The Republican Party won’t be saved by excuses



Texas conservatives have long trusted the Republican Party to stand firm on core values: secure borders, parental rights, the Second Amendment, and limited government. We’ve delivered them power in Austin. But too many GOP lawmakers now serve corporate donors and media elites — not the grassroots conservatives who put them in office.

Texas may be a red state, but the last legislative session told a different story. Thirty-six Republican state lawmakers joined Democrats on critical votes that gutted conservative priorities. They campaign as fighters and govern as cowards — folding at the first whiff of media pressure or lobbyist resistance. That’s not leadership. That’s betrayal.

When Texas Republicans falter, they don’t just fail their state — they fail the country.

Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star generates headlines, but the border remains wide open. Despite the efforts of the Trump administration, cartels continue to move drugs and people freely across Texas soil. Ranchers continue to live in fear. Families bury loved ones lost to fentanyl. Texans demand action, but Austin delivers press releases.

Yes, regardless of the federal government’s efforts — and the Trump administration is certainly a refreshing change from Joe Biden —Texas has the constitutional authority to act. Where’s the declaration of invasion? Where’s the full mobilization? Leadership doesn’t mean deploying troops for photo ops. It means taking responsibility and enforcing the law.

It isn’t ‘culture war nonsense’

Parents across Texas want transparency. They want to know what their kids are learning, reading, and hearing in school — especially on issues of sex and gender. Some lawmakers have stepped up. Too many haven’t. They call it “culture war nonsense” while siding with school boards and bureaucrats who treat parents as threats.

Legislators who can’t stop minors from receiving irreversible medical procedures without parental consent don’t belong in conservative office. That’s not compromise. That’s surrender.

Don’t dismiss the Second Amendment

After every shooting, moderate Republicans float “reasonable restrictions.” But the Constitution doesn’t hedge. It says “shall not be infringed.”

Texans don’t want red-flag laws. They want their rights respected. When figures like Rep. Dan Crenshaw entertain policies that chip away at due process, they don’t look pragmatic. They look weak. If you won’t defend gun rights without apology, step aside.

Meme bills and muzzled dissent

Texas Republicans now flirt with speech regulation. One bill would have required registration for anonymous political memes — all in the name of fighting “disinformation.” That’s not governance. That’s control.

Conservatives believe in protecting anonymous speech because we remember what it’s for: dissent. Critique. Satire. These aren’t bugs in the system — they’re essential features. If Austin lawmakers wants to mirror D.C.'s, voters will start treating them the same way.

Contempt for the base

The real issue isn’t just policy. It’s culture. The GOP establishment in Austin feels more at home with lobbyists than with the voters who knock doors and fund their campaigns. Primary challengers get dismissed as “fringe,” even as the grassroots base grows louder — and angrier.

RELATED: Red state, blue ballot: Dems use direct democracy to flip states

Photo by Ben Sklar/Getty Images

Calls for term limits are rising. The appetite for bold reform is real. If Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) can deliver conservative wins in Florida, why can’t Texas? Why are we still making excuses?

This isn’t just about Texas

Texas shapes the national Republican Party. It drives presidential races and defines what the GOP stands for. When Texas Republicans falter, they don’t just fail their state — they fail the country.

As state Rep. Brian Harrison has shown, the last legislative session exposed serious cracks in the GOP foundation. Conservatives must respond: organize locally, show up at the Capitol, primary the cowards. An “R” isn’t a free pass. If you govern like a Democrat, expect to be treated like one.

Secure the border. Empower parents. Protect the Second Amendment. Defend free speech. Or get out of the way.

Texas doesn’t need more Republicans. It needs better ones.

Soros and McCain: The unholy alliance hidden in plain sight



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RELATED: Alex Soros admits he’s more powerful than elected officials

Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOP saboteurs join Democrats to derail Trump’s justice agenda



One of the biggest political fights of Donald Trump’s early second term just ended — and not in his favor.

The country didn’t rally behind Ed Martin, the president’s nominee for U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., because of his résumé. And the fight was never about Martin alone. It was about the first real clash between two irreconcilable political forces that had managed a brief post-election détente.

The Senate took its first scalp — and it was a big one.

After Trump’s big victory, most of his Cabinet picks cleared the Senate with some turbulence but no real roadblocks — except for Matt Gaetz at the Justice Department. That era just ended. The honeymoon is over.

After weeks of public drama, the Senate — with Republican help — forced Trump to pull Martin. Trump reassigned him to duties inside the Justice Department that don’t require Senate confirmation. He named Judge Jeanine Pirro in Martin’s place, a figure seemingly more palatable to senators who either opposed Martin outright or refused to defend him. The administration cast this as a “double down.” In reality, the Senate won.

The consequences go far beyond who runs the D.C. office. Martin’s defeat sends a clear message: The Senate will challenge Trump’s ability to govern. That includes the looming budget reconciliation battle, judicial confirmations, and the future of the America First movement.

Traitorous Thom Tillis

With no filibuster-proof majority, Trump’s window to act remains narrow — and shrinking.

Martin’s supporters and opponents split along familiar lines. On one side stood the Democrats: Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Sen. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), and House attack dog Jamie Raskin (Md.). They had help from establishment Republicans and anti-Trump legal elites. Senator Thom Tillis led the GOP sabotage effort, backed quietly by the Wall Street Journal editorial board and the usual anonymous gang of Republican senators who prefer to knife the president in private.

On the other side stood Trump, his team, and a bloc of loyal senators including Mike Lee (Utah), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), and Rand Paul (Ky.). Law enforcement organizations backed Martin, as did nearly every Republican state attorney general (except three) and Jewish leaders who stood up for him after a failed smear campaign falsely branding him anti-Semitic. Martin had prosecuted Hamas — unlike his Biden-era predecessor.

This was more than a nomination fight. It was a battle between the GOP’s old guard and its future. The result will shape whether Trump can deliver on his second-term agenda — or get strangled by the same Beltway forces that worked to undermine his first.

The calendar never favored Martin. His 120-day term would expire May 20. For a confirmation to happen, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) needed to notice a hearing by Monday, move him out of committee by Thursday, and schedule a floor vote by May 19. Tillis waited until the last minute to air his “concerns” — and only met with Martin that Monday.

The meeting reportedly turned hostile, with Tillis mocking the death of Ashli Babbitt. Grassley then declined to notice Martin’s hearing. The swamp knew exactly what it was doing. With the clock running, Martin’s nomination began to wither.

Lukewarm Republicans had always hoped for this outcome: let Martin “time out” without casting a vote. But grassroots support surged, and the base refused to stay quiet. The plan collapsed. To avoid giving Judge James Boasberg the power to name a successor, Trump replaced Martin himself.

Protecting ‘norms’? Not exactly

Democrats played this masterfully. Schumer, Durbin, and Schiff funneled opposition research to legacy media and pliable Republicans. The smears didn’t stick — neither the false anti-Semitism claims nor the soft attacks on Martin’s legal ethics — but the damage was done. “Controversial” became the tag.

Democrats understood the moment. Post-Cabinet, pre-reconciliation, and perfectly timed to fracture the Senate GOP. They sent Martin 561 written questions — more than some Supreme Court nominees get — and then whined to the press when they didn’t like his answers. They told Republicans to protect Senate “norms.” And like clockwork, some did.

Many of these same Republicans voted without hesitation for Biden’s most extreme picks during the last evenly divided Senate. Back then, they claimed to defend “institutional norms.” Now, they enable Democrats to shred them.

Democrats knew the political impact of blocking a president’s U.S. attorney pick for D.C. It’s usually a voice vote. Martin’s predecessor, Matthew Graves, coasted through. So did Eric Holder under Bill Clinton. Blocking Martin wasn’t normal — it was a deliberate strike.

What happens next will determine whether the Senate helps or hinders Trump’s agenda. If Tillis emerges stronger from this, Republicans will reward a man openly working against the president. He’s up for re-election, most likely facing former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), and faces no GOP primary challenge. If he keeps swinging left, he could stall confirmations for judges and Justice officials and block efforts to fight the lawfare campaign against Trump.

That this situation is even possible shows how broken the Republican Senate remains. No one worries that a Democrat would do this. Remember: Even Joe Manchin, the so-called “independent,” voted to protect Biden Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas from impeachment — just to spare fellow Democrats from a tough vote.

Patriots who backed Martin must recognize the cost of this defeat. The Senate took its first scalp. The White House swapped staffers. But the message was unmistakable: Sabotage works.

If the America First movement fails to hold the saboteurs accountable — and simply moves on — the Senate will do this again. And again. Until nothing of the agenda remains.

We can’t let that happen.

This red-state attorney general has declared war on the First Amendment



We thought the Supreme Court had finally purged anti-religious discrimination from Establishment Clause jurisprudence. After years of confusion — conflating the ban on state-sponsored religion with an invented mandate to scrub faith from public life — the Court, through a series of rulings on religious schools and public funding, had restored sanity. It returned the law to its pre-Warren era understanding: Equal treatment of religion does not violate the Constitution.

Yet, here we are again.

Those who claim that equal treatment of religion violates the Establishment Clause are the ones betraying its meaning.

In a move that stunned observers, Oklahoma’s own Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond and the state supreme court now argue that states cannot recognize religious charter schools.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. The case centers on St. Isidore, a Catholic online school seeking to join Oklahoma’s charter school system. Drummond contends the school’s religious affiliation disqualifies it. He sued the state charter board — a move usually made by the ACLU or militant secularist groups.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with him. The court claimed that granting charter status to a Catholic school would violate the First Amendment by effectively establishing Catholicism as a state religion. Justices labeled charter schools “state actors” and argued that any religious affiliation disqualifies a school from public recognition.

This logic turns the First Amendment on its head. The Constitution does not require hostility toward religion. It requires neutrality. Denying a religious school access to a public benefit — simply because it is religious — violates precedent.

Oklahoma’s Charter Schools Act permits any “private college or university, private person, or private organization” to apply for state funding to open a charter school. Excluding religious applicants contradicts not one but three major Supreme Court rulings.

In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc v. Comer (2017), the court ruled that excluding a religious school from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified “solely because it is a church” is “odious to our Constitution.” That case involved a grant for playground resurfacing. If states can’t deny rubber mulch, they can’t deny full charter status.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), a 5-4 majority held that state constitutions barring aid to religious institutions over secular ones violates the Free Exercise Clause. Public benefits, the Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized, cannot be denied “solely because of the religious character of the schools.”

Then came Carson v. Makin (2022), where Maine tried to distinguish between religious status and religious use, barring religious schools from voucher funds. The court rejected the distinction. Roberts, writing again for the majority, ruled that the program “operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.” He warned that attempts to judge how a religious school carries out its mission invite unconstitutional state entanglement.

So how, after such ironclad precedent, do we find a Republican state attorney general and a court in a state Trump carried in every county ruling that religious schools can’t even apply for public funding?

The answer lies in years of lukewarm Republican control. These are Republicans in name only, who blocked judicial reform and refused to challenge activist courts. Now, Drummond wants a promotion. He’s announced his run for governor after already overruling the state education superintendent’s decision to ban pornography in public libraries.

This case reveals a larger pattern. Courts act as a one-way ratchet. Even after strong Supreme Court rulings, liberal lower courts defy precedent. They delay, split hairs, and distinguish without merit. The high court may reverse Oklahoma, but its rulings rarely secure lasting victories.

And the irony? Those who claim that equal treatment of religion violates the Establishment Clause are the ones betraying its meaning.

During the House debate on the First Amendment in 1789, James Madison explained: “Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.”

That principle — freedom of conscience without coercion — shaped the American experiment. Far from excluding religion, the founders assumed its influence. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.” He added that politics and religion formed an “alliance which has never been dissolved.”

It’s time for the Supreme Court to reaffirm that alliance — clearly, decisively, and without leaving room for lower courts to ignore. And in Oklahoma, it’s time to elect Republicans who still believe the Bible belongs in the Bible Belt.

Red-state rot: How GOP governors are handing power to the left



At first glance, outsiders might expect North Dakota to have already passed both school choice and a ban on pornography in public libraries. Republicans hold overwhelming majorities — 42-5 in the Senate and 83-11 in the House — and every statewide elected official is a Republican. Yet, Republican Gov. Kelly Armstrong’s twin vetoes of both bills have forced conservatives to wait another two years to achieve these basic red-state goals. Warnings about Armstrong’s weakness came early and often.

SB 2307 could not be simpler. “A public library or a school district may not maintain in an area easily accessible to minors explicit sexual material,” the final amended text reads. Any sane person should support this standard. The definition of “explicit sexual material” mirrors language already used in other areas of law. The bill does not even ban the books outright — it merely restricts children’s access to sexually explicit material in publicly funded libraries.

Electing more governors like Kelly Armstrong will leave conservatives with nowhere to run.

Without enforcement, any law becomes meaningless. SB 2307 addresses this by requiring local prosecutors to investigate violations. Schools and libraries found out of compliance risk losing state funding.

Despite the bill’s straightforward intent, it barely passed — just 27-20 in the Senate and 49-45 in the House — with more than a third of Republicans joining Democrats to oppose it. Last week, to the shock of party officials, Armstrong vetoed the bill.

“I don’t pretend to know what the next literary masterpiece is going to be,” Armstrong wrote in his veto message. “But I know that I want it available in a library.” In parroting tired liberal straw-man talking points, Armstrong claimed he agreed with the concerns but dismissed the bill as a “misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship.”

According to Armstrong, limiting children’s access to sexually explicit material in taxpayer-funded libraries now qualifies as “censorship.”

The rest of Armstrong’s veto message trots out the usual excuses — warnings about frivolous lawsuits, handwringing over enforcement logistics, and complaints about oversight costs. But his main point could not be clearer: Armstrong opposes any effort to shield children from sexual content in public institutions.

Bought out by teachers’ unions

What can parents do when public schools flood classrooms with pornography? Send their kids to private school, of course. Unfortunately, Armstrong worked to block that option, too.

House Bill 1540 would have established Education Savings Accounts for private school students, giving them a chance to compete with just a fraction of the money state and federal governments pour into the public system. The bill passed the House 49-43 and the Senate 27-20 — the same narrow margins as the library porn bill.

In his veto message last week, Armstrong whined that public school students pay taxes, too, and griped that HB 1540 offered them nothing. Instead, he threw his support behind Senate Bill 2400, which turns school choice into another welfare program for the public education establishment. Most of the money under SB 2400 would flow straight to parents whose children already attend public schools.

But why would public school students need education savings accounts when their tuition already costs nothing? The entire school choice movement rests on a simple truth: Government pours massive sums into public education, and families need just a fraction of that money diverted to private options to have a real choice. In North Dakota, the average combined state and federal cost of public education hits about $13,778 per K-12 student. Yet under HB 1540, the proposed funding for education savings accounts ranged from only $1,100 to $4,000, depending on household income — all of it aimed at private school students.

The funding imbalance also explains the shortage of private schools across much of North Dakota. Armstrong cited the lack of private schools outside major cities as justification for pouring even more money into public schools. But with fairer funding, more private schools would emerge. In a duplicitous statement, Armstrong claimed he “strongly supports expanding school choice.” Yet, real expansion demands closing the funding gap — something Armstrong clearly opposes. His true allegiance lies with the teachers’ unions, not with parents seeking alternatives.

A pattern of reckless endorsements

The Senate bill Armstrong promoted also stuffs extra money into school lunch programs and ropes homeschooling parents into the scheme — despite the fact that North Dakota homeschoolers explicitly rejected involvement.

Conservatives had plenty of warning. Armstrong served in the leadership of the RINO Main Street Partnership during his time in Congress. Although North Dakota boasts a growing conservative bench, Trump’s premature endorsement last spring handed Armstrong the governorship in one reckless move.

If Trump keeps up his reckless endorsement habits, every deep-red state will soon struggle to pass even the most basic conservative priorities. Once Trump leaves office, Democrats won’t just revive Biden-era policies — they will escalate.

Deep-red states like North Dakota, immune from political swings in general elections, must become our last strongholds of freedom. Electing more governors like Kelly Armstrong will strip away that sanctuary and leave conservatives with nowhere to run.

Trump’s budget battle plan can’t be all bark, no bite



If Republicans keep squandering opportunities like budget reconciliation and other must-pass bills, they still have one more tool to cut spending without facing a Senate filibuster: the rescissions process.

To make it work, though, Trump must wield his influence more effectively. He needs to pressure establishment Republicans to support spending cuts with the same intensity he uses to push Freedom Caucus members into backing bloated budgets and debt-ceiling hikes.

If the rescissions process is going to matter, Trump must treat it like a weapon — not a bargaining chip.

Under sections 1012 and 1017 of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the president may submit a request to Congress to rescind budget authority from specific accounts he deems unnecessary. That request triggers expedited consideration in Congress, with debate protected from filibuster once the proposal hits the calendar.

In the meantime, the president can freeze spending in the targeted account for up to 45 days while Congress considers the request.

Administration officials have begun dangling the rescissions process in front of conservatives as a consolation prize — hoping to win support for bloated budget bills, a record debt-ceiling hike, and a likely toothless reconciliation package. Their pitch: Whatever passes now can be clawed back later through presidential rescission requests, coordinated with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), and without Democratic input.

On paper, the strategy has logic. Trump wants to avoid shutdowns and default drama but believes he can trim spending quietly on the back end. The problem? The same GOP establishment that resists spending cuts during appropriations will still stand in the way after the fact — unless Trump finally targets the left flank of his own party instead of the right.

In early May, the House plans to vote on the Trump administration’s first rescissions package — $9.3 billion in cuts, mostly from foreign aid and defunding NPR and PBS. That’s a good start. It should be applauded.

But let’s be honest: $9.3 billion is pocket change compared to what Congress plans to spend. The upcoming budget reconciliation bill could add $5 trillion in new debt. Even defense spending alone is set to grow by more than $150 billion.

If the rescissions process is going to matter, Trump must treat it like a weapon — not a bargaining chip. And he must finally pressure the real problem in Washington: Republicans who talk like conservatives but vote like Democrats.

Unless Trump applies real pressure on Republican holdouts — especially in the Senate — most of the rescissions package will stall. Cutting NPR and PBS may be a layup, but $8 billion of the proposed cuts target USAID and other foreign aid programs. Those enjoy bipartisan backing, including from Republicans like Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

We’ve seen this dumb movie before. In 2018, Trump sent Congress a $15 billion rescissions package. Nineteen House Republicans defected, but the bill passed 210-206 thanks to a larger GOP majority. The Senate, however, killed it — 48-50 — after just two GOP defections.

Trump tweeted about the bill two days before the House vote. But nowhere in the public record did he threaten consequences for Republican dissenters. He never punished the defectors, and he quickly abandoned the rescissions strategy. Debt piled up for the rest of his term. The moment passed. History rolled on.

This time must be different.

Trump must match the pressure he puts on conservatives — urging them to swallow bad front-end budget deals — with equal, if not greater, pressure on Republican incumbents who oppose back-end spending cuts. No more free passes.

He should submit a rescissions package targeting climate slush funds and dare any Republican to oppose it. Then name names. If they side with green energy programs over fiscal responsibility, they should face the threat of a primary challenger. No exceptions.

If Trump refuses to campaign forcefully for his own priorities, the rescissions process will yield nothing more than symbolic cuts — token reductions that don’t even come close to offsetting the deficit spending he’s already signed off on.

Take the current request. It proposes clawbacks like $6 million for energy-efficiency programs in Mexico, $4 million for migrants in Colombia, $4 million for legume systems research, $3 million for Iraqi Sesame Street, nearly $1.2 million for LGBTQ initiatives, and $1 million for a voter ID program in Haiti.

Sure, Republicans will hold press conferences, wave these absurd line items in front of cameras, and vote to rescind them. But let’s not kid ourselves: Shaving a few million dollars from programs no one knew existed doesn’t even approach the scale of the problem.

When Congress passes trillion-dollar deficits and then touts million-dollar cuts, it’s not leadership. It’s performance.

And the country can’t afford another act.

Weak Republicans may derail Tennessee’s bold move against illegal immigration



We either make illegal immigration illegal — or we stop pretending.

For years, we’ve claimed to oppose illegal immigration while offering taxpayer-funded benefits to those here unlawfully. If life in the United States became less accommodating, many would choose to leave on their own. A logical first step: Stop offering free public education to those who entered the country illegally. That policy has flooded our schools with linguistic chaos, cultural fragmentation, and administrative strain.

Denying free education to those in the country illegally is not a punishment — it’s a refusal to provide benefits to people who have no legal claim to them.

Tennessee is the first state in recent memory to move in the direction of sanity.

Last Thursday, the Tennessee Senate passed SB 836, sponsored by state Sen. Bo Watson (R). The original bill would have required school districts to verify legal residency before enrolling any student. The amended version gives school districts the option to deny enrollment to illegal immigrants or charge a base tuition of $7,000 per student.

The bill passed 19-13 but not before seven Republicans joined all six Democrats in voting to continue free tuition for illegal aliens.

A companion bill, HB 793, is making its way through the House. That version is tougher. It gives districts the authority to deny admission outright and requires them to report undocumented students to the state. Both bills allow families to stay enrolled while appealing a denial. But critically, both also include an opt-out provision — meaning districts with large illegal populations, like Memphis and Nashville, will likely choose not to enforce the law at all.

Target: Plyler v. Doe

This should be an easy one. It’s a disgrace that we continue offering free tuition to the children of illegal immigrants — all because of a flawed 43-year-old Supreme Court ruling. The public would have demanded action decades ago if not for the court’s intervention. Texas, in fact, did act — until Justice William Brennan invented a constitutional right to taxpayer-funded education for illegal aliens in the 1982 decision Plyler v. Doe.

That ruling flatly contradicts a long line of Supreme Court precedents dating back to the 1880s. For more than a century, the court consistently held that illegal aliens stand outside our legal boundaries until they are granted lawful status. In other words, they are not entitled to constitutional protections reserved for citizens or legal residents.

Even if we accept the dubious logic of judicial supremacy, states have every reason to mount a fresh challenge. The Supreme Court has shifted rightward since the days of Brennan’s activist bench. It’s time to put Plyler back on the chopping block.

If Republicans truly believe illegal immigration must end, they should act accordingly. That means removing the incentives to stay here unlawfully. Cutting off free benefits should be the first step, not the last.

Yet, too many Republicans still treat education as a separate, sacred category. Senate Speaker Pro Tem Ferrell Haile, a Republican from Gallatin, voted against the Tennessee bill and tried to justify his position by misapplying Ezekiel 18:19: “The child will not share the guilt of the parent nor the parent share the guilt of the child.” He said, “I believe that we are punishing children for the wrongdoing of their parents.”

Haile’s reasoning is flawed. Denying free education to those in the country illegally is not a punishment — it’s a refusal to provide benefits to people who have no legal claim to them. If the goal is deportation, why should we subsidize their continued presence? No one is proposing to imprison children for their parents’ actions. We’re proposing to send them home.

Republicans claim to support President Trump’s immigration agenda. But if we intend to remove illegal aliens from the country, it makes no sense to pack public schools with hundreds of thousands of noncitizens who require costly language and academic support. The only children being punished under this system are the children of American citizens — the ones to whom our elected officials owe their allegiance.

An uncertain fate

If Haile and other lukewarm Republicans in red states feel so strongly about educating illegal aliens, they are free to open schools overseas and fund them privately. But they have no right to do it at the expense of American families.

So far this year, only Texas, Indiana, Idaho, and Ohio have introduced similar legislation. None of those bills appear likely to pass. Other red states, like Florida, face constitutional hurdles that make it difficult to deny public school admission to anyone living in the state — regardless of legal status.

Even in its watered-down form, the Tennessee bill’s fate remains uncertain. Gov. Bill Lee (R) has yet to signal whether he’ll sign it. Like many Republican governors, Lee often talks tough but governs soft. He’s not known for favoring strong immigration enforcement.

If he vetoes the bill, conservatives likely won’t have the two-thirds majority needed to override him, thanks to multiple GOP defections. He has remained silent while the legislative session barrels toward its end next week. Time is running out for the House to pass its version and reconcile it with the Senate’s.

With federal mass deportation efforts stalled, red states need standing deterrents. The next time a Democrat takes the White House and unleashes a fresh wave of illegal immigration, we need policies in place to keep that flood away from inundating states that still value sovereignty.

That starts with ending incentives — especially taxpayer-funded benefits like public education. Letting illegal aliens tap into the same resources as citizens sends exactly the wrong message.

Trump state, Biden agenda: Wyoming gets played by green grifters



San Francisco and New York may be showcases for progressive, dystopian governance, but they lack one thing the left increasingly needs: land. That’s why green energy companies — backed by federal subsidies and environmental branding — are targeting rural America for industrial-scale wind and solar farms, along with carbon capture pipelines. Despite their eco-friendly image, these projects often scar the landscape and face strong local resistance.

Ironically, many of these initiatives move forward with the support of Republican officials who claimed to oppose Joe Biden but now embrace one of his signature policy goals. A recent example comes from Eastern Wyoming.

Salt-of-the-earth Wyoming landowners are expected to sacrifice their property so that global corporations can pay a premium to showcase their climate credentials to retail clients and investors.

Last Thursday, the State Board of Land Commissioners approved a 40-year lease of public lands in Converse and Niobrara Counties for two separate wind farm projects backed by foreign-owned companies. The board includes the governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction.

Secretary of State Chuck Gray, the lone conservative among the Republican officials, cast the only dissenting vote on both projects. Most local residents opposed the wind farms, but their concerns were overruled.

The issue isn’t just that wind turbines are visually intrusive in a state where coal and natural gas remain abundant. It’s that they fail to serve as reliable infrastructure. Instead of contributing stable power, wind farms often operate as economic parasites — consuming massive resources to generate relatively little electricity.

Local officials have raised concerns about the large volumes of water required to operate these wind farms, but those objections have gone largely ignored.

In most cases, a power source earns public support by producing more value than it costs. But these wind farms don’t even power the local communities. The energy is being funneled into a new industry with a dystopian twist: investors want to use Eastern Wyoming’s land and water to produce carbon-offset hydrogen jet fuel — so global airlines can claim they’re “green.”

In the end, rural residents are being sacrificed in the name of questionable science and corporate virtue-signaling. Wyoming’s landscape and resources are being drained, not to meet local needs but to satisfy the environmental claims of distant corporations.

The first project, led by Sidewinder H2 LLC, will occupy roughly 120,000 acres about 10 miles west of Lusk. The second, smaller project, run by Pronghorn H2 LLC, will take up 46,000 acres 20 miles east of Casper. Both companies are based in Delaware but operate as subsidiaries of Acciona and Nordex Green Hydrogen — a joint venture between Spain’s Acciona and German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex.

On its U.S. venture page, Acciona calls for the “decarbonization” of America. The company criticizes the Paris climate agreement as insufficient and urges a rapid shift toward renewables. Its stated goal is to achieve “net zero” emissions by transforming the energy sector “without delay” and “decoupling from fossil fuels.”

So why, in a state Trump won by a landslide and at a time when he’s pledging to dismantle the “green new scam,” are Republicans handing over land to foreign energy firms that aim to shut down U.S. fossil fuel use?

Why are Republican leaders enabling green energy companies — many backed by subsidies from Biden’s climate agenda — to displace Wyoming’s natural resources and burden local landowners in the name of global “carbon offsets”?

The truth is Gov. Mark Gordon and his allies are violating the fundamental trust between state leadership and the people of Wyoming.

At a recent board meeting, Chuck Gray asked Paul Martin, president of Focus Clean Energy, why these companies couldn’t produce fuel “the good ol’ fashioned way” instead of eating up vast tracts of land. Martin’s response was striking.

“Those guys might want to tell the Targets of the world and different clients that they’re reducing their carbon footprint,” Martin said. “That means they’re willing to pay extra for a product that’s gone through this complex process.”

In other words, multigenerational, salt-of-the-earth Wyoming landowners are expected to sacrifice their property so that global corporations can pay a premium to showcase their climate credentials to retail clients and investors.

Yeah, right.

Landowners in conservative states are beginning to push back against green energy land-grabs, though legislative progress remains slow. The Arizona House recently passed a bill to ban wind and solar projects near residential neighborhoods. Lawmakers in Arkansas are weighing several proposals to restrict or prohibit such projects outright. Similar tensions have emerged in the Oklahoma legislature.

Still, no state has enacted a new law this session, although some counties have begun taking action at the local level.

In Wyoming, residents must make it clear: If corporations want to virtue-signal, they should do it on their own land in places like San Francisco or Los Angeles. To defend the open, free land that defines Wyoming, voters need to elect Republicans who actually represent those values — not politicians like Mark Gordon, who seems more at home in California than the Cowboy State.

Palmetto pretenders push ‘cut’ that costs more for most



South Carolina Republicans aren’t trying to limit government — and they don’t appreciate the Freedom Caucus pressuring them to do so. Instead, they’ve concocted a devious plan to push a bill that sounds like a flat tax but would raise taxes on most residents earning under $115,000. The goal? To trap Freedom Caucus members into opposing a bill GOP leaders intend to promote as a tax cut during campaign season.

House Speaker Murrell Smith Jr. (R) promised voters a tax cut throughout the session but didn’t reveal the bill until last week. Now we know why. The proposal would amount to a net tax increase on 66% of state tax filers, including nearly all who earn less than $115,000. Despite this, Republican leaders still hope to get the bill to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk by May 8.

Until voters start focusing on primary elections — where the real ideological battles are fought — red states will keep giving us the big government blues.

Currently, South Carolina taxes income above $17,000 at 6.2% — one of the highest rates in the low-tax Southeast. Seeking to catch up with other red states, House leaders, with support from the governor, introduced H. 4216 to implement a 3.9% flat tax. On paper, it looks like a voter-friendly reform.

But buried in the bill is a major shift: It redefines taxable income to include earnings before federal taxes and deductions. Under current law, South Carolina only taxes adjusted income after those reductions. The change would quietly increase the tax burden for most middle-income residents — even as lawmakers pitch it as a cut.

The state Freedom Caucus quickly flagged the problem, releasing an analysis showing how the bill would impact working families. Because of South Carolina’s relatively low income levels, someone earning the state’s median income would pay $716 more per year under the proposal. Lower-income families could see increases of $800 to $1,000 annually.

Even families earning $100,000 — roughly the combined salary of a married teacher and police officer — would face a net increase of $327. Taxpayers wouldn’t break even until they hit $115,000 in income. And even then, a household making $119,000 would only see a modest benefit of $93.

The Office of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs released a distributional analysis showing the percentage of taxpayers at each income level who would pay more under the proposed tax structure:

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According to the data, between 78% and 90% of those earning $20,000 to $75,000 would see their taxes go up. Even among those earning $100,000 to $150,000, about 60% would end up paying more.

While it’s reasonable to want to broaden the tax base — which any flat tax will do — you can’t call this a tax cut if the overwhelming majority of middle-class families are paying more. To deliver actual relief, lawmakers would either need to drop the flat rate even lower or apply the 3.9% rate only to income after federal taxes and deductions.

Math doesn’t lie. This isn’t a cultural dispute, a philosophical debate, or a regulatory disagreement. State leaders know exactly what the numbers say — so the real question is: Why are they still pushing this bill?

The answer is simple. They don’t want to cut spending to pay for a real tax cut. In fact, the governor is proposing a 3.5% increase in the state budget. That’s why Republicans are promoting a tax plan that isn’t a tax cut at all.

Instead, they’re laying a political trap. By presenting this proposal as tax relief, they aim to paint the Freedom Caucus as anti-tax cut — even though the bill raises taxes on the majority of state residents. A few co-sponsors have already withdrawn their names, slowing the bill’s momentum, but it’s telling that this was the strategy in the first place.

Here’s the bottom line: Once a state adopts a progressive income tax, fixing it within the current framework is almost impossible. A better path would be to follow Mississippi’s lead. It recently joined nine other states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming — in eliminating its income tax entirely.

South Carolina could do the same by cutting spending to offset lost revenue or transparently pairing income tax repeal with increases elsewhere. But to sell a plan that raises taxes on two-thirds of residents as a “cut” is flat-out dishonest.

Unfortunately, this move by South Carolina GOP leadership is nothing new.

A recent analysis using the Club for Growth’s conservative scorecard found that Republican House members — excluding the South Carolina Freedom Caucus — averaged just 27%. That’s barely above the average Democrat. In contrast, Freedom Caucus members averaged a score of 92%.

In other words, the ideological gap between the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the state GOP is far wider than the gap between Republicans and Democrats.

Until voters start focusing on primary elections — where the real ideological battles are fought — red states will keep giving us the big government blues.

Red state, blue ballot: Dems use direct democracy to flip states



With 64-6 and 32-3 majorities in the South Dakota House and Senate, Republicans alone have the power to advance or block their agenda. Yet, Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden’s veto of a key initiative petition reform bill hands Democrats an opening to continue pushing their agenda through the state’s highly manipulated ballot initiative process.

In the Mount Rushmore State, the Democratic Party is slightly less popular than herpes, which forces progressives to rely on massive outside funding to place their proposals directly on the ballot. Although the electorate leans conservative, ballot measures are often complex and confusing — one reason the nation’s founders rejected direct democracy in favor of a representative system.

It’s astonishing how, across red states, only the Freedom Caucus seems willing to stop the left from using ballot initiatives to shift policy in purple and blue directions.

This is especially true when it comes to constitutional amendments. At the federal level, amending the Constitution requires approval from two-thirds of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states. Yet at the state level, well-funded left-wing groups are trying to change constitutions with a simple 51% majority and carefully crafted ballot language — turning red states blue, one vote at a time.

A commonsense safeguard

Last year, liberal groups gathered enough signatures to place several controversial proposals on the South Dakota ballot: codifying abortion as a right, legalizing marijuana, and eliminating partisan primaries. Voters rejected all three, but these efforts reflect a growing trend. In other red states, similar campaigns have succeeded, using direct democracy to bypass conservative legislatures. Why continue to leave this pathway open — allowing progressives to rewrite the state’s constitution through tactics they could never achieve in the Capitol?

House Bill 1169 offered a commonsense safeguard. The bill would have required petition circulators to gather signatures from all 35 state Senate districts, totaling at least 5% of the votes cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. This district-level requirement would have supplemented the existing statewide threshold of 10%, already mandated by the state constitution.

Across the country, progressive groups are steering major policy questions directly to the ballot, often collecting most of their signatures from the most liberal population centers. In South Dakota, that means relying on Sioux Falls and Rapid City, rather than seeking broad statewide support.

“This bill would have finally given people in small towns and rural counties a voice in the petition process to amend our constitution,” House Speaker Jon Hansen (R) lamented after the governor’s veto. “If you live in a small, rural community, chances are you’ve never been approached by a petition circulator. That’s because most proposed constitutional amendments are placed on the ballot by paid circulators in Sioux Falls and Rapid City — without input from smaller communities. If you live in a small town, you rarely get a say in what amendments reach the ballot.”

The measure passed the House by a wide margin along party lines and cleared the Senate by a narrower 19-15 vote. Rhoden vetoed the bill earlier this week.

Absurd excuses

In his veto message, the governor hid behind concerns that the bill would not survive legal challenges. He suggested he supported the idea in principle but believed the measure would ultimately backfire — arguing it could empower, rather than restrain, well-funded special interests.

“The additional burden of collecting signatures from each of the 35 senatorial districts, each on a separate petition sheet, risks creating a system where only those with substantial financial resources can effectively undertake a statewide petition drive,” Rhoden wrote. “This undermines the bill's intent by putting South Dakotans at a disadvantage to dark money out-of-state groups.”

The argument is absurd. In a hypothetical scenario where rural districts lean as liberal as urban areas, Rhoden’s claim — that a uniform signature threshold across all districts would burden grassroots groups more than big-money interests — might hold water. In reality, South Dakota’s rural districts remain largely immune to left-wing campaigns. Passing HB 1169 would likely halt nearly all liberal petition efforts in the state.

That’s precisely why former state Sen. Reynold Nesiba, a Democrat from Sioux Falls, said he planned to launch a referendum to repeal the bill. “It will effectively end the constitutional amendment process initiated by citizens in South Dakota,” he warned.

That’s the point. Why would a Republican governor want to give the left a back door to influence state policy?

The idea that the bill would hinder conservative petitions doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, either. If a proposal has genuine conservative support, it should have no trouble passing through the Republican-controlled legislature. Conservatives only turn to the initiative process when liberal Republicans like Rhoden turn a supermajority trifecta into a uniparty circus.

Letting the left win

It’s astonishing how, across red states, only the Freedom Caucus seems willing to stop the left from using ballot initiatives to shift policy in purple and blue directions — just as it did in Alaska. In Missouri, GOP leadership has repeatedly dismissed Freedom Caucus efforts to rein in initiative petitions, even after the left used that very process to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) called a special session earlier this year to address widespread petition fraud. But legislative leaders ignored his request and have been slow-walking reform legislation during the regular session.

This reluctance among Republican leaders to limit ballot initiatives reveals a troubling truth: Many of them quietly support certain left-wing goals but don’t want their fingerprints on the results. They’re fine with legalizing recreational marijuana, weary of the abortion fight, and unwilling to oppose Medicaid expansion.

By allowing Democrats to exploit the initiative process, these Republicans effectively outsource controversial policy changes to the ballot box — letting the left win while they avoid tough votes.