Sen. Marsha Blackburn released a draft framework for a national rulebook on artificial intelligence to codify President Donald Trump’s executive order.

The Republican senator from Tennessee previously told The Daily Signal that Trump asked her to introduce the framework to establish a national standard on artificial intelligence.

When asked by The Daily Signal if the White House supported the framework, a White House spokesperson said, “We continue to have productive conversations with legislators as we work with Congress towards delivering national AI legislation, as directed in the president’s Executive Order.”

Blackburn’s framework aims to protect the four “C’s”: children, creators, conservatives, and communities.

“Instead of pushing AI amnesty, President Trump rightfully called on Congress to pass federal standards and protections to solve the patchwork of state laws that has hindered AI innovation,” Blackburn said.

“Now, Congress must answer his call to establish one federal rulebook for AI to protect children, creators, conservatives, and communities across the country and ensure America triumphs over foreign adversaries in the global race for AI dominance.”

The bill incorporates bipartisan legislation introduced by Blackburn and other senators, the Kids Online Safety Act and the NO FAKES Act. Vice President JD Vance endorsed KOSA last month.

The bill would place “a duty of care on AI developers in the design, development, and operation of AI platforms to prevent and mitigate foreseeable harm to users.”

It requires online platforms, including social media platforms, to protect minors against content and features contributing to eating disorders, suicide, depressive disorders, physical violence, sexual exploitation, and more.

The bill also establishes requirements for companies providing AI chatbot and companion services to protect kids.

Blackburn’s framework enables the U.S. attorney general, state attorneys general, and private actors to sue to hold AI system developers liable for harms caused by the system’s defective design, failure to issue warnings, and unreasonably dangerous or defective product claims. 

The post Blackburn Releases Framework for AI Rulebook appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The organization that sets the agenda for the 130,000 school counselors across the U.S. just promoted a left-wing activist program that advocates for transgender ideology and critical race theory, according to a new report.

“While the American people are actively rejecting the harms of transgender ideology, the invasion of women’s private spaces, and the culture of critical race theory, the American School Counselor Association is working overtime to install these very same radicalisms into our daughters,” Alvin Lui, president of the conservative group Courage Is a Habit, told The Daily Signal.

The American School Counselor Association, which counts about 42,000 of the nation’s estimated 131,230 school counselors as members and which releases guidance for the entire profession, held a Feb. 19 webinar promoting the Lean In Girls program. The Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation, founded by former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg, launched Lean In Girls as a leadership program for girls ages 11-15.

“By leveraging its position of trust, ASCA is using the ‘Lean In Girls’ curriculum as a tactical cover to smuggle a divisive political agenda into our schools under the fraudulent banner of ‘mental health and leadership,'” Lui warned. He said the organization is “using its access to 11-year-old girls to install a curriculum that promotes men in women’s spaces and political agitation, all while telling parents it’s just a ‘leadership’ program.”

“It is a massive betrayal of parental trust,” he concluded.

The Courage Is a Habit report, first provided to The Daily Signal, exposes Lean In Girls’ support for transgender ideology and critical race theory.

Transgender Ideology

During the webinar, “Confidence Counts: Leadership Skills as a Tier 2 Intervention for Girls,” Lean In Girls Senior Manager for Partnership Development Kelly Meredith urged school counselors to adopt the Lean In Girls program as part of the Multi-Tiered System of Support requirements for students who need behavioral or mental health support.

Courage Is a Habit attended the webinar and told The Daily Signal that Meredith recommended the Lean In Girls program. The first step in following the program involves downloading the curriculum. The Daily Signal confirmed that, when downloading the curriculum, the facilitator handbook that Courage Is a Habit analyzed is the first document provided.

“Facilitators require participants to question and deny the most basic biological truth: what a female actually is,” the Courage Is a Habit report notes. “The Lean In Girls Handbook includes additional resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center and GLISTEN (formerly GLSEN in activist circles) for ‘context’—two organizations notorious for pushing radical gender ideology over facts.”

The handbook’s section on “Gender Inclusion” warns facilitators that “some teens in the program may identify strongly with being a girl, while others may be exploring their gender identity or may feel uncomfortable with the label ‘girl.'” The section recommends resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the British LGBTQ nonprofit Stonewall, and GLSEN (which rebranded to GLISTEN in February).

The handbook recommends many resources from Learning for Justice, the education arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy, but now it publishes a “hate map” plotting mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. Courage Is a Habit appears on the map alongside Moms For Liberty as an “antigovernment extremist group” and part of the “anti-student inclusion movement.” Much of the SPLC’s criticisms boil down to ideological disagreements.

Learning for Justice, formerly known as Teaching Tolerance, has long promoted transgender ideology in schools.

Critical Race Theory

Courage Is a Habit also faults the handbook for promoting critical race theory, the idea that American society is systemically racist despite the progress of civil rights laws and that it requires fundamental change to root out “white supremacy.”

“Group facilitators are directed to rank themselves and each other on an intersectional hierarchy of oppression, a textbook critical race theory exercise that divides children by race, sexuality, and perceived victim status—all disguised as harmless ‘mental health’ support,” the Courage Is a Habit report states.

The handbook’s section on “Counteracting Biases and Barriers in Group Settings” directs facilitators to “educate yourself about ways people with traditionally marginalized identities are stereotyped and treated unfairly.”

While the handbook does not directly state that facilitators should rank themselves, it repeatedly encourages them to consider whether girls have “more or less social power.”

“If parts of your identity give you more social power than your participants have, you may need to work harder to build trust,” the handbook states. This statement encourages facilitators to examine aspects of their identity and compare themselves to the identities of participants.

The handbook also warns that “facilitators can accidentally harm teens” in various ways, and it recommends a resource on “microaggressions.” Critics, such as Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, have warned that the idea of trying to protect students from microaggressions, words or phrases that might cause a small amount of harm unintentionally, represent part of a “safetyism” approach that encourages cognitive distortions, harming students long-term.

This section also recommends resources from Learning for Justice.

The Daily Signal has reached out to ASCA and the Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation for comment and will add to this story if comment comes in.

The post National School Counselor Group Promotes Woke Program for Teen Girls Incorporating Transgenderism, Critical Race Theory appeared first on The Daily Signal.

When “ICE-Out” protests spread across Arizona in recent months, one restaurant found itself at the center of the ICE storm. At Sammy’s Mexican Grill, owners Jorge and Betty Rivas—immigrants who have lived the American dream—chose to stay open and continue their five-year tradition of serving free meals to all law-enforcement officers. 

The Rivas’s story reached The Daily Signal through Mark Hurley, senior advisor to the president for donor relations at The Heritage Foundation. Hurley stopped for lunch at Sammy’s Mexican Grill during a trip to Arizona, and was struck by the family’s resilience, calling their story “impressive” and inspiring to see people “standing up for what they believe in.” 

When Protests Hit Tucson 

During “ICE-Out” protests in Tucson, organizers called for a day of demonstration against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many businesses and restaurants closed to show their support for the protest and posted signs on their doors. 

All eyes turned to Sammy’s Mexican Grill when they chose to stay open. The situation escalated after a local reporter asked owner Jorge Rivas if the “free meals for law enforcement” policy extended towards ICE officers. When Jorge replied “yeah”—explaining that “they’re also enforcing the laws”—criticism and backlash erupted. 

Jorge, his family, and the restaurant were met with hundreds of insulting calls and thousands of negative reviews. People who had never visited the grill deliberately left false, damaging comments. 

Origins of the Free Meals 

When asked why the Rivas family began serving free meals to law enforcement five years ago, Jorge told The Daily Signal that the idea grew out of rising hostility toward police. 

He pointed to a Dallas police ambush, where five officers were killed, as well as reports of police being denied service in Louisiana restaurants because the owners “didn’t feel safe with law enforcement.”  

“How can you deny service? How can [you] deny the entrance of law enforcement into your building?” Jorge said. In response, he created a sign at Sammy’s Mexican Grill offering officers free meals as a gesture of appreciation. 

From Immigrants to Business Owners 

Jorge is originally from El Salvador and Betty is from Mexico. The two immigrated to the United States, married, and raised three boys who have all graduated from college. They eventually were able to start and own a restaurant—and the building it’s in. 

In 2020, Jorge wrote a book titled “Modern Patriots: How one Hispanic family fought backlash after supporting the man who would become an American president.” The book recounts how a wave of threats and harassments followed Betty’s appearance at a Trump rally, and how their family relied on faith, unity, and love of country to stay strong in their beliefs. 

“We’re very grateful for everything that we have been able to achieve in this country,” Jorge said—their version of the American dream. 

A High-Profile Visit 

In February, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks visited Sammy’s Mexican Grill, accompanied by about 60 ICE officers—all of whom received a free meal. 

Jorge said it was a great event, and Noem was able to personally thank him for the work he has done in the community. 

For Jorge and Betty Rivas, the backlash and controversy haven’t changed their beliefs. They will keep serving their community—and cops—one meal at a time. 

The post Immigrant Restaurant Owners Targeted After Serving Free Meals to Law Enforcement  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Vice President JD Vance responded to concerns the Trump administration is seeking to “nationalize elections” by pointing to a voter identification law currently being debated in the Senate.

Vance held a rally in Rochester Hills, Michigan, on Wednesday.

“If what you mean by ‘intervening in the election’ is that we want everybody to have a voter ID before voting in this country, yes, we should be doing that, to be clear,” Vance said in response to a question from a local reporter. The audience applauded in response, and some chanted “USA.”

A local reporter had cited concern that the federal government might “intervene” in the upcoming midterm election in the state, asking the vice president if he would “promise” no federal intervention. When Vance asked for clarification, the reporter brought up previous comments by President Donald Trump.

In a February interview with former FBI head Dan Bongino, Trump had said that Republicans “should take over the voting” in some places and “nationalize the voting,” citing concerns about election integrity.

Vance responded to the question by championing the SAVE America Act.

Senate Republicans voted Tuesday to launch debate on the bill, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and a valid photo ID to vote.

The Senate will hold a vote on the bill, preceded by a lengthy floor debate this week.

“The president and I have been working very hard, and we actually got a good vote yesterday in the United States Senate on the SAVE America Act, which is a very simple piece of legislation that does a number of things,” Vance said.

“But one of the things it does is actually establish this very simple principle that if you’re going to vote in a federal election, you ought to show identification before you do. So I think that’s very much common sense.”

Those who believe in American sovereignty should support voter ID, Vance said.

“If you believe, as I do, that the American people are sovereign in their own country,” Vance said, “then you have to believe that their vote should be protected and the only way to fully protect their vote is to prevent fraudsters from coming and vote in American elections.”

“So, no, we don’t want to intervene in elections, but we certainly want to make elections safe and secure,” Vance said. “Number one, because we want to make sure that the will of the voters is actually recognized and respected.”

The post ‘American People Are Sovereign’: Vance Claps Back at Reporter About SAVE America Act appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., is leading the Senate effort to amend the SAVE America Act to include a suite of ’80-20 issue policies’ as pressure mounts on the upper chamber for more legislative wins.

Under immense pressure from President Donald Trump and Republican voters, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has brought the SAVE America Act to the floor for an extended debate period. Schmitt is leading the effort to insert a number of policies—including a ban on transgender surgeries for minors—Trump wants made law into the SAVE America Act, a piece of election integrity legislation that would require proof of citizenship to vote and institute nationwide voter ID.

“Protecting our children from destructive, irreversible gender mutilation surgeries is a priority for the overwhelming majority of Americans,” Schmitt told The Daily Signal. “President Trump has been clear that this provision to save American children must be included in the SAVE America Act.”

In the lead up to the ongoing debate on the SAVE America Act in the Senate, the president has not only pushed for adding a number of conservative policies but for the Senate to pass the legislation using the talking filibuster, a procedural process that would circumvent the 60 vote cloture rule.

Schmitt’s substitute amendment to the SAVE America Act addresses the president’s desire to go big and be bold.

While the current debate on the Senate floor is not a commitment to pass the SAVE America Act with the talking filibuster, it could push the Senate towards that process and get Democrats on record voting against 80-20 issues such as requiring voter ID, proof of citizenship for voter registration, securing mail-in ballots, banning men from women’s sports, and outlawing the transgender mutilation of children.

“It would be a suicidal move for us as Senate Republicans, or Republicans in general, if we don’t put everything we’ve got into this,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told reporters Wednesday. He continued, saying he hopes this debate will last “many weeks if necessary.”

“We look forward to putting the Democrats on record and showing just the lack of common sense they apply to so many of these issues that the American people agree with us,” Thune told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

“It is a privilege to lead this fight,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., one of the Senate’s top advocates for banning transgender surgeries for minors, told The Daily Signal.

“My amendment would ban so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors nationwide to ensure protections for children are enshrined into law, and I am calling on every single Senator to support this common-sense effort,” Blackburn said.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., supports the transgender surgeries ban and is also seeking to ban men from women’s sports. His office confirmed they expect full support on this amendment from Tuberville’s Republican colleagues.

Schmitt has introduced these as a single amendment, but they will also likely be voted on separately. The debate is expected to last 7-10 days, including late nights of debate, possibly even Saturday in session.  

“I am looking forward to a vigorous, long, and spirited conversation on the floor of the United States Senate on these important issues,” Thune said on the Senate floor Tuesday, kicking off the extended SAVE America Act debate.

“Can you imagine allowing a child not yet out of middle school to receive a medical procedure that will result in permanent mutilation of part of her body?” Thune asked on the Senate floor.  

“The SAVE America Act would extend protection from these procedures to all children, whatever state they live in,” the Leader continued. 

The SAVE America Act has already passed the House. As have bills that ban men in women’s sports and ban transgender surgeries for minors.

The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2025 passed in the House in Jan 2025 by 218-206 with two Democrats breaking party lines to vote. The Protect Children’s Innocence Act passed in the House in Dec 2025 by 216-211 with three Democrats voting yea and four Republicans voting nay.

Given how the House voted, it’s possible some of these votes in the Senate are bipartisan.

The post Schmitt Leads Charge to Pack SAVE America Act With Conservative Wins appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Governor Patrick Bateman meets Sparkle Beach Ken says that California is a low tax state.

Yes, really.

At an SXSW conference Sunday in Austin, Texas Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom had the chutzpah to argue that, actually, Texas and Florida are higher tax states than California.

“We have the most progressive tax rates in America,” Newsom said when asked about income inequality in his state. “… Texas taxes poor folks more than we tax our richest. The question for you is, who’s the higher tax state, California or Texas? Who are you for? Are you just for the 1% or are you for the 99%?”

I’ll give the California governor credit for something; he certainly does have a gift for spinning blatantly ridiculous narratives with a straight face. He’s a natural politician, really.

Unfortunately, the whole “California is actually a low tax state!” thing—as much as it flies in the face of common sense—needs to be addressed because Newsom keeps going with this message. I’m sure the legacy media will do their best to make that stick in the next few years.

In making this low taxes argument, Newsom is forgoing the more reasonable but still incorrect Democrat assertion that their higher taxes are just the cost of all those wonderful services they provide. Even this is hard to believe these days because blue cities and states are often so incompetently run and are barely hiding the reality that taxpayer money is being used to pay off various patronage groups.

No, Newsom really wants you to believe that all those Californians bailing out of the state, citing the high cost of living, are just deluded fools escaping a low tax paradise. Or perhaps they are fleeing Paradise and other towns after they burned down due to poor forest management—Er, I mean because of “global warming”—and the governor did little to help them rebuild.

As a native Californian with plenty of family still living behind the iron curtain, I can assure you that the Golden State is not a low tax haven for anyone.

Newsom is partly basing his claim on the state’s “progressive” income tax rates that hit the top 1% of income earners harder than other states like Florida and Texas. Texas and Florida don’t even have a personal income tax.

He cited the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning nonprofit, to claim that “for the bottom 40% of families, California taxes are LOWER than states like Florida and Texas.”

This assertion is both dubious and carefully calibrated to not reveal the full truth.

The Washington Examiner noted that “the only reason California’s bottom 20% of income earners do not pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than Texas’s bottom 20% is because California uses its tax code as a welfare system.” So, while Texas’ bottom 20% “pay nothing in income taxes, California’s bottom 20% received 2% of their income from Sacramento in the form of refundable tax credits.”

Without those payments, the California bottom 20% pay more. They certainly get hit by other taxes like the highest in nation gas taxes that up the cost of driving, food, and most everything else in the state.

And middle-income earners pay quite a bit more.

Kiplinger rated the California tax burden for the middle class to be the fifth highest in the country, with middle income families “spending nearly 13% of their income on state taxes.”

Whatever one can say about the rate of individual taxes, the overall tax burden in California, a better way of evaluating taxes, is much higher than places like Florida and Texas.

As RealClearPolitics president Tom Bevan noted on X, a Wallethub 2025 analysis of tax burden by state listed California as the fourth highest. Florida and Texas were among the lowest tax burden states.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to Bevan’s post, citing the absurdity of Newsom’s argument that California has lower taxes than Florida.

“Even people who like California governance acknowledge CA is a very high tax state: highest sales, income and gas taxes in the nation,” the Florida governor wrote.

California’s tax and regulatory environment have made the cost of living truly outrageous. Housing prices are sky high (thanks in part to the state’s sanctuary status). Gas prices are the highest in the country by nearly $2 a gallon thanks to the Democratic Party’s green madness.

Almost nothing in California is affordable.

Along with New York, the Golden State is the model for high taxes, low affordability, poor governance, and suicidal wokeness.

Californians on the public dole muddle through. The rich look for tax havens while enjoying the nice climate and beautiful views. The politically connected get their cut. The middle-income folks ponder whether the weather is worth the trouble. But nobody who lives in the state really believes that the main advantage they have living in California is the comparably low taxes.

Newsom can spin whatever nonsense he wants for the media, but when he says things are up, expect them to be down.

The post Newsom Laughably Says California is a Low Tax State—Here’s the Truth appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s interview with Emma Waters, a policy analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation and author of “Lead Like Jael: 7 Timeless Principles for Today’s Women of Faith,” on “The Signal Sitdown.” The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EST on March 19.

Girls just want to have fun, right? Not so much these days.

More than 20% of American women self-reported experiencing depression, a September 2025 Gallup survey found. An even higher percentage are medicating: A 2023 study published by the NIH claimed that nearly 30% of American women are on SSRIs or some kind of antidepressant.

Women’s happiness has been trending downward for 50 years, and today we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis.

Yet, narratives of female empowerment have dominated the last 50 years of American life. Pervasive feminism has penetrated our public and private institutions so deeply that it has actually changed how our government works.

In a world where opportunity for women abounds, why are they so unhappy?

Emma Waters, a policy analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation and author of a new book titled “Lead Like Jael: 7 Timeless Principles for Today’s Women of Faith,” has thought deeply about this question and joins “The Signal Sitdown” this week to discuss.

“Women have more choices before them than ever before,” Waters told The Daily Signal.

“They have a competitive edge when it comes to higher education, to workplace advancement, in part because of DEI initiatives and in part because they have simply been excelling in higher education and credentialism in the last decade,” Waters explained. “And yet, despite the abundance of choices before them, they are less equipped than ever before with the life script or guidance necessary to make good decisions.”

The initial thought of endless possibilities appears enticing. Try telling that to Theseus before he enters the Labyrinth, much less your grandparent trying to remember their Facebook password.

Young women are left “in the state of being continually overwhelmed and paralyzed by the seeming endless list of choices,” Waters claims.

In the story from Greek mythology, Theseus overcomes his fear and enters the Labyrinth. But without a guide, he wouldn’t have come out alive.

Navigating life as a young woman is a daunting maze all its own. Waters argues that today’s young women are missing a guide.

Theseus would have died in that maze had it not been for the love of Ariadne and her thread. That thread for women in prior generations, was “mentorship and intergenerational relationships.” These relationships transmitted what it meant to be a virtuous woman, but the thread has been broken.

“It’s been largely broken today,” Waters suggests. “Where you don’t have older faithful mentors truly pouring into younger women, then you have a ton of younger women who don’t have a good life script, they don’t really have any models to point to.”

Waters’ book turns to scripture and unpacks the transcendent and ancient wisdom it offers to women with the hope of stitching back together what has been severed.

The post Why Are Our Young Women Unhappy and on Drugs? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Virginia lawmakers recently passed a bill that would make Fairfax County, outside Washington, D.C., eligible to host a casino—a move county leaders say undermines local decision-making. 

The bill was first introduced in 2023 by Sen. Dave Marsden, D-Fairfax and has since been supported by Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax. After years of debate and repeated stalling, lawmakers pushed the bill through during a weekend vote. 

The proposed project would be a 1.5 million square-foot mixed-use development in Tysons, located within a quarter mile of the Silver Line Metro station, just outside the Beltway. 

Caesars Entertainment, which operates a casino in Danville, Virginia has said it would be open to the Tysons opportunity.

Another company, Comstock, released a rendering last year of a casino project with apartments, performing arts venue, a five-star hotel, and more. Patch reported last week that Comstock has spent more than $3.5 million on lobbyists and political contributions to push the casino legislation, according to filings with the Virginia Department of Elections. 

Surovell argues tax revenue from the casino will help increase funding for the county, providing more money for the state to invest in public safety, higher quality schools, and other public services. 

He also suggested a casino would help counter population decline in the county. 

On the other hand, local leaders including Fairfax County Chairman Jeff McKay are concerned about the state government overriding local authority and have threatened to decline to schedule the voter referendum required for the project to advance. 

Tyson’s Stakeholder Alliance, an organization opposed to the project, argues that a casino would increase traffic and crime and hurt the community’s image. “Not a single community in Tysons has asked for a casino in our neighborhood,” the organization’s website declares. 

Ultimately, the decision is left to Gov. Abigail Spanberger to sign or veto the bill. 

The post Fairfax County Leaders Push Back as Lawmakers Advance Tysons Casino Bill  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.

What is it with the fickle Europeans? I know that they have different interests than ours, but we’re both Western entities. You’d think that we’d be more collaborative on the effort to disarm and denuclearize Iran. But a lot of strange things are happening.

The traditional use of the Diego Garcia critical airbase in the Indian Ocean, run by the British, but often leased to us and allowed us to have a very valuable base for our long-range bombers. The British initially refused to allow us to use it. And then, only under conditions that it would be used for defensive purposes.

I don’t know what that means. But I think they forgot the 1982 Falklands War. They were in big trouble going all the way across the world to attack a country in the Western Hemisphere.

We were trying to be on friendly relationships so that [Argentina] wouldn’t join the other communist nations. And of course, we offered them two million gallons of gasoline. We offered them the use of a carrier if they needed it. We gave them sophisticated intelligence. Without the United States’ help, they would’ve had a very hard time retaking it. So what’s happened?

And then Spain has said that we can’t use at all, the NATO base there in Spain. [Emannuel] Macron in France and [Friedrich] Merz in Germany have also said they’ve expressed reservations.

Trump is now trying to say, you know, we’re using all of our assets to disarm this common threat to the West. Could you just send a few ships to help us, you know, patrol these Strait of Hormuz? And they’re reluctant.

This gets back to the United States, who pays an inordinate amount of the NATO budget. And it keeps having to, you know, to harangue and hammer. “Please, please defend yourself. We are here to help you, but we’re across the ocean, 3,000 miles away. And this is in your interest. You know, this is the third time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.”

So don’t they have a fear of Iran? I mean, there was a joint missile defense project. Obama canceled it, in that infamous quid pro quo hot mic conversation where he made a deal with the Russians, to give him space so he could get reelected. He would dismantle the Czech and Polish project to have missile defense. That was primarily for the protection of Europe. The United States was going to pay a great deal of it. Protection from Iran.

So what’s going on? What explains this European schizophrenia? That they want to be an ally, but they don’t want to be an ally. They’re scared to death of a nuclear Iran, but they don’t want to do anything about it. They want the United States to handle it, but they want the United States to handle it and keep them out of it.

But most of their oil comes from the Middle East or North Africa. So they are adamant that they want the supplies, reliable. They want the Strait of Hormuz open. They want the United States to ensure that. They want the United States to clear the Red Sea of Houthi attacks. We know all that, but they’re not there when we need them at all. And a very, you know, a very reasonable request.

And so why is this? Well, I think there’s a lot of reasons. I think they’ve made some disastrous, internal and external choices in their policies. First of all, Germany has 16% of its population are immigrants that weren’t born in Germany. The vast majority of them are unassimilated, unacculturated, unintegrated Muslims.

Many of them, or most, under Angela Merkel policy. She was the German version of Alejandro Mayorkas, who opened the border and pretty much, enacted this destructive policy. In other countries at 6% to 10% to 12%.

But the key is there’s a force multiplier of these open-border illegal immigration policies. And that is the Muslim communities that immigrate are more radical often than the countries they left that were radical enough.

They don’t want to be part of the West. They feel that their birth rate and their increased immigration will soon swamp these European governments. And the European governments are terrified of them.

So on key issues of concern to the West, to emasculate Iran, they’re afraid to say anything. And they’re afraid to express support for Israel because these internal populations within the continent will turn on them, or they won’t get their votes.

The second disastrous policy was green energy. Germany and other countries, with the exception of France, have either put on hold or dismantled their coal plants. In the case of Germany, they had to restart them because they disarmed or displaced their nuclear facilities.

They don’t want to tap the huge natural gas deposits that are thought to be in continental Europe. They are not looking for new sources of offshore oil. They don’t want any fossil fuels. No natural gas unless we import it.

They don’t want to develop themselves. And the result is their energy is two or three times more expensive than their economic competitors. And they’re captives of the Middle East and Russia for energy. So that has affected their political independence.

Third, they thought they were at the end of history after the fall of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. So they thought they were in some type of disarmament utopia. So they, more or less, disarmed.

 So here we are with tiny little Israel with 11 million, 10 million people, and they have 300 frontline aircraft fighters, jets that are flying every day with some of the best pilots in the world. And they have more fighters than our key trio of NATO partners. More than Germany. More than France. More than Great Britain.

Of course, we know about European fertility. Ours is bad enough at 1.65. Theirs is down to 1.3 and 1.4 in some countries, and 1.1. There’s been a new credo in Europe that you’re not going to have children. The good life is too precious. Why waste it raising children? And of course, socialism is not sustainable.

They have this huge socialist safety net, which is exacerbated by millions of impoverished Middle East people, coming in illegally who demand entitlements and, sort of, threaten their hosts. And they’re not very gracious immigrants. And you put it all together, and you get European schizophrenia.

And what is that schizophrenia? It’s quietly whispering to the United States, “Help us. Help us. You’ve got to make sure that Russia doesn’t go further west in Ukraine. What are you going to do?”

“All seven presidents before you, Mr. Trump, they’ve all worried about the Iranian nuclear ballistic missile crisis. We’re closer than you are. We can’t keep appeasing them. They hate us as much as they hate you. Who is going to do something? Please, Mr. President.”

And then publicly, “Oh, we’re very disturbed. This is very disturbing. This is very dangerous. I don’t think that we really want to be actively a participant.”

And, the final irony, Europe’s got a bigger population than we do. 450 million people. And its GDP is about the size of China’s. So it’s got huge resources and potential, even under its socialist and green energy policies. Even with its open borders. Even with its low fertility. With all of those crises that are self-inflicted, it still could arm itself and be a full partner. And yet, it will not do it.

And therefore it knows it should do it. And it knows there’s things that must be done. And it wants them done, but it wants the United States to do it. So at the same time, it can criticize them and triangulate against its own savior.

It’s a tragic and really, to be honest, pathetic situation.

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

The post Victor Davis Hanson: What Is It With the Fickle Europeans? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

With his Wednesday confirmation hearing, Sen. Markwayne Mullin got one step closer to leading the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

Mullin, R-Okla., engaged in a difficult balancing act in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, attempting to cool tensions with fellow senators while refusing to yield ground to Democrats’ demands.

“I don’t get to choose the laws that I enforce. You guys pass the laws, I enforce the laws.” Mullin told Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who pressed him on whether he would “give the green light to lawless behavior.” 

Mullin had plenty of reason to avoid speaking on behalf of the administration.

Current Secretary Kristi Noem’s upcoming departure was announced shortly after she was subjected to tough questioning in a Senate committee hearing on whether President Donald Trump was aware of a multi-million-dollar ad campaign for DHS that prominently featured her.

Additionally, the White House is currently negotiating with Senate Democrats, who for 32 days have blocked a bill which would fully fund DHS. The agency is currently shut down.

The Oklahoma senator promised a new leadership style while yielding to the authority of the president and Congress.

“Eveybody has different leadership styles,” he said, adding:

I want to protect the homeland, I want to bring peace of mind, and I want to bring confidence back to the agency. I’m not going to be the smartest guy in any room I walk into, but I know how to get talent and I know how to bring those people together.

Mullin’s toughest interlocutor was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs the committee. 

Paul grilled him on past statements about political violence, such as when he said he understood why Paul’s neighbor assaulted him in 2017, and remarks on the history of duels between lawmakers.

Paul additionally played video of an intense 2023 confrontation between Mullin and teamsters union leader Sean O’Brien, in which Mullin told O’Brien to “stand [his] butt up” so they could resolve a dispute.

“I just wonder if someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force,” Paul said. 

He added, “If you just disliked me so much that you approved of violence against me, people could just write it off … maybe they hate each other, but really, there’s a pattern of this.”

Mullin pushed back on Paul’s allegations while slamming him for his frequent votes against Republican-backed bills.

“I’ve worked with many people in this room. It seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us,” Mullin said to Paul. “And as far as … saying that I invoke violence … I don’t think anybody should be hit by surprise. I don’t like that.”

Paul told reporters after the hearing he intended to vote against Mullin’s confirmation.

Mullin got gentler treatment from some Democrats than he did from Paul.

“My experience with you has been consistent kindness and professionalism,” said Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who said he favored deporting criminals and maintaining a secure border.

Paul has scheduled a vote on advancing Mullin’s nomination out of the committee for Thursday. Noem is set to leave DHS at the end of March.

If Paul votes against advancing Mullin’s nomination, Mullin will need the vote of one Democrat to advance.

Pressed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on immigration law enforcement’s use of administrative warrants, rather than ones issued by a judge, Mullin also remained diplomatic but refused to make concessions on behalf of the administration he intends to join.

“I have made it very clear … that judicial warrants will be used to go into houses, into place of businesses, unless we’re pursuing someone that enters in that place,” Mullin said.

Mullin also defended the actions of law enforcement in the confrontation which resulted in the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The post Markwayne Mullin a Step Closer to DHS Confirmation After Hearing appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard explained why she traveled to Fulton County, Georgia, in January for a federal election records probe.

Gabbard testified at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats Wednesday, alongside FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams, acting U.S. Cyber Command chief William Hartman, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Trump had asked Gabbard to be present during the execution of a search warrant at the election office in Fulton County, Georgia. The FBI conducted the raid to obtain records related to the 2020 election, amid state allegations that the county mismanaged voter rolls.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., asked Gabbard where the authority came from to participate in a raid with a warrant “based entirely on conspiracy theories that have already been examined and rejected repeatedly.”

Gabbard responded that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has authority over the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, “both of which have purview over election security responsibilities to ensure the integrity of our elections.”

“I want to correct one of your statements that you’ve made multiple times, which is false,” Gabbard said. “I did not participate in a law enforcement activity, nor would I, because that does not exist within my authorities.”

Gabbard said she was in Fulton Country “at the request of the president and to work with the FBI to observe this action that had long been awaited.”

In a Feb. 2 letter to Warner, Gabbard had also said that she was observing the execution of the search warrant at the president’s request.

She said was not aware of what was in the warrant. The raid occurred the day after the FBI’s warrant was approved by a local judge, she said.

“The president’s request was to go and observe the FBI activities on this issue,” she said on Wednesday.

Since the 2020 election, Trump has said Fulton County had issues with counting ballots.

Gabbard said the Trump administration is seeking to “better understand the vulnerabilities in our election systems that may exist today” ahead of 2026 midterms.

Trump has directed his counsel’s office to explore whether he could develop an executive order requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration and photo identification at polling locations across the country, MS NOW reported.

Gabbard said at Wednesday’s hearing she has no knowledge of that draft executive order.

The post Tulsi Gabbard Addresses Fulton County FBI Probe appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., put it succinctly to The Daily Signal when he said, “communists are going to communist.”

Fine is one of several lawmakers on the federal and state level considering an effort to strip the Democratic Socialists of America of it’s tax-exempt nonprofit status after the DSA announced last week that it will travel to visit Cuba’s communist regime to “volunteer” their “labor in solidarity,” and fight America’s “brazen imperialism.”

“These are Mamdani supporters going directly to the enemy of the United States,” Fine claimed. “I will see if the communist trip violates the rules of an organization’s non-profit status, and if that is the case, I will absolutely consider bringing forth legislation to revoke them of their status.”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal that “maybe they ought to stay in Cuba if socialism is such a dream after all,” in response to the DSA’s announcement.

Scott keeps open the possibility that the DSA travelers will change their tune after these “entitled wannabe Marxists who rage about oppression while they live comfortably under the benefits of free-market democracy in America talk to the Cuban people who have spent more than 60 years being brutally oppressed by the communist regime in Havana.”

“They should meet with the families of Cubans who have been unjustly imprisoned and tortured by the Castro regime and hear the stories of those who have been denied basic human rights show the world the truth about the regime’s atrocities,” the senator added.

In the Florida House of Representatives, Republican Rep. David Borrero exclusively told The Daily Signal that he “would be interested in introducing legislation in the state house to strip them of their non-profit status.”

“Any organization that aims to send material aid to Cuba, which is a designated state sponsor of terrorism, in an effort to thwart U.S. diplomatic relations should be placed under great scrutiny and investigated,” Borrero said.

The Florida House member added that the DSA’s trip boils down to an effort to “aid and abet this regime’s oppression of the Cuban people and human rights violations.”

Borrero called for the DSA to be held accountable, whether through revisiting their nonprofit status or other means.

Over the phone, Borrero also claimed that Democrats who refuse to condemn the DSA’s embrace of Cuba are “accomplices” to the regime.

“They will say they are anti-communist and anti-socialist, but when you call out a certain program or organization, they won’t condemn it,” Borrero said of Democrats. “And when you ask them to condemn communism, they won’t do it.”

As for those on the left that try to water down socialism with the label “democratic socialism,” Borrero said that “the notion that democracy and socialism can coexist is laughable.”

“Democracy is antithetical to socialism, because socialism destroys individual freedom and people’s right to self-determination,” he added.

Miguel Granda, the president of Miami Young Republicans, told The Daily Signal that “any organization that cozies itself up to a terrorist regime should be stripped of that status.”

“DSA is going to meet murderers,” Granda, whose parents escaped Cuba’s totalitarian regime in the 1960s, added.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Lawmakers Mull Push to Strip Democratic Socialists of America of Nonprofit Status appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Senate kicked off what could be a dayslong debate over the SAVE America Act, the voter-ID bill backed by President Donald Trump.

As Congress struggles to move the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, better known as the SAVE America Act, through Washington, state legislatures across the country are beginning to chart their own course on election integrity.

The SAVE America Act, passed by House Republicans, would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Supporters say the measure is a commonsense safeguard designed to ensure that only American citizens cast ballots.

Will the SAVE America Act Actually Pass?

In the Senate, the bill faces an uncertain future. With a divided chamber and divisions within the GOP over the talking filibuster, the legislation—despite the current floor debate—has effectively stalled on Capitol Hill.

Chip Wyatt, Heritage’s government relations director, acknowledges that the SAVE America Act faces an uphill battle in the Senate. With limited support and a chance of a filibuster, the process of passing the act would be long and tedious.

Wyatt stated, “at the federal level, Senate Republicans should use every tool available, including enforcing the two-speech rule to force a talking filibuster, to try to pass the SAVE America Act. At the same time, state legislatures can and should continue to work to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in American elections.” 

House Bill 991

Florida may offer the clearest example of that approach.

Last week, the Florida House passed Florida House Bill 991 by an 83–31 vote, advancing an election integrity proposal that strengthens citizenship verification and voter ID procedures. The measure is designed to ensure election officials can verify that only eligible U.S. citizens are registering and voting in the state.  

The Florida Senate voted 27-12 Thursday on an amended version of HB 911, which now returns to the House for consideration.

Florida’s constitution already restricts voting to citizens, but enforcement mechanisms are still lacking. HB 991 would ensure the enforcement of these restrictions and guarantee the voters are registered citizens. It also implements many of the election verification procedures, including stronger checks on citizenship status through state databases and voter registration systems. 

The legislation was strongly supported by Heritage Action for America, the advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, which has pushed for stronger voter verification laws in multiple states.

Karen Jaroch, state director for Heritage Action stated, “Heritage Action Sentinels understand states must lead where Congress has stalled. Several made the trek to Tallahassee to testify in favor of the measure, and they generated hundreds of emails to lawmakers showing their support.”

“Florida is stepping up where Congress has failed to act.” Jaroch stated, “The state is on the verge of passing HB991, which would require Florida officials to verify citizenship before a completed voter registration is accepted as valid.”

If HB 991 reaches the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida could effectively enact its own version of the SAVE America Act—demonstrating how states may step in where Washington has stalled.

The Ripple Effect

Florida is not alone.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are advancing similar proposals aimed at tightening voter identification requirements and verifying citizenship.

In Texas, legislators are considering expanded voter ID enforcement measures tied to citizenship verification. In Arizona and Georgia, lawmakers have introduced bills that would strengthen proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration.

Meanwhile, in California, Republicans have launched an effort to place a voter ID and citizenship verification initiative on the 2026 ballot. Republican organizers announced in early March they’d gathered 1.3 million signatures for the ballot initiative, over 400,000 more than required by California law.

While Democrat states will be harder to sway, the momentum coming from these few red states could start a chain reaction throughout the GOP states across the country.

States Won’t Wait for Washington

The growing wave of state legislation reflects a broader conservative argument: Election integrity reforms should not wait for federal lawmakers to act.

With the SAVE America Act stalled in Washington, the real battleground may now be shifting to state capitals.

And in places like Florida, the coming weeks—and the fate of HB991—will reveal whether the states are prepared to move ahead on their own.

The post As SAVE America Act Stalls in Washington, States Take Election Integrity into Their Own Hands appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Senators Rand Paul and Markwayne Mullin got into a heated exchange on Capitol Hill Wednesday as Mullin refused to apologize for previously calling the Kentucky Republican a “freaking snake.”

“I’m not apologizing for pointing out your character,” Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, told Paul.

Mullin testified before the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on Wednesday in his confirmation hearing to become the next Department of Homeland Security secretary.

Paul chairs the committee and began the hearing by asking whether “someone who applauds violence against their political opponents is the right person to lead an agency that has struggled to accept limits to the proper use of force.”

Paul referred to comments Mullin made at a February constituent event in Tulsa where he called the Kentucky senator a “freaking snake.” Mullin was criticizing Paul’s amendment to an appropriations bill that would stop funding refugee welfare programs.

“Rand Paul’s amendment sounds good, right? The problem is Rand knew that if that bill passed, it would kill the other eleven appropriation bills, which would throw us into the [government] shutdown,” Mullin told constituents before indicating Paul is not straightforward in his politics.

Mullin then said he “understood completely why [Paul’s] neighbor did what he did,” referring to a 2017 incident when Paul’s neighbor attacked him over a lawn dispute, landing Paul in the hospital with severe injuries.

“You offer no apology today and no regrets,” Paul said to Mullin during the Wednesday hearing. “Haven’t heard the word apologize. Haven’t heard the word regret. Haven’t heard ‘I misspoke.’”

“Sir, actually, it wasn’t heated,” Mullin said, adding that he would not apologize for his past comments.

“Good, good,” Paul said. “So you’re jolly well fine, and you want the American public and the people up here that may or may not vote for you to know that you supported the felonious violent attack on me from behind?”

“I did not say I supported it. I said I understood it. There’s a difference,” Mullin answered.

Paul also questioned Mullin over a 2023 incident when Mullin, during a hearing, challenged Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a fight, telling him to “stand your butt up.”

“Do you think fighting as a resolution for political differences is a good example for the men and women of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Border Patrol?” Paul asked Mullin after playing the clip of the incident during the hearing.

Mullin then pointed out that his “good friend” O’Brien was seated directly behind him in the hearing room.

“Both of us have had conversations. Both of us have shaken hands, and both of us have agreed we could have done things different. Sean [O’Brien] is someone who has become a close friend,” Mullin said.

Despite the line of questioning from Paul during Mullin’s confirmation hearing, Mullin is expected to receive the necessary support to be confirmed as the next DHS secretary, replacing Kristi Noem.

Trump tapped Mullin to be the next Homeland Security secretary after Noem served in the role for a little over a year. The president reportedly had frustrations with Noem over her handling of the position and testimonies she delivered before the House and Senate in early March.

The post Rand Paul and Markwayne Mullin Clash Over ‘Snake’ Comments and Neighbor Attack During DHS Confirmation Hearing appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A House subcommittee is exploring ways to challenge a 1982 Supreme Court ruling that radically expanded illegal alien’s access to state benefits.

In Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that barred illegal immigrant children from enrolling in public schools and argued these illegal immigrants were entitled to that benefit, and many others, under the 14th Amendment.

So much for ‘ourselves and our posterity,’ suggests Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.

“This is unicorn nonsense,” Roy said. “These enrollments have cost Texans 1.9 billion dollars, and the United States 78 billion dollars in total.”

Roy held a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday morning titled “Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe.” The subcommittee focused on the taxpayer cost of illegal alien students enrolled in education, stating that “states should have the ability to curb” the Supreme Court decision.

“Immigration, legal or illegal, is not a fundamental right,” Roy said. “Accessing public education is not a fundamental right.”

“Plyer on a constitutional basis is wrong,” he added.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., claimed that these kinds of schemes has drowned the American taxpayer in debt. “The national debt has exceeded 39 trillion dollars!” he exclaimed.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., also noted the fiscal burden: “California alone spends $3 billion a year” on illegal students.

Subcommittee Democrats, meanwhile, claimed that the desire to overturn Plyler v Doe is a “bigoted” attempt to “kick off children from schools.”

“Texas looks to enshrine bigotry and bad ideas into law,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Penn., the subcommittee’s ranking member, said, amounting to “a cruel attempt to punish undocumented children for the decision their parents made, which they had no choice in.”

“The effort is part of an ill-conceived effort to stop immigration, and an effort to kick kids out of schools,” Scanlon added.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., claimed that “excluding undocumented children from education will cause a lifetime of hardship to a child who had no control over the decision to be in the United States.”

“Kids who have been able to go to school thanks to Plyer have contributed to the country,” Raskin added. “Plyler has strengthened the workforce.”

Hearing witness Matt O’Brien, the deputy executive director of the Federation for Immigration Reform, testified that Plyler v. Doe was wrongly decided.

“The court struck it down, and not on legal grounds,” O’Brien claimed. “Plyler exemplifies judicial lawmaking.”

Over time, the fiscal impact has taken a massive toll on state and local governments. “Today’s states and local governments spend tens of millions to comply with Plyler, even when many public schools struggle with overcrowding and limited resources,” O’Brien said.

As a result, “state budgets spend more money on public education than anything else.”

The post Will Congress Help States Challenge SCOTUS Ruling That Gives Illegal Immigrants Massive Benefits? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: The following commentary is a lightly edited excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on March 16, 2026.

We have dedicated many years to serving our community in Vermont. Together, we’ve tried to live by God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and care for the orphaned.

In 2014, we saw a growing crisis in Vermont. The opioid epidemic had hit our state hard, and there were more children in foster care than available loving homes. Our church had started a recovery group, but we felt called to do even more.

So we stepped forward, and our family had the privilege of fostering and ultimately adopting two brothers.

Foster care is partnership with the state—working together to bring children safety, stability, and, whenever possible, reunification with their biological parents. For years, our relationship with Vermont’s Department for Children and Families was a success.

But in 2022, that changed.

When we sought to renew our foster-care license, the state introduced a new policy. It required foster parents to promote gender ideology, including telling children they can change their sex and using inaccurate pronouns if a child desired.

We told the state that we will love any child who walks through our door. And loving a child means telling them what is true.

We believe every child is wonderfully made. We would never tell a child that God made a mistake and that he or she was born in the wrong body.

This issue is deeply personal for our family. As a child, I, Katy, struggled with gender dysphoria. That experience confirmed what research shows now: the majority of children who experience these feelings will find peace with their bodies if they are given time, support, love, and the freedom to grow. There is nothing compassionate about confusion. Love requires truth.

When we told Vermont that we would love and care for any child but could not harm them in this way, the state revoked our foster license.

Vermont also revoked the license of another remarkable family, Bryan and Rebecca Gantt, for similar reasons. The Gantts specialize in caring for children with special needs and have adopted three children from the foster system. At the time their license was revoked, they had just agreed to welcome a soon-to-be born baby boy whose mother struggled with addiction.

That baby needed a home. But instead of putting the child’s interests first, the state turned away a loving family that was waiting for him. This was heartbreaking—especially in a state where children have slept on police station floors because there were not enough foster families.

Vermont excluded families like ours and the Gantts—not because we did anything wrong—but because the government did not like our beliefs.

And Vermont is not alone. Kids are suffering in other states that have enforced similar policies, including Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. These policies label families like ours “unfit,” even though many of us have spent years successfully caring for foster children.

That raises a troubling question: If the government can declare families unfit to foster a child because we believe sex can’t be changed, how long before the government decides we are unfit to raise our own biological children?

This is why we felt we had no choice but to sue Vermont for violating our First Amendment rights, which we did in 2023 with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom. Thankfully, in February, after more than three years of litigation, Vermont finally agreed to rescind its decision, allow us to reapply for our license, and end its discriminatory policy.

But this should never have required a courtroom. The government shouldn’t target parents who embrace the truth that there are only two sexes—equal in worth, different in design.

Today, we are grateful to the Trump administration for the steps it has taken to protect kids. We appreciate the Administration for Children and Families sending letters to Vermont and other states warning that their exclusionary policies violate the First Amendment and federal funding guidelines.

We know that when the law rejects truth, there is always a human cost. But when government respects religious freedom, more families step forward, more children find forever homes, and communities grow stronger.

Our hope is simple: that every child will have the chance to grow up in a safe, loving home—and that no state will stand in the way of families eager to provide one.

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

The post We Lost Our Foster License for Christian Views on Gender. We Fought Back and Won. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A federal judge ordered more than 1,000 Voice of America employees removed from their jobs to be reinstated, in a blow to the Trump administration’s push to remake the entity and cut waste.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, of the District of Columbia, determined that the attempt to dismantle the taxpayer-funded media outlet was unlawful in an opinion Tuesday. 

Lamberth, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, issued the opinion in the combined cases of Abramowitz v. Lake and Widakuswara v. Lake.

President Donald Trump named Kari Lake, a broadcast journalist-turned-Republican political candidate in Arizona, to be the senior adviser to the acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Victor Morales.

Trump initially appointed Lake to run the agency, but she was not confirmed by the Senate. In November, she took on the role of an adviser.

However, earlier this month, as part of the case, Lamberth also ruled that Lake’s earlier actions in firing the employees were not legitimate. 

“Although Lake’s role within USAGM at the time was ‘Senior Adviser to the CEO,’ she testified in this case that she had been delegated nearly all of the CEO’s statutory authority,” Lamberth wrote.

One of the lead plaintiffs, Michael Abramowitz, is the director of VOA who sued to keep his job. Patsy Widakuswara is a journalist employed by VOA. Both were joined by several co-plaintiffs suing over the removals. Both cases began in March 2025.

The job cuts came after Trump signed an executive order to eliminate non-mandatory functions across seven federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent agency of VOA. This came amid the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency moves.

“The Executive Order led the defendants to bring USAGM’s operations to a standstill,” Lamberth wrote. 

“USAGM and VOA collectively employed 1,147 full-time employees and had entered into service contracts with 598 contractors,” the opinion stated, adding that “VOA personnel accounted for more than 1,300 of the total number of employees and contractors at USAGM.”

The plaintiffs argued that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the separation of powers. 

“After clearing a series of threshold hurdles, the Court ultimately concludes that the plaintiffs prevail on all aspects of their APA claims except for certain contractors’ requests for reinstatement,” Lamberth wrote. 

The post Judge Slaps Down Trump-Lake VOA Shake-Up, Orders 1,000+ Employees Reinstated appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Two Republican senators introduced draft legislation to reform child care for low-income families after fraud was uncovered in Minnesota and other blue states.

Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., are asking stakeholders for feedback on the draft of a bill to amend the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990, a program to help low-income families afford child care. The program has not been reauthorized since 2014.

“Every dollar stolen is a dollar not going to children and working families,” said Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. “While Minnesota brought attention to the issue, this is not just a Minnesota problem. Any criminal who steals from children and rips off taxpayers will be held accountable.” 

The senators aim to reduce fraud and improper payments, enhance eligibility verification, increase transparency, and ensure corrective action in federally funded child care programs.

The Senate committee is currently investigating Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Michigan for potential fraud in federal child care funding.

The Department of Health and Human Services in December paused child care payments to Minnesota over widespread fraud allegations there. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and selecting Vice President JD Vance as “fraud czar.”

“American families have been robbed for far too long,” Tuberville said. “We need to find the source of this abuse and cut it off so that our children and families can truly thrive. I will always work to hold the bad actors in the system accountable and advocate for Alabama’s hardworking families and their children.”

The deadline for feedback on the bill draft is April 8.

‘Strengthening Federal Oversight Authority‘

The draft gives HHS the authority to enforce program requirements and ensure states and lead agencies comply with program rules.

The agency can even disqualify the state from receiving further Child Care and Development funds.

“This discussion draft includes a provision that if a state is found noncompliant, penalties must (instead of may) include a disallowance or withholding of funds, a percentage reduction in funds, or disqualification from receipt of funds,” the draft says.

The draft also aims to increase oversight by requiring states to publish their error reports every two years rather than every three years.

The Government Accountability Office would have to review the state reports to provide recommendations to the HHS Office of Inspector General for additional oversight and policy suggestions.

‘Enhancing Monitoring for High-Risk States’

States with error rates above a certain percentage should be subject to additional monitoring by HHS, according to the draft.

HHS would be required to ramp up monitoring of states identified as “high-risk” if a state’s error report is above 9%. Any state consistently above a 6% error rate for two consecutive audit cycles will also be considered “high risk.”

The senators also want to require states to post state plans, amendments to state plans, and corrective action plans due to non-compliance. The draft would also categorize fraudulent payments as improper payments when calculating state error rates.

HHS would be required to publish these state error reports on a publicly available website so taxpayers can review how their state is administering Child Care and Development Block Grant Act funds.

This draft would require states to compensate child care providers based on verified attendance, not enrollment. It would still allow state flexibility to pay providers prospectively or after services are delivered.

Removing the Marriage Penalty

While current rules may discourage marriage, the discussion draft modifies eligibility criteria to ensure families are not penalized when single parents marry.

This aims to ensure that the program helps children from married two-parent families where both adults are working a combined 60 hours per week or are enrolled in job training or educational programs, and are considered to have a moderate to low-income, not exceeding 85% of the state median income.

‘Tightening Eligibility and Payment Verification’

The discussion draft seeks to tighten eligibility verification requirements for families.

Cassidy and Tuberville want to require participants to self-report income changes within three months and require states to verify recipients’ income every six months. In addition, they seek to require participants to report significant income changes within that period.

Additional provisions would eliminate retroactive eligibility and require states to use electronic authentication tools to verify a participant’s identity.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Senators Unveil Reforms to Root Out ‘Learing Center’ Fraud appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Since I last lived in London 30 years ago, Britain has seen the largest inward migration in its recorded history of more than two thousand years, most of it from outside Europe. In 1996, the country was more than 90% indigenous English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh. Today it is only 73%.

One story that really captures the mass migration and assimilation crisis of modern England is that of Harman Singh Kapoor, a Sikh immigrant who owns a restaurant called Rangrez in Hammersmith, north London. Kapoor publicly declared that he would not serve halal meat. “Halal” is the Arabic term for permitted, or clean, as opposed to “haram”—forbidden, or unclean. Observant Muslims will only eat halal food, just as observant Jews will only eat kosher.

Singh’s need to declare that he would not serve halal meat, or his manner of doing so, could be questioned. But it’s his restaurant and his call. The simple thing for any objecting Muslims to do would be not to eat there.

But this is “multicultural” London, where indigenous English are barely a third of the population. Conflicts from the old country are imported intact. Magnified on social media, the halal issue resulted in confrontations at Rangrez. At one point, a large group of men showed up outside. Singh had said he carried a knife for defense (one of five items a religious Sikh man must carry at all times, incidentally) and he was arrested. He has now apparently decided to close up shop.

This spat highlights a bigger one: to what degree should natives in Britain, or Western countries that take in large numbers of immigrants, concede to the religious and cultural demands of the newcomers?

Should inhabitants of Minneapolis, who are mostly not Muslim, be obliged to hear the Muslim call to prayer broadcast five times a day from dawn to dusk? Should all of us have to eat food prepared according to the sensibilities and rituals of a minority?

There are over 200 schools in Britain that serve halal food. Halal, like kosher for Jews, requires a specific method of killing animals. One provision is that the animal’s “wind pipe, gullet, and preferably 2 cartoid [sic] arteries and 2 jugular veins must be cut in a single action,” by a Muslim man, with a knife, according to the Association for Public Service Excellence.

British law, with the intent of avoiding unnecessary cruelty to animals, requires that they be stunned prior to slaughter. But in 1995, a law was passed to make an exception for religious slaughter. Presumably that was thought at the time to be a fairly minor exception, but now, with a growing Muslim population, it is a controversial issue affecting the mass market.

Vegetarians don’t have a dog in the fight (excuse the pun). But carnivores divide into those who want their meat killed humanely versus religiously. Large institutions in Britain—as in the U.S.—are often woke, so happy to pander to special interests. Just look at Budweiser, Disney, and Hollywood. But they also want to avoid negative publicity. For those in the food business, sometimes the sly but easy way out is to make everyone eat halal—whether or not they know it.

In 2010, the Daily Mail reported that a large government-run London hospital chain was serving halal meat in its cafeteria without labeling it as such. So were some sporting events, private schools, pubs, and restaurants. In 2014, the Sun newspaper reported that all chicken served at the national chain Pizza Express was halal.

In 2017, a London hospital told Breitbart that they served only halal food in their cafeteria “so that it caters for all visitors, staff, and patients who visit the restaurant.” In other words, halal was the default, making it “inclusive” for those who are observant Muslim meat-eaters, but not those who object to religious verses from the Quran being part of their meal preparation.

In 2019, an English college student was suspended for stating during a debate that halal was “an inhumane and barbaric way of slaughtering animals.”

Deciding how far to accommodate those with the strict religious rules about what they eat is a dilemma for big chains, including American ones. The requirements are not only that halal meat is served, but that the premises be clear of “haram” items. So, no bacon bits on your salad. Today, 20% of Britain’s 1,000 Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets serve halal chicken. McDonald’s in Britain, meanwhile, does not have halal restaurants, although some franchises obtain halal supplies for certain menu items.

Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, and other religions have their rituals and food preferences, but they don’t demand everyone else accommodate them. Many Muslims also feel that their religious needs can be accommodated in private without coercing the behavior of others. But some more militant Islamists feel otherwise. They are willing to use political and economic power, and sometimes intimidation, to get their way.

Where Muslim immigrants decide to go with this issue is at the heart of whether this latest, largest cohort of migrants to historically Christian countries will succeed or fail.

The post What’s the Beef in Britain Over Halal Meat? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In the Illinois Democrat House primaries on Tuesday, the party’s left wing got mixed results, while candidates less hostile to the Israeli government managed to triumph in multiple races.

On Tuesday, Illinois Democrat voters selected their nominees in four U.S. House races. 

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss won the nomination in the 9th district, Melissa Bean in the 8th, state Rep. La Shawn Ford in the 7th, and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller in the 2nd.

The Congressional Black Caucus, Justice Democrats, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., all backed candidates in the House primaries, none of whom won.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., made three House primary endorsements, only one of whom, Biss, won.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as well as aligned groups that spent money in support of pro-Israel candidates, emerged as overall winners.

Both Bean and Miller, who are pro-Israel candidates, won their primaries in solidly progressive districts.

“These results further demonstrate that campaigns defined largely by opposition to AIPAC, our members, and the values we represent continue to fall short on election night,” AIPAC said in a statement.

However, pro-Israel groups did not win across the board.

Biss, who emerged victorious on Tuesday, called out AIPAC and aligned groups by name throughout his campaign, saying in a recent social media post, “we’re going to beat them and their right-wing money.”

In his post-victory speech, Biss said, “AIPAC found out the hard way… Enough about AIPAC. May tonight be the last night I utter their name.”

State Sen. Laura Fine, AIPAC’s preferred candidate, placed third in the race.

“While disappointed that Laura Fine did not prevail, voters rejected two anti-Israel candidates in this race—Kat Abughazaleh and Bushra Amiwala,” AIPAC said in a statement on X.

The United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-connected political action committee, also ran ads in support of Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears Ervin in the 7th congressional district, who lost to Ford. 

The post Progressives Get Bittersweet Results in Illinois Dem Primaries appeared first on The Daily Signal.