Union membership in the U.S. private sector has fallen to record lows, with 2024 data showing that only 5.9% of the U.S. private sector workforce is unionized, according to research by the Pew Research Center. It points out that this is down sharply from 20.1% in 1983 and 37% in 1957.

That number is about to get lower as employees at Penske Truck Leasing in Richmond are officially free from the unwanted “representation” of Teamsters Local 592 union officials, after the National Labor Relations Board certified a vote of Penske workers to “decertify” Teamsters union bosses.

The decertification effort was spearheaded by Penske employee Jordan Cutrell, who received free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys during the decertification process.

Virginia is one of 26 states that still have “right to work” laws on their books. These safeguard workers by making union membership and dues payment strictly voluntary. But that position has fallen under attack as recently as the last General Assembly session.

While passing minimum wage hikes, compensation reforms, paid family leave, and employment regulations on hiring, state Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, tried but failed to repeal the right-to-work law. The Senate did not take it up before the session’s deadline, effectively killing it for now.

Gov. Abigail Spanberger is on record saying that she opposes a full repeal but has said reforms may be necessary in the future. She has not been forthcoming on what those might be when asked on multiple occasions, preferring to leave it that she is “open to suggestions.”

The issue arose here in Virginia because federal law grants union officials the power to impose their exclusive “representation” on every employee in a work unit, including those who never voted for, joined, or supported the union.

Other Penske Truck Leasing employees who have successfully removed unwanted union bosses from their facilities include workers in Dallas, Texas; Bloomington, Indiana; Eagan and Roseville, Minnesota; Nashville, Tennessee; and Swedesboro, New Jersey.

National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix sat down with me (full interview linked below) and said, “Labor law is written in favor of union officials, going back to the 1930s, when at that point in time, you could be forced to formally join a private organization and pay dues to that organization as a condition of getting or keeping a job in America. And believe it or not, those federal laws are still on the books. But there is an exception, and that is states being able to pass what are known as right-to-work laws.”

So, if you are reading about the National Right to Work Foundation for the first time, you might think it is just a “union-buster.” Not so. Mix told me, “I believe there was a place for unions. There is a place for unions and there will be a place for unions, but there’s no place for force. When you add the compulsion and the force on top of the power that unions have, it makes them completely unaccountable.”

Believe it or not, Michigan was, ever so briefly, a right-to-work state, too. Ratified in 2024, within a year it was repealed.

So, why is the percentage of American union membership at record lows? Mix had a thought: “I think employers recognize more and more that taking care of their employees is probably priority No. 1 to a successful business.”

He added a name you might have heard of: “Sam Walton started out running a five and dime in a little Arkansas town and has probably made more millionaires in America among employees and associates, not just other investors, but people that actually work there.”

He added that he saw it early on: “I was servicing them during college, during a summer job that I had. And Walmart, Walmart stores were my customers. And every time I went in there, there was somebody that was happy. I walk into the employee room and the stock prices on the wall, and everyone’s participating.”

When economic historians talk about “American Exceptionalism,” they point to how the U.S. workforce was more productive than any country in the world because the worker got to choose who they worked with.

Sounds like a winning idea.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The bond vigilantes had a busy Wednesday, but maybe they aren't vigilantes at all.

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After an overturned conviction and two retrials, Harvey Weinstein was sentenced again on Wednesday -- this time, to 15 years on a New York sex crime conviction -- more than six years after his first sentencing in March 2020.

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This should be fun.  President Trump is making history by traveling to Joint Base Andrews to welcome Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping for an official state visit.  First Lady Melania Trump has attended to all the formal details in advance of the two days the Trump’s and Xi’s will spend together. Livestream links below to the […]

The post President Trump Welcomes Chairman Xi for State Visit – Joint Base Andrews Livestream appeared first on The Last Refuge.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. 

About a month ago, I talked about the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I made the argument for why the United States did that, used those devastating weapons. Not that I was happy about it, of course, but we all were commemorating the date. 

In reaction to that and to a column I wrote to the same effect, Tucker Carlson recently said that I had called the dropping of the atomic bombs “glorious.” I will just take a little parenthetical here and say if he can produce the quote where I said glorious, I will pay him a thousand dollars, or better yet, maybe he can have a wager. I will say I never used the word glorious. He says I did. If he wants to back that up with a thousand-dollar bet, I’ll be happy to do it, and I’m not a wealthy person by any means. 

What I said was that we dropped the bomb for three reasons, and the reasons were not those that the paleo right is alleging or the Left. We did not do it because we wanted to impress the Soviets. They got the bomb four years later, almost to the week. And they were in the process of assembling the information from espionage when we used the bomb. We knew they were going to get the bomb. 

Nor did we do it to justify the expense of the Manhattan Project, nor did we do it because we don’t like so-called Asian people. We did it because we had just suffered 50,000 casualties on Okinawa, and we did not want to repeat that on the Japanese mainland, where there were up to 20 million militia, impressed civilians, and army personnel and 7,000 or 8,000 kamikazes. 

And if you do the math of the defenders on Okinawa versus the losses of 50,000 dead, wounded, and missing and apply that to Japan, we may have lost, as planners had feared, 1 million. One million. 

That was why we tried to use the bomb. 

In addition, other people pointed out that the Japanese were killing somewhere between 15,000 and above Chinese, Asians in general, and Pacific Islanders per day. 

Of all the armies and militaries in World War II, as far as those who killed the most of their enemies and suffered the least doing it, the fewest, it was Japan. 

So we did that to save American lives, to save Allied Asian lives, and to save Japanese lives. There would’ve been 2 million or 3 million Japanese killed. 

Another thing to remember is the atomic bombs, contrary to what Tucker Carlson said, were not the most devastating weapons in World War II, nor are they necessarily even today. They have the potential to be, but so does AI, so do enhanced gain-of-function viruses. There’s a lot of ways, unfortunately, that people die through the use of dangerous weapons. 

The point I’m making is in World War II, the incendiary napalm attacks on the Japanese cities killed far more than the two bombs. 

And more importantly, with the acquisition of Okinawa and the end of World War II in Europe, Curtis LeMay was trying to shorten the war by increasing his bomber fleet with new bombers from the American factories, B-29s, and assembling a massive armada of, say, 6,000 or 7,000 bombers, both in the Marianas and the much shorter distance from Okinawa with B-17s and British Lancasters, as I said. 

The point is it would have been an inferno had those two bombs not been used to preclude further death and to shorten the war. 

I don’t know why Tucker Carlson does this. He also said Donald Trump is considering using nuclear weapons. Donald Trump has said one thing continuously. He does not want to use nuclear weapons. He does not only not want to use nuclear weapons, he wants to have the major powers who own them and possess them agree to downgrade their arsenals. 

But he’s very worried about the Chinese. He’s very worried about North Korea. He’s very worried about Iran. He’s very worried about Russia. He’s very worried, as I said earlier, about China. 

So it’s not so much the possession of a nuclear weapon. We’re not worried about Britain, and we’re not worried about France because these are democratic countries. We’re worried about those countries under dictatorships. 

And Donald Trump is trying to both deter them with a preeminent American arsenal, but also, once that preeminence is established, to downgrade the use of them by limiting the size of our arsenals. Build up to build down. If that sounds ironic, it is. 

Finally, Tucker Carlson has done a lot of strange things since he left Fox News that are out of the ordinary. One of them is this emphasis on World War II. 

He brought on the podcaster and blogger Darryl Cooper, said he was one of the most renowned writers on World War II. Of course, he’s never written a single published article or book. Not that that’s necessarily requisite, but he has said things that were demonstrably untrue that gained the approval of Tucker Carlson. 

He said that Winston Churchill was the greatest terrorist of World War II. That’s not true. Winston Churchill was alone of all the Allied powers, alone from the fall of France in May 1940 to June 22, 1941, when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. There were no other allies, and his country was the only country that went to war on the principle of the integrity of another country. 

It wasn’t attacked. It was in response to the German attack on Poland. It was the only country that fought from the first day of the war to the last. And as I said, had Churchill not been able to withstand all of Nazi Europe and Italy and Japan, there wouldn’t have been a chance to save the democracies in World War II. 

The idea that you would even say that, that you would defend, as Mr. Cooper does, the Axis powers that all started the war, were all fascist autocracies, and you would favor them or try to rationalize them over the conduct of Great Britain or the United States, the only two consensual systems in the entire war among the major powers, is absolutely insane. 

In conclusion, I’ll just finish. I don’t know what has come over Tucker Carlson. I was on his show a great deal of the time for years, and he made eloquent arguments that I didn’t always agree with, but they were rational. 

He was worried about radical Islam. He recently all but endorsed Abdul El-Sayed over Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in the Michigan Senate race. He had not remarked in an anti-Semitic fashion about Israel. 

Recently, he had a guest on, and I mentioned that, who essentially said to Tucker, with his nodding approval, that there was no real purpose or value to algebra, an ancient mathematical contribution that involved Arabs, Persians, Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians. 

And without alphabetic use in a mathematical equation denoting variables or uncertainties and having such formulas, you can’t conduct higher math or higher physics, even though the guest said he didn’t need it, and Tucker said it was kind of superfluous, and the guest also said that it was sort of a trick of the Jews on the goyim. 

All of this is absurd and it’s shocking, but I want to just finish by clearing the record. If Tucker says that I was glorifying or I used the word that the use of these horrible weapons was glorious rather than necessary to save lives, I challenge him to produce that quote. 

And if he can’t produce that quote, I suggest he apologize. 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Volodymyr Zelensky warned the U.N. that Vladimir Putin is “Patient Zero” for a conflict that could spread across Europe and beyond.

The post Zelensky Warns U.N. that Russia’s Putin Is ‘Patient Zero’ for Pandemic of War appeared first on Breitbart.

A vast alliance of mostly left-leaning groups lobbied to oppose the SAVE America Act, Republicans’ signature piece of election integrity legislation.

Federal lobbying disclosures show that labor unions, LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, pro-abortion groups, and left-leaning advocacy organizations lobbied against the SAVE America Act during the second quarter of 2026. The legislation stalled in Congress this year.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights organized a coalition letter against the legislation. The letter claims that the SAVE America Act is “not necessary to secure American elections” but instead would “do nothing more than exclude eligible voters” and “make voting harder.”

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the bill’s sponsor, told the Daily Signal that the groups oppose the bill because “they know that allowing illegal aliens to vote in our elections gives Democrats the best shot at reclaiming power.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, suggested that the opposition boils down to an effort to help Democrats win illegitimately.

“Why would a large coalition of leftwing groups, all of which support Democrats and are supported by Democrats—sometimes using your tax dollars—be so worried at the prospect of stopping illegal non-citizen voting in American elections? To ask the question is to answer it,” he told the Daily Signal in a written statement Wednesday.

The White House also criticized the coalition.

“Every American should be asking why the radical Left and Democrats are fighting against the SAVE America Act, which includes commonsense election integrity measures, like Voter ID, that are strongly supported by the vast majority of Americans,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the Daily Signal. “This legislation would make sure Americans, and Americans only, decide our elections. President [Donald] Trump has been clear and he is absolutely right: we fix this now, or we lose our country.”

The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration in federal elections. Opponents claim the requirements are too onerous and that few noncitizens vote illegally.

Only one of the coalition members the Daily Signal approached for comment responded.

Akilah Watkins, president of Independent Sector, said that her organization opposes the bill because it would “undermine the ability of nonprofits to engage in nonpartisan voter education and voter registration.”

Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher at the Capital Research Center and author of a report on the groups warning about “voter suppression,” countered this narrative.

“The same groups opposing the SAVE America Act whipped up a frenzy over Georgia’s election integrity bill, lost in court, and then voter turnout actually increased across the board,” Thayer told the Daily Signal. He said the groups oppose the SAVE America Act “because commonsense election integrity legislation makes the industrial scale ballot chasing and ‘nonpartisan’ voter registration operations that Democrats rely upon much harder, and more expensive, to operate.”

“When the AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood, the SPLC, and MoveOn.org all link arms to fight a bill, that tells you everything you need to know about who benefits from the status quo,” Rep. Diana Harshbarger, R-Tenn., told the Daily Signal. “These groups are the radical Left’s political machine.”

Traditional leftist advocacy and election-focused organizations were among the 26 that lobbied against the bill, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the American Library Association, Common Cause, the National Council of Jewish Women, MoveOn.org Civic Action, the Young Women’s Christian Association, Democracy 21, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Yet lobbying also came from the LGBTQ+ group Human Rights Campaign, the climate group League of Conservation Voters, the abortion group Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the seniors’ advocacy group National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and the Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.

The coalition included some of America’s largest labor unions: the AFL-CIO; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the American Federation of Teachers; Communications Workers of America; the National Education Association; and National Nurses United.

Three organizations lobbied for the legislation: the Federation on American Immigration Reform, Heritage Action for America, and the Pressler Persistence.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called the coalition’s opposition revealing.

“Democrats allowed millions of illegal aliens into the country, and now we’ve seen case after case of noncitizens registering to vote and voting in American elections,” Jordan told the Daily Signal. “Everyone knows why these left-wing activist groups don’t support the SAVE America Act and voter ID.”

This custom .350 Legend AR started with a Shaw upper and discontinued Shaw lower, then picked up Frog Skin Cerakote, walnut furniture and plenty of western Pennsylvania character.

The post The Shaw .350 Legend: A Custom AR With a Hometown Touch appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

A day before the Washington meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump, Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait has been relatively subdued compared to previous years.

Recent restraint, however, should not be mistaken for a strategic shift.

If past patterns hold, Beijing’s respite after months of high military activity levels around Taiwan will soon return. With a series of high-level summits and public attention focused on it, Beijing may be using near-term diplomacy to preserve leverage later.

Heritage Foundation scholars have been tracking Chinese military activity around Taiwan and evolving tactics since 2021. In late July, Heritage published an opinion piece warning of increasing Chinese activity later this year. With Xi’s upcoming visit to the White House happening on Sept. 24, the question is: What is China’s next move?

The Past as a Reference for the Future

While overall activity in the Taiwan Strait is much lower than in previous years, several activity spikes have occurred since the July article.      

In the four days leading up to Aug. 1, the anniversary of the founding of the Chinese armed forces (PLA Day), People’s Liberation Army Air Force activity climbed from one sortie to twenty-seven sorties a day. This closely follows past trends in which the eve of People’s Liberation Army Day saw spikes in Chinese air force and navy activity, along with sorties crossing the median line.  

A week later, Taiwan conducted its yearly Han Kuang live-fire military exercises from Aug. 5 through Aug. 14. It was the 42nd iteration of this exercise, designed to test the island’s readiness for a potential People’s Liberation Army invasion. Observed Chinese army activity showed Chinese air force sorties rising above 20 in the initial stage, easing briefly, and then increasing again to above-average levels during the closing stages.

Another spike in activity occurred between Aug. 18 and 19, with 20 Chinese air force sorties, including 15 that crossed the median line. This activity by the People’s Liberation Army may be in response to an Aug. 18 incident between the coast guards of China and Taiwan in the restricted waters around Taiwan’s Dongsha Island.

From Sept. 16 through Sept. 19, reports showed a substantial increase in Chinese army sorties, averaging more than twenty per day during that period. This was likely a response to Taiwan conducting missile, drone, HIMARS, and other military tests as part of a China-focused anti-invasion drill. This comes amid recent U.S.-Philippine cooperation on integrating BrahMos anti-ship missiles, drone targeting networks, and coastal defense operations in northern Luzon.

Recent tensions in the South China Sea have continued despite the reduced military activity around Taiwan. After Philippine Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro Jr. criticized China’s South China Sea claims, Beijing accused Manila of “stirring up trouble.” That exchange followed a July incident in which the Philippine military accused China’s coast guard of injuring a Filipino sailor at a South China Sea shoal.

While spikes in People’s Liberation Army activity show that China remains active, analysis shows that overall Chinese air force and navy activity in the strait remains historically low. Compared to a year ago this week, the 10-day average of Chinese air force activity is down by almost 40%. While spikes of activity are still occurring, these spikes are down from previous highs, and the data shows a broad decrease in overall Chinese army activity.

What Could Be Causing the Decrease?

The decline in People’s Liberation Army activity is likely the result of several factors. Improving U.S.-China relations ahead of the Sept. 24 Trump-Xi meeting has likely contributed, as ongoing discussions over trade and tariffs have encouraged dialogue over escalation. At the same time, shifting regional tensions and evolving tactical decisions may be drawing attention away from the Taiwan Strait.

For instance, earlier this year Japan and the Philippines launched negotiations to delimit their overlapping maritime boundaries east of Taiwan. China strongly opposed the talks and responded by launching coast guard and maritime law-enforcement patrols into waters east of Taiwan and the Philippine Sea.

According to an August report by Allen Zhang of Heritage’s Asian Studies Center, Beijing is also increasingly relying on research vessels operating under civilian scientific missions to collect data on underwater terrain, cables, and other militarily strategic features around Taiwan.

China has also sought to strengthen military ties with countries including Indonesia and Russia. Recent exercises between the People’s Liberation Army and Indonesian warships conducted east of Taiwan demonstrate China’s desire to display military force while strengthening partnerships with other Asian nations.

Likewise, China conducted the Joint Sea-2026 naval exercise with Russia near Qingdao, after which participating forces reportedly carried out joint Pacific patrols. This activity suggests Beijing is using combined exercises to signal that pressure around Taiwan is part of a broader Indo-Pacific strategy.

China is not the only country reducing its presence in the Taiwan Strait. In a separate piece by Zhang, he warns that U.S. naval transits through the Strait have declined by 50% during Trump’s second term compared to his first. He argues that a reduced American presence could create the perception in Beijing that U.S. commitment is weakening.

Looking Forward

If the Trump-Xi summit produces positive outcomes, People Liberation’s Army activity could stabilize or decline further as both countries seek areas of cooperation and attempt to manage tensions in the South and East China seas. This may prove an overly rosy possibility given years of antagonism at sea. Conversely, a less favorable outcome could contribute to renewed friction between China and the United States, potentially leading Beijing to increase military pressure around Taiwan and drive PLA activity toward levels seen in previous years.

With a wide range of issues expected to be discussed, including artificial intelligence, trade, and regional security, it remains unclear what specific agreements or understandings may emerge regarding Taiwan. While Beijing is unlikely to soften its position on the Taiwan question, it may seek to use the issue of its reduced military presence as leverage in negotiations to secure broader guarantees or concessions from Washington.

Lower Activity Does Not Equal Lower Risk

The upcoming summit may be shaping Beijing’s timing more than its intentions. If Chinese leaders believe restraint strengthens their diplomatic hand, the Chinese navy and air force activity may remain relatively subdued around Taiwan but increase elsewhere, as seen in the Philippine Sea this year. If the summit disappoints Beijing, the Taiwan Strait could once again become a convenient arena for signaling resolve and displeasure with the U.S.

All told, Beijing tends to celebrate significant anniversary dates with military demonstrations. Looking to the future, two dates are important to keep in mind: Oct. 1 (China’s founding day) and Oct. 10 (Taiwan’s National Day). Both have historically coincided with spikes in People’s Liberation Army activity. For instance, in 2024, 153 sorties were flown on Oct. 14 in direct response to remarks made just a few days earlier by President William Lai Ching-te on Taiwan’s National Day.

Promethean Action PAC’s Barbara Boyd gives her recap of President Trump’s visit to the United Nation’s General Assembly in New York. “Boyd argues President Trump used his UN General Assembly speech to indict globalization and mass migration, contrasting his “nation state” vision with Brazil’s Lula da Silva and warning Brazil’s Oct. 4 election could shift […]

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President Donald Trump says he is "the most transparent president" in U.S. History. The numbers back him up.

The post Exclusive – Trump the Transparent: President Surpasses 750 Media Events in Second Term, Maintaining Unprecedented Press Pace appeared first on Breitbart.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Republican National Committee has about 179 active lawsuits across 37 states, a legal broadside RNC Chairman Joe Gruters anticipates will set rules beyond just the 2026 midterm election cycle.

“When the president asked me to do this job a year ago, he said election integrity is a priority. The top priority is winning the election, but we also consider it a win to protect the vote,” Gruters told the Daily Signal in an exclusive interview.

“We want to secure our elections far beyond Election Day,” said Gruters, also a Florida state senator.

Gruters also said he recently talked to President Donald Trump about the fate of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID proposal that passed the House. Gruters says the bill “probably” wouldn’t get past the Democrat filibuster in the Senate before the November election.

The RNC established its election integrity program for the 2024 election, which included a presidential race, and surpassed its all-time litigation record for a single year.

The number of lawsuits is up from the 2024 cycle, when the RNC filed 175 election security lawsuits at the federal, state, and local levels. For the 2026 election cycle, the RNC filed more than 200 cases.

The most significant is likely the case of Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, which is going to the Supreme Court in December. The question in the case is whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The high court will also decide whether the state can remove the names of noncitizens, dead people, and other ineligible people from the voter registration rolls.

Lawsuits include pending litigation in eight states where overseas residents who never lived in the state are allowed to vote there, as well as major wins regarding election procedures in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. The RNC has had 34 courtroom victories and most cases are pending.

Beyond the courtroom, the RNC signed up 16,971 volunteers to work at polling sites nationally. That’s up from 11,917 at the same point in the 2024 presidential cycle, a 42% increase.

Gruters cited the three election integrity priorities for the RNC as voter ID, securing mail-in ballots, and requiring proof of citizenship.

The SAVE America Act would require photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

“I spoke with the president two nights ago about the specific senators that were keeping this from happening. Democrats are united in their efforts to prevent this from moving forward because they are united in their efforts to lie, steal, and cheat for victory,” Gruters said.

“It’s probably not going to happen now,” he said of passing the legislation. “We probably won’t see it happen until after November, when we have new senators.”

For their part, Democrats insist they are ready on the legal front.

“Democrats are fighting in courtrooms around the country, and federal elections will be free and fair this November because Democrats have defeated President Trump and Republicans’ attacks on the sacred right to vote,” DNC Litigation Director Dan Freeman told the Daily Signal in a statement.

“While Republicans continue to file lawsuits destined for dismissal and issue empty threats about poll watchers and election monitors, Democrats are ensuring Americans can make their voices heard and hold President Trump accountable at the polls this November,” Freeman continued.

Gruters said the GOP merely wants to prevent illegal votes from being cast that will cancel legal votes, and that Republicans have long been reactive instead of proactive on election integrity.

The RNC expanded recruitment into Maryland, Colorado, New Mexico, Kentucky, Alaska, and Ohio as part of a multimillion-dollar election integrity program, with directors deployed in 22 states.

Before coming to the RNC, Gruters had been the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and prior to that, the chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota County.

“Being a chairman is about blocking and tackling, but also about protecting the vote,” he said. “We are being aggressive. We are going to use the hammer whenever we can.”