Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who has served as the Senate’s Democrat whip for more than 20 years, went down to the Senate floor on Jan. 21, 2025, to speak about a bill aimed at protecting the lives of certain newborn babies.

He was against it.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, as described in its official summary, would have established “requirements for the degree of care a health care practitioner must provide in the case of a child born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion.”

What exactly would this proposed law have required a health care practitioner to do when dealing with a born baby who survived an attempted abortion?

“Specifically,” said the bill’s summary, “a health care practitioner who is present must (1) exercise the same degree of care as would reasonably be provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and (2) ensure the child is immediately admitted to a hospital.”

“An individual who intentionally kills or attempts to kill a child born alive is subject to prosecution for murder,” it said.

But the mother would not be prosecuted. “The bill,” said the summary, “bars the criminal prosecution of a mother of a child born alive under this bill and allows her to bring a civil action against a health care practitioner or other employee for violations.”

Durbin considered this bill an outrage.

“Tomorrow marks the 52nd year since our Nation’s highest Court issued a rule recognizing a woman’s constitutionally protected right to choose,” he said on the Senate floor on Jan. 21, 2025, according to the Congressional Record. “Roe v. Wade enshrined into law something that should have been a given in America: In America, women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. And, as a result of Roe, America’s women took a giant leap forward in gender equity. The decision in Roe afforded women the right to choose whether, when, and how to start a family.

“But,” Durbin said, “after nearly 50 years of progress, in June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled Roe with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, dragging women’s rights half a century backward.”

“Instead of addressing the health care crisis that Dobbs unleashed, Republicans are now instead looking to make it even harder for women to access comprehensive and compassionate health care,” he said.

“Tomorrow, they will attempt to bring to the floor the so-called Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” said Durbin. “The goal of the bill that we will consider, introduced by the Republicans, is to target and intimidate reproductive health care providers and make it harder for women to access comprehensive and compassionate health care.”

Is it “compassionate” to deny health care to a newborn baby?

The day after Durbin gave this speech, his Senate office put out a press release. It was headlined: “Ahead of the Roe v. Wade Anniversary, Durbin Condemns Republicans’ Sham ‘Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.’”

That day the Senate held a cloture vote to end debate on the bill and bring it up for a final substantive vote. The cloture measure required 60 votes to succeed. It only got 52.

Every Democrat in the Senate voted against it.

The Dick Durbin who has now served in Congress for more than four decades has championed a dramatically different position on abortion than the Dick Durbin who first ran for the House of Representatives in 1982. That year, as this column has noted before, Durbin ran as a pro-life Democrat.

In January 1982, he served as master of ceremonies at the Springfield Right to Life Committee’s annual “Respect for Life Observance.” This event, as explained by the committee, was designed “to speak for the unborn and bear witness to the right to life of all human beings.”

On March 14, 1982, Durbin wrote a campaign letter emphasizing his pro-life position. “My record of opposition to abortion on demand has been public record for eight years,” he wrote. “As recently as January I was honored to serve again as Master of Ceremonies at the Annual Observance in the State Capitol for the fifth time.”

“I oppose abortion on demand,” he wrote. “I support the Hatch Federalism Amendment which has been endorsed by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

The Washington Post explained in a March 11, 1982, article what this amendment would do: “The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved something called the ‘human life federalism amendment.’ This newest vehicle of abortion foes, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and also known as the Hatch amendment, would amend the Constitution in order to erase the constitutional right to have an abortion established by the Supreme Court nine years ago. The amendment would return the abortion question to the states and Congress. But it is not a states’ rights or ‘new federalism’ initiative, for it stipulates that whichever law— state or federal—were ‘more restrictive’ would prevail.”

On July 12, 2022, when Durbin was chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, he presided over a hearing on “A Post-Roe America: The Legal Consequences of the Dobbs Decision.” At that hearing Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas quoted from a letter Durbin had written about abortion in 1989. Lee requested that this letter be included in the committee’s record, and it was.

“I believe we should end abortion on demand and at every opportunity I have translated this belief into votes in the House of Representatives,” then-Rep. Durbin wrote in that 1989 letter. “I continue to believe the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade should be overturned.”

Durbin announced last year that he will not seek reelection in 2026. History will remember him as someone who abandoned the right position and adopted the wrong position on the most profound issue of our time.

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Prices rise. People blame capitalism.

Politicians promise “solutions.”

President Donald Trump wants to cap credit card interest rates.

My socialist mayor wants to freeze rents.

Elizabeth Warren wants politicians to decide what prices are “excessive.”   

So I was surprised to see economist Donald J. Boudreaux’s new book titled “The Triumph of Economic Freedom.”

“Economic freedom is losing!” I shout at him in my new video. “Republicans and Democrats vote against it.”

“Free markets are on the ropes,” he replies. “But when you look at history, you see that when economic freedom is allowed to flourish, it does triumph. … It’s really important that people step back and look at economic history … [to see that] the more we move away from free markets, the worse things become.”

We should have learned that from the Great Depression.

Schools now teach children that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal “brought the U.S. out of the Great Depression.”

Not true, says Boudreaux. “He created government programs all right, but they did not pull us out of the Depression. Unemployment in the 1930s was never below 10%.”

When farmers complained about low prices, FDR blamed an oversupply of food. So the government paid farmers to destroy crops.

“People were hungry and they were destroying food!” complains Boudreaux. “How was that good?”

“It raised prices,” I say. “Farmers wouldn’t go bankrupt.”

“People can’t eat prices! They have to eat food.”

FDR’s other “solutions” included higher taxes on the rich and more regulation of businesses—proposals we hear today.

“By introducing these new unprecedented programs,” says Boudreaux, “the New Deal made investment in America a risky project. That kept private investors on the sidelines.”

Why wouldn’t they invest?

“FDR is criticizing businesspeople and blaming [them] for all that ails America,” replies Boudreaux. “Those businesspeople were saying, ‘I’m not going to trust my property to you.'”        

The Depression continued for more than a decade, until, according to the Library of Congress, “Mobilizing the economy for world war finally cured the depression.”

That’s a myth, too, says Boudreaux.

“Unemployment fell. That’s not hard to do when you conscript 2.5 million men into the military. But If you look at the actual performance of the economy, that didn’t recover until the late 1940s.”

It recovered, says Boudreaux, because “Republicans won the 1946 election, and they were more pro-investor, pro-business than the Democrats.”

And FDR died.

“Harry Truman was less vigorously opposed to capitalists … So investors were finally confident to come back into the playing field.”

Seventy years later, politicians from both parties created the “Great Recession” by having government subsidize mortgages. When the mortgage bubble burst, home prices collapsed, banks lost big, and millions lost jobs.

“What the government did was impose policies that made homeownership seem affordable to people who couldn’t afford it and compel banks to back those mortgages,” explains Boudreaux. “When things went down … you had this calamity.”

Politicians blamed that recession on “an unregulated free market.”

It’s a fallacy, says Boudreaux, “that deregulation led to the Great Recession. There was very little deregulation.”

He says the “reason the Great Recession lasted as long as it did is because [President] Barack Obama kept saying hostile things about markets and businesspeople.”

Obama did shout things like, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that!”

“Negative words from the White House kept investors on the sidelines, kept unemployment higher than it would otherwise have been,” says Boudreaux.

Obama’s policies didn’t help either. He expanded unemployment benefits, boasting it “made a difference in the lives of 12 million Americans!”

“Yeah, it did,” says Boudreaux. “It kept them unemployed a lot longer … because people were being paid not to work.”

Today, politicians and pundits continue to claim capitalism is a problem and government must step in to make it more fair.

“They don’t know what they’re talking about!” says Boudreaux. “Government’s ‘solutions’ actually made things worse.”

Free markets do work. If politicians just let them.

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WASHINGTON HILTON, WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and key cabinet officials were evacuated from the White House Correspondents Dinner after shots had been fired outside the ballroom where the event was being held Saturday night.

Journalists were told to get on the ground, get under the tables, and hide for approximately five minutes at the Washington Hilton. Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover under their tables amid confusion as Secret Service agents in combat gear entered the dining room and scoped the perimeter.

President Trump confirmed on Truth Social that law enforcement apprehended a shooter.

“The shooter has been apprehended, and I have recommended that we ‘LET THE SHOW GO ON’ but, will entirely be guided by Law Enforcement,” the president wrote. The event was canceled, though Trump said it would be rescheduled within 30 days.

Trump praised Secret Service and law enforcement for doing “a fantastic job,” acting “quickly and bravely.”

The president said, “The evening will be much different than planned, and we’ll just, plain, have to do it again.”

Trump later gave a press conference at the White House.

“The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition,” he posted on Truth Social at around 9:38 p.m. Eastern.

The Secret Service released a statement on the incident.

“The U.S. Secret Service, in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Department, is investigating a shooting incident near the main magnetometer screening area at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service communications chief, wrote. “The president and the first lady are safe along [with] all protectees. One individual is in custody.”

“The condition of those involved is not yet known, and law enforcement is actively assessing the situation,” he added.

U.S. Capitol Police told The Daily Signal that members of Congress are safe.

“The Members of Congress who attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner are safe and secure,” the police department said. “We are assisting our federal and local partners with anything they need.”

A freelance photographer working for Reuters heard four to six loud bangs in the hotel but not in the immediate vicinity of the dinner.

Cabinet officials began to return after journalists were notified it was safe to get up again.

Staff had announced the dinner would resume, but after Trump’s announcement, the audience cleared out.

This is a breaking news story and may be updated.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A group of Christian doctors has helped more than 130 Ukrainian soldiers with severe facial injuries since 2023.

The Vision for Ukraine medical mission is carried out by the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine (CMA Ukraine) in collaboration with American partners. The mission unites Ukrainian and American oculoplastic surgeons to help bring hope to injured soldiers.

The mission’s doctors perform complex reconstructive interventions, which can involve everything from restoring facial bones to individual eye prosthetics.

“For us, as an association of Christian doctors, this is also a matter of dignity … [not only returning] functions, but also a face, self-image, [and a] future,” Rudolf Myhovych, head of the CMA Ukraine, told me. “Vision for Ukraine is a mission of cooperation, medical brotherhood, and deep respect for those who defend Ukraine.” 

The total cost of all surgeries and implants has already exceeded $750,000. Financing has been provided by international support of Leap Global Missions, Ed’s Friends, AROMS, Razom for Ukraine, and MedCAD.

For many patients, these implants and reconstructive surgeries are a chance for a new life. 

Serhiy’s Story

A Ukrainian veteran named Serhiy returned to defend his country in 2022. That year, he lost an eye and sustained major damage to his skull when shrapnel hit his face.

Serhiy got a standard eye prosthesis and returned to duty a few months later. In 2023, Serhiy was wounded for the second time by an exploding mine. Part of his foot had to be amputated.

“It didn’t look great, of course,” he told me. “But at the time, that wasn’t the priority.”

At the Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital, CMA Ukraine doctors performed a complex operation on Serhiy’s face. This involved removing the old prosthetic structures, rebuilding bones, and preparing the basis for an individual prosthesis. 

All of CMA Ukraine’s patients undergo CT scans in Ukraine. The scans are then sent to MedCAD in Dallas, which produces patient-specific implants. Based on the scans, a 3D model of the skull is created, and engineers work alongside surgeons to design custom titanium plates that are tailored to each individual patient.

The implants are made of titanium, which is an expensive material. One implant costs $9,000 to $12,000, and this is without taking into account the work of the operating team and the hospital. However, patients of the Vision for Ukraine mission receive implants and operations free of charge.

When the implants were installed, Dr. Jorge Corona, an oculoplastic surgeon from Dallas and a member of the mission, said, “They fit like a glove.”

After seeing Serhiy, Nancy Hairston, CEO of MedCAD told me,“He looks great. You can see that he feels confident again, and he talked about his plans for the future. This is new life, new senses, and new hopes. [It’s] very moving”

Arthur’s Story

Arthur is a soldier and father of two. He received a bullet wound on the front line that completely changed his life. The bullet passed through his face and permanently blinded him.

As part of the Vision for Ukraine mission, his facial bone structure has already been restored, and several stages of reconstruction have been carried out, installing individual titanium implants.

He also received eye prosthetics. While these could not restore his vision, they helped restore a sense of wholeness. 

“My previous life is over,” Arthur told me. “Now a new one begins.”

Artem’s Story

Artem was injured multiple times defending his county. He received his fourth and most serious injury in 2022. The blast trauma damaged his face, vision, and hearing. He also lost most of his teeth.

Recovery was a long process involving numerous surgeries. 

“I wouldn’t call [them] surgeries,” he told me. “They were putting me back together piece by piece.” 

During the Vision for Ukraine mission, Artem was fitted with custom 3D implants that restored his facial bone structure and functionality.

Despite the difficulties associated with his ongoing rehabilitation, Artem says he remains motivated knowing that his two young sons waiting for him at home. His journey—full of pain, patience, and faith that life after injury is possible—is being made for his kids. 

Previously, ophthalmology in Ukraine was a more limited specialty and did not include complex reconstructive surgeries on the eyelids and mucous membranes.

“The war, paradoxically enough, gave impetus to the development of certain areas of medicine in Ukraine,” Stuart Seiff, an oculoplastic surgeon and member of CMA Ukraine, told me. “Thanks to the cooperation of Ukrainian and American specialists, this area is now actively developing. And now we already have specialists who are able to perform operations of such complexity without our intervention.” 

Care for Each Patient

The Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital in Ukraine performs more than 100 operations every month. About 60% of patients are military personnel with mine and bullet wounds to the face. 

“The injuries are different: sometimes the bone is damaged, sometimes the muscles, sometimes the participation of an ophthalmologist is required, sometimes a neurosurgeon,” Oleksandr Vasyliev, head of the maxillofacial surgery department of the Kyiv Regional Clinical Hospital, told me.

“There are no universal solutions here. We do everything possible to ensure that the treatment is as effective as possible and that [each patient] can return to a full life.” 

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

The newest political romance novel to hit the shelves is written by none other than Fox News host and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Dana Perino.

“Purple State,” released this week by HarperCollins, follows three young single Democratic women in their 20s living in New York City.

Dot, the politically charged member of the friend group, is on her way to being a successful agent at her PR firm. Mary is on track to make junior partner at a big law firm. Harper is an aspiring author.

The trio face the dreaded questions every young woman finds herself asking: Who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?

When the opportunity presents itself to move to a small Midwest town to work for a Democrat-aligned political action committee, the three characters move from the Big Apple to Cedar Falls, Wisconsin, where a surprising love story unfolds.

Perino has said she took inspiration for the book from women she knows, as well as from her own real-life love story with her husband, Peter McMahon.

From the front cover to the back-cover book description, you would think “Purple State” is written for young women who could personally relate to Dot, Mary, and Harper. But I found a different message: Do single women have to move to a farm town in the middle of nowhere just to find a “real man”?

The Love Story

Most politically minded people — or even just those who have strong values and political beliefs — could never imagine dating someone on the other side of the aisle. I know I sure can’t. Yet Dot, who broke things off with her boyfriend in New York because he voted Republican, forgets all about red-versus-blue upon meeting an unwavering Republican farm boy from Wisconsin — Danny Dawson.

Before Perino introduces Danny, Dot thinks she might be interested in the Democrat guy working the campaign with her — the perfect liberal love story. But when she sees him scream “like a girl” as he runs away from a bee, she immediately gets “the ick.”

Danny, who drives a pickup truck and is brave enough to run head-on into a crime scene for her safety, sweeps her off her feet. She quickly becomes blind to the way he votes.

With a surprise ending that might make you shed a tear, all three Democrat girls end up falling in love with Republican farm boys while on their campaign stint in Wisconsin. It’s a truth you hear a lot on social media: Women, no matter their political beliefs, want to be with “real men.” And those men usually end up being Republican.

Her Easter Eggs

Perino did sprinkle Easter eggs from her own life throughout the book. If you have read any of her three memoirs, you can pick up on those.

For example, when the girls board the plane heading off on their big adventure, they talk about the possibility of meeting the love of their life. In real life, Perino met McMahon while seated next to him on a flight.

Another nod to her relationship with her husband was the girls’ decision to move to a new place for love, possibly giving up a career. Early in her own relationship, Perino moved to Europe to be with McMahon, putting love before her career.

While “Purple State” is Perino’s debut in fiction, the author provides an entertaining, light romance novel that posits a deep thought for a politically divided America: True love, perhaps, is something that crosses party lines.

Many speeches will be delivered this year about the Declaration of Independence as we celebrate its 250th birthday.  

However, I think the greatest was just delivered by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on April 15 at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas, Austin.  

The force of Thomas’ words does not just result from his deep understanding of what the United States is about, and how the Declaration of Independence defines it.  

The force flows from Thomas’ personal reality. He has lived what the declaration is about. His words are not just the product of thought and study, but of Thomas’ entire life experience.  

Thomas grew up poor in America’s Jim Crow South. 

But he says, “Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that wreaked a bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education, that in God’s eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal.” 

“When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God,” he continued. 

An ominous beginning for a future Supreme Court justice. 

Thomas’ life, career, and education were trial by fire.  

By the time he became chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the country had already been captured by progressivism, particularly on matters of race.  

His principled adherence to the eternal God-given truths of the declaration, and refusal to fold to the progressive agenda—which he calls the “then-prevailing orthodoxy on race”—was a lonely battle, which left him under constant attack.  

It was then he realized that carrying out the agenda was more than knowing the principles, but having the courage to fight, and even, if necessary, die for them. 

Thomas notes that the principles stated in the opening of the declaration—“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights”—could have gotten nowhere without the last paragraph of the declaration.  

There the signers conclude “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” 

“What changed the world,” per Thomas, “was not the words, but the commitment and spirit of the people willing to labor, sacrifice, and even give their lives” for what Lincoln called at Gettysburg “the last full measure of devotion.” 

Thomas asks, “Do any of us have what it took for our young soldiers to storm Normandy Beach, to fight at Guadalcanal, to later fight at Chosin Reservoir?” 

He discusses the emergence of progressivism, which challenged the core principles of the Declaration. As Thomas notes, its pedigree is not American but was born in 19th century Germany of Otto von Bismark. 

It’s a worldview that rejects the notion that God-given truths govern our lives, but rather politics and government so-called experts.  

It’s deeply ironic and unfortunate that the civil rights movement—a movement about human freedom, a movement about moving black people out from the distortions of political control, and to our regime of freedom defined by our declaration’s principles—itself saw progressivism as the answer to problems of race. 

We are in a great struggle today for the future of our country.  

The movement toward progressivism has delivered to us a new time with massive government, deficits, debts, and bankrupt entitlement programs. The assault of progressivism on the God-given principles of the declaration of Independence has also taken a great toll on our culture, with the traditional family and our birth of children in dangerous decline.  

To restore the vitality of our nation, we for sure today need a “new birth of freedom.” 

A good start for all is to listen to Thomas’ message. 

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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. 

The richest man in Mississippi, Tom Duff, and his brother James Duff, have been under a Justice Department investigation for potentially defrauding a federal pandemic-era relief program of $6.7 million since 2024, court records show.

A lawsuit filed against the brothers by Relator LLC claims the two “looted the government” by filing “falsified loan documents to the Small Business Administration in order to obtain taxpayer-funded payments through the Paycheck Protection Program.”

The case will move to Mississippi after a federal judge in March granted the Duffs’ motion to transfer the case.

According to the documents, the brothers applied for the loans using their tire company, the Southern Tire Mart, which is valued at upward of $3.5 billion.

Congress created the program in March of 2020 to keep businesses afloat as the global economy slowed to a halt at the outset of the pandemic. 

As seen in court filings, the attorneys for the Duff brothers refuted the claims, arguing the lawsuit relies on “inflammatory rhetoric” instead of factual evidence.

The brothers’ legal team noted that the California attorneys acting against them have filed similar lawsuits against other individuals, some of which have been dismissed by federal judges. They also claim the lawsuit is the product of trial lawyers looking to score judicial wins from the grey area surrounding pandemic-era government programs.  

Matthew D. Miller, one of the brother’s attorneys, told Mississippi Today that he expected his clients to be “fully vindicated by the judicial process.”

“The PPP loans were lawfully obtained, fully disclosed and reviewed by banks, the SBA and federal attorneys,” Miller wrote in a statement to the outlet. “This case is exactly the kind of parasitic, web-scraped lawsuit that courts have repeatedly rejected from this plaintiff. The allegations were also independently reviewed by the Department of Justice which, after this review, declined to intervene in this lawsuit.”

The judicial proceedings could complicate the outlook of Tom Duff, who is rumored to be running for governor in 2027.

“If he decides to run for governor, he’s absolutely among the top runners, if not the top runner,” said Austin Barbour, a state and national GOP strategist and lobbyist.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson told the outlet that Tom Duff is “someone who could really excite all of Mississippi” as a candidate for governor.

In recent months, the brothers have created the Duff PAC, which will be used to support candidates in the state’s gubernatorial race.

Georgia, one of the most closely watched election battlegrounds in the nation, could face a significant technology overhaul resulting in slower ballot counting or delayed results in the upcoming midterm elections.

After July 1, Georgia election officials can no longer use QR codes to tabulate ballots after a 2024 law goes into effect, sparking concern among election officials.

“The sky is not falling yet, but it is definitely cloudy,” Joseph Kirk, the Bartow County elections director and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, told the Daily Signal.

For past years, and for the upcoming May primary and June runoff elections, Georgia’s voting machines have used QR codes to tally votes. QR is short for quick response. After the July 1 deadline, the technology would be phased out for tabulation purposes.

Kirk said the July 1 deadline and November election present a very tight timeline to make sweeping changes to the ballot-counting process necessary to comply with the law.

However, some Georgia officials close to the matter suggest it’s far from a crisis and point out that the language of the law does not ban the use of QR codes altogether, only their use for final tabulation.

The 2024 Georgia statute says, “The official tabulation count of any ballot scanner shall be based upon the text portion or the machine mark, provided that such mark clearly denotes the elector’s selection and does not use a QR code, bar code, or similar coding, of such ballots and not any machine coding that may be printed on such ballots.”

That delineation is not clear enough for election chiefs, Kirk said.

“I suppose some might argue we could use the codes for an initial tally on election night as long as it’s not for the official tabulation. But then it could depend on the definition of tabulation. People at my level cannot make those decisions and need legal guidance,” Kirk said.

Critics of using QR codes asserted that voters can’t read the codes to verify that their ballots accurately reflect their choices. However, others contend that technology, properly deployed, can’t be tampered with in the same way that human counting could.

The election clerks group pressed the state legislature to approve an extension to the July 1 deadline or approve new funding for counties to make the change. However, lawmakers adjourned earlier this month without taking any action on the QR codes.

Kirk said that leaves three potential paths forward. First, Gov. Brian Kemp could call a special legislative session to address the problem. Another option could be that Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger takes executive action as the state’s top election official. A third option is a lawsuit prompting a judge to impose a solution on the state.

Neither Raffensperger’s office nor Kemp’s office has been specific about the next step.

“As always, Secretary Raffensperger remains committed to following the law and following the Constitution in conducting free, fair, and fast elections for all Georgia voters,” Mike Hassinger, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, told The Daily Signal.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s spokesman, Carter Chapman, referred the Daily Signal to a previous statement issued after the end of the legislative session.

“The governor’s office will begin a thorough bill and budget review process on Monday and will analyze all the bills that passed the General Assembly, as well as the consequences of those that did not pass,” Chapman said.

It’s a false choice between QR codes and slow hand counting of ballots, said Janice Johnston, vice chairwoman of the Georgia State Election Board. She said Georgia has used hand-marked paper ballots in the past that could be scanned in a timely manner and could still be audited without adding time to tabulation.

She doubts the Georgia State Election Board will get involved.

“Right now it’s a legislative matter. If the board tried to preemptively work out a solution, it would be outside its authority,” Johnston told The Daily Signal. “Once July 1 passes and nothing changes, the Elections Board might have to direct the counties to take an emergency procedure. But my prediction is that there will be a special session, and no matter what happens in the special session, it will end up in court, because the sides are so dug in. And courts hate to deal with election issues.”

Last November, Charlene McGowan, the general counsel for the secretary of state’s office, wrote a letter to lawmakers saying optical character recognition technology could be a cost-effective way to implement the 2024 law.

OCR, short for optical character recognition, converts images of text—such as scanned documents, PDFs, or photos—into machine-readable data. This differs from QR codes, which are structured, high-speed two-dimensional barcodes designed for instant digital lookup. OCR converts physical text into digital text, while QR codes are designed to store small amounts of data instantly.

St. Mark’s feast day, celebrated on April 25 each year, provides an opportunity to reflect on the radical message of the Christian Gospel.

Tradition holds that Mark, the author of one of the four Gospels, was a close friend and follower of St. Peter. It is traditionally believed that Mark’s account of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection is deeply informed by St. Peter’s own direct experience of events. Mark’s Gospel shares the Christian faith in the terse and approachable style of a simple fisherman called by Jesus to do great things.

The Christian faith of the Gospels can be summarized through the kerygma, an ancient Greek term meaning proclamation or message, which in the Christian context refers to the central message of the faith. This was the message that Christ’s followers spread across the known world following his resurrection and ascension into heaven. This message changed the world, and it can be summarized in five points.

First, God is real, and He created mankind for a purpose, namely, to love. Second, human beings rejected God and chose sin. Third, God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to correct mankind’s relationship with Him and reveal His heart. Fourth, each person can know Jesus as a real living person through the Church, the sacraments, and the Bible. Fifth, all followers of Christ are called to spread the faith to all who will listen so that everyone can hear and know Jesus for eternity.

The Apostles spent their lives preaching the kerygma to build up the Kingdom of God.

The kerygma is a summary of the entire Bible. Scripture reveals who God is and who we are. It shows us that our God is a relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It teaches that this Triune God created human beings to enter into this divine relationship, even though we so often reject Him and choose our selfish ways over following Him.

Despite man’s repeated rejection of God’s pursuit, He sent His Son into time so that He could definitively bring about salvation.

Even though we did not deserve it, He suffered in our place, conquered death, and rose from the dead. As a result of Jesus’ actions, we can live beyond the powers of sin and are called to live with God forever in heaven.

This is the greatest love story ever told, and entering into this reality is the fulfillment of every human desire.

The question is this: how do we enter into it? On the celebration of the feast of St. Mark, we are reminded that the Bible is a crucial entry point to knowing God and becoming who we are made to be.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The Church forcefully and specially exhorts all the Christian faithful to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Let them remember, however, that prayer should accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man. For we speak to him when we pray; we listen to him when we read the divine oracles.” 

Reading the Bible is not simply a matter of gaining knowledge as if from a technical manual. Praying with the Bible is a chance to encounter the living God.

Sacred Scripture is divinely inspired. God is the author, and men like St. Mark were the pens. God uses the authors, with all of the details of their lives, as vehicles to bring about His presence and truth. Since these words have their origin in God, they give us access to Him today.

This is why the saints throughout history and countless Christians today pray the Bible daily. Slowly digesting a passage each day allows us to encounter God and be drawn into the purpose of our existence: communion with Him.

This practice is known as lectio divina or “holy reading.” You can select a passage, preferably beginning with one of the four Gospels (St. Mark’s is the shortest), and read the passage slowly. You can read it once and sit quietly for a minute or two. Then you read it two more times with a pause in between while centering on a line or phrase that stands out to you.

Many Christians choose to use a notebook to record phrases that stand out to them and then write down reflections. The repetitive nature of choosing a phrase or word allows one to be led into silent prayer and experience the presence of God.

That is the true impact of Scripture. It facilitates a deep encounter with the living God and draws us into the reason for our existence: being united with the One who made us for Himself.

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

Nevada has fewer registered Democrats today than in 2016. That’s one reason Nevada could be a red state within a decade.  

Nevada Republicans currently have a voter registration edge of more than 7,000 out of 2 million registered voters. That may not sound like much, but it’s their largest voter registration lead since 2006. Nevada has around 571,000 registered Republicans and a bit under 564,000 Democrats. 

This is a dramatic reversal. In the 2016 general election, Democrats had a voter registration advantage of nearly 89,000. Hillary Clinton won the state by around 27,000 votes. In 2020, Democrats had a similarly sized edge. Former President Joe Biden won the state by under 34,000 votes.  

But the Biden presidency turned into a recruiting boon for Nevada Republicans. By November 2022, Democrats’ voter registration edge had fallen to around 52,000. Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, defeated the Democratic incumbent, former Gov. Steve Sisolak, by less than 16,000 votes. 

By November 2024, Democrats’ voter registration edge in Nevada had dropped to under 10,000. President Donald Trump won the state by 46,000 votes, a victory of 3 percentage points. 

One of the biggest reasons for this is how Trump—aided by Biden’s inflation-producing policies—revamped the Republican coalition. Trump attracted more minority and younger voters, while college-educated voters moved left. Nevada might be the state where that trade is the most advantageous. Thirty percent of Nevadans are Hispanic, and racial minorities comprise the majority of the state’s population. Compared with other states, Nevada has relatively few college graduates.  

It’s unclear whether this coalition will hold together or show up in the midterms. College graduates tend to be more consistent voters.  

Nevada Republicans received an unwitting assist from leftist donors, too. In 2018, Nevada voters approved an automatic voter registration initiative. Leftist groups donated more than $9 million to promote the measure. The theory was that automatically registering people at the DMV would ensure a steady stream of new Democrat voters.  

It didn’t happen. In 2018, there were almost 600,000 registered Democrats, which gave them a 4.8 percentage point advantage. Today, there are around 564,000 Democrats and Republicans have a 0.35 percentage point edge.  

Before 2018, Nevada Democrats significantly outperformed Republicans in registering voters. The Reid machine provided money and organization that Republicans couldn’t match. But DMV registration leveled the playing field. Plus, most people at the DMV aren’t thinking about voting. Many get registered as nonpartisan by default. This makes it harder for Democrats to identify which voters to turn out.  

This shift has moved Nevada from a lean blue state to a pure toss-up. Will the trend continue? 

Here are two reasons it might. The first is Californians. Yes, you read that correctly. In 2024, around 40% of those moving to Nevada came from the Golden State. But those departing Californians are disproportionately Republican. Paradoxically, former Californians may keep Nevada from copying California’s terrible policies. 

The other is Turning Point Action, setting up shop in Nevada. For decades, the Right hasn’t had a counter to the turnout machine of Culinary Local 226. If donors buy into the long-term vision, Turning Point’s efforts could turn those low-propensity Republican voters into Republican votes.  

The stakes are high. If this trend continues, Republicans could flip Nevada’s two Democrat-held U.S. Senate seats in 2028 and 2030. After the census shakes up the Electoral College, Nevada’s results could determine who wins the presidency in 2032.  

Events are unpredictable, and Democrats are pumping money into voter registration. That should help them.  

But a decade ago, Nevada looked like it would soon be a permanently blue state. It has swung dramatically to the right, and there are reasons to believe that trend will continue. 

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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. 

There are at least 76,000 supermarkets in the United States. Most of us probably have a dozen within 10 miles of home.

Nevertheless, leftists are constantly trying to convince us that we need government-run grocery stores. The latest person is New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has promised to open five city-run markets to combat “out of control” prices by getting rid of the “profit motive,” passing on the savings to consumers.

The first glaring problem with Mamdani’s plan is that the “profit motive” is the best device to create savings.

Mamdani says he looks “forward to the competition” from the private sector, and “may the most affordable grocery store win.” It’s not really “competition” when a government official untethered from the “profit motive” can use endless taxpayer subsidies to keep his business afloat.

The Mamdani Mart in Harlem, for instance, will be built on land already owned by the city, and it’s still going to cost $30 million according to the mayor, if government estimates are right, a rarity.

In the real world, these exorbitant costs would be passed on to consumers. In the Mamdani world, the cost is tacked on to an already $5.4 billion budget deficit.

To put the cost into context, a new Aldi costs around $1.5 million to $3 million on average to construct, not including the cost of the land. Other chains might cost around $3 million to $5 million. Aldi keeps costs as low as possible because they are governed by the profit motive.

An Aldi can be built as quickly as six weeks. Mamdani’s supermarket won’t be open until 2029. Maybe.

New York City could hand over $30 million to any major chain, and it would get at least three self-sustaining retail stores up and running within a year. Then again, Democrats could just stop placating their corrupt union donors by blocking Walmart from opening stores in the city; it would cost nothing.

When the state-run KC Sun Fresh supermarket opened in Kansas City, it was supposed to help alleviate the “food deserts.” At first, it was run by private grocers. But without the profit motive, they abandoned the project. By 2024, the supermarket was losing nearly $1 million a year, averaging around 4,000 shoppers, down from 14,000. Those who showed up were confronted with empty shelves, unchecked shoplifting, and barely any healthy produce. It closed in 2025.

And when political considerations are your concern rather than profit motives, you end up building retail establishments that aren’t needed.

Within a mile of the site of Mamdani’s new $30 million tax-funded supermarket in Harlem, there are, according to Google Maps, at least a dozen grocers, everything from an Aldi to a Whole Foods. It’s less than a nine-minute walk to a big supermarket from the proposed site and a three-minute walk to a fresh produce market.

New Yorkers should demand their government work with the efficiency of a supermarket, not the other way around.

If Mamdani wants more supermarkets in Harlem, he should work to cut the bureaucratic hell that potential business owners are forced to traverse to open a store. New York City is already home to one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country, yet Mamdani supports an effort to significantly increase them.

During the Cold War, the American supermarket was often held up as the model of prosperity. When the Soviet Union was petering out in 1989, Boris Yeltsin toured a Randalls in Houston, resulting in the famous pictures of the wide-eyed future Russian president perusing the wide variety of food available to average people living under capitalism.

Yeltsin said that “there would be a revolution” in the Soviet Union if people saw the availability. “Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice,” he said. “Not even Mr. Gorbachev.”

Today, grocery chains are often depicted as predatory and monopolistic endeavors by Marxists like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren because it’s easy to rile up consumers who are agitated by inflation. Supermarkets have some of the lowest profit margins of any business in the country, usually around 1% to 3%. Successful chains stay competitive by adapting quickly, leaning on high-volume, high-turnover sales, cost-cutting and intricate supply chains.

Government isn’t exactly nimble.

There’s no doubt that living in dense urban areas is expensive. Many in the media depict Mamdani’s plan as a harmless effort to help poor people deal with the vagaries and inequities of capitalism with a few affordable grocery stores. Whatever, the government subsidies will become more expensive, crowding out value-producing “competitors.”

It’s a shame that American leftists have to relearn the most basic and obvious lessons of history and economics.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

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

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

Sami Winc: You know, you listen to the news accounts of the U.S. military maintaining control of the Persian Gulf. And you know, so I say, for example, they’ve stopped ships and a cargo ship with a bunch of Chinese missiles, etc. And then you hear the Left saying, oh, they’re committing war crimes by controlling this gulf.

But in the undercurrent of all of that news coverage is that that’s what the Iranians were doing, even worse for years and years. And they weren’t just stopping something to stop military arms. They were hijacking and stealing.

Victor Davis Hanson: Yeah. They took British prisoners. They took hostages. Whenever they had a Democratic president, Obama or Biden, they were emboldened. It’s really disgusting to hear Ro Khanna this Democratic congressman saying that Obama was a great statesman, and they didn’t do—under Obama, they lifted sanctions, and that was where the first initial cash infusions came in.

So, they got all of this money. They were so embarrassed of what they were doing, they had to ship $400 million dollars, at night, in frozen assets. They unfroze their assets, then the Iran deal did not stop them from getting a bomb. It just delayed the trajectory.

So, Trump came in in 2017 and stopped it. Well, they didn’t even try to cheat because they thought he was crazy. After he killed Soleimani and Baghdadi and ISIS, Biden came in. The first thing he did is he removed the terrorist designation of the Houthis. He separated us from Israel. Hamas got that message. He did a deal with natural gas in Lebanon, and he empowered Hezbollah.

And then, with the Iranians, begged them to get back in the deal. When they didn’t do it, he rewarded their negativity by lifting sanctions, and that’s where that period of 21 to 24 is when they went up to 60% enrichment. So, we had this congressman there who just gets on Maria Bartiromo, and he just starts lying. And he’s been really one of the more unfortunate spokesmen because, unlike a Chris Murphy or Tim Walz, who are buffoons, he always starts this moral argument.

Another thing I think everybody’s getting sick of is they say, this is fascism. Trump is a fascist. This is untoward—not that fascism is coming—they don’t define their terms. What do you mean by fascism? Did he cancel an election? No. Did he try to gerrymander? Well, not as well as the Democrats were doing. Did he use the government to go after his presidential rival? So, is he going to have Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsom in five separate civil or criminal trials like Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, Fani Willis, Jack Smith? Going to do that? E. Jean Carroll? Maybe he’s going to try to get him off the ballot. Twenty-five red states, are they trying to get a Democratic-leading candidate off the ballot? Did he raid Kamala Harris’ house? Did he raid Joe Biden’s house? They hadn’t done any of that. Did the attorney general say, I’m going to put Steve Bannon, I’m going to put Peter Navarro in jail for not honoring a congressional subpoena, but I’m Merrick Garland, I’m not going to honor it? He hasn’t done any of that.

So, they don’t define their terms because if you look at what they did during the Trump years—and I haven’t gotten into the two impeachments, which we’re learning now that Michael Atkinson, the inspector general, he, hand in glove with Adam Schiff and Eric Ciaramella and Vindman allowed that first impeachment to proceed. And remember, in the first impeachment, this is very important, there were 15 or 16 people in the National Security Council in that room, and they listened to that phone call with Zelenskyy. It had no problem whatsoever. Some of them were holdover Obama people. Only Vindman did.

And Vindman didn’t even have the courage to become a whistleblower, so he called his pal Ciaramella. And then, based on hearsay. This is what I heard. And then Ciaramella was basically saying, I heard what he heard. And then he disguised his name and played the wounded fawn, so you couldn’t even talk about him. And then he lied, as did Vindman, when they went in to Adam Schiff and cooked up the whole process. And then each of those three people lied and said they had never colluded. The inspector general knew they did, and he did nothing and allowed it to go on. And that was the second—that was the first impeachment, and that followed the day after the Mueller collusion collapsed. As soon as that collapsed, they said, take a deep breath. Now we go into impeachment. And they ate up the entire 2018 and ’19 presidential term of Donald Trump.

So, this idea that Trump is a fascist and the war’s fascistic—it’s on the side of people who want to be free. But more importantly, that’s a subtext. The main thing is these people have been killing us for 47 years, blowing up the embassies, barracks, shooting diplomats, trying to kill the president, trying to kill the secretary of state. They’re a horrific regime. They’ve killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. They’re horrible. And they hijacked the Iranian illustrious Persian tradition. They’re an aberration, and they have no popular support.

Everybody hates them. The Gulf hates them. Israel hates them. The Arabs hate them. The Europeans are too timid to express their hatred, but they are terrified of them and hate them. The Chinese don’t even like them. The Chinese are one of the greatest Islamic oppressors in the world. They have a million Muslims in camps, the Uyghurs. The Russians do not like Muslims. They leveled Grozny in the third Chechen war and killed 100,000 people, Muslim. So, their alliance with Iran is Iran is a useful tool. A useful idiot. They say, this is what we want you to do. We want you to sell us sanctioned oil, we’ll buy it off the books. You got to give us a discount, and then we’ll give you credit for our weapons. And then when we get those weapons, try to destroy Israel and any pro-Western country. And intimidate the Gulf states. That’s what their strategy was.

Winc: So, Victor, I was wondering about this. So, as we move forward, if we think about what Donald Trump needs to do, I think that warning the Iranians that they’re going to hit the bridges and the power plants, etc., just gets them out to, as you said, they don’t have any concern for people. And so, they’ll just bring their women and children out to protect these things. My thought is—

Hanson: They will, but there’s hundreds of bridges in Iran.

I know.

So, you just say, we’re going to hit the bridges, and are they going to get people to come out every single day from dawn to dusk? No.

Winc: No.

Hanson: You don’t tell them. You just say, one bridge today, one power plant. I’m not going to tell you where they are. If they start shooting at tankers or if they send missiles at the Gulf States or Israel or our ships—our ships support, most importantly. And the point is that while everybody says the war’s going south, we’re losing, they’re going broke. And they’ve lost half a trillion dollars in a 50-year investment, essentially, in military, industrial, nuclear infrastructure and investment. It’s gone. They had over 12,000 targets. The Israeli-American air force. So they’re going broke, and the question is now, will they be able to delay, delay, delay before they give up their enrichment and any claims that they’re going to try to stop the blockade, or will the propaganda campaign in the United States so embolden them and be so successful that they can drag this out for months and then get the Democrats elected to cut off funds?

I don’t see that happening, but that’s their deranged strategy.

Winc: Yes, it is deranged, and yeah, if I were Donald Trump, I would just say, you can—even dallying too much. Take a bridge out, take a power plant.

Hanson: Donald Trump does not want—

 Don’t let him dally.

If you’re Donald Trump and you’re in the Oval Office, this is what’s happening: someone comes in, he says, I’m up for reelection. And we were a red state plus 10. But my polls show me, even. I was five ahead before this war. The Democratic propaganda is killing us. Another senator comes in: gas prices in my state are too high. When is this going to end? And the point is that he’s trying to do something for the next century.

If he can destroy this regime or destroy its ability to cause havoc, there will be a regime change. Not now. Just like the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once you destroy the edifice of communism, in that case, then the Soviet Union fell within two years, and Eastern Europe was free within six months. That will happen.

So, his view is that this is an existential moment because it’s going to change the entire Middle East. It already has. The Gulf states are now partners with Israel. And this is very interesting because if you look at the Democratic Party and the paleo-Right and Europe, they are more anti-Israel than are the Gulf states right now. No question about it.

And this is ironic because a lot of the people who have been hammering Trump about the war on the Right, have financial ties with the Middle East. And they are telling them, what are you doing trying to call off Trump? He’s trying to eliminate this threat right across the Gulf from us, that for 47 years has threatened to destroy us. And for the first time we’ve had an American president that might just neuter them permanently. So be quiet.

The whole thing is so misrepresented. And, you know, there was, I guess it was an MS—that’s what they call MSNBC now—I think it was an anchorwoman, and she was listening to some Democratic guests come on. And she finally said, so you are saying, as Jimmy Kimmel said, that you trust the Iranian government more than you do us. And you want to think, well, what do you trust, that they were telling the truth about nuclear enrichment? They just admitted they could make 11 bombs. Were they telling the truth about missile range? They said only 1,800 miles. It was going to go 2,500 miles all the way to Diego Garcia, if had it not been knocked down.

So that’s what they do, is lie. But this Democratic Party—it’s not the Democratic Party at all. It’s something different. It’s something weird. I thought it was just a Socialist party, but it’s almost becoming an Islamist party, because of the intense antisemitism.

Hundreds of companies use the software company Benevity to connect with nonprofits, allowing employees to donate their time and money, but Benevity’s platform blacklists conservative nonprofits, using as a resource the very same leftist group that now faces charges for hiding its secret payments to Ku Klux Klan members.

The SPLC admitted to funding members of the Klan and other white nationalist groups, claiming that the funding was part of a program supporting “informants” who reported on “violent extremists” and “saved lives.” A Justice Department indictment, however, accuses the SPLC of directing “racist postings,” featuring as “extremists” on its website the same people it was paying, and even supporting an organizer of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

The Daily Signal reached out to Benevity to see if the company would reconsider using the SPLC as a filter in light of the allegations.

“Benevity is not directly affiliated with the SPLC,” the company’s spokesperson told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “Benevity clients have the option to use the list of nonprofit organizations included on the SPLC’s annual Hate Map to determine nonprofit eligibility within their programs. The use of this option is not a default setting and is at the sole discretion of clients.”

According to its website, Benevity connects “nearly 1,000 enterprise companies” to a network of 513,000 nonprofits after vetting 2.2 million of them. It says it has managed $16 billion in grants and 99 million employee volunteer hours. In 2023, more than 2.3 million people donated through the Benevity platform, representing $3.2 billion.

“Benevity’s denial that it defaults to the SPLC filter is hard to square with its own history,” Greg Scott, executive vice president at 1792 Exchange, told The Daily Signal in response to the Benevity statement. “Former CEO Kelly Schmitt bragged about its use of the ‘hate list’ as recently as 2021.”

Schmitt delivered a PowerPoint presentation explicitly stating that the company had “vetted” almost “2 million nonprofits,” adding that it used the “Southern Poverty Law Center Hate List.”

Scott added, however, that “the real issue isn’t how the SPLC filter is used, it’s why this list is used at all.”

Critics have said the SPLC trades on its history of suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy to smear conservatives. The center publishes a “hate map” that plots parental rights groups like Moms for Liberty, conservative groups like Turning Point USA, and Christian groups like Focus on the Family alongside chapters of the Klan.

In 2012, a convicted terrorist told the FBI he targeted a conservative Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C., the Family Research Council, for a mass shooting. Four months after the SPLC added Turning Point USA to the “hate map” last year, Tyler Robinson allegedly murdered Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, aiming to silence his “hate.”

According to 1792 Exchange, 252 companies using the Benevity platform exclude conservative groups by using the SPLC list as a screening tool. The list includes Adobe, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, McDonald’s, Netflix, PayPal, Salesforce, Starbucks, and many more.

Scott argued that Benevity should reconsider after the DOJ indictment.

“Given recent revelations about the SPLC itself funding hate groups, [Benevity] CEO Soraya Alexander should demonstrate clear leadership by removing the SPLC filter from Benevity’s platform entirely,” he said.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson served on the board of the Southern Poverty Law Center while the SPLC paid members of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.

Benson, a Democrat running for governor, joined the organization’s board in 2014 and left in 2019, when the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal.

The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s, and today it maintains a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. According to a Justice Department indictment filed Tuesday, the SPLC broke the law by paying $3 million to members of the Klan and other white nationalist groups while claiming to oppose “white supremacy” and by lying to banks about the shell companies it created to hide the funding.

The SPLC has not denied making the payments, instead insisting that it paid “informants” for tips on potential violence. SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair said the program “saved lives.”

While members of the Klan did firebomb the SPLC offices in 1983, there is no evidence of violent activity threatening the SPLC during the period covered by the indictment, namely 2014 to 2023.

Jocelyn Benson

Benson, who currently leads the polls in the Michigan Democrat gubernatorial primary by a healthy margin, has cited her history with the SPLC in interviews during the campaign, and she mentioned it in her 2025 memoir “The Purposeful Warrior: Standing Up for What’s Right When the Stakes Are High.”

She worked as a volunteer researcher and undercover investigator at the SPLC right after college, and makes an annual trek to the SPLC’s home city of Montgomery, Alabama, according to a profile on The 19th News. She spoke with a reporter outside the center’s Civil Rights Memorial.

Benson said she researched neo-Nazi and far-right groups at the center, posing as a freelance journalist to uncover the plans of white supremacist leaders and groups.

After more than four years on the SPLC’s board in 2019, her name suddenly disappeared from the website. When PJ Media reached out for comment, the secretary of state’s official Twitter account responded.

“Upon taking office as Michigan Secretary of State, Secretary Benson informed SPLC leadership that she would be stepping down from the board,” the account posted. “Her responsibilities in Michigan are her priority and focus.”

Yet the SPLC leadership page for Benson had mentioned her role as Michigan’s secretary of state.

Benson’s campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

Why Did Benson Leave?

As I wrote in “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Benson left the SPLC amid resurfaced claims of racial discrimination and sexual harassment that trace back decades.

Amid this scandal, the SPLC fired its co-founder, Morris Dees, and saw its longterm president, Richard Cohen, resign. The SPLC brought in Tina Tchen, former chief of staff to former first lady Michelle Obama, to investigate employees’ mistreatment claims, but the center never published a report on the scandal. Disgruntled employees went on to found a union, and after a series of layoffs in 2024, the union accused the SPLC of union-busting and asked for the resignation of SPLC President Margaret Huang. Huang resigned last year.

Criticism

The Republican Governors Association raised Benson’s history and demanded answers.

“It’s time Jocelyn Benson starts answering questions about what she knew and if she played any part in this shocking scandal,” Kollin Crompton, communications director for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement Thursday.

Picture a packed airport gate. Passengers languish as a delayed flight goes nowhere. The typically cheerful airline personnel are as bored and dejected as the travelers.

Suddenly, the pilot announces departure in five minutes. The huddled masses jump for joy. After the flight crew boards, the gate agents direct two passengers onto the plane and then shut the doors. Enraged ticketholders watch as the nearly vacant aircraft rolls back, taxis, and climbs into the sky. Landbound travelers stare at each other in slack-jawed disbelief.

Welcome to WTF Airlines.

If you like this scenario, you will love Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s latest move.

The South Dakota Republican used “reconciliation” to obviate a Democrat filibuster and provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol funds via simple majority. Thune did this because Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other sadistic Democrats have blocked Department of Homeland Security spending for 10 weeks and counting. Rather than watch industrious public servants starve, President Donald Trump generated partial paychecks via executive order. Alas, those dollars are nearly tapped.

Thune’s severely limited reconciliation squanders resources like a Boeing 777 carrying two passengers. Reconciliation is slow, complicated, and can be implemented only twice or thrice annually. A 777 with 362 empty seats, leaving a busy airport, is bad enough. But when an airport offers three departures annually, this becomes criminal.

Thune’s empty jet landed in the House of Representatives. Republicans there should fill it with reconciliation-ready reforms. Under the rules, these must affect fiscal policy: taxes, spending, and deficits. These ideas should be buckled in before the House flies this back to the Senate for final passage.

 The SAVE America Act deserves priority boarding.

Audacious Democrats brazenly approved a referendum on Tuesday to gerrymander Virginia’s congressional seats from 6-5 Democrat/Republican to 10-1 Dem/GOP. (A judge on Wednesday ruled this initiative unconstitutional, triggering a litigation death match.)  

While Democrats castrate Republicans in broad daylight, the Senate GOP is too polite, weak, and bashful to steer SAVE onto Trump’s desk. Rather than exhaust Democrat opponents over Easter, Thune sent everyone home presumably to hunt chocolate bunnies. 

Pathetic.

To satisfy the Senate parliamentarian, a House SAVE amendment must churn taxpayer dollars to achieve election integrity.

SAVE should establish a Federal Electoral Hygiene Commission to implement this new law. This commission’s $1 billion budget could:

-Help Americans without photo ID obtain it for free, to vote in federal elections.

-Reimburse expenses for acquiring birth certificates—online or in person—to prove U.S. citizenship before registering to vote.

-Fine each state $10 million daily for violating SAVE. Most governors would rather comply than incinerate $3.65 billion annually to shield crooked elections.

-Help cooperative states offer photo IDs, furnish birth certificates, and purify voter rolls using fine revenue. These funds could help states transition from corrupt, mass mail-in ballots to more limited ballots for absent college students, shut-ins, and those away on Election Day.

A new federal agency would be unfortunate. But its activities would influence the budget, a reconciliation requirement.

 House Republicans should add the simple question “Are you a citizen?” to the 2030 Census. Every Census checked citizenship from 1820 until 2010. That’s when President Barack Obama ditched this question. Resurrecting it is vital.

Reconciliation should ban census data on illegal aliens from reapportionment, assignment of Electoral College votes, and allocation of federal outlays. Democrats are desperate to impose their illegal-alien political base on legislative boundaries and annual budgets. Stopping such spending is reconciliation-friendly. GOP earplugs will muffle Democrat squeals.

The House could finance SAVE-related spending via the Justice Department’s Assets Forfeiture Fund. It seizes $2 billion in average annual revenue from drug lords and other crooks. This is earmarked for “law enforcement-related priorities.” Curbing vote fraud qualifies.

Meanwhile, this measure should cut taxes, a reconciliation-ready activity. Such reductions must be immediate and retroactive to Jan. 1, 2026. Powerful incentives should tame Operation Epic Fury’s economic headwinds. Robust jobs and growth will buoy GOP midterm election prospects.

“We should end the taxation of inflation in capital gains taxes,” Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist tells me. 

The veteran supply-side activist adds: “Now, when you pay taxes on capital gains—because you sold a house, farm, business, or stock—some of that gain is an increase in the value of your home, businesses, or stock. Some is simply inflation. This reform would remove the ‘inflation gain’ and only tax real gains. This would cut most capital gains taxes in half. Or more.”

Democrats will moan that this tax relief is just Republicans boosting the über-rich—never mind that Democrats’ brand-new heartthrob is Tom Steyer, a multibillionaire who cashed in on coal mines and private prisons. 

Junking the inflation tax on capital gains benefits far more modest taxpayers. For tax year 2022, “IRS data show that 74% of households with capital-gains filings make less than $200,000,” Americans for Tax Reform reports. 

“Tax cuts should be added” to reconciliation, says Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes. “Cut personal rates. The two big brackets are 22% and 24%; cut both to 15%. Eliminate the 12% bracket, which effectively brings it down to the 10% bracket. Cut each of the other brackets by three points; thus the 32% bracket would go down to 29%. As for the corporate rate, cut it to 15% for every business, not just manufacturing. Different rates for different kinds of businesses just fuel the lobbying industry.” 

The incessant Schumer/Democrat shutdown of DHS during Operation Epic Fury is disgusting, vulgar, and treasonous. These fiends are aiding and comforting America’s enemy during wartime, exactly when this country is vulnerable to attack by organized pro-Iran elements, pro-ayatollah lone rats, or both.

Reconciliation would short-circuit intransigent Democrats and pay diligent ICE and Border Patrol personnel. But limiting this unusual procedure to only that, with so many MAGA reforms in limbo, shoves “missed opportunity” to the breaking point.

A Democrat reconciliation bill would be as tightly packed with policy ideas as the Boeing C-17 that whisked 823 Afghans out of Kabul during President Joe Biden’s calamitous withdrawal in August 2021.

Congressional Republicans should think big. A reconciliation bill is a terrible thing to waste.

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

The Daily Signal’s Senior National Security and Legal Analyst Mehek Cooke argued in an appearance this week on Newsmax TV that Iran’s regime is fractured, financially strained, and increasingly desperate.

Cooke explained to host Bianca de la Garza that internal divisions within Iran—between hardliners and so-called moderates—are becoming more visible under the weight of U.S. sanctions and military pressure. She pointed out that Tehran has time to deliver a unified response only because President Donald Trump agreed to extend the ceasefire. According to Cooke, this internal breakdown is central to understanding Tehran’s erratic behavior.

“There’s a myriad of ways this could go,” Cooke said, noting that Iran has lacked a unified front in negotiations. She questioned who is truly in charge, arguing that a legitimate leader would be publicly addressing the Iranian people and declaring victory if the regime were confident in its position.

Cooke emphasized that Trump currently holds decisive leverage, as Iran’s leadership has its “backs against the wall.” She added that Tehran is now attempting to communicate indirectly—including through Pakistan—because it cannot negotiate from a position of strength.

Iran’s recent actions in the Strait of Hormuz are signs of weakness rather than power, Cooke argued, as the regime has targeted small vessels to test American resolve. “We have the ability to eviscerate them,” Cooke said, urging against giving Tehran additional economic or diplomatic lifelines.

She also defended Trump’s decision to restructure military leadership, particularly within the Navy, saying the administration is focused on cutting through bureaucracy and ensuring execution rather than delay.

Turning to domestic politics, Cooke addressed the looming War Powers debate over Trump’s authority to continue the conflict without congressional authorization, with a potential May 1 deadline. She criticized Republicans for hesitation, calling on Senate leadership to use available procedural tools, including the filibuster, to allow Trump to continue the operation.

“This is the most important and critical time in our history,” Cooke said, arguing that no other president is positioned to bring lasting peace to the Middle East. She described the moment as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” and warned that political stalling—especially amid rising gas prices and instability in the Strait of Hormuz—risks undermining U.S. national security.

You can buy all kinds of things on Amazon, from sex toys to “Mein Kampf.” Yet last week, Amazon decided that Jean Raspail’s 1973 novel, “The Camp of Saints,” was beyond the pale of respectability.

Vauban Books, a small independent publishing house, had been selling a new translation of the book for months. Sales had been going well. But a number of media outlets, from Le Monde to New York Magazine, had noticed the new edition and condemned it. So, on April 17, Amazon removed the paperback edition, notifying Vauban Books on the 20th that its edition of “The Camp of Saints” had violated the company’s “offensive content” policy.

Vauban Books issued a press release protesting Amazon’s actions but wasn’t optimistic. However, a social media storm rose to its rescue. The story was picked up in mainstream media.

By the end of the day, Amazon had reversed course, claiming the removal was an “error.” Thanks to the attention the attempt at censorship provided, purchases of the book soared; as of Friday, it’s reached No. 5 on the list of bestselling books on Amazon.

Because I wrote the critical introduction for the new edition, this affair briefly turned me into a banned writer. I’m sure I’ll be speaking alongside Margaret Atwood at the next “banned books” conference in no time. But while I await the invitation, it’s worthwhile clarifying who Raspail is and why “The Camp of the Saints” is important.

By the time he died in 2020, Raspail was the author of 40 books—over a dozen of them novels—and winner of numerous prizes, including the Grand Prix de Littérature de l’Académie Française, which France’s most prestigious academic institution awards a writer for lifetime achievement. Raspail was a literary romantic. His books describe the sufferings of almost vanished nations and lost peoples from around the world.

Ignore the pull quotes from “The Camp of the Saints” about migrants that you see from the legacy media and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Raspail was perfectly capable of providing sympathetic portrayals of non-Europeans and indicting Europeans for their own moral failures.

His 1986 novel “Qui se souvient des hommes” (“Who Will Remember the ­People…”), which won two literary awards, details the struggles of one South American tribe to survive. One scene involves a British commodore; an admirer of native cultures, he welcomes them onboard his ship. But they smell. They act grossly. Face-to-face with the natives, the commodore recoils. Yet Raspail, the narrator, passes judgment on the commodore: “He denies himself,” as Peter denied Christ.

Such reflections would be at home in any more spiritually attentive 20th-century postcolonial literature. But Raspail committed an unpardonable offense. He wondered whether the fate of the Indigenous peoples of Europe would be similar to the peoples who had vanished in the wake of European colonization.

That’s the core scandal of “The Camp of the Saints”—to classify white Europeans as another “native” group, endangered by a new world.

The crucial difference between Europeans and other threatened peoples is that the danger comes less from without than from within.

“The Camp of the Saints” is best read as a long thought experiment. It imagines how Westerners would respond to a flotilla of 1 million migrants who intend to arrive on the shores of France. The novel is a fictional depiction of the civilizational consequences of Western self-loathing.

The targets of the novel’s mix of tragic plot and biting satire are several. There is the left-wing intelligentsia: They herald the coming of the migrants as the dawn of a new age of multiculturalism. There are the churchmen: They see the influx of migrants as the Second Coming, a final triumph of the weak over the strong that will atone for the West’s sins. And then there are the left-wing radicals: Now that the European empires are gone, they want to decolonize the home front as well.

“Our soil must be occupied by a formerly colonized people and we must starve of hunger,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre in 1961. “The Camp of the Saints” shows the logical consequences of this decolonial creed. It culminates in violent reverse colonization. The process is helped along by Westerners who are taught to despise themselves and think the world would be better off if they didn’t exist.

This creed of self-annihilation ends up consuming the progressive intelligentsia and the church. In the novel, the World Ecumenical Council comes to the following conclusion:  “that modern Western society cannot be reformed and must therefore be destroyed so as to build upon its ruins a new world equitable for all, so help us God.”

Raspail is a fitting Cassandra for our era. When The New York Times reviewed “The Camp of the Saints” in 1975, the reviewer regarded its central plot as “preposterous.”  Now, as Western societies reckon with the consequences of mass migration that the book described too well, powerful actors such as Amazon work to limit its reach. But in a way, reading the novel in terms of current events misses its deeper themes.

“The Camp of the Saints” can be read as a political prediction of what would happen to the 21st-century West. But the more profound reading is to think of it as an exercise in “metapolitics,” what Joseph de Maistre called the “metaphysics of politics.” Such exercises show the intuitions and insights required to grasp our deeper reality, or at the very least, identify which ones are missing from the present.

For Raspail, the roots of our malaise lie in a deep spiritual sickness. We have lost the capacity to love ourselves, our people, and our culture. The power of “The Camp of the Saints” lies in how it uses the drama of mass migration to hold up a mirror to ourselves. It forces us to reckon with our moral cowardice and encourages us to defend what is good and noble in our own beleaguered civilization.

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

The widespread availability of abortion pills in the years since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision is one reason the total number of abortions has gone up since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Not only have 12 states enshrined unlimited abortion into their state constitutions, but blue states are undermining lifesaving policies in pro-life states. They’re sending abortion pills to women in states that are trying to protect women, girls, and unborn children. They’re also shielding abortion pill providers from legal consequences thanks to laws that prohibit cooperating with pro-life states.

In practice, abortions are still happening in every state, and pro-life state enforcement tools are limited.

It is clear that the fight for life won’t be won through state action alone. Federal policymakers must do more to protect the unborn.

Unfortunately, some policymakers have hidden behind the notion of federalism, deferring all responsibility for abortion policy to the states. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not include a right to abortion. That means it’s up to the people to decide through elected representatives, but the court didn’t say “only state representatives.” Every level of government has a part to play in defending life.

Drug regulation and federal funding are two ways federal jurisdiction relates to abortion policy.

In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration stopped enforcing safety protocols for abortion pills, including a rule that they had to be dispensed in person (the agency pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse).  Then, in 2023, the agency made those changes permanent and formally gave a stamp of approval to abortion pills being ordered online and shipped through the mail without a woman ever seeing a doctor.

These changes effectively let blue states veto pro-life policies in other states. GOP attorneys general from over 20 states are currently challenging the FDA’s recklessness, citing dangerous side effects to drugs that harm women and girls in their states.

The Trump administration can and should immediately reverse the Biden administration’s policy and reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement for dangerous abortion drugs. A larger review of abortion pills is currently underway at the FDA, and hopefully the agency will revisit the entire approval and postmarketing safety process. But it doesn’t take a full review to at least reinstate the in-person dispensing requirement. It’s a bare-minimum, common sense safety standard.

Drug policy isn’t the only area the federal government has a robust role to play. For example, there’s the Hyde family of amendments, which for nearly 50 years has prohibited direct funding for abortions throughout various annual federal spending bills. Most recently, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025, contained a provision cutting Medicaid reimbursements for certain abortion providers like Planned Parenthood unless they would not perform—or provide funding to entities that perform—abortions. This major victory for the pro-life movement also included additional funding to community health care centers across the country to help pregnant women.

Planned Parenthood had been performing over 400,000 abortions a year, according to its 2023-2024 annual report, making it the largest abortion provider in the country. Most of its nearly $800 million in federal funding came from Medicaid reimbursements, so the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” defund provision was a massive blow to Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. Roughly 50 clinics have closed in the past year.

However, this victory is not permanent. The one-year moratorium on federal funding is expiring on July 4, so federal policymakers will have to decide whether to pass another reconciliation bill to extend this pro-life victory.

It is imperative that Congress extends this restriction on abortion providers so that Planned Parenthood doesn’t get a big payday on America’s 250th birthday.

This July 4, we should be reaffirming the founder’s vision for the country, where government secures our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. One way to do that is by funding real health care that promotes and protects life—not Big Abortion.

Senate leadership this week directed Republicans to pass a budget resolution narrowly aimed at immigration enforcement funding, but some congressional leaders say the scope should be widened to address abortion and transgender surgeries for minors.

While budget resolution talks have attempted to stay focused on funds for Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, House Republicans see this as an opportunity to broaden the budget bill to include directives to protect America’s children from transgender surgeries and abortion.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., declined to follow Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s instructions to keep the resolution “skinny,” and instead introduced an amendment to block transgender and abortion funding.

When that amendment failed in the Senate, Hawley told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “The ball is in your court.”

“Time is of the essence,” Hawley told Johnson in a letter. “As you well know, on July 4, the current federal bar on taxpayer payments to trans-treatment and abortion providers will expire.”

“As you work to pass a budget resolution for a new reconciliation bill, it must include a ban on any federal funding for these trans-treatment and abortion providers. I urge you to act without delay or hesitation,” Hawley wrote.

Last July, President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law, which blocked billions of taxpayer dollars from going toward trans-treatment and abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. That provision is set to expire July 4.

“When that happens, billions of federal dollars will be diverted from Medicaid to pay for trans drugs and abortions,” Hawley continued.

In his letter, Hawley highlighted that between 2019 and 2021, the Government Accountability Office estimated that Planned Parenthood received over $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds diverted from Medicaid and Medicare.

As Hawley introduced this amendment to the budget resolution, he noted that this is money that is intended for “the most needy among us,” and that it should not include transgender surgeries or abortion.

Johnson has not publicly responded to the letter and could not be reached for comment.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The American Medical Association Foundation website no longer includes listings for race-based scholarships after a medical watchdog suggested the foundation should lose its tax-exempt status for racial discrimination.

Do No Harm, a watchdog group of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, aims to expose racial discrimination, transgender ideology, and other divisive practices in medicine. Do No Harm sent a letter to the IRS earlier this month, noting that multiple AMA Foundation scholarships explicitly state that only students of certain races qualify.

Last week, the scholarships disappeared from the AMA Foundation’s website.

“The AMA Foundation appears to have removed the discriminatory scholarships at the heart of our IRS complaint—a tacit admission that our concerns were warranted,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Do No Harm, told The Daily Signal.

“However, we believe the government is still obligated to investigate to confirm that these programs have truly been eliminated and not simply rebranded and reconstituted,” Miceli added.

The AMA did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

The Complaint Against the AMA

The complaint asked the IRS to investigate the AMA Foundation over “invidious racial discrimination” in its Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship program.

Three scholarship programs had been listed on the AMA Foundation website on Feb. 24, but no longer appeared on the site as of April 17, after Do No Harm’s letter.

The listing for the Dr. Richard Allen Williams & Genita Evangelista Johnson/Association of Black Cardiologists Scholarship offered $5,000 to medical students interested in cardiology, but only if they are “African American/Black.”

The Underrepresented in Medicine Scholarship offered $10,000 to winners, who must be “African American/Black, Latine/Hispanic or Indigenous (American Indian, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native).”

The Patricia L. Austin Family Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship also offered $10,000, but stated that winners must be “of Eastern European descent.”

Why It May Be Illegal

“Each of these racist exclusions is repugnant to our civil rights laws and ‘the congressional intent underlying [federal law],’” the complaint stated. It cited Bob Jones University v. United States (1983), in which the Supreme Court ruled that the IRS had rightly revoked the 501(c)(3) status of Bob Jones University because it forbade interracial dating and marriage.

The AMA Foundation’s racially discriminatory scholarships are “sufficient grounds for the IRS to revoke the AMA Foundation’s tax-exempt status under 26 U.S.C. §501(c)(3),” the complaint stated. It quoted the Bob Jones Supreme Court finding that “racially discriminatory” institutions “cannot be viewed as conferring a public benefit within the ‘charitable’ concept” of the common law.

The complaint also cited Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), in which the Supreme Court found that racial preferences in college admissions—often referred to as “affirmative action”—constituted racial discrimination in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

If Supreme Court precedent were not enough, President Donald Trump’s “executive orders also leave the [IRS] with no discretion” on the matter, the complaint claimed. “The president has rescinded prior executive orders that agencies had invoked to justify race-based classifications in the name of ‘equity.’”

Trump’s Jan. 20, 2025, order directed federal agencies to terminate “all discriminatory programs,” including those related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” as well as policies “allowing or encouraging” third parties “to engage in workforce balancing based on race.”

Do No Harm asked the IRS to open an investigation unless the AMA Foundation altered its policies.

Miceli praised the Trump administration’s efforts to remove politics from medicine, but argued that this represents an ongoing problem.

“While the administration has made enormous progress in stamping out biased political ideologies in medicine, it is clear the AMA and other establishment medical organizations require continued scrutiny to ensure illegal and immoral racial discrimination is eradicated from the study and practice of medicine in America,” he concluded.