In this episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Victor Davis Hanson and Jack Fowler pick apart DEI like a Christmas turkey.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a segment from today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to VDH’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: Speaking of not speaking English, you saw the headline about the mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts. He’s been mayor since 2021, and he needs an interpreter. Allegedly, he needs an interpreter in court. He can’t speak English.

Victor Davis Hanson: I think everybody out there of any nationality or ethnic background has to understand something. DEI is the most toxic ideology we’ve ever experienced because it gave exemption to people to do things on the assumption that they could do things and not be held accountable because of their race, sexual orientation, or gender, or whatever.

And we’ve seen it in spades with the multibillion-dollar fraud in California. Mandami is going to select for one of his interior offices, I think economic justice, Julie Su, who was the labor secretary in California that oversaw $40 billion in Medi-Cal or unemployment fraud.

And we’re seeing a multibillion fraud in Somalia. [Note: Fraud in Minnesota committed by Somalis.] We’re looking at truck driver fraud. We’re looking at violence. They all have one thing in common.

The Left has told us these people are all victims, not on any imperial evidence, just because DEI says that they’re not white. They’re not Christian in some cases, or whatever the DEI rubric is, not heterosexual, male, whatever, white.

But basically, they’re not white, and therefore, they’re the oppressed, and you have to give them special compensation. And when you do that to anybody for any reason, whether you’re a Russian in 1942 and you say you’re a communist and you’re a commissar, it doesn’t matter. To end that will help this country recover from its insanity.

All of these scandals have that one thing in common, that when you’re on the BART, and you’re in San Francisco and you assault somebody and you are on the oppressor side, BART will say we’re not going to release the video of what you did because you’re oppressed, and it might discourage people from being nice to you. And that will encourage violence.

If you’re DeCarlos Brown and you get out 11 times because of your circumstances, that means that you’ll be more likely to slit somebody’s throat. So, there is no deterrence for DEI.

And the worst thing about it is that we were at a point where people who were not so-called white were competitively upwardly mobile with the so-called dominant population. And now that has all been thrown into confusion because every time somebody, and I’m now referencing that Compact magazine, Mr. [Jacob] Savage, his article about DEI and prejudice.

When you give somebody special consideration, exemption from meritocracy and audit, the first thing they have to do—look at [former Harvard President] Claudine Gay, look at any of those people, look at any DEI appointment—the first thing they have to do is say, “I am a perpetual victim” because you were put there because you were a victim.

And therefore, you have to find racism, racism, racism. And therefore, when you don’t find it, you’ve got to invent it. If you don’t do that, you’re going to be evaluated on your merit. And if you were selected for that job because you did not have a competitive meritocracy, then you’re going to be very angry. So, it’s self-perpetuating. It’s a perpetual motion machine.

I got into Harvard because I was a minority. I didn’t have the SAT score, I didn’t have the GPA of somebody else, but once I’m here and people suggest I’m not qualified, I will say that somebody put something on my door that was racist, and somebody said something that was unkind, and it’s systemic, you don’t understand.

And that’s going to continue and then the university is going to be afraid to say, no, no, you weren’t qualified and you proved it because you can’t do the work in your case. They can’t say that.

It’s so ironic because I’m at a very competitive Hoover Institution. And the people who spoke, I felt, the most analytically of the fellows were Shelby Steele and Tom Sowell. No doubt about it. Kyron Skinner as well. Our director, Condoleezza Rice, very well-spoken, analytical, and guess what? All four of them are African American. They didn’t just excel, they’re preeminent. And then you get DEI, and you think, they’re here. No, they’re not. They came in that are meritocratic.

Tom Sowell’s probably the brightest guy I’ve met. He’s very understated. He doesn’t seek attention. But every time he opens his mouth, all those lunches I had with him, it was like, that is so true and so transparent and so common sense. And you just sliced and diced a complex problem into one sentence. I wish I could have said that. That’s how he was. Shelby Steele was the same way.

It’s just baffling why we did this to ourselves.

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

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The time leading up to the celebration of Christmas Day is often chaotic. Families are frantically finishing up their final shopping and gift wrapping. Traffic increases and patience seems to run thin as we rapidly approach the celebration of the birth of God in time.  

However, it also teaches us a tremendous amount about the power of marriage. 

In the words, witness, and experience of Mary and Joseph, we can learn how to gain a healthier view of marriage as well as craft practices that will truly impact the most important relationship that a human being can have with another human being.

Mary and Joseph provide the blueprint for how to love one’s spouse abundantly, respect him or her passionately, and trust in God lavishly. 

Before we investigate the power of their witness, let’s first take a look at the state of marriage in America. According to Bowling Green University, “There were 2,315,440 marriages and 989,518 divorces (in 2022), both of which are increases from the counts from 2021 (2,052,806 and 948,862 respectively).” For every 2.34 marriages, there was one divorce.  

Remaining married truly depends on the value one places on their spouse. Studies show that “the odds of a stable marriage increase when a spouse is committed, protective, religious and romantic.”

Two of the critical characteristics for a fulfilling marriage (commitment and religiosity) have deep ties to the moral life—hinting that learning from those who have been most committed and religious can only strengthen marriage bonds today.

Mary and Joseph exhibit more holiness and commitment than any marriage in history. 

In antiquity, there were two stages of marriage. The first was betrothal, where the man and woman were married but not yet living together. Then, after a period of time, they would move into the same home and begin their life together. 

Mary is a teenager when the angel Gabriel appears to her. She is betrothed (married but not yet living with) a man named Joseph.  

When she is alone, an angel invites her to be the Mother of God. Her response is one of utter abandonment and trust in the will of God. Mary notes that she is the “handmaid of the Lord” (Luke 1:38). Her life will be at the service of God.

What God says and what He asks of her is for her good, so she will always follow it. She is like a glove (a handmaid) that God has placed on His hand.  

Through her, God will act in the world in a real and definitive manner. She allows herself to be used by God. Not in the way that we use a tool. She is no object. She is the holy vessel by which God will enter the world.  

Mary was defined by her complete giving over of herself to God. Through this commitment, and God’s grace, she was able to be the best wife and mother possible. Her faith made her love for Joseph and Jesus stronger.

She saw that her marriage was not merely a human decision of what she desired but a sacred covenant that mirrored the love God had for her. She abandoned herself to this fact and her marriage and motherhood blossomed because of it. 

Abandonment was also required of St. Joseph.  

Joseph finds out that Mary is having a baby, and they are not living together. The only thought could be that she was unfaithful to him. It is then that an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him that Mary conceived through the power of God.

In this one moment, Joseph decides to abandon his future to the word of Mary and the word of the angel. He gives over his entire heart to serving the Mother of God and Jesus Christ simply because he was told to. 

We are told that “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him” (Matthew 1:24). He and Mary married.  

The Greek word used for “commanded” is prosetaxen, which literally means “to go to one’s station.” For the rest of his days, he never doubted that Mary had told the truth. He took it to heart that this was the Son of the Most High God and he took up his station to love her and Jesus. 

The commitment and faith of Mary and Joseph define their marriage. In a culture that is quick to applaud those who desert their marriage because they don’t feel in love, commitment is needed now more than ever. Because marriage is not simply a contract between two people who agree to remain together if they choose it. Marriage is a sacred covenant that is unbreakable. The only way for such a supernatural reality to flourish is to rely on God. 

In the Catholic classic on marriage, “Three to Be Married,” Archbishop Fulton Sheen communicates this truth beautifully. Sheen wrote: “How can one love self without being selfish? How can one love others without losing self? The answer is: By loving both self and neighbor in God. It is His Love that makes us love both self and neighbor rightly.” 

The best way to ensure you love your spouse as he or she deserves is to love God more. It is then that we can live out our commitment in a way that is not giving honor to the bare minimum of remaining together but overflows into loving one’s husband or wife as God loves them: unconditionally. 

For it is the unconditional love of God that breaks through as a person in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus born of Mary and guarded by Joseph in the manger that can heal our marriages and form them into a love that goes above and beyond. Because all marriages desire to be stronger.  

So, mirror Mary and Joseph—and find that commitment and faith lead to a relationship of love reflecting God’s love to the world. It is this love that all marriages are called to reflect. 

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

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The left-wing environmental, social, and governance movement, which only a few years ago was deeply embedded in corporate America, is now facing an assault on one of its greatest sources of leverage and control—the corporate proxy vote.

Proxy voting is the process by which asset managers vote on corporate actions on behalf of the end investors in their funds. President Donald Trump took action on Dec. 11 against two firms that have a virtual duopoly in advising these asset managers how to vote.

Trump’s executive order charged that the “foreign-owned and politically-motivated” proxy agents “regularly use their substantial power to advance and prioritize radical politically-motivated agendas—like ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ and ‘environmental, social, and governance’—even though investor returns should be the only priority.”

Two firms —German-owned Institutional Shareholder Services and Canadian-owned Glass Lewis—control more than 90% of the proxy advisory market. Many conservatives applauded the action against them.

“This Executive Order is an incredible step towards curtailing the runaway power of two foreign owned proxy advisors, ISS and Glass-Lewis, who have been using their outsized influence to push a far-left agenda in corporate America,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told The Daily Signal.

“We are ecstatic that the administration is taking such an important steps towards refocusing American companies back into making money by serving their customers, not cozying up to foreign owned firms with nothing to lose from their poor voting advice.”

Charles Crain, vice president at the National Association of Manufacturers, likewise stated  Trump’s order will address the outsized influence of the proxy duopoly and “investment advisers’ over-reliance on these under-regulated entities.”

Trump’s order directs the SEC to review its rules regarding shareholder voting, particularly where they have been used to introduce ideology into corporate governance. It directs the SEC to enforce anti-fraud laws regarding “material misstatements or omissions contained in proxy advisors’ proxy voting recommendations.”

It also directs the SEC, the FTC, and the U.S. attorney general to investigate proxy advisers for anti-trust activity, consumer deception, and conflicts of interest. In addition to proxy advice, ISS and Glass Lewis offer ESG consulting and research services.

Tim Schwarzenberger, a portfolio manager with Inspire Investing, told The Daily Signal this order was “necessary and long overdue” and that “investors have been raising concerns about this politicization well before this administration.”

Institutional investors, including mutual funds, index funds, pension funds, banks and insurance companies, own an estimated 66% of the shares in the S&P 500 corporate index. Critics charge that activists have leveraged this power to drive corporate policies sharply to the left in recent decades.

And while fund managers have the right to vote those shares, it is the retail investors and pensioners, who rely on such funds for savings or retirement, that suffer when companies become politicized.

The shares of companies, like Disney, Target, Anheuser-Busch, and most recently Netflix, took significant hits after attaching their brands to left-wing social agendas.

Proxy advisers, however, deny that they have engaged in political advocacy.

In response to Trump’s order, ISS stated that they “remain committed to engaging constructively with the three federal agencies named in the order” and that “our research, voting policies, and vote recommendations are based on apolitical, thorough, independent, and objective analysis.

“Our clients are sophisticated institutional investors who determine how they wish to vote in accordance with their own differentiated investment objectives by selecting from a range of voting policies that guide our work on their behalf,” the company stated.

Critics see it differently, however.

“Proxy advisers are supposed to provide objective guidance focused on shareholder value, but the proxy system has been increasingly used to advance political goals through shareholder proposals that often have little connection to financial performance,” Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks told The Daily Signal. “[Trump’s] executive order reaffirms a basic principle: proxy advice should be grounded in material financial considerations, not social or political agendas, regardless of who is in office.”

Trump’s executive order could have risks as well as benefits for the ability of shareholders to have a voice in corporate governance.

“The EO creates the opportunity for meaningful reform, but its effectiveness will depend on how the SEC implements changes, particularly with respect to proxy voting rules and the Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal process,” Schwarzenberger said.

Rule 14a-8 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 permits eligible shareholders to petition companies with proposals and statements at shareholder meetings. Trump’s order directs the SEC to review this rule as well.

“For all its imperfections, Rule 14a-8 currently remains the most practical and efficient mechanism for shareholders to hold companies accountable through the proposal process,” Schwarzenberger said. “It provides a structured, transparent, and relatively low-cost avenue for engagement that channels shareholder concerns into dialogue rather than litigation.”

However, it has also provided inroads for political and social activism.

Trump’s order “does not fully resolve deeper structural problems in the shareholder-proposal system, such as low ownership thresholds, repeat submissions, and proposals loosely tied to corporate performance,” Oaks said.

These elements have allowed activists to purchase modest amounts of stock—the minimum threshold is $2,000—in order to submit proposals.

The Daily Signal contacted Glass Lewis but did not receive a response.

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Think of all the grand gestures in this world. The motorcades, parades, and celebrations that occur when a president or prince visits a nation. The very foundation of the red carpet is glamour and awe. Modern rallies often welcome their distinguished guests to the stage with music blasting and sparks flying.

Hardly ever do important people make an appearance without the whole shebang. With one exception—the most important Being who ever walked this earth.

It’s Christmas time, which means we pay special attention to “the reason for the season”: the birth of Jesus Christ. And when we do so properly, what do we see? Sheer humility.

You know the narrative—Mary and Joseph, shepherds, a manger. Mary, close to birth, needed shelter. The inn, however, had no room. And so, they stayed in the stable, where little baby Jesus was ultimately born. However, during a time in which we commonly focus on how He came into the world in such a humble place, I want to focus on how He came into the world in such a humble form.

We’re not dealing with a good man who did good things in this world. No, we’re reflecting upon the very purpose behind Christmas, which involves the God of the universe. We’re talking about the incarnation of YAHWEH—the great I AM. We’re talking about the One who created the world and everything in it. The One whose mighty hand ordains all things — from the flooding of the earth in Noah’s time to the gentle fall of the leaves in Autumn.

This God could have come in any form He wished. As Audrey Assad sang in the song “Winter Snow,” He could have come like a “mighty storm,” carrying “all the strength of a hurricane.” He “could’ve come like a forest fire, with the power of heaven in [His] flame.” He could have come accompanied by trembling earthquakes or blinding light. He could have come declaring His holiness—His sovereignty.

But no… He came like a “winter snow. Quiet and soft and slow. Falling from the sky in the night to the earth below.”

I can hardly think of a more humble, innocent, and precious way for our Savior—the King of kings and Lord of lords—to have come to us. So vulnerable. So small. So out of sight.

In this fallen world, it’s “go big or go home.” Nearly everything comes back to how much attention, money, or possessions you have. If you have an abundance, then the world brands you as a somebody. But if you have nothing? Well, more often than not, you’re thrust aside as a nobody. And when Jesus entered this world, from a worldly perspective, He came with nothing—not even an actual room to be born in. By all earthly standards, He was a nobody.

Philippians 2:5-8 paints the full picture: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

All throughout Scripture, we see how everything Christ did, everything He was, and every aspect of what He taught all came back to humility. His entire earthly life—from birth to death—spotlights humility. All while bearing the title of King. The most perfect, mighty, majestic, sovereign, and holy Being chose humility. He chose humanity’s form. Christ does not just choose the lowly—He placed Himself among the lowly.

What better example could we ask for? Christ’s life, the humility that saturated every moment of it, completely flips the world’s script. When we’re told we can’t be satisfied unless we have more, Christ tells us we’re complete and satisfied in Him only. When the world demands perfection in order to be accepted, Christ cloaks us in His perfection. When the world tells us to perform for an audience of millions, Christ tells us: “Look to me and me alone.”

To the world, we’re never enough. No matter how much you chase what it deems valuable, you will never stop chasing — and you will always come up unsatisfied. And yet, in Christ, we have all things.

In fact, the very nature of our lowliness is what makes the gospel so breathtakingly beautiful. James 2:5 reminds us: “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him?” Or as 2 Corinthians 8:9 echoes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich.”

Beloved, in the most loving way I say this: we are a bunch of nobodies. There is nothing in us, I should think, that would beckon the Father’s love over us. I can think of no comprehensible reason why God would send His one and only Son to die for us.

Why, I often wonder, would Jesus go through so much pain and suffering, taking on sin and death, for a people that constantly fail Him? And to then turn around and give those people abundant life and a citizenship in heaven—it’s simply unfathomable!

We all came into this world as little, crying, helpless babies. We all entered unable to survive without the intervention of doctors and the love and help of our parents or some form of caregiver. Even as we age, we’re frequently reminded of our frailty, as well as our dependence on that which is outside of ourselves.

From start to finish, we see how, really, we aren’t all that important. No, we’re small and ordinary. We’re flawed and feeble. And yet, from being a babe to an adult in His mid-thirties, this is the form our Lord chose to mirror. This is the form that bears God’s image. This is the form of life He found worth dying for and communing with forever.

Our King—mighty and powerful—is so tender. Even the birds of the air He cares for. The grass is caressed by his tender breezes. The flowers, with their soft petals, bloom at His command. And this is all the more striking when considering the same voice that cares for the smallest, most vulnerable aspects of this life also moves mountains, controls storms, and evokes reverent (or not so reverent) fear and trembling.

It’s astounding, really. I mean, how could all of this be confined to a tiny baby? I’m truly unsure. But I am thankful—thankful for this wonderful reminder of humility.

And so, as we gather around twinkling lights and exchange gifts this Christmas, let us pause to emulate that same humility in our own lives. In a season often dominated by excess and spectacle, may we choose the quiet path of service, kindness, and selflessness—mirroring the Savior who came not to be served, but to serve.

Let this truth transform our hearts: the greatest power in the universe arrived in the gentlest whisper, inviting us to find our worth not in worldly acclaim, but in the eternal embrace of a humble King.

In Him, our ordinary lives become extraordinary, and our weaknesses are turned to strength. Merry Christmas, and may the peace of Christ, born in a manger, dwell richly in you.

Originally published by The Washington Stand.

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

The post The Humble Arrival: Reflecting on the Incarnation’s Gentle Grace appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As America soon celebrates its 250th anniversary, it would be wise to look back to understand what allowed a small collection of colonies on the edge of the world to rise to the great power it became.

This year marks the 81st anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, which began on Dec. 16, 1944, and ended a month later. It was one of the largest military operations in American history and is rightly recognized as a great Allied—especially American—riumph that led to the final collapse of the Third Reich and the end of World War II in the European theater.

Memory of the war is fading. I don’t mean that Americans no longer think of World War II. Sometimes it seems like the only historical event people think about when evaluating national or world politics. Comparing every politician to Hitler and every international situation to 1939 cheapens the meaning of the war and its complex beginnings.

But there are great and important lessons to be kept alive beyond the surface level pop history.

We must nevertheless never forget what it took to create the “post-War world” that was often so favorable to the American people. Too often the lessons of the war applied today only relate to the leaders at the top, to the Franklin Delano Roosevelts and the Neville Chamberlains. As important as these men and leaders were to the course of events, the war was much bigger than that.

At the Battle of the Bulge, the heaviest fighting took place on Christmas as German units pressed hard to break through Allied lines, reach the Meuse River, retake the port at Antwerp in Belgium and somehow, some way, stave off their defeat.

Much of the hard fighting and bitterly cold, miserable conditions of the battle was famously portrayed in the HBO series, “Band of Brothers,” which followed Easy Company of the 101st Airborne. Many other divisions participated in the battle too.

Though the Germans in some cases made notable advances after their surprise attack, their operation failed due in part to their own poor execution of an overly ambition plan and in even larger part to the hard fighting by men in the 28th Infantry Division, the 2nd Infantry, the 7th Armored, the 82nd Airborne and more.

One historian, Peter Mansoor, wrote of the Battle of the Bulge that it was “a victory made possible in large measure by the valor and sacrifice of a relative handful of American divisions” carefully positioned in a “quiet” part of the front. He noted that through the tenacity of these few men at critical moments of the battle Allied reinforcements were able to stem and then reverse the German tide.

They did so, Mansoor said, by capitalizing on American military strengths of “massed firepower, air superiority, tactical mobility, steadfast infantry, superior tank strength, and inexhaustible logistics.” These strengths could not be brought to bear without the “small unit” actions across the battlefield that “showed the American soldier at his best when the conditions he fought in were at their worst.”

In a sense, this remarkable victory harkened back to the original patriots of our American Revolution, those who had crossed the freezing Delaware on Christmas night in 1775 and turned the fortunes of war in favor of the Patriot cause and to those who later suffered in the snow at Valley Forge. Through suffering and endurance, the Americans there showed their true qualities.

Of the many, many remarkable aspects of the Battle of the Bulge beyond the fighting and sacrifice, the heroism, and tragedy of young lives cut short, is how it came to be that the Allied, mostly U.S. military, was able to triumph given the adverse circumstances.

The tired but ferocious army that defeated the best the Wehrmacht could throw at it in late 1944 didn’t even really exist just five years before. On the eve of the greatest war in human history the United States was only beginning the process of rearming. It could reasonably be said that in the 1930s, Romania had a more powerful army than the U.S., hard to imagine at any point after 1945.

Yet, a nation very much dedicated to peace was able, in just a few years, to muster and command the world’s most powerful combined armed forces, dominant in almost every measurable way.

We won the war of industry in the world’s greatest industrial war. We won the war of technology in a war where technology was rapidly reshaping the battlefield.

So much has been made of vaunted German “wonder weapons,” but the U.S. and to a certain extent the U.K. created and leaned on the technologies and innovations that would ultimately prove decisive like radar, time on target artillery strikes, proximity fuzes, and, of course, the atom bomb.

To make these all work and come together effectively on the battlefield required not just the work of brilliant generals, scientists, and governments, but whole nations. It took countless men and women of competence, dedication, courage, and willpower to produce victory.

And that’s something to remember this Christmas as we pass through another anniversary of that great battle with now very few surviving veterans.

Our victory at the Battle of the Bulge and on battlefields across the globe were not produced through enforced diversity quotas or even appeals to “democracy” and humanity It was strength of arms, able diplomacy, and widespread commitment to the task at hand by a nation of people used to overcoming obstacles and making the unimaginable the reality.

This is in large part the ideology of DEI, the acceptance of failure in the name of diversity. The abandonment of genuine merit, the willingness to tolerate mediocrity is so corrosive and is producing what will hopefully be a sustained backlash.

The United States has from its beginning been a nation strongly attached to its ideals, to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and all the wonderful creations of a people committed to self-government. It has also been a nation of winners, filled with men and women relentlessly and restlessly dedicated to their industry, their craft, their career, and occasionally to war.

We honor those before us by keeping their memory alive and by remaining as dedicated as they were, so that we may pass on the blessings of our labor and sacrifice to posterity as they did.

The post America Must Continue to Heed the Lessons of the Battle of the Bulge appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Christmas celebration is one of joy and excitement. No matter your age there is always something special about Christmas morning and the days that follow. We know that we are a part of something unique and everlasting.

Truly, Christmas reveals so much about life, faith and family.

First, Christmas shows what life is about and what life’s goal is. These days are meant to invoke a sense of deep wonder. The Christian claim is that the God of the universe, who made the billions of stars and billions of galaxies—the God who knows everything about you—became man and was born of a woman.

It is one thing to claim that God is real. “About nine-in-ten U.S. adults believe in God or another higher power,” according to the Pew Research Center. However, it is a totally different thing to claim that this God is personal, cares about you and became man to save you.

While the culture does generally tend to be less interested in God there are signs of hope. 

Recent studies from Pew also note that religious stability in America has remained steady since 2020, while highlighting that 70% of Americans are affiliated with a religion and 46% say they pray daily.

The Christian claim is amazing because it is a truth claim. Followers of Jesus hold that he was God (as proven through his miracles and resurrection). That he was born at a real time and in a real place. That he fulfilled the well-over 300 prophecies of who the Messiah would be that are found written in the Hebrew Scriptures (which are written over thousands of years by dozens of people who did not know each other).

If the Christian claim that Jesus is God and that he was born among us is true, then our lives are meant to revolve around him. It means that our God does not wait on the sidelines of existence but is involved in our lives.

It also means that you can have a true relationship with God because He is always with you. This is the second critical reminder that Christmas reveals to us: faith is a relationship.

For this reason, Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) that “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”

Christmas means that God has a face. However, that also means that the God who became one of us can be ignored. The baby placed in the manger is tiny, seemingly insignificant. He is easily overlooked and ignored by the majority of those in Bethlehem that night. Christmas is an amazing celebration but it is also a challenge to humanity: God came so close to us that we can choose to be indifferent to Him.

The invitation of this season, and the Christian faith, is to accept his call to make Him the center of our lives because then we enter into the love story of Christianity.

Finally, Christmas reveals critical characteristics for what makes a family healthy and fully alive. God is born among us, into a family. This is something we share with Jesus Christ and every single person to ever live. We enter this world and we are a part of a family. Even if our family has immense brokenness and challenges, we belong to a mother and father.

Christmas ought to remind us that families who pray together, stay together. A report from Open Public Health Journal shows that faith affects the health of marriages and the family unit as a whole. “Religious practices (prayer, rituals) also help couples better manage anger and take more responsibility during conflicts.”

We see this in the lives of Mary and Joseph who had no place for the King of Kings to be born but whose trust in God allowed them to trust in each other rather than become bitter about their circumstances. Their faith united them and allowed them to see that God was with them (literally) in their challenges.

A study published by Sutherland Institute reports on the impact of faith on the family as a whole: “Parents who attend church often promote positive outcomes for their children. Religious fathers tend to be more involved with their children, and religiously involved mothers report higher quality parent-child relationships.”

Religious families center the family on a focus bigger than themselves. When we live in the knowledge that we are loved and cared for by God, we become more willing to sacrifice for those that we love the most.

So, this Christmas let us remember that being faithful is not an ambiguous task; it is a relationship that allows us to become fully alive. Celebrating Christmas from the perspective of one’s relationship with God only makes us more willing to see this baby born in Bethlehem in his true identity and be transformed along the way.

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

The post The Groundbreaking Impact of Christmas appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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. There’s been quite a controversial article by one Jacob Savage in the conservative magazine Compact. In it, he describes the destruction of a whole generation, career-wise, of white males, particularly in the entertainment industry, screenwriting, journalism, the humanities, academia.

And his thesis is tri-part. He says that, traditionally, white males had dominated these fields, as they did others. And that was a part of demography. After all, until about 1965 or ’70, 90% of the country was so-called white, but as immigration increased and there was more emphasis on feminism, civil rights, the white male hierarchy decided to help people who otherwise would not be encouraged to apply to these marquee jobs.

And this was sort of a proto affirmative action. And then it was reified by the government. And so, we saw the beginning in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s of affirmative action, and this reduced the number of white males from their demo from being overrepresented, let’s say 70%, when their demographic now is 35, down to the millennium proportionality.

There was no disproportionate demographics. They were more or less proportionate in screenwriting and writing and movie scripts, etc. Right before and then especially after George Floyd, there was something, I guess we would call it reparations or repertory hiring, admissions. In my case, I watched Stanford University go down to 9% white males were admitted to their freshman class, even though that demographic is about 35% of the population.

And this radically changed journalism, screenwriting, academia. And as Mr. Savage points out, some of the exclusionary actions were outright and unabashed, I would call it, racism. He doesn’t, he says prejudicial behavior. So, you would get down to 8%, 9%, 10%, 11%, 12% white males. That meant there was almost no opportunity. And instead, women and minorities were hired.

He ends the article by suggesting that if you get rid of meritocracy—and all of these fields, forget about the tribal affiliations of those who were in them, they did have meritocratic standards. So, I guess I came away from his article thinking, if you don’t think the movies are very good today, the “Star Wars” franchise has gone downhill, the “James Bond” franchise has gone downhill, the entertainment at the halftime shows are pretty bad, Disneyland is not very welcoming anymore, you know the scenario. It’s because we destroyed standards and we replaced them with tribal chauvinism.

Where I think some of you are gonna disagree with this very powerful and well-written article is that he allots no anger, no blame. He says that the white male hierarchy that implemented these changes on another generation, i.e., his generation, it is not to blame, and the people who took advantage of these repertory or race-based or gender-based hiring should not be faulted either. They just took advantage of a welcoming position.

And then, rather than being defined, he sort of shrugs his shoulders and says, I told my children maybe I didn’t succeed. It was kind of tragic. I do blame the older white hierarchy, mostly liberal professors, liberal journalists, liberal directors, liberal actors, liberal screenwriters. They all had nice cushy jobs. They earned them. Then they decided in their utopian generosity that they were going to admit people into their guilds without the same criterion that they had had because it made them feel better.

In other words, they didn’t accept Tom Sowell’s or Shelby Steele’s advice or Jason Riley’s that says, when you do that, you’re going to encourage mediocrity and opportunist, and you’re going to deprecate the work of African Americans or Hispanics that are very talented. But that’s what you’re going to do just to gratify your own sense of ego and shame. And that’s exactly what happened.

So, I do blame that group because all they had to do is say, they could have said: “We have to have a radical change at Disney Pictures. We have to have a radical change at sitcoms. We have to have a radical change in screenplays. And because we have seven white males in the journalism room and we’re all 70, we’re making great money, one of us is gonna have to retire and give our slots to other white males that are young, and then we can hire additional ones.”

They didn’t do that. It was all, I’m going to experiment on these Guinea pigs without any exposure of my title, my job, my salary, my benefits. And they destroyed a whole series of genres.

The other thing that I would say is I do blame the people who took advantage of that, especially those who knew they were not qualified. And then to stay in those positions when they did not have the meritocratic criteria, they had to perpetuate the idea of systematic racism.

What do I mean by that? Anybody, to take one example, who listened to Joy Reid on MSNBC, “The ReidOut,” or whatever her show was, knew that she was A) not truthful, B) paranoid, C) hypocritical, D) ignorant. I don’t care where she went to school or what kind of degree she got, she was not qualified for that job. She tanked all of their ratings. People did not wanna watch her.

And I don’t think that she was an innocent victim. I think she took advantage of that goodwill, especially when she was supercharged after the death of George Floyd to take advantage of that situation and to voice, I think, opinions that were objectively racism. So, not everybody, but I do think people took advantage of this system.

What did he end up with, Mr. Savage? He sort of said this was so unfair and so tragic. We lost such talent. It was so unfair.

Yes. But I would urge all of you listeners to read a little essay in response by Jeremy Carl. He said, no, no, that’s not—you’ve got the diagnosis right, but you don’t have the therapy right. We don’t just shrug our shoulders and say that was unfair, and it’s tragic, and millions of lives were destroyed. We fight back. And that’s what President Donald Trump has done with the destruction of DEI. And Jeremy Carl said it’s racism. Whether it’s white on black or black or white, or white on minority or minority on white, doesn’t matter.

You don’t address a perceived injustice by creating a greater injustice. You don’t destroy the lives of a whole generation of people for the goodwill of your own spirit or something to make you feel good. No. These people were culpable. They did great damage, and they have to be held accountable.

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

The post The War on White Men Is Real—Here’s the Proof appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said Tuesday that navigating Washington’s hard-left culture requires a constant search for grace.

The Trump administration has achieved positive economic results as the Consumer Price Index showed inflation easing to a 2.7% year-over-year increase in November from 3.0% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Speaking with Brian Kilmeade on “The Ingraham Angle,” Kennedy said the media chose to ignore President Donald Trump’s achievements.

“I’ve said before, I don’t hate anybody. I look for grace wherever I can find it. But there’s some days when I walk to my office in the Capitol and I give myself a pep talk and I say today, ‘Kennedy, you’re going to follow Jesus.’ But by 10, I want to follow Jesus still, but I want to slap somebody,” Kennedy said. “But I love my job, and this Christmas I’m not thinking about grievances. I’m thinking about gratitude. I’m thinking about grace. I’m thankful, in addition to my God and for my family.”

Kennedy said the past year tested his patience.

“This year, in some ways, Brian, has been frustrating in the sense that nothing that the Trump administration does, no matter what it is, even if it’s something very, very, very positive, he’s not given credit for it by many members of the media,” Kennedy told Kilmeade. “That’s aggravating. I’ve said this before, but it’s frustrating sometimes that Washington, D.C., you know it, it’s a Democratic town, not just the Democrats in Congress, but the think tanks, the academics, the bureaucrats, and that can be frustrating.” 

Harvard economics professor Kenneth Rogoff told CNN News Central co-host Kate Bolduan that the latest Consumer Price Index data amounts to “positive news” for the economy.

“I was surprised. It was a better number than anyone was expecting,” Rogoff said. “Look, inflation’s been very high, it’s stayed high and it’s not been coming down.”

At the start of Trump’s second term, Democrats blamed him over costs of goods—most notably eggs, which climbed sharply between November 2023 and March 2025 after an avian influenza wave wiped out large portions of the nation’s poultry supply, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Trump countered those attacks in a Wednesday night address, as the White House pointed to easing prices across everyday goods, including groceries, household products, and fuel.

Price pressures ballooned during former President Joe Biden’s tenure, when inflation reached levels not seen in decades, peaking in mid-2022.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post ‘I Want to Follow Jesus Still, but I Want to Slap Somebody’: John Kennedy Seeks Grace and Gratitude in Hard Left DC appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A small group of lawmakers recently flew over 5,000 miles to Nigeria to send a clear message to the leaders of the African nation where Christians are facing severe persecution.  

“I wanted to do a trip to make a statement that we’re watching, that we’re paying attention, that we’re in solidarity with the Nigerian people,” Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., told The Daily Signal.

Huizenga spent about 30 hours on the ground in Nigeria over the weekend in a whirlwind trip accompanied by Reps. Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., Keith Self, R-Texas, and Jefferson Shreve, R-Texas. The congressmen met with multiple Nigerian leaders during the brief trip.

General Christopher Gwabin Musa, the Nigerian minister of defense, is a Christian himself, the Congressman says, and after learning that the members of Congress planned to attend a church service outside Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria, Musa joined the delegation for the service.  

“I think this may have been one of the most important things that happened on the trip, was having … Minister Musa come and hear directly, and hear the support for him” from church leaders, Huizenga said.  

Attending the service and worshipping alongside the Nigerian people and minister of defense was a “powerful” experience, Huizenga said. He added that he believes the minister’s appointment to the position just earlier this month is good step in the right direction toward addressing the violent persecution of Christians.  

Huizenga says he plans to meet with President Donald Trump “directly” in the future to discuss the trip and next steps to address the violence in Nigeria.  

Radical Islamic Muslims and Fulani Muslims have killed more than 50,000 Christians in Nigeria since 2009, and about 7,000 in the first half 2025 alone, according to Genocide Watch.   

Christians have faced persecution in Nigeria for more than two decades, but violence against followers of Jesus grew far worse with the rise of Boko Haram in 2009, according to Global Christian Relief. 

Fulani Muslims are also carrying out attacks against Christians in Nigeria, though these attacks are driven, at least in part, by socio-economic tensions. 

The trip Huizenga led to Nigeria represents the second congressional delegation to the African nation within the past 40 days. Rep. Riley Moore, R-W. V., led a trip to Nigeria in November. Moore said that he had a “frank, honest, and productive discussion with senior members of the Nigerian government regarding the horrific violence and persecution Christians face and the ongoing threat terrorism poses across Nigeria.”  

The persecution of Christians in Nigeria has drawn attention from lawmakers, political leaders, and celebrities alike.  

At the end of October, Trump announced he was designating Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern.” Trump also asked members of Congress to look into the issue of Christian persecution in Nigeria and report back to him.   

The message now to the Nigerian government is “we’re not going away,” Huizenga said. The U.S. won’t accept the claims some in the Nigeria government have made discrediting the violence or even claiming it is not happening.  

“We’re paying attention,” Huizenga says.  

The post ‘We’re Watching’: Members of Congress Travel 5,000 Miles to Send Clear Message to Nigeria’s Leaders   appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Christmas season is filled with busy schedules, parties, decorations, and joy. It is arguably the most special time of year.  

Unfortunately, the secular nature of the holiday has dominated its celebration to such a large degree that we can too often neglect to remember the religious roots of the season. Of course, we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, but we can also learn from the real Santa Claus on how best to celebrate the coming of the Son of God.

St. Nicholas (270-345) was a real historical person. When he was a young boy his parents were very involved in giving aid to those who were sick in their community. Their service to the poor and ill ultimately cost them their lives when they contracted a disease from those they were giving aid to. Their wealth was left to their son, Nicholas.

He later became a Bishop of Myra off the coast of Turkey and was known for his love for the poor and care for those in need. What he became most well-known for was his anonymous gift-giving in the middle of the night.

Nicholas first performed this act of charity to the family of a widower who had three daughters. The tradition says that the father was worried that if he died his daughters would be sold into slavery in order to survive due to his poverty. Nicholas left gold coins through the window of their home on three consecutive nights in order to provide for their needs.

St. Nick’s charitable heart and desire to give to those in need in a secretive way later gave rise to the tradition of Santa Claus. This name and practice of gift-giving originated in Holland, where he was called Sinterklaas (a Dutch variant of the name St. Nicholas). As the Dutch came to America, the tradition was carried with them and later took off across the world as a tradition of giving gifts anonymously at night.

The reality that we celebrate on Christmas today truly arose from the combination of the gift of all gifts: God becoming one of us in order that we may know Him personally and that He may save us—along with providing each other with gifts in a way that would transmit our love for each other. In this way, we can learn from the real St. Nick as we prepare to celebrate Christmas.

First, we can learn the meaning of the notion of gift. For Christians, this is communicated through the word “grace.” This comes from the Greek word charis. It can literally be defined as “free gift” or “that which gives joy.”

When it comes to the grace that God gives, it is something that is undeserved and it communicates His very life. In that sense, God’s grace enlivens the human spirit and allows one to be joyful even in the face of trials.

Grace also reminds us that, like the gifts of St. Nicholas, it is the reception of gifts that we don’t deserve that are the most special. The anonymous nature of St. Nick’s gifts as well as his willingness to do this at night brought the sense to his receivers that they were special enough to be taken care of by someone they did not even know.

Parents love their children like this. We seek to bring great joy and surprise to our kids by giving them special gifts on their birthdays or at Christmas. The surprise nature of the gift is meant to show that our kids deserve to be loved above and beyond what they could imagine.

God desires to love us in the same way, but on an infinite level. That is why He takes on human flesh. That is why He was born in the middle of nowhere to peasant parents. God’s ultimate Christmas gift is that He comes so close to us that He becomes one of us.

When we provide gifts of a special quality to our loved ones, or those in need during the holidays, we can love like God does.

Second, grace and gifts provide joy. The gifts that St. Nick gave always had a human connection. They were meant to reveal that even those who thought they were insignificant were loved and being taken care of.

This is a major challenge for us in modern times. Normally, our gifts are items that are not essential to the human condition. While there can be creativity in what we give, perhaps this Christmas, St. Nicholas is challenging us to consider how we can give to those who have nothing.

Maybe there is a winter clothing drive near us or a church that organizes meals for those in need during Christmas. Whatever the act of good grace is this season, we can all give like St. Nick. Because the real reason for all the gifts is to share the good news that God became man so that man might become like God—there is no greater gift than that.

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

The post Meet the Real St. Nick appeared first on The Daily Signal.

CBS “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi raged against the network’s Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss when she delayed her story on how the Trump administration deported illegal immigrants from Venezuela to a “notorious” prison in El Salvador. Weiss wanted more reporting and more rebuttal from the Trump administration in it.

“If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient,” Alfonsi complained in a memo leaked to the media. “We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.”

The targets of a story shouldn’t have a veto, but it’s not unreasonable to let them rebut “notorious” allegations. The hilarious piece of this argument is that “60 Minutes” deserves the term “investigative powerhouse.”

Back on Feb. 17, Alfonsi gushed over German officials fining and jailing people for “hate speech” on the internet. Alfonsi let them claim that punishing people for what they say online is “protecting democracy and discourse by introducing a touch of German order to the unruly world wide web.”

She asked one censor: “You’re doing all this work. You’re launching all these investigations. You’re fining people, sometimes putting them in jail. Does it make a difference if it’s a worldwide web and there’s a lot of hate out there?”

This is being a “stenographer for the state,” literally.

Scott Pelley’s interviews with President Joe Biden did not demonstrate an “investigative powerhouse” at work. In 2022, Pelley warmly nudged Biden: “You have lived a long life of triumph and tragedy. In November, you’ll be 80. And I wonder what it is that keeps you in the arena.” Seconds later, Biden pulled out his rosary ring so Pelley could tout him as “Catholic and devout.”

In October of 2023, he helped paint Biden as a constructive foreign-policy player. Pelley told viewers the president was “asking for billions of dollars for Israel and Ukraine, Congress is paralyzed. Hard-right Republicans are obstructing the election of a speaker of the House.”

He asked Biden: “Does the dysfunction that we’ve seen in Congress increase the danger in the world?” Why, yes, Biden replied, the Republicans are terrible.

Biden was painted as the family man who visited German death camps: “Mr. Biden told us images of Oct. 7 reminded him of the Holocaust—which he has studied—taking his family to the Dachau death camp in Germany. This is 2015. The man in the wheelchair is a Dachau survivor. Behind Mr. Biden is the president’s granddaughter.” It’s stenography.

Two weeks earlier, Pelley gently asked Attorney General Merrick Garland about how nonpartisan he was. He even asked: “Two of your ancestors were murdered in the Holocaust. Is that why you devoted yourself to the law?”

At the end, Pelley added, “If democracy is an emotional subject for Merrick Garland, maybe it’s because he has witnessed how suddenly it can be threatened, in Oklahoma City (in 1995) and Washington D.C. (Jan. 6).” Pelley asked Garland, “When the history of this extraordinary time is written, what is the best that Merrick Garland can hope for?”

For many years now, “60 Minutes” has painted itself as an “investigative powerhouse” when it’s going after Republicans, but they often sound like their show could be called “Syrupy Minutes” when they’re interviewing their ideological allies, from the Clintons to Obama and Biden.

This is why they are offended by the oversight of Weiss. She represents those repulsive people who expect some fraction of balance or fairness from CBS. They don’t want any “corporate interference” in the machinations of their propaganda factory.

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

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You don’t have to be up to the 100 pushup, 50 pullup “Bobby Kennedy Fitness Challenge” this Christmas to follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary’s holiday health recommendation.

When asked by The Daily Signal how Americans can stay healthy during the holiday season, Makary gave a simple answer: drink more water.

“I’ve often had patients ask me, like, ‘What’s one thing I can do to eat healthier, to live healthier, that’s easy, something easy to do,’” he said. “And I often tell them, ‘Drink good water, drink water instead of sugary drinks or drinks with things that you don’t even know what’s in them.’”

Makary said he’s excited about changes to the health conversation sparked by the MAHA movement.

“This is the exciting thing about Secretary [Robert F.] Kennedy and this new MAHA agenda, as people are talking about health now in a conversation that we’ve never had before about school lunches, not just putting 6-year-olds on Ozempic,” he said. “We’ve initiated now through the U.S. [Department of Agriculture] waivers for the SNAP program so that the SNAP taxpayer dollars don’t have to go to junk food. We are working on a definition for ultra-processed foods.”

“We’re rewriting the food pyramid,” he continued. “We are doing so much in the area of food that I think you’re really gonna see now a revolution in medicine to talk not just about drugs and operations, but to talk about food and the microbiome and a healthy gut and body inflammation and stress.”

A big agenda item for Makary is being “proactive on health.”

“We’ve never had these conversations at a federal level before on the importance of natural light exposure for children and the importance of circadian rhythms and one’s sleep quality and things like estrogen for postmenopausal women,” he said.

Makary says he’s lucky to eat his wife’s home cooking.

“I like to eat healthy,” he said. “I like to eat whole foods, things that come from good soil, foods that come from animals that are raised in a very healthy and humane way.”

The post FDA Chief Shares Attainable Holiday Health Advice appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On Jan. 20, 2025, the American people knew President Donald Trump’s agenda included securing the southern border, removing criminal illegal aliens from the country, ending woke policies within the federal government, and increasing American energy production.

But what Americans did not realize was just how concerned Trump would be during his first year in office with ending conflicts around the world.  

“I’ve restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat, and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years peace to the Middle East, and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead,” Trump said during an address to the nation on Dec. 17.  

Not every conflict the president was involved in was a war, and tensions between some nations have not been fully resolved since Trump’s involvement, but the Trump administration has demonstrated a propensity for peace-making.  

India and Pakistan 

Just four months into Trump’s second term, tension exploded between Pakistan and India with the two nations engaging in missile strikes and drone attacks. Both nations are nuclear-armed, raising concerns over a full-fledged war between the neighboring South Asian countries.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance spoke with leaders from both nations, helping to facilitate a ceasefire in May.  

Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda 

In June, the Trump administration facilitated a peace agreement between the Congo and Rwanda. The peace deal ended a 30-year conflict in Africa between the two.    

The conflict between the nations stemmed from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which left about 800,000 people dead.  

Trump hosted the foreign ministers of the two countries at the White House in June after both sides agreed to a deal to end the fighting. The U.S.-mediated deal also provided the U.S. access to critical minerals in Congo. 

Israel and Iran 

Israel carried out strikes against Iran in June, specifically targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Iran responded with strikes on Israel, and the two nations engaged in a 12-day war.  

The fighting came to an end when the U.S. struck three of Iran’s key nuclear facilities. 

Serbia and Kosovo 

Ethnic tensions and disagreements over sovereignty are at the root of years of conflict between Serbia and Kosovo.  

Serbia has long claimed Kosovo is part of its territory, but Kosovo believes it is its own sovereign state.  

In June, Trump said he stopped Serbia and Kosovo from “a big-time war.”  

“I have a friend in Serbia, and they said we’re going to go to war again. And I won’t mention that it’s Kosovo, but it’s Kosovo,” Trump said. “But they were going to have a big-time war and we stopped it. We stopped it because of trade. They want to trade with the United States.” 

“I said, ‘We don’t trade with people that go to war,’” Trump added.  

Thailand and Cambodia  

For more than a century, Thailand and Cambodia have had a territorial dispute over their border and ownership of certain historical sites.  

Tensions escalated between the two countries in May when a skirmish broke out between Thai and Cambodian forces and a Cambodian soldier was killed. In July, Thailand and Cambodia engaged in five days of deadly fighting.

The Trump administrated stepped in to help broker a ceasefire, which ended the fighting. The conflict flared again in December, but efforts are underway to establish a permanent ceasefire.  

“I had a very good conversation this morning with the Prime Minister of Thailand, Anutin Charnvirakul, and the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Manet, concerning the very unfortunate reawakening of their long-running War,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Dec. 12. “They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord made with me, and them, with the help of the Great Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim.”  

“Both Countries are ready for PEACE and continued Trade with the United States of America,” according to Trump.  

Egypt and Ethiopia 

The waters of the Nile are at the center of the most recent conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia. Egypt relies on the Nile for its freshwater supply. As the Atlantic Council puts it, the Nile is “Egypt’s national bloodstream.” 

The Blue Nile flows through Ethiopia into the Nile and provides the Nile with 86% of its water supply. This year, Ethiopia inaugurated its new Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. Egypt fears Ethiopia could use the dam to limit or even cut off water flows between the rivers, which would lead to devastating consequences for Egypt.  

In July, Trump announced that he was working to resolve the water tension between the two nations.  

Discussions are ongoing, but Egypt and Ethiopia have yet to sign a formal deal on the terms of operating the dam. 

Armenia and Azerbaijan 

Armenia and Azerbaijan spent years fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but the population is largely Armenian. Earlier this year, the U.S. brokered negotiations that led the two nations to take a significant step toward peace.

In August, Trump hosted Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House. The two leaders signed a joint declaration of peace, ending the fighting that began in the 1990s.  

Leaders from Armenia and Azerbaijan have also “signed bilateral economic agreements with the U.S.,” according to the White House.  

Israel and Hamas 

In September, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire based on Trump’s 20-point plan aimed at ending the two-year war that began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, resulting in the death of 1,200 people and another 251 being taken hostage.  

The deal led to the release of all 20 living hostages and the remains of 27 deceased hostages. The remains of one hostage are still in Gaza.  

Israel Defense Forces has pulled back to a denoted “yellow line” in Gaza and fighting has largely stopped. A formal peace agreement to officially end the war has not yet been signed.  

The post A Christmas Gift to the World? Wars and Conflicts Trump Says He Ended in 2025  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

THE DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to allow President Donald Trump to deploy the National Guard in Illinois.

The government has not shown it is permitted under the law “to federalize the Guard in the exercise of inherent authority to protect federal personnel and property in Illinois,” the Supreme Court majority held.

“At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the ruling states. “The President has not invoked a statute that provides an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act.”

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the ruling.

“I am not prepared at this point to express a definite view on these questions, but I have serious doubts about the correctness of the Court’s views,” Alito wrote in a dissent joined by Thomas. “And I strongly disagree with the manner in which the Court has disposed of this application.”

The administration urged the justices to intervene in October after an appeals court left in place an order preventing Trump from sending troops into the area.

Several Democrat governors, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, have brought legal challenges to Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard within their state. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed troops to remain in Washington, D.C. while litigation continues in a Dec. 17 decision.

“Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted,” Alito wrote.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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The War Department announced Tuesday that the military has reached its highest level of recruitment in a decade and a half in a stunning, yet predictable, reversal from just a few years ago.

“Since November 2024, our military has seen its highest recruiting percentage of mission achieved in more than 15 years,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

Every branch, according to the Department of War, hit over 100% of its recruiting targets, except the Army Reserve. The department was quick to attribute this recruitment explosion to the new leadership at the top.

“In 2025, the department exceeded our annual active-duty recruitment accession goals across all five services. … Why? Because we have a commander in chief and a secretary of war who are focused on our troops and our mission, and on ensuring that we remain the most lethal fighting force on the planet,” Undersecretary of War for Personnel and Readiness Anthony J. Tata said during a speech earlier this month.

Now, it’s true that every administration wants to spin good news as directly attributable to its leadership. However, much like the border issue, it’s impossible to ignore the reality that recruitment shot up virtually the moment it was clear that President Donald Trump would win in 2024 and there would be new management in the White House.

Even though the world was becoming an increasingly hostile place, the Biden administration utterly failed to boost recruitment and, like its endeavors in so many other areas, practically shrugged when year after year the military descended deeper and deeper into a recruiting crisis.

The Biden Response to the Recruiting Crisis

Their only answer? Promoting more DEI programs until morale improved and the military “looked” like America. At a House Armed Services Committee hearing I covered in 2023, a member of the Biden administration defended its DEI practices by saying that this was the only means by which we could boost recruitment numbers.

“Our diversity and inclusion initiatives are focused on talent acquisition and development and informed by science and business best practices, congressional mandates, data-focused policy reviews and assessments and the lived experiences of airmen and guardians working together every single day,” said Alex Wagner, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs.

These “business best practices” worked about as well as the DEI programs that became all the rage in big business. Not only were many of these programs discriminatory and outright illegal, but it also turns out they didn’t work. The studies supporting them were bunk, ideological claptrap disguised as “science.”

The “diverse” army never signed up, the number of white recruits declined dramatically, and it seemed that nobody in charge was particularly concerned about it.

The fact that the DEI programs were a priority despite the obvious failure made it clear that the military would be treated like a vast social experiment, rather than centering its focus on war fighting. Results were irrelevant to those in charge as long as “equity” improved.

On top of the DEI nonsense, the military was outright purging members through COVID-19 vaccine mandates, making the recruitment and retention crisis even worse.

No wonder our adversaries abroad weren’t taking the United States seriously when President Joe Biden was hollering about democracy and going with his hollow “tough guy” spiel. We weren’t taking ourselves seriously.

A Paradigm Shift

Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth took the government and our military in a new direction. Trump loves to be called the “peace” president but he understands that if you want peace you must prepare for war.

The military’s focus has shifted toward remaining the most lethal fighting force on the planet. Excellence and merit are celebrated once again.

The president has held military parades and touts new weapons systems that will give us an edge if war must come. He promoted a new “battleship” with great enthusiasm, in part because it signals that the administration will take the much-needed naval buildup seriously.

I hope in the future, the “Golden Fleet” of Trump will send a warning to would-be adversaries in a way that Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet did nearly a century and a half ago. It certainly sends a stronger message than the rusted-out “green fleet” of Biden.

But the military is about more than its weapons systems, as vital as those are. Its strength comes not merely from its technology, and even less from its “diversity,” but from its morale, its unity of purpose, and the mentality of the people who serve in every capacity.

It seems confidence is being restored, and Americans are joining the military once again.

Woe to those abroad who seek to test their strength.

The post Trump Is Restoring Confidence to Military, Credible Threat to US Adversaries appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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. The 2026 midterms, as we’ve talked about, will be determined by the economy. That was brought home by a recent Harvard/Harris poll where some dozen issues were arranged and the surveyed public was asked to rate their importance in their own opinion.

They ranged from the economy, foreign affairs, the border, higher education problems, the transgender, and, overwhelmingly, No. 1 was the economy. And it was laced in the term that the Left has used, called affordability, and they have that one issue has driven down President Donald Trump’s, basically, 48 to 50 approval ratings the last, oh, two months ago down into the lower 40s.

We don’t know how accurate these polls are, but the Left has made the argument that the prices are about 21%, 22% higher than when Donald Trump left, and they are on average about 5, 5.2 higher per year. And Donald Trump in 10 months did not lower.

Now, I know you’re saying, “Victor, Victor, that’s absurd. It was former President Joe Biden who did what you just said.” Exactly. So, why is that issue hurting Donald Trump so much? And what can he do to stop it?

Well, the answer is that he assumed he—I’m using Donald Trump and his name and “he” for the whole Trump conglomerate, the whole team. What they assumed was anybody, they thought, anybody who followed the 2024 campaign would understand that Donald Trump won by pointing to Joe Biden’s record: 12 million illegal aliens, many of them or most on the dole, draining the social services network, undercutting labor prices by cheap labor, bringing in drugs, a big cost. Supply chains weakened after COVID-19. Don’t want to have a lot of stimulus when there is pent-up consumer demand, warning some blue-chip economists not to do what Biden did. What did he do? Eight trillion dollars in stimulus borrowing. I could go on.

But Trump had delineated all of those pathologies in the 2024 campaign that had led to this hyperinflation, the worst in 40 years.

So, Trump comes in in January, and the inflation rate that particular month had gone down from an average of 5.2% to 3%. So, then he goes and works on the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” He works with his interior and energy secretaries to already produce record levels of natural gas and oil. The Big, Beautiful Bill, of course, had deregulation, the continuation and expansion of tax cuts, and then the symmetrical trade he was talking about, and then the record $10 trillion to $20 trillion, probably $10 trillion, in foreign investment.

So, that was all laid out, why the Democrats were talking about affordability, affordability. The attitude, this is my point, the attitude of the Trump administration, however, was, well, we have these long-term catalyst and stimuli and reforms that are gonna supercharge the economy. Any time you have more deregulation, more tax cuts, more energy development, more foreign investment, more fair trade, it’s gonna boom. Next year we’re gonna have the World Cup games, suckers, right in the United States. We’re gonna have the 250th anniversary of the birth of the country. This is gonna take off like a rocket.

That was the assumption. I think it’s accurate, but, and then the other half of their assumption was no—and Donald Trump kept saying it’s a con job. Nobody’s gonna believe affordability from the people who destroyed it. Twenty-one aggregate inflation, if you look at insurance, housing, autos, health care, food staples. Thirty percent it went up under Biden. More than 6% a year, 7% a year, 8% a year on these key staple items that are so essential, power, gas.

So, I think what I’m getting at is they were kind of asleep at the wheel. They said no one was going to believe that propaganda. They all know that Biden ruined the economy and left us with a mess, and that’s why I won the election. However, we’ve done all of these things I just delineated and they’re gonna kick in next year, and I’m going to turn my attention to solving the Middle East problem—which he’s made a lot of progress with the ceasefire with Hamas. We’re gonna solve the Iranian nuclear proliferation problem, which he’s more or less has done. I’m gonna spend a lot of time on seven or eight ceasefires, which he’s done, and now I’m turning my attention to the Ukraine war.

Yes. And when you were doing that, that lie about affordability being your fault was reverberating in every single media broadcast. Affordability, affordability, Trump’s inflation. And for you not to address that every day and say, “Wait, the inflation today is 3%. That’s what I inherited, and it’s only been 10 months, and I’ve got the whole mechanisms in place to lower it, but I haven’t increased inflation one iota. In fact, it’s down at 3% from the 5.2%.” But we didn’t get that is what I’m trying to say.

So, Donald Trump is saving the world, and quite successfully, with a wonderful foreign policy that is bringing real results both abroad and on the southern border, and that will have economic implications, as will his foreign policy. And meanwhile, the Left is saying he cares more about Ukraine. He cares more about the Israelis. He cares more about the Azerbaijanis and Armenians. But us, we care about our affordability.

And no one is saying, “You should care about affordability. You made America unaffordable every year you were in power and we’re undoing your mess.” But we haven’t had that message, and I hope we will very soon.

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

The post The Left Framed Trump on ‘Affordability’ Crisis. Here’s What Trump Must Do Now. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on December 13, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday.

“Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning. On December 16 and 17, at least four more individuals were detained.”

Two local Christians, 58-year-old Lin Enzhao and 54-year-old Lin Enci, were labeled “principal suspects of a criminal organization” by the CCP, with locally-posted wanted posters charging the two with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which ChinaAid noted is a “commonly used charge” by the CCP against religious and political dissidents. Over the past several years, CCP officials in Yayang Town have attempted to forcibly destroy church property, including symbols such as crosses, and install CCP propaganda and imagery, such as the five-star Red Flag and the CCP’s constitution. Enzhao and Enci were key figures in opposing the CCP’s efforts.

Chen Yixin, director of China’s Ministry of State Security, is a native of the province and has led efforts to demoralize the Christian community there, including by initiating a program to destroy crosses in 2014 and install the national flag, the Constitution, laws, and socialist core values in Christian spaces and promote the “localization” and “politicization” of religious activities. However, the Christians of Yayang Town have resisted the CCP’s efforts for over a decade, hosting rallies and demonstrations and even confronting state police when necessary.

Following the mass arrests this month, the CCP hosted an “Elimination of Six Evils” demonstration, with SWAT officers and riot police deployed en masse “to demonstrate force, intimidate local Christians, and create an atmosphere of fear, framing the earlier law enforcement actions as ‘results of the anti-organized crime campaign,’” by which the government means the crackdown on Christians. According to ChinaAid, police have stationed vehicles at the homes of known Christians, “disrupted” communications among Christians in the area, and have even gone “door-to-door” questioning church members and asking them to denounce Enzhao and Enci.

“Government-driven public opinion campaigns are spreading defamatory rumors portraying Christians as ‘unpatriotic’ or belonging to a ‘cult,’” ChinaAid reported. “This approach aligns with China’s recent trend of criminalizing certain religious activities. On September 29, China’s leader reiterated in a speech the need to ‘systematically advance the Sinicization of religion.’ Earlier, mass arrests at Beijing Zion Church saw pastors and church members detained on fabricated charges of ‘fraud.’”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid founder and Senior Fellow for International Religious Liberty at Family Research Council Bob Fu said, “The massive pre-Christmas assault on churches in Wenzhou is a chilling reminder that the Chinese Communist Party fears the light of Christ most when it shines brightest. To raid churches days before Christmas is not only an attack on Christians — it is an assault on human dignity, conscience, and the hope that faith brings to a wounded world.” He continued, “History teaches us that no regime has ever succeeded in extinguishing faith through force. These pre-Christmas attacks will only strengthen the resolve of China’s house churches and further expose the moral bankruptcy of state-sponsored persecution.”

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other religious liberty watchdogs have repeatedly warned that China’s totalitarian regime is enacting human rights abuses against religious groups within the nation’s border. A USCIRF report late last year detailed mass arrests and the destruction or removal of church property, part of CCP President Xi Jinping’s “sinicization of religion” policy. Religious groups and leaders who do not register with the official government-approved religious organizations are often arrested, imprisoned, and forced into “anti-cult” programs to “de-program” Christians. Earlier this year, USCIRF called on President Donald Trump to designate China as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) due to the CCP’s brutal oppression of Christians and other religious dissidents.

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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

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DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul released the latest edition of his annual “Festivus” report Tuesday detailing over $1 trillion in alleged wasteful spending in the U.S. government throughout 2025.

The newly released report found an estimated $1,639,135,969,608 total in government waste over the past year. Paul, a prominent fiscal hawk who serves as the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement that “no matter how much taxpayer money Washington burns through, politicians can’t help but demand more.”

“Fiscal responsibility may not be the most crowded road, but it’s one I’ve walked year after year — and this holiday season will be no different,” Paul continued. “So, before we get to the Feats of Strength, it’s time for my Airing of (Spending) Grievances.”

The 2025 “Festivus” report highlighted a spate of instances of wasteful spending from the federal government, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spent $1.5 million on an “innovative multilevel strategy” to reduce drug use in “Latinx” communities through celebrity influencer campaigns, and also dished out $1.9 million on a “hybrid mobile phone family intervention” aiming to reduce childhood obesity among Latino families living in Los Angeles County.

The report also mentions that HHS spent more than $40 million on influencers to promote getting vaccinated against COVID-19 for racial and ethnic minority groups.

The State Department doled out $244,252 to Stand for Peace in Islamabad to produce a television cartoon series that teaches children in Pakistan how to combat climate change and also spent $1.5 million to promote American films, television shows and video games abroad, according to the report.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent more than $1,079,360 teaching teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol this year, according to Paul’s report. 

The report found that the National Science Foundation (NSF) shelled out $497,200 on a “Video Game Challenge” for kids. The NSF and other federal agencies also paid $14,643,280 to make monkeys play a video game in the style of the “Price Is Right,” the report states.

Paul’s 2024 “Festivus” report similarly featured several instances of wasteful federal government spending, such as a Las Vegas pickleball complex and a cabaret show on ice. 

The Trump administration has been attempting to uproot wasteful government spending and reduce the federal workforce this year. The administration’s cuts have shrunk the federal workforce to the smallest level in more than a decade, according to recent economic data.

Festivus is a humorous holiday observed annually on Dec. 23, dating back to a popular 1997 episode of the sitcom “Seinfeld.” Observance of the holiday notably includes an “airing of grievances,” per the “Seinfeld” episode of its origin.

Originally published by the Daily Caller

The post Here Are Some of the Wackiest Things Featured In Rand Paul’s New Report Alleging $1,639,135,969,608 In Gov’t Waste appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A federal judge ruled Monday against a California school district’s policy ordering teachers to hide kids’ transgender identities from their parents, in a ruling that a lawyer hails as the definitive end to gender secrecy policies in the Golden State.

“The court has fully and permanently dismantled gender secrecy policies across the state of California,” Paul Jonna, a partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP and special counsel to the Thomas More Society, told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.

The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta, D-Calif., told The Daily Signal that it filed an application to stay the injunction.

“We believe that the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal,” the AG’s office said. “We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives.”

Jonna represents Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, two teachers who sued their Escondido Union School District over Administrative Regulation 5145.3. The policy mandates that teachers and school staff will immediately accept a student’s expressed gender identity and bars teachers from revealing the student’s claimed gender identity to parents or guardians unless the student consents to notifying them.

The teachers sued, claiming the policy violates their First Amendment right of free exercise of religion by forcing them to lie or face punishment.

Transgender advocates claim that revealing a student’s transgender identity to his or her parents might endanger the student, because parents might disagree, and such disagreement might lead the student to self-harm, even suicide.

There is little evidence that “affirming” a transgender identity leads to lower suicide rates, though the Food and Drug Administration has documented a higher suicide risk for those undergoing sex-rejecting procedures.

Judge Roger T. Benitez in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California ruled in favor of the teachers and issued a class-wide permanent injunction blocking the Escondido Union School District, the state superintendent, and other officials from enforcing the gender secrecy policy.

Benitez ruled that the “parental exclusion” policy creates a “trifecta of harm:” harming the child who needs parental guidance; harming the parents by depriving them of their rights to care, guide, and make health care decisions for their children; and harming teachers by forcing them to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs and forcing them to conceal information.

The judge cited nine Supreme Court rulings declaring that “parents have a right, grounded in the Constitution, to direct the education, health, and upbringing, and to maintain the well-being of, their children.”

Will the AG Appeal?

Jonna, the teachers’ attorney, acknowledged that Bonta might appeal the ruling, and he expressed hope that Bonta would do so.

“After the California attorney general appeals the ruling, it is bound to set national precedent—ending these dangerous and unconstitutional policies nationwide,” the lawyer told The Daily Signal.

Benitez had previously ruled in favor of the teachers in September 2023, but Bonta directed school districts to adopt gender secrecy policies, citing a state court ruling in an entirely different case.

In July 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom, also a Democrat, signed AB 1955, which bans the few school policies that required schools to notify parents about their minor children’s “gender identity” changes. The bill went into effect in January.

The U.S. Department of Education under President Donald Trump launched an investigation into the California Department of Education in March, examining whether the gender secrecy policies violated the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act. FERPA gives parents the right to access their children’s educational data.

Gender Secrecy Policies

“California officials should have seen the writing on the wall years ago and abandoned these policies,” Jonna told The Daily Signal. “No reasonable person believes that a young child should be able to socially transition in secret. No reasonable person believes that teachers should be forced to participate in the deception of parents.”

“This ruling restores sanity, common sense, and the rule of law to our school system,” the attorney added. “It will also help prevent future harm to vulnerable children experiencing gender confusion. As experts on both sides of the case acknowledged, leaving parents out of these critical decisions is harmful to children. The only people that benefit by these unlawful policies are political activists—and this ruling dismantles the dangerous system they sought to impose on us all.”

“We are profoundly grateful for today’s ruling,” Mirabelli and West, the teachers in the case, said in a joint statement Monday.

“We loved our jobs, our students, and the school communities we served,” they added. “But we were forced into an impossible position when school officials demanded that we lie to parents—violating not only our faith, but also the trust that must exist between teachers and families. No educator should ever be placed in that situation.”

The California Department of Education declined to comment on “pending litigation,” suggesting it may be considering appealing the decision.

Neither Newsom nor the Escondido Union School District responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment by publication time.

The post Federal Judge ‘Fully and Permanently Dismantled Gender Secrecy Policies’ in California appeared first on The Daily Signal.

More than 200 former staff at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division signed a letter condemning Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, and in doing so, they outed themselves as deep state actors and demonstrated Dhillon’s effectiveness in restoring the division to its true mission.

The lawyers wrote to “sound the alarm about the near destruction of the DOJ’s once-revered crown jewel,” but their complaints illustrate the problems the Trump administration seeks to address.

“There absolutely is a deep state,” John Daukas, former acting assistant attorney general in the division in Trump’s first term, told The Daily Signal in an interview Tuesday.

While many federal employees hold “career” positions that are ostensibly nonpolitical, many of them act against the president’s political appointees and frustrate the president’s agenda.

An April RMG Research poll found that 75% of the federal employees who voted for Kamala Harris last year, work in the District of Columbia, and make more than $150,000 annually said they would refuse to follow a lawful order from President Donald Trump, if they considered it bad policy.

Daukas said many Civil Rights Division career staff he worked with acted on a similar mentality.

“They acted like they were the policymakers, like they had been elected, as opposed to the president,” he recalled.

While 80% of the Civil Rights Division‘s cases are noncontroversial—fighting human trafficking or real discrimination—about a fifth concern “hot-button issues,” such as abortion, transgender ideology, and “reverse discrimination.”

Career staff “did great work” with “the meat and potatoes stuff,” but they proved obstinate on other projects, Daukas said.

Trump 45 Examples

Career staff balked when the Civil Rights Division opposed racial quotas by supporting Students For Fair Admissions’ cases against Harvard University and Yale University.

Daukas recalled that many career staff “refused to sign briefs.” The head of the education section said “all her people were ‘too busy’ to work on the case.”

“We had to cobble together this hodge-podge of people from other divisions,” including some from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Connecticut, to do the job. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Harvard, striking down racial quotas.

Career staff also balked at investigating then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., for undercounting nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The career staff “basically were dragging their feet. This is a technique they have—they just wait you out, thinking the administration will change,” Daukas recalled.

Career staff urged the politicals to investigate Texas and Indiana, instead. The political appointees wrote the letters themselves. Attorney General Letitia James, D-N.Y., ran her own investigation and found that Daukas’ suspicions were correct.

The Civil Rights Division also supported Idaho’s law banning boys from competing in girls’ sports, and the career staff refused to work on it, Daukas said.

“We had about 400 attorneys in the Civil Rights Division, but it felt like we only had 15 or 20, who were the political appointees, willing to work on controversial issues,” he added.

The Civil Rights Division Letter

The former Civil Rights Division staffers’ letter—sent Dec. 9—unwittingly testifies to the importance of Dhillon’s work.

The letter notes that Attorney General Pam Bondi dropped a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s 2021 election integrity law—which former staffers say “made it harder to vote.”

Daukas noted that the Georgia case was “totally bogus,” and that voting under the law has been easier than in many blue states. Yet the division brought the case because Biden had declared Georgia’s law “Jim Crow 2.0.”

Mentioning that case demonstrates “such a lack of self-awareness on their part,” Daukas said, because the case is “a paradigmatic example of the deep state and politics run amok.”

The letter also slams Dhillon’s decision to withdraw from settlement agreements regarding police wrongdoing in Minneapolis and other cities.

“I was involved in the investigation of Minneapolis,” after the death of George Floyd in police custody, Daukas recalled. He said the division found evidence of potential police brutality but no evidence of racism.

Despite the lack of evidence, the city of Minneapolis actually wanted a consent decree from the court, Daukas explained. “This is an inside job where they were colluding. The city wanted to be required to do these things, to spend money on social workers—it’s not like they were being punished.”

“Thank goodness Harmeet and her team pulled this one back,” the former attorney noted.

A Testament to Trump Reforms

Dhillon’s tenure marks a sea change from her predecessor under Biden, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.

While pro-abortion vandals had targeted pro-life pregnancy centers and Catholic churches, Clarke prosecuted pro-life protesters outside abortion clinics. Clarke and her division also consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which puts mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a “hate map” with the Ku Klux Klan.

Trump’s administration also marks a sea change from Biden on “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” While Trump has pledged to enforce civil rights laws—which protect Americans regardless of race, sex, or religion—he has rejected the Marxist identity politics that claims the only true victims of discrimination must be from previously oppressed groups.

The former staffers’ letter complains that Dhillon “launched a coordinated effort to drive us out,” but based on the leftist bias under Clarke, the Trump administration’s approach to civil rights law, and the letter’s own complaints, it seems the effort may have been more than justified.

The post DEEP STATE TRIGGERED: DOJ Staff Resignations Prove Harmeet Dhillon Is Doing Good Work at the Civil Rights Division appeared first on The Daily Signal.