Scouting America will introduce its new Military Service & Veterans Badge on Veterans Day. 

The Military Service & Veterans Badge is meant to inspire Scouts while also encouraging them to honor and understand the armed forces. The Scouting America website states that the badge is “designed to deepen understanding and foster respect, this badge connects Scouts with the heritage of our Armed Forces and the individuals who have served our nation with courage and commitment.” 

Senior Vice President of Marketing Michael Ramsey told the Daily Signal, “The Military Service Merit Badge is a way for us to provide content and information for Scouts who are interested in learning more about careers in the military and certainly a way to learn about the importance of the contributions that our veterans have made to our country.” 

There are more than 135 merit badges that Scouts can choose from as they work toward becoming an Eagle Scout. They range from learning basketry to first aid. The Military Service & Veterans Badge will be the first military-related badge. 

The program was compiled with the aid of veterans and has been in the process for about a year.

The requirements for the Military Service & Veterans Badge are available online and many Scouts have already shown interest. 

To earn the badge, the Scouts must study military history and military career opportunities. A Scout must also initiate a meeting with a veteran. Scouting America hopes the firsthand accounts will help Scouts truly appreciate the sacrifices veterans have made. 

All told, the requirements to earn the badge are broken into 10 sections: Explore Military Heritage, Understand the Cost of War and Value of Peace, United States Armed Forces, Understand Military Recognition, Military Uniforms and Insignia, Reflect on Symbols of Service, Honor Veterans, Military Academies, Inspire Service and Leadership, and Careers/Hobby.

Most of these requirements focus on the history of different military awards and symbols while also educating the Scout on military academies and careers. 

According to Scouting America, “Approximately 15% of military academy cadets and midshipmen enter the academies as Eagle Scouts.” Many Scouts go straight from Scouting America to the armed forces, and the new badge will give Scouts a chance to learn more about being in the military. It will give them a taste of what it’s really like to serve their country. 

On Veterans Day, the Military Service & Veterans Badge will officially be made available for Scouts to earn. The new merit badge is in keeping with the original ideals of Scouting America, which encourage Scouts to serve their country, as expressed in the Scout Oath: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country … ” 

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

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Contrary to popular belief, Republican lawmakers are reportedly glad that they lost the election because now they will have an excuse for not getting anything done.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was reelected as the top GOP senator for the 120th Congress as Republicans head into the minority. Not only did the conference choose to keep Thune in charge, but it also reelected his entire leadership team.

Current Senate records identify Thune as majority leader, and current reporting confirms he was reelected to the GOP’s top post and is set to become minority leader in the new Congress.

Everyone was running unopposed and was elected by acclamation, meaning there was no official vote or ballot, like the House had earlier in the day.

While Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin attempted to delay the Senate Republicans’ leadership election today, his effort failed in a 15-31 vote. As promised, he walked out, choosing not to participate in the final vote. Johnson had publicly pledged to walk out if Republicans proceeded with the elections.

“I really don’t like walking out, but you know that’s what I said I was going to do, and I did it,” he told reporters as he walked out.

Thune said in a statement, “I appreciated the opportunity to have an open, honest, and transparent conversation with my colleagues today, and I am honored to have their continued trust and support to lead the Senate Republican Conference in the 120th Congress.”

“I’m proud of what this Republican team has accomplished together, and we remain united in our commitment to advancing conservative priorities, working with President [Donald] Trump and our colleagues in the House, and holding the line against Democrats’ efforts to enact their far-left, liberal agenda. We have important work ahead of us, and I look forward to serving alongside my colleagues on behalf of the American people,” Thune continued.

Majority Whip John Barrasso, Senate Republican Conference Chairman Tom Cotton, Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito, and Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairman James Lankford were also reelected to the roles they will hold in the minority.

“Senate Leadership Fund congratulates Senator John Barrasso on his reelection as Republican Whip!” Senate Leadership Fund Executive Director Alex Latcham said in a statement.

“Whip Barrasso plays a central role in advancing President Trump’s agenda, including the historic Working Families Tax Cuts, and he’ll continue to be a strong leader for the American people,” Latcham continued.

Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio was elected National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman to replace Sen. Tim Scott, who served his two-year term cycle. The National Republican Senatorial Committee serves as the party’s campaign arm for the Senate.

Moreno told reporters Senate Republicans are going to be “absolute savages” when it comes to ending government corruption, a top concern for voters.

“Senator Moreno is a proven winner who possesses boundless energy and the keen political instincts that will be critical to our efforts. Senate Leadership Fund looks forward to a close partnership with Senator Moreno as we work to elect strong Republicans to the U.S. Senate,” Latcham said in a statement congratulating Moreno.

LAS VEGAS, NV — Colin Kaepernick briefly got his hopes up today after seeing an incoming call from an unknown number, only to discover it was about his car's extended warranty.

SB 214 Passes the Senate on a Concurrence Vote!

It now heads to Governor Mike DeWine’s desk!

The Ohio Senate just passed SB 214 on a concurrence vote 21-9!

This means the bill is headed to the desk of Governor Mike DeWine for his signature.

This has been a victorious day in Columbus, and we couldn’t have done it without you!

While we hope and believe Governor DeWine will sign this bill, we want to make sure he knows it is a top priority, so we are asking you to take action one more time today.

Please use the form above to urge Governor Mike DeWine to sign SB 214!

Once again, thank you for helping push this bill as far as it has gotten, and for your continued support of Gun Owners of America. We couldn’t do it without you.

If you’d like to contribute more to GOA so we can continue to fight for the Second Amendment, please click here.

‘Susie put her finger on the hemp policy scale’

‘tantamount to child abuse’

'As soon as his popularity takes a dip, we're seriously talking about reversing one of his major campaign promises -- that's a big letdown. That's a real disappointment.'

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. 

We all talk about waste, fraud and abuse, or corruption in politics. It’s kind of a boilerplate accusation, but I think here we are in 2026, and almost any day you look at the news or social media, there’s some investigation, some of them warranted, some of them not, but corruption is on everybody’s mind. 

Exit polls, when voters were asked after our Tuesday midterm elections, “What concerned you the most?” We concentrated on affordability, the Iran war, gas prices, illegal immigration, both pro and con, but a lot of people listed very highly corruption. And I take corruption in the widest sense of the word, financial corruption, but also unethical behavior and personal invective that’s kind of coarsened our whole society. 

And I don’t understand in the midterms how Ilhan Omar, who has … There’s pretty credible evidence that she abused her immigration laws, and her sister and other people under her purview were involved in one of the most massive fraudulent schemes that we could see with entitlement funds. She was reelected by 70% of the vote. 

Now, we’ve all heard about Hunter Biden. We looked at the laptop. We remember his references to Mr. Big, Mr. 10%. We knew what the prosecutor in Ukraine had said about him. It was pretty clear that he was an embezzler and part of the Biden family consortia that grifted off of our money, and he got a pardon. 

It’s pretty clear also that Nancy Pelosi, when she entered Congress in the 1980s, was not a rich person at all, even though her husband was sort of a wheeler-dealer, real estate investor, stock investor. But over her 30-year-plus career in Congress, she had a 16,000-plus percentage rise in her stock portfolio. 

She went from less than a million dollars to over $120 million. How can you do that when you’re a full-time politician? And we know how you can do that because people in Congress, especially at the highest levels of leadership in Congress and on committees, meet with all sorts of financial people. 

They draft laws. They know which legislation is going to be on the docket, whether it will pass months before it actually does, and they act accordingly. Is that illegal? It should be. We have a Pelosi bill, but that’s just another example.  

But we, as conservatives, can’t just say it’s Hunter or Pelosi or Ilhan Omar because Alina Habba, who I had a high regard for, allegedly was obtaining pardons from the Trump administration for people who had been convicted of serious crimes and were given clemency or pardons. 

In some cases, there was a quid pro quo alleged deal for over $50 million. Steve Bannon, whom I’ve met and I like personally, but you remember just a few years ago, he pleaded guilty to the charge that he had been raising funds from conservatives who really wanted the wall finished, and they thought maybe if they used their own funds, they could, private effort, they could override the Biden opposition. 

And yet there was an admission on his part that those funds were diverted to other uses without the donors’ notice.  

I think you’ve all seen, as well, the news that Susie Wiles, whom I had a lot of respect for as the chief of staff of the Trump administration, has now been transferred to the political side of the administration. 

Fine. But there were also allegations, not proven, that her daughter, who is a well-known lobbyist, may have been charging people or asking for, quote, “donations” to steer them to the right people to either get legislation moderated, introduced, canceled, or people who wanted appointments within the administration. 

She was the go-to person, Susie Wiles’ daughter, to get immediate action. That’s unethical. I don’t know if it’s illegal or not, but it’s unethical.  

Besides the corruption, very quickly, there’s also kind of a lunatic, a lunatic element in our society now, and all sides do it, where the F-word, the S-H-I-(Blank) word, foul-mouthed, but more importantly, even macabre, really ruthless medieval threats and kind of, I don’t know how to put it, a vampire-ish delight in people’s gruesome deaths. 

And they’re in the public square. We had the two leftist podcasters, Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan. They’re hardcore Democrats. You could call them neo-socialists. And they actually said on air to thousands, if not millions of people, that they wanted to dig up Charlie Kirk’s corpse so that somebody could shoot him again. 

Think about that. And when they talk like that, if you walk across college campuses or you investigate what protesters are doing, people are wearing white T-shirts with paint-stained marks that emanate from their neck. In other words, they’re glorified in the gruesome death of Charlie Kirk.  

And what was his crime? 

He tried to mobilize young people who were Christian and conservatives to get active politically, and he did so on the college campus. And he was a free speech advocate. He wanted to debate anybody, anytime, anywhere about anything.  

But that’s not even isolated. Dave Chappelle, the well-known famous comedian, said the other day on stage to a, I don’t know, a sold-out audience that he felt a lot better after Charlie Kirk was murdered. 

We had a Brazilian immigrant, Isa, I think her name was, [Casahuga], and she went to a Turning Point USA event, read a poem, and she referred to the Kirkiversary.  

In other words, it was a point, a calendar date, the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s gruesome murder that they were celebrating.  

And then when she was asked what she meant, she told the master of ceremonies who was holding the event that he should wear a neck brace, i.e., he was taking a risk coming on a college campus because he should be murdered. 

All of these people then make these immediate apologies, but only when they’re called on. In the case of Isa, she was worried that she was going to be deported to Brazil. She was on a student visa.  

In the case of Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, they may be socialists, but capitalists fund their program, so they gave a pro forma and insincere apology. 

I don’t know what Dave Chappelle will do. He probably won’t do anything. He has a particular insularity from criticism. So, we’re starting to see not just massive corruption among the Somali community in Minnesota, not just massive corruption in California, but we’re starting to see unethical behavior at the highest levels. 

Some of us have been very worried about the Trump administration, that there are members associated with some of the Trump family that are very active in the Middle East investing and helping people who are investors in the Middle East find receptive avenues in the United States that they might not otherwise find, given that they don’t have contacts at the highest level of government, and vice versa. 

They are steering people from the United States who want to invest in the Middle East. I don’t know if that’s illegal, but it seems highly unethical. And the point I’m making, part of the MAGA movement, as was the Tea Party predecessor, was a reaction against the aristocratic classes and the corruption at the highest levels of government. 

And conservatives can’t criticize Hunter Biden and Nancy Pelosi and all of these other people and their language and the F-word and, and gruesome and less gruesome metaphors and delight in people’s personal death, injury, misfortunes, unless they have the moral high ground.  

And so, I think, as we try to digest the midterm elections, people on the conservative side said, “This party, these, us, we will not engage in corruption. 

“We’re gonna be beyond suspicion of corruption.” And maybe Donald Trump can go to the Congress and say, “I wanna beef up the Pelosi bill so Congress people don’t invest as insiders during their tenures, and I will have an executive order in the executive branch matching step for step what you do in Congress.” 

It’s time to clean up the language, clean up the behavior, stop the hate speech, and stop the graft and obvious corruption.  

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

‘Any discussion or reporting about additions to the covered list should be regarded as baseless speculation’

The House Republican conference elected Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Tuesday to serve as minority leader in next year’s Congress. The victory marks the first time a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus has held the position of party leader in Congress. “Congratulations to Jim Jordan, House Freedom Caucus founder and former chairman, on […]

Senate Republicans have less than 20 days to confirm President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, a crucial move to ensure that his legacy extends beyond his term.

“Very important for the U.S. Senate to confirm all of our pending 161 Nominations, including 25 Federal Judges,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday. He made official announcements for the final three judicial nominees on Tuesday: Elliot Gaiser, Grayson Lambert, and James Sullivan.  

“We expect all of our highly qualified nominees to be confirmed quickly this Congress,” a White House official told the Daily Signal.

Republicans have to act fast before they lose the majority, but Democrats could call privileged votes to slow down the process. Another roadblock to confirming Trump’s nominees could come from a Republican senator. 

Arkansas Republican Senators John Boozman and Tom Cotton reportedly oppose the nomination of former Arkansas Solicitor General Lee Rudofsky to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, preferring Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Cody Hiland. Rudofsky’s confirmation would give Trump-appointed judges a majority on the 8th Circuit. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee was supposed to consider the nomination of Rudofsky and nine other judges on Tuesday morning, but the committee put an asterisk next to his name on the agenda, indicating that his consideration was postponed to a future hearing. 

“It is unlikely the Senate has time to get another nominee through the process,” Mike Davis, president of Article III Project, said. “Republicans will lose this seat to Senate Democrats’ obstruction in January.”

The Senate should prioritize filling the existing appellate court vacancies because of the important role these courts play, said Zack Smith, legal expert at the Heritage Foundation.

“The White House, the senators, they need to be on the same page because this vacancy needs to be filled before the new Senate comes into power,” Smith told the Daily Signal.

Elliot Gaiser, Trump’s nominee for the Northern District of Texas, currently serves as assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Before that, he was solicitor general of Ohio and a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito when he penned the majority opinion in the case overturning Roe v. Wade. 

As the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Gaiser has been responsible for making sure some of the Trump administration’s most newsworthy actions pass legal muster. According to the Washington Post, Gaiser’s office was responsible for approving the capture of Nicolas Maduro, strikes on drug traffickers’ boats, and more. 

“Texas will appreciate having such a talented and intelligent Judge on their Federal Bench,” Trump said of 37-year-old Gaiser. 

Anna St. John, a federal district judge in Louisiana, has already cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Her work has included litigation involving religious liberty, free speech, and class-action settlements. She previously served as president and general counsel of the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute and its Center for Class Action Fairness. 

Trump said St. John has a history of championing “Religious Liberty, Free Speech, and protecting Women’s Sports.” 

Smith said confirming the nominees is key to Trump’s legacy.

“One of President Trump’s signature accomplishments is the way he has transformed the federal courts, particularly the appellate courts and the federal district courts as well,” he said. “It’s important to fill every available vacancy while the Senate Republicans are still in power, and that’s particularly true where you currently have two Republican senators per state.”

“Because keep in mind, so long as the blue slips exist, once a Democratic senator takes power in a state,” he said, “they could effectively block President Trump’s district court nominees from moving forward.”

Trump has asked Senate Majority Leader John Thune to eliminate blue slips, a tradition that allows home-state senators to hold up judicial nominations, in order to speed up the process of judicial confirmations, but he refused.

Senators return a blue slip indicating if they support the nominee. If either senator from a state withholds or rejects a blue slip, the Judiciary Committee chairman can prevent the nomination from advancing.

Trump called the practice “old and outdated,” but Thune said there were “more Republican senators who are interested in preserving that than those who aren’t.”

Trump on Monday told reporters he wish Thune could accomplish more, but that he’s a “very fine man.”

“I like John Thune. I wish they could get more produced,” Trump said. :You know, we’ve had Save America up there, we’ve had, you know, voter ID and proof of citizenship, and many other things.”

‘The federal government has failed the survivors’