of Americans currently held by the socialist Venezuelan government.

Marco Rubio’s hatred of Latin American socialism is clear, but that shouldn’t come at a strategic cost to our country.

Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell, a realist to his core, was on the verge of brokering a deal that would have secured the release of imprisoned Americans in exchange for Chevron’s continued operations in Venezuela. It was classic Trump diplomacy: bold, transactional, results-oriented.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio intervened. The State Department made a much less attractive and watered-down proposal to repatriate 250 Venezuelan aliens in exchange for the American prisoners. The interests of the U.S. oil industry were completely ignored.

Wires were crossed, and the talks collapsed.

Two critical lessons

Two lessons are evident: The first and most obvious is that Grenell is responsible for talks with Venezuela and that he is the only U.S. figure Venezuela trusts — a point that shouldn’t be undermined.

The second is that Trump’s transactional diplomacy, represented by Grenell, works — when it’s allowed to. We’ve seen this with Steve Witkoff’s trips to the Middle East and the president’s own handling of NATO.

The Venezuelan government wants to negotiate with Grenell and Grenell alone — and for good reason. He speaks the language of leverage, not lectures. As special envoy, he has built a diplomatic channel that has delivered in the past. In January, for example, Grenell secured the release of six Americans, a great achievement.

RELATED: Biden did that? No, it’s Marco Rubio making gas prices skyrocket this time

Photo by PEDRO MATTEY/AFP via Getty Images

In contrast, Venezuela all but refuses to communicate with Rubio. They see him as persona non grata. His methods, based on intervention and blunt force, are bound to fail.

This is particularly true now that we live in a world where U.S. dominance is not guaranteed. And as the United States has isolated Venezuela, the Latin American nation has been pushed deeper into Beijing’s orbit.

Oil exports to China, for example, have surged since Chevron’s license to operate was canceled in May. In turn, Venezuelan exports to the U.S. and its capitalist allies have cratered.

The strategic cost

Rubio’s hatred of Latin American socialism is clear, but that shouldn’t come at a strategic cost to our country. This isn’t a diplomatic blunder. It’s a threat to U.S. energy security and a betrayal of Trump’s promise to bring down prices at the pump.

We want Venezuelan oil and gas to head to the U.S. Gulf Coast, not Beijing. We need to protect the Monroe Doctrine, which says that no outside power should have a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

The importance of energy security cannot be overstated. For an administration elected in large part on its promise to cut gas prices, it is a big mistake to turn our backs on Venezuela’s hydrocarbon reserves, the largest on earth.

Doing so increases American dependence on Canadian oil — not a smart move as we fight a trade war with Prime Minister Mark Carney — and on suppliers in a volatile Middle East, where Iran still looms large.

This is not to mention that the policy of isolation is damaging to Chevron, a champion of the American oil industry.

Under its former special license, Chevron was pumping out nearly a quarter of a million barrels of oil per day. This went straight to thirsty refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast, which depend on Venezuela’s unique heavy crude oil. That lifeline has been cut, and it’s American consumers who will pay the price.

Grenell understood this and so wrapped Chevron’s status into his negotiations, a deal that put American interests first. Rubio, on the other hand, prioritized an ideological pursuit of regime change over American energy security.

President Trump should intervene.

He praised Grenell’s successful negotiations in January and should make clear that Venezuela policy is not for Rubio to decide. The goal is clear: Bring our citizens home, restart Chevron’s work, and reassert U.S. influence in our own hemisphere.

Renew Grenell’s leverage

Grenell, with renewed powers, should return the United States to a policy of strategic engagement. That’s what America First really looks like. That’s the approach to foreign policy promised to us in 2024. That’s the MAGA way.

It’s time to put the neocons back in the box and go back to the bold, pragmatic diplomacy that made Trump’s first term — and will make his second — a victory for everyday Americans and a triumphant return to common sense.

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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For The First Time In Four Years, Americans Aren’t Paying More For Their July 4 Cookouts

This year’s total cookout cost is down 30 cents from the record high $71.22 bill calculated in 2024 under Biden.

No, The Federal Reserve Shouldn’t Monetize The National Debt Again

Lawmakers of all parties keep thinking that some magic bullet will solve all of the country’s fiscal problems. It won’t.

Panic first, analyze never: Media flubs Trump’s economy



On April 2 — Liberation Day — Donald Trump did exactly what he had promised for over a year: He imposed a slate of reciprocal and punitive tariffs on America’s trading partners.

The left and corporate left-wing media erupted in predictable fashion, and the stock market plummeted. Before a single tariff was announced, doomsayers in the press predicted economic collapse. CNN warned the economy was “flashing yellow lights,” and the BBC claimed Trump’s move risked “economic turbulence — and voter backlash.” A former Biden economic adviser forecast disaster.

Confidence among working Americans remains high. And that confidence will continue driving this economy forward.

When first-quarter GDP numbers showed a 0.3% contraction, the media pounced. They blamed the tariffs — despite the fact that none had taken effect by March 31, the end of the quarter.

While liberal economists celebrated the downturn and declared a recession imminent, they failed to look at the numbers. A closer analysis shows the economy remains fundamentally strong.

The GDP dip came primarily from a 5.1% drop in federal government spending. In other words, a major cause of the decline was the one thing fiscal conservatives have long demanded: smaller government. Isn’t reducing government spending, or at least the growth of government spending, a good thing?

Meanwhile, the rest of the economy showed strength. A Harvard University/HarrisX poll released Monday found that 51% of registered voters believe the economy is "strong" for the first time in four years.

The numbers back up their belief. Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 177,000 in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%. The household survey — used to calculate the jobless rate — showed an even larger gain, with 436,000 more Americans reporting that they held jobs. All told, the economy added 556,000 jobs in the first three months of Trump’s second term.

That growth comes despite the Department of Government Efficiency cutting more than 120,000 federal jobs. Private-sector employment continues to expand even as Washington shrinks — a trend critics said was impossible.

RELATED: Debt spiral looms as Trump tests tariffs to tame rates

NiseriN via iStock/Getty Images

What about inflation? Didn’t the media insist tariffs would bring back the dreaded 1970s stagflation?

Instead, the Consumer Price Index in April came in at 2.3% — the lowest level since February 2021, just before “Bidenflation” took off. The drop came as prices fell for food, gas, used vehicles, and clothing.

Grocery prices alone dropped 0.4%, the sharpest decline since late 2020. Egg prices plummeted 12.7%, their biggest single-month fall since the Reagan era. In other words, the items working families care about — food, fuel, and clothing — are more affordable now than under Biden.

Meanwhile, Trump’s trade strategy is forcing results.

The United Kingdom quickly reached a trade deal. Other countries have accepted temporary “tariff holidays” in exchange for coming to the negotiating table. China and the United States agreed to a “tariff truce.” Canada slashed its U.S. tariff rate to nearly zero. According to Bloomberg, U.S. exports and manufacturing should surge in coming quarters.

Since Trump’s return to office in January, his critics have eagerly predicted economic doom. They cheered “transitory” inflation. They hyped “Bidenomics.” They got both wrong.

They’re wrong again.

Confidence among working Americans remains high. And that confidence will continue driving this economy forward — tariffs, tantrums, and all.

America First antitrust isn’t ‘socialism’ — it’s self-defense



In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Robert Bork Jr. attacked Gail Slater, President Trump’s new assistant attorney general for antitrust.

I remember watching with sadness and dismay in 1987 as Mr. Bork’s father, the late Judge Robert Bork, endured a malicious and unfair confirmation process that ended with the Senate rejecting his nomination to the Supreme Court. Now, to my regret, his son has “borked” Slater in much the same way.

The heart of Trump’s America First antitrust agenda: Protect markets before they grow too big to regulate. Break up monopolies so Washington doesn’t have to control them.

Rather than engaging with Slater’s actual record, Bork resorted to baseless claims. He suggested her antitrust philosophy boils down to a simplistic belief that “big is bad, little is good.” That isn’t her philosophy, she’s never said that, and it’s dishonest to imply otherwise.

The Trump administration’s antitrust team isn’t capitulating to monopolies. It’s doing the opposite — charting a course that breaks from the status quo of the last four years of Joe Biden and eight years under President Obama.

Monopolies rightly understood

Bork claims that Gail Slater and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson “discarded the consumer welfare standard,” the long-standing antitrust principle that limits government action to cases where consumers suffer harm. But Bork sets up a straw man. Slater never said anything of the sort — not in her speech, not even by implication.

In fact, Slater made her position clear: She supports “respecting the original public meaning of the statutory text and the binding nature of Supreme Court and other relevant precedent.” That’s not a rejection of the consumer welfare standard.

Bork also misrepresented Slater’s concern over monopolistic control by tech platforms. He mocked her for saying these companies “control not just the prices of their services, but the flow of our nation’s commerce and communication.” Bork scoffed: “What prices? Facebook, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn, and YouTube don’t charge consumers a penny.”

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Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Image

Slater might have spelled out more clearly how these platforms profit through exploitative practices and suppress conservative voices through debanking, shadow-banning, and viewpoint discrimination. But her time was limited. Bork’s refusal to acknowledge the damage done to conservatives by monopolies that dominate the flow of information is not just blind — it’s disgraceful.

I, for one, applaud a Justice Department finally willing to confront monopolies not just over dollars, but over speech. Americans deserve protection whether the cost of control impinges upon their wallets or their freedom.

This isn’t Biden 2.0

Calling Slater a continuation of Biden’s antitrust policy is the coup de grâce of Bork Jr.’s “borking” campaign. The claim doesn’t hold up. From day one, Slater made clear her intention to restore objectivity and restraint to antitrust enforcement — anchored in law, not ideology. Biden’s FTC and Justice Department had weaponized antitrust, targeting deals that posed no real threat to consumers, often on laughably flimsy grounds.

Bork, in another op-ed, pointed to the Biden administration’s lawsuit against Visa over razor-thin fees as an example of legitimate enforcement. But Visa wasn’t harming consumers. The lawsuit looked more like an effort to strong-arm a private firm into acting as another weapon in the administration’s anti-conservative arsenal — just as it had done with major banks and social media platforms.

The Biden administration even blocked the merger of Spirit and JetBlue, smaller carriers that offered real competition to the Big Four airlines. The move led to bankruptcy, obviously hurting consumers. Had Democrats won last November, the Big Four likely would have been expected to repay the favor politically.

But those were Biden’s decisions — not Slater’s. She has already made clear she intends to reverse course. She’s not in office to weaponize antitrust law. Her aim is to enforce the law and uphold precedent.

In an April interview with Sohrab Ahmari, Slater didn’t mince words: “If you’re doing a merger that’s benign, we’ll just get out of the way.” In her first public address on April 21, she pledged to give economists a stronger role in enforcement and criticized regulation that “saps economic opportunity by stifling rather than promoting competition.”

That doesn’t sound like central planning. It sounds like a welcome return to sanity.

Deregulation by prevention

So why is Bork trying to paint her as Chairman Mao? Probably because Slater understands what many in D.C.’s think-tank class still miss: Big Business isn’t always Big Government’s victim. More often, they work together. Corporate giants gain dominance, then lobby for regulations that kneecap smaller competitors.

Bureaucrats play along because it’s easier to deal with one entrenched firm than a dozen fast-moving upstarts. That’s not capitalism — it’s cartel economics. And for once, a president is pushing back.

Slater has made it clear that monopolies don’t just crush competition — they endanger core American freedoms. She watched Big Tech silence dissent during the 2020 election. Her response? Use antitrust to reduce the need for government, not expand it.

That’s the heart of Trump’s America First antitrust agenda: Protect markets before they grow too big to regulate. Break up monopolies so Washington doesn’t have to control them. Call it what it is — deregulation by prevention. It’s the opposite of socialism. In truth, restoring power to the people, not the government, is exactly what the founders envisioned. Just read the 10th Amendment.

A seismic shift

FTC Commissioner Mark Meador, a Trump appointee, points out that “consumer welfare” doesn’t just mean cheap products. It also means protecting Americans from economic overlords who silence dissent, distort democracy, and punish disfavored speech. Sound familiar?

Meador rightly rejects the progressive notion that “bigness” is always bad. But he also rejects Bork-style libertarianism that shrugs at monopolies unless they raise prices. That view ignores what consumer welfare really demands — fair markets, not just cheap goods.

The 2024 election wasn’t just a political win for Trump. It marked a seismic shift in what the Republican Party stands for.

Democrats now serve Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and multinational conglomerates. Trump’s GOP champions the working American — the factory worker, the tradesman, the small business owner.

Too often, well-meaning but outdated Republicans cry “socialism” when anyone dares challenge corporate power. But they’re not defending capitalism. They’re defending a rigged system. And voters finally noticed.

Trump wasn’t sent back to Washington to coddle monopolies or rubber-stamp mergers. He was sent to drain the swamp — including the one where corporate lobbyists and bureaucrats make backroom deals to preserve their government-aided monopoly grip. If that makes the old guard nervous, they can always file a complaint — with one of their apps.