Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing backlash after promoting a city program that allows qualifying campaign contributions to be matched with public funds at a rate of 6-to-1.

In a video posted to X, Bass urged city residents to contribute to her reelection campaign while highlighting the taxpayer-funded match.

“If you live in the City of Los Angeles, your contribution will be matched 6:1 up to $257 per person under the LA City Matching Funds Program,” Bass’ ActBlue website said.

That means a qualifying $257 contribution from a Los Angeles resident could generate an additional $1,542 in public matching funds for the campaign.

Los Angeles has operated a public campaign financing system for decades. The city’s matching fund was created in 1990, and the city charter requires the money used for matching payments to come exclusively from city revenue.

But the current 6-to-1 matching rate came much later.

In December 2018, the Los Angeles City Council approved changes allowing all qualified participating candidates to receive that match in both primary and general elections.

The change to the matching rate was approved by the City Council rather than through a citywide vote, which has drawn criticism from Angelenos who argue taxpayers should not be required to subsidize political candidates they may oppose.

Both Bass and mayoral challenger Nithya Raman are participating in the matching-funds program, while Spencer Pratt, who did not advance to the general election, opted out of the program and relied solely on private campaign contributions.

Los Angeles is one of several California cities that allow public financing of political campaigns. Long Beach, San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley also operate public campaign-financing programs.

The issue comes as California voters prepare to decide in November whether to repeal the state’s decades-old prohibition on public financing of political campaigns and allow local governments across the state to establish such programs.

Supporters of public campaign financing argue the programs can reduce candidates’ reliance on wealthy donors and special interests and give candidates with smaller donor bases a better chance of competing.

Bass’ promotion of the program has drawn criticism from Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who called the match “obscene corruption” and said he would seek to outlaw such programs if elected governor.

The Daily Signal reached out to Bass’ campaign for comment on Hilton’s criticism and to ask if the mayor believes taxpayers should help finance campaigns for candidates they may not support, but the campaign did not return the request for comment.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Authorities responded on Friday afternoon to an apparent turf war at Kenwood Park, where tennis players and pickleballers fought to the death over the right to use the park's facilities.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced a new round of sweeping restrictions on artificial intelligence data centers on Tuesday, marking a swift reversal of his original views on the issue.

“Many politicians and political candidates, noticing growing public opposition to data centers (at least some of it resulting from dark money campaigns against these central features of the American economy), have suddenly switched from support to opposition,” Jay Richards, vice president of social and domestic policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal.

“But none of the facts have changed. This suggests that such politicians are weathervanes whose policies are the result of polling rather than principle. That’s almost certainly the case with Gov. Shapiro,” Richards continued.

Shapiro appeared to have dismissed his previous optimism about data centers and announced major restrictions following public concerns.

A new Gallup poll found that about 71% to 75% of the public opposes the construction of data centers.

In 2025, along with representatives from Amazon, Shapiro announced a $20 billion investment in AI infrastructure that greenlighted the construction of two new data centers in Pennsylvania, something the governor said would “power our global economy and the future of artificial intelligence” and create “thousands” of new construction jobs.

At the time, the governor added that the Keystone State was ideally positioned to become a major player in artificial intelligence due to its diverse energy resources, technology-focused universities, and his administration’s 10-year economic development strategy, which he said could help the commonwealth and the nation compete with China in the race to dominate AI.

“We are already all in on AI,” Shapiro stated. “We have the energy resources to support this technology. We’ve got the brains to be able to drive innovation forward. We have the workforce ready to build and maintain these critical data centers.

“We’ve got elected leaders from every single level ready to roll up their sleeves and continue to work together for the common good, for our commonwealth,” the governor continued. “We will out-compete China. We will do so here in Pennsylvania, and we will win.”

On Tuesday, Shapiro signed an executive order cracking down on data centers instead.

“The Governor is also immediately removing all AI data center projects from the PA Permit Fast Track Program and will not consider data center projects for the program going forward,” the governor’s office wrote in a press release.

The executive order also implements new public transparency requirements for developers and makes clear that the use of nondisclosure agreements with data center projects is not permissible, the press release added.

The executive order will additionally incorporate the transparency requirements into the agency’s permit-review process for all data center proposals.

“For developers who do not agree to meet the Governor’s GRID Requirements, DEP will not begin review of permit applications until after all required local approvals are secured and every permit application required for construction of the data center has been reviewed and found to be compliant by DEP,” it further states.

The state’s Department of Revenue updated guidelines for the Computer Data Center Equipment Exemption Program, outlining new requirements for developers.

Under the updated rules, developers must pay the full cost of any new electricity generation, transmission, distribution, and related infrastructure needed to power their projects without shifting those costs to Pennsylvania households and businesses.

The guidelines also require developers to engage transparently with local residents and leaders through detailed outreach plans, including notifying affected local governments, holding public meetings, and seeking meaningful input early in the design process.

In addition, developers must hire and train local workers, enter into community benefit agreements supporting schools, infrastructure, and long-term economic development, and meet the highest environmental standards, including strict water-conservation requirements.

The governor, who is seen by many as a possible Democratic Party presidential candidate in 2028, explained his reasoning for the reversal, which Richards argued was driven by public opinion.

As stated in the release, the governor took “bold action” against data centers following public concerns about the possible negative impacts of data centers on residents’ quality of life.

At a press conference Tuesday, Shapiro called data center developers “predatory.”

“While there are no AI data centers up and running right now in Pennsylvania, and only five have the permits they would need to begin operating,” Shapiro stated, “these speculators are nevertheless scaring our communities, being aggressive with township officials, bullying our neighbors, and refusing to listen to the people of Pennsylvania.”

Shapiro did not respond to the Daily Signal’s request for comment

There are a lot of religions out there, but only one can be the religion of peace. How can you be sure you're on the right path?

Data centers are about as popular as cancer right now, and my latest battleground polling proves it.

In Wisconsin, the consummate swing state, approval for data centers falls to an abysmal 19% overall. Even worse details emerge from the poll crosstabs and a comparison to polling from the same late last year.

This TIPP Insights polling for the League of American Workers shows that the governor’s showdown in the Badger State is a horse race, with Democrat nominee David Crowley leading Republican nominee Tom Tiffany by a mere +2%, 43%-41%, within the margin of error for the poll.

In such a tight race for governor, the unpopularity of data centers can quickly become the determinative factor in the contest.

On the GOP side, Tom Tiffany pledges to protect rural Wisconsin from boneheaded “green” energy projects such as wasteful solar and wind, and further promises that data centers will only be built with full local control and approval.

By contrast, Crowley totally embraces the green energy scam and welcomes a rush of new data centers so long as they follow his “Beyonce” approach to “bring your own clean energy,” as his acronym.

But what about the views of regular voters in this heartland state?

Well, the details of this new poll reveal that only 11% of independent voters have a positive view of data centers. In a tight swing state, these unaffiliated voters will almost surely decide the winner. Even among Democrats in Wisconsin, 70% disapprove of data centers.

Perhaps even more revealing on this issue is the trend in Wisconsin over the last year. I also surveyed Wisconsin last November,  using the same polling firm.

Just 10 months ago, 47% of Wisconsin voters approved of data center projects and only 36% disapproved.

So, in just under a year, the disapproval number has nearly doubled and the approval number has plunged by more than half. For young Gen Z voters, the collapse in support is even more stark: from 39% approval last November to a scant 9% right now.

What’s going on here?

Well, clearly the data center debate has turned into a larger referendum on Big Tech generally, as well as the growing chasm between the concentrated economic elites and the frustrated masses. As such, this controversy stokes powerful populist flames, and for good reason.

When economically stressed Americans see the haughty oligarchs of tech take to the airwaves and brag about their million-dollar watches, while demanding data centers in some of the most pristine and irreplaceable natural areas of America, the popular revolt is warranted and predictable.

For those of us on the populist Right, we are naturally pro-development and want a growing economy that primarily benefits workers and Main Street prosperity.

Clearly, more data centers are needed, and automation is hardly some fad. But Heritage Foundation chief Kevin Roberts stated the case well: “I’m with the skeptics on these AI data centers. Not because I’m against data centers, but because Big Tech is running roughshod over local communities instead of working with them on the real trade-offs.”

So, for the benefits to outweigh the negatives for the public, and for comically tone-deaf tech titans to find cultural and political buy-in, here is what’s necessary:

1. Some humility/contrition – Big Tech has dumped upon regular Americans for decades now. The industry systemically exploits the private data of the masses for the incredible gains of a credentialed elite. Even worse, the industry engaged in massive abuses of the rights of citizens, especially those with conservative views, through coordinated censorship, particularly during the era of the Covid-19 panic.

2. Show the public the money – the benefits to local communities of data centers must be lavish and front-loaded. Citizens deserve huge investments into local resources, massive, lasting breaks on taxes and utilities, plus equity options for locals in the companies driving the projects. Give the people a piece of the pie … or continue to decline into electoral oblivion.

3. Place the centers strategically – any gorgeous natural landscape or productive farmland area must be 100% off limits. These centers should mostly go to depressed urban/suburban areas and primarily be in underused industrial parks that are perfect for such giant buildings.

4. Find better messengers – never send Kevin O’Leary, or similar folks, in front of the cameras again to sell these projects.

5. Sign binding public pledges – agree that you will never again censor the free-speech rights of any American, and certainly not based on their partisan or religious beliefs, under penalty of severe economic repercussions.

The good news for the Tech oligarchs is that the America First crowd is not anti-development.

With the right incentives for citizens and way better public relations, the industry can start to regain the confidence of the people. The radical DSA leftists also hate Tech, but for very different reasons. That crowd merely thrives on the sin of envy, and they only want to expropriate from the successful.

In contrast, the patriotic populist movement simply seeks a just economic approach, one that recognizes the societal dangers of an ever-increasing concentration of economic and political power.

We want private enterprises to soar in America, properly channeled to distributism, subsidiarity, and the constant pursuit of the common good. The data center debate can be resolved if these principles are pursued.

Cabinet officials are commending the work of the Presidential Personnel Office (PPO)—which vets and selects thousands of candidates for political appointments—under the leadership of its director, Dan Scavino.

The post Exclusive: Cabinet Officials Commend Work of Presidential Personnel Office Under Dan Scavino appeared first on Breitbart.

Federal Judge Demands Answers on FBI ‘Burn Bag Room’ Records
Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Federal Reserve Grand Jury Subpoenas
Nonbinary Researcher Gets Grant to Study ‘Gender Minority Birthing People’

Federal Judge Demands Answers on FBI ‘Burn Bag Room’ Records 

The FBI’s “burn bag room” case just got a lot more interesting. A federal judge is now demanding answers. 

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to provide answers about nearly 2 million pages of FBI records, including whether the records have already been reviewed in response to other Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and whether the newly uncovered records had been stored in other government record systems:   

Upon consideration of the parties’ Joint Status Report and as discussed at [the August 3, 2026] status conference, it is ORDERED that the parties shall file a joint status report on or before September 4, 2026. In addition to updating the Court on the parties’ progress in narrowing the issues, the joint status report shall include the government’s responses to the following: (1) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request have previously been considered or reviewed in response to other FOIA requests; and (2) Whether the legacy and/or recent records at issue in this FOIA request are contained in any other systems of records or indices. The government shall also determine whether it can provide additional information regarding the nature of the two investigations it represents are reflected in the legacy files. 

The order comes in our November 2025 FOIA lawsuit filed after the FBI failed to respond to a June 2025 request for all records stored in the room. Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino disclosed in May 2025 that FBI officials had discovered a large volume of records in the room that had not been properly processed or digitized. The FBI subsequently told the court that the room contains 20 five-drawer filing cabinets holding an estimated 950,000 to 1.9 million pages of records (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice(No.1:25-cv-04047)). 

In July 2026, the Justice Department told the court that, at a rate of 500 pages a month, processing records from the “hidden room” at FBI Headquarters would take approximately 158 years. The room — now dubbed the “burn bag room” — holds over 2 million pages of records, according to the FBI’s own filing. There is one safe, believed to contain “legacy files,” that is yet to be accessed. 

Bongino said in May 2025 that some of the records were found stashed “in bags:” 

There was a room [in FBI Headquarters], and we found stuff. A lot of stuff … hidden from us at least and not mentioned to us. And then found stuff in there. A lot is from the Comey era. We are working … right now to declassify. And just so you know, because I get the public—I totally understand people saying “well do it now.” The process is: not all of the information is ours to declassify. Some is other intelligence agencies’…. We literally can’t do it. Once that gets done … and you read some of the stuff we found—that, by the way, was not processed through the normal procedure, digitizing and putting in FBI records. We found it in bags, hiding under Jim Comey’s FBI. You’re going to be stunned. 

We previously uncovered that the room is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) containing several safes—now identified as 20 file cabinets—holding between roughly 950,000 and 1,900,000 pages of records, split into two categories: “legacy files,” older records mostly tied to two closed historical investigations and more recent files tied to active investigations and prior Special Counsel records, reportedly including material connected to Special Counsel Jack Smith.  

More than a year after we submitted our FOIA request, the FBI has yet to begin processing the records sought. The parties must report to Judge Friedrich by September 4, 2026, on their progress and provide the specific information demanded by the court. 

American citizens should be outraged that the FBI has told a federal judge it could take 158 years to process the records in its secret ‘burn bag’ room. Now the court is demanding answers about whether these records were previously searched, whether they are stored in records systems as federal law requires, and what two mysterious investigations are represented in the “legacy” files. It is urgent that the American people receive all the details on how the FBI was used as a political weapon against Donald Trump and other Americans. The Justice Department and FBI should stop the stonewalling and get these records out. 

This is the latest in a series of Judicial Watch investigations targeting shady FBI weaponization and abuse of power. 

In August 2025, we sued the Justice Department for all records regarding the FBI, under then-Director James Comey, initiating an investigation of then-2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump. 

In May 2020, we uncovered the FBI “EC”—the electronic communication that officially launched the counterintelligence investigation, termed “Crossfire Hurricane,” of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The document was written by former FBI official Peter Strzok and was obtained as the result of a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit for: “The Electronic Communication that initiated the counterintelligence investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.” 

In August 2019, we uncovered “302” report material from FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr, who was removed from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017. 

In March 2019, we received heavily redacted records from the Justice Department that reveal that Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant. 

In December 2018, we uncovered U.S. State Department documents showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN). Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a FOIA lawsuit for records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Cardin. 

In August 2018, we announced that in response to a our FOIA lawsuit, the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants. 

Also in August, we forced the release of heavily redacted records about Christopher Steele, the former British spy, hired with Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funds, who authored the infamous dossier targeting Trump during last year’s presidential campaign. The documents show that Steele was cut off as a “Confidential Human Source” (CHS) after he disclosed his relationship with the FBI to a third party. The documents also show at least 11 FBI payments to Steele in 2016 and document that he was admonished for unknown reasons in February 2016. 

In July 2018, we released documents about FISA warrants targeting Carter Page, who had been a Trump campaign adviser. 

Judicial Watch Seeks Release of Federal Reserve Grand Jury Subpoenas 

The Federal Reserve wants to keep grand jury subpoenas about a criminal investigation involving Chairman Jerome Powell and the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters under wraps. We are asking a federal court to make the Fed turn them over. 

We asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the Federal Reserve to release two grand jury subpoenas issued in connection with a criminal investigation involving Chairman Powell and his $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters. 

 We filed an April 2026 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit after the Federal Reserve failed to comply with our January 2026 FOIA request seeking access to the subpoenas issued by the U.S. Department of Justice (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (No. 1:26-cv-01113)). 

 The Federal Reserve is asking the court to grant it summary judgment and uphold its withholding of the subpoenas under FOIA Exemption 5, which covers privileged interagency or intra-agency memoranda or letters. 

In a memorandum filed August 17, we opposed the Board’s motion and filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing that Exemption 5 does not apply because the records are not internal Federal Reserve deliberations but grand jury subpoenas that the Board received and possesses. We are asking the court to reject the Board’s position and order the release of the records. 

We argue:

Grand jury subpoenas are compulsory process, not inter-agency or intra-agency communications. 

*** 

The Board’s own conduct defeats its position. The Board did not request these subpoenas, did not consult with the prosecutors who served them, and received them in no advisory capacity whatsoever. It retained outside counsel and moved to quash them. 

The Board’s own words remove any doubt. It told the Chief Judge that the purpose of the subpoenas was “to harass, pressure, and punish” the Federal Reserve and Chair Powell until they set monetary policy as the President wished, and that the United States Attorney’s Office had proceeded by “abuse of the criminal process.” … As described by the Board, the subpoenas were not created to assist it in any way whatsoever.   

In a public statement in January 2026, Powell disclosed that the Justice Department had served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas “threatening a criminal indictment” related to his June 2025 testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. That testimony addressed, in part, the multi-year renovation of the historic Marriner S. Eccles Building and the adjacent Federal Reserve East Building. 

During his testimony, Powell denied the existence of luxury features such as private dining rooms, special elevators, rooftop gardens, and other high-end elements. The renovation project, originally estimated at approximately $1.9 billion, ballooned to $2.5 billion amid questions about cost overruns. 

In July 2025, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) sent a formal oversight letter to Powell highlighting discrepancies between the testimony and approved renovation plans, raising concerns about transparency and accountability for the multi-billion-dollar project. The letter points out that previously approved plans by the National Capital Planning Commission appear to reference some of the luxury features—raising questions about whether the plans changed, the features were removed, or the testimony was incomplete. 

Trump administration officials, including then-Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, sharply criticized the renovation project. Vought sent a letter to Powell on July 10, 2025, questioning the project’s management and compliance with federal standards. Vought publicly compared aspects of the renovation to elements that belong in France’s “Palace of Versailles.” 

The Federal Reserve is hiding grand jury subpoenas about potential crimes and public corruption from the American people. These are not internal deliberations—they are legal process served on the Fed. The Board should stop stonewalling and release the records. 

Nonbinary Researcher Gets Grant to Study ‘Gender Minority Birthing People’ 

Sometimes the government’s grant-making machinery seems to have a mind of its own, as our Corruption Chronicles blog reports. 

In the latest violation of President Trump’s order banning federal funding to promote gender ideology, the government is giving a nonbinary graduate student dedicated to studying “transmasculine individuals who give birth” thousands of dollars to research “gender minority birthing people.” The money is being disbursed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency charged with making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. Every year the NIH, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), awards tens of billions of dollars in grants and contracts to thousands of universities and research institutions across the United States. The stated goal is to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. 

It is difficult to see how that applies to this particular grant, which is funding an absurd initiative at the University of Maryland, College Park, one of the nation’s top ranked public universities. A doctoral student in the school’s Family Science department will use the $35,832 NIH grant to analyze the risk and protective factors influencing psychological distress in what the document describes as sexual and gender minority birthing people. “Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, including lesbian, bisexual, and queer women as well as transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, face increasing social stigma, animosity, and conflicts,” according to the NIH grant document. “Preliminary data suggests that these negative societal factors contribute to significant disparities in mental health outcomes among SGM birthing people.” Access to quality healthcare and social support are crucial for reducing the risk of pregnancy-related complications, the announcement further states, as well as mitigating adverse mental health effects. 

The problem is, according to the nation’s medical research agency, that SGM individuals often encounter “unaffirming and inappropriate care,” leading to elevated stress levels, non-compliance, and delays in seeking essential healthcare services. Adding to the issue is that the nature of support needed by SGM individuals often differs from that required by heterosexual and cisgender women. “Therefore, there is a pressing need for a deeper examination of SGM birthing people’s experiences with medical care and social support to inform culturally sensitive interventions tailored specifically for SGM people, alongside comprehensive training for healthcare providers to deliver appropriate care,” the NIH writes in the grant document. Pond Ezra, the grant recipient described by the government as Mx., a gender-neutral title of courtesy, will elucidate how social support and specialized medical care contribute to the mental health trajectories of SGM birthing people throughout the perinatal period. Ezra will emerge as an “expert on SGM reproductive health equity,” according to the NIH. The agency uses the gender neutral pronoun “they” when referring to the doctoral student, who appears to be a biological woman in the biography published by the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health. 

Ezra specializes in researching gender minorities in families with a specific focus on the experiences of “Seahorse dads,” a term created by the left to describe biological women who identify as men and are therefore known as “transmasculine individuals who give birth.” The graduate student who just received thousands of taxpayer dollars plans to explore how transgender parents, specifically “seahorse dads,” navigate parenting roles after birth, according to the college biography. This includes in what contexts does gender dysphoria show up in transmasculine parenthood and what socialization messages are transgender parents sending to their children about gender. Last fall Ezra and a fellow researcher published an academic paper on so-called “seahorse dads” that concludes they resist being labeled as mothers. The paper claims to account for the experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) people who become parents. “Drawing from queer, gender, and life course perspectives, we introduce theoretical expansions that center the reciprocal, time-sensitive relationship between gender expression and parenthood,” the published academic paper states, adding that it explores how seahorse dads disrupt “normative assumptions,” and reshape family relationships. 

Until next week, 

The post Judge Demands Answers on FBI ‘Burn Bag’ Records appeared first on Judicial Watch.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Though the U.S. national debt officially surpassed $40 trillion this week, Congress was quick to assure Americans that the issue could be easily fixed by spending more money.

Hamas or Israeli values?


Israel dominates the daily news in this 2026 midterm election year–almost always in a boring, fatiguing, negative light. Tens of thousands of innocents may be slaughtered, ethnically cleansed, butchered, and tortured by the world’s dictators, yet an overwhelming and obsessive abhorrence is reserved for tiny, democratic Israel.

Such perverse asymmetry is strange, since, at least privately, most Americans would concede that of the 18 Middle Eastern nations, only Israel is a genuine consensual democracy.

As far as tolerance goes, in the entire region, only in Israel is it legal to criticize political or religious figures. Only there can one choose to adopt an openly gay or trans lifestyle. Only there can an apostate renounce one’s religion or urge others to do the same. And only there can Christians establish a new church almost anywhere they choose.

Some of Israel’s fiercest feminist critics who wear miniskirts and halter tops, some of its most severe gay opponents, and some of its more virulent trans adversaries would in all likelihood be summarily arrested in most Middle Eastern countries if they dared to speak, act, or wear clothes as they do in the West–except, of course, in democratic and free Israel.

In terms of protest, scream publicly in Tel Aviv, “I no longer believe in the Jewish faith, and I hate the current government of Israel”–and there is little chance of being arrested.

Chant the same publicly in any Muslim country in the Middle East–“I no longer believe in Islam, and I hate our current government”–and the loud critic would be either jailed or beaten by a street mob or worse.

The new, old hatred.

On the Left–whether that is defined as the ossifying Democratic Party or the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America, or both–it is now a general rule that no candidate can win a primary election in a blue state if the candidate is on record supporting Israel.

In practice, no Jewish American can now be nominated on any national Democratic Party ticket.

Once extreme but now mainstream Democratic candidates, officeholders, and influencers, from Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, and Ilhan Omar, D-MN, to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and podcaster Hasan Piker, call for the virtual end of Israel as we currently know it. Most Democrat candidates prefer to be seen on the stump with the antisemitic, America-trashing Piker rather than with their own Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer.

On campuses, left-wing students, along with foreign student visitors from the Middle East, openly cheered on the Hamas massacre of 1,200 civilians and soldiers (including 46 Americans) on October 7, 2023.

Some 80 percent of the once pro-Israel Democrats now view Israel unfavorably. Their hatred explains why once strong nationwide support for Israel has fallen from about 80% to 60%.

On the extreme Right, not a day goes without podcasters Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, or Candace Owens charging Israel and its supporters with some nefarious conspiracies, from secretly directing U.S. policy in the Middle East and suppressing the Epstein files, to orchestrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk and having advanced knowledge of, or at least a hand in, the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Now orphaned, but once hyper-MAGA, politicos like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Kent, and Thomas Massie blame much of their own estrangement from the Trump administration and their now inert political careers on the influence of Jewish money and pro-Zionist Jews.

On examination, their accusations make no sense. But they do reveal a sudden recrudescence of a reductionist and ancient hatred.

Irrational, unhinged venom

Is America really a captive of Jewish influence?

Since its founding, Israel has contributed about $300 million, adjusted for inflation, to U.S. universities and nonprofits.

In contrast, the Gulf states alone have given more than $12 billion.

Our chief rival, a hostile China, has donated more than $6 billion. Yet somehow Israel is accused of buying and leveraging U.S. institutions.

Members and close associates of the Bush, Biden, and Trump families have partnered in lucrative investments with rich Gulf-state entities. Yet we hear that pro-Israel American lobbying groups like AIPAC–whose money comes exclusively from American citizens or residents–pose an existential threat to the U.S.

Since the beginning of the Ukraine War in February 2022, the U.S. has sent Ukraine nearly $200 billion in aggregate military and economic aid.

That sum is about 10 times the amount given to Israel in the same period, during which Israel was likewise at war. In that same timeframe, Israeli cities were targeted by more than 30,000 drones and missiles launched from terrorist entities in Iran, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Yemen.

Characteristic of the current revulsion toward Israel and its supporters, Jews especially, is a barrage of untrue, selective, and hypocritical charges.

Israel is accused of “genocide” for waging war against Gaza, from which the October 7 massacre was launched, and killing tens of thousands of civilians–according to Hamas’s manipulated figures.

What is conveniently left out of those numbers: 1) Israel counters that some 20,000 or more of the fatalities were Hamas fighters, with thousands more abettors; 2) the total death figures are supplied to Western authorities solely by Hamas, a designated terrorist organization or its prejudicial UN affiliates; 3) Hamas deliberately uses its own civilians as shields, both above ground and in its massive billion-dollar tunnel labyrinth, paid for by misappropriated aid funding from naive Western groups and a corrupt UN.

The tunnels’ entries and exits were located, by design, beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques. That choice was itself a damning indictment: Hamas expected Israel to be far more careful to avoid collateral damage to Gazan civilians than Hamas itself, which deliberately put them in the line of fire to save its own fighters.

Hamas’s logic was clear: the Israelis may spare us because they value Gazan lives more than we terrorists do, who use them as human shields.

Selective venom

Hating Israel is a selective syndrome.

Israel’s critics conveniently ignore the genocidal efforts of Islamic terrorists in Nigeria who have killed thousands of innocents.

Did any of our protesting students cite the genocidal former Somali dictatorship of Siad Barre, which killed more than 200,000 fellow Muslim Somalis?

Do they remember the murder of 3,000 Americans on September 11 by the Islamists of al-Qaeda?

Did the protesters at Stanford, Harvard, or Columbia ever blast the Sudanese Islamic killers who butchered more than 60,000?

Unlike the IDF, Turkey, a fierce critic of Israel, never phoned or texted Kurdish civilian apartment dwellers or small villages during its urban anti-insurgent operations, urging them to evacuate before the terrorists hiding among them were targeted.

John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, has found that in urban combat operations the combatant-to-civilian fatality ratio in Gaza runs between 1:1 and 1:2–far lower than the 1:9 ratio used by the UN.

Scholars have noted that the U.S. bombing campaigns against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II–campaigns that by early 1945 were destroying the Axis wartime economies and shortening the war–as well as the bombing of urban areas in North Korea and Vietnam, killed far more civilians.

We should remember that more than 2,000 Gazan civilians enthusiastically joined the October 7 murderers, drawn by the gleeful news of easy opportunities to kill, rape, and steal from mostly unarmed Israeli women and children.

When Israeli hostages were bound and brought back to Gaza, even the Hamas terrorists had to protect their captives from Gazan civilian mobs who, in a bloodthirsty frenzy, tried to dismember them in the street.

Hypocrisies and libels

Many other countries and peoples far better fit the left-wing/Islamist slur “settler colonialists” or “apartheidists” than do Israelis, who can claim that Jews have lived in their present-day homeland for at least 3,500 years.

In the parlance of the current Left, Arab Muslims “stole” their present homelands in the Middle East and North Africa from Romans and Greeks, who had predated them by some 800 years.

No one dares call President Xi of Communist China a “settler colonialist” for absorbing and colonizing Tibet after World War II.

Is China an “apartheid state” for putting a million Muslim Uyghurs in veritable concentration camps? What about Qatar? Should not such an “apartheid” nation be condemned on American campuses for ordering Christians to worship only in a few officially registered Christian churches, physically segregated and confined to a single, patrolled government enclave, Mesaimeer?

Who are the real apartheidists of Uganda–the hyper-rich Indian colonial overclass that chooses to cluster and segregate in upscale, separate neighborhoods, or the Ugandan majority who likely prefers they do?

No one accuses Zohran Mamdani (who promises to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “war criminal” if he sets foot in New York City) of being a late-arriving “settler colonialist” from Uganda, part of the “one-percenter” Indian community that somehow still controls 60-65% of that nation’s wealth.

As for the charge of “war criminal,” why does Mamdani not arrest any of Iran’s UN delegation who venture to New York, given that their government butchered more than 40,000 of its own citizens as recently as a few months ago? Does he define “war criminals” as Jews only?

Would Mamdani have arrested Rep. Ilhan Omar’s own late father, a former Somali colonel in the genocidal Siad Barre military? Remember, he fled to the U.S. to escape the revenge of his victims and to find sanctuary for his family in Minnesota.

As for “occupied lands” and “ethnic cleansing,” those charges better fit Azerbaijan, which just ethnically cleansed 150,000 Armenians. Does Harvard protest that atrocity, or Vladimir Putin’s rounding up of people from Russia’s own ethnic minority regions in Siberia to be wiped out and used as cannon fodder in Ukraine? Does Muslim Turkey get a pass for ethnically cleansing northern Cyprus of its ancient and indigenous Greek population and sending “settler colonialists” from Turkey to replace them?

Is tiny European Denmark a “colonialist” power for owning the underdeveloped, impoverished, vast, and far-distant North American territory of Greenland?

Are socialist Spain and its neo-communist prime minister Pedro Sanchez “settler colonialists” for retaining by force Spanish colonial enclaves on the Moroccan coast?

True and false Middle Eastern friends

Survey the Middle East as allies–and weep.

One cannot find a single country that is more pro-American or pro-Western than Israel.

Iran has been a terrorist monstrosity for half a century; it has killed thousands of Americans with shaped charges in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Syria was run by a genocidal Assad-kleptocratic regime for decades.

Qatar hosts the rabid anti-American propaganda organ Al Jazeera that hosted all sorts of anti-American terrorists.

Fifteen of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian.

Our “ally” Turkey cannot be trusted with American weapons, still less with American nuclear weapons, for fear it will share our technology with Russia, Iran, or China.

American diplomats have been butchered in Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan.

We have waged war against Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

The USS Cole was nearly sunk in Yemen, which continues to fire missiles at American ships.

Pakistan sheltered a mass murderer: Osama bin Laden.

And on and on.

The U.S. and Europe have suffered more than 200 major terrorist attacks from Muslim jihadists, both as immigrants and foreign residents, often with support from radical Islamists in the Middle East.

So it seems surreal to turn instead on our only time-tested ally, Israel. The new tolerance for hating Jews explains why they are now targets for more than 50% of all hate crimes reported in Mamdani’s New York. Armed guards now protect most synagogues in America from antisemitic terrorists, who turn out most often to be Muslim residents who, or whose forebears, originally stem from the Middle East.

American tourists were kidnapped in Egypt’s Sinai, while American oil-company employees were murdered in Algeria.

After 9/11, few American tourists felt safe in the Middle East. But none feared Israeli or Jewish terrorists.

The October 7 hatred surge

Three recent chapters in the long history of antisemitism remain inexplicable.

First, hatred of Jews and Israel peaked immediately after the greatest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust–weeks before Israel entered Gaza, and only after Hamas refused to surrender the masterminds of the slaughter or the 251 hostages. The Jewish crime, apparently, was being so easily murdered by Hamas.

The clearest sign of that Pavlovian hatred was the jubilation on the far Left and among Islamists–and the strange new alliance these seemingly disparate groups were already forming–over the ease with which so many mostly unarmed Jewish civilians had been butchered and the prospect of even more killing to follow.

The ghoulish celebrants were not concerned about mass murder, torture, or mutilation of the women, children, and elderly. Instead, they grew ecstatic at the prospect of still more medievalism and blood to come.

Hamas, the darling of American campuses and Muslim communities, issued Arabic-to-Hebrew phrase books to the invaders with instructions for the rapist-killers on how to say in Hebrew, “Take off your pants,” “Take off your clothes,” “Raise your hands and spread your legs.”

Second, none of the Israel-haters ever offers any alternative course that the Israelis should have taken to retrieve the hostages and punish the murderers.

Much less do they imagine what other nations might have done–the U.S., France, or the United Kingdom–had terrorists conducted such a mass slaughter at numbers proportional to their far larger populations.

I doubt any other nation would have petitioned the beloved International Criminal Court to bring the Hamas killers to justice.

Its chief prosecutor, the Israel-hating Karim Khan, refused even to examine Israeli evidence and instead rushed to condemn Netanyahu as an international war criminal.

Perhaps Khan’s hatred of Israel was aimed at hiding the fact that the now-fired Khan was being accused by his own legal team of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. Who will police the police? Will Mamdani arrest the ICC predator if he lands at JFK Airport in New York City?

Third, when 6,000 Hamas terrorists and Gazan “civilians” invaded Israel, it was during an agreed-on peace. Indeed, take away October 7, and Israel would never have entered Gaza; indeed, even after the slaughter that took place on that day, Israeli officers dreaded walking into such a subterranean ambush. And prior to the mass murder, it was Israel, not the Muslim nation and adjacent Arab neighbor Egypt, that had supplied almost all of Gaza’s water, electricity, fuels, and telecommunications.

For years Israel had invited 20,000 Gazans to work inside Israel at two to three times the wages available in Gaza. Gaza itself had been “ethnically cleansed” of all Jews in 2005 by the Israeli government under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was generally considered a “hawk.” Any valuable infrastructure they left behind was immediately looted and destroyed. After the departure of all the Jews from Gaza, the grifting Hamas government shook down roughly $20 billion of the more than $40 billion in international aid given to the Palestinians in general.

Had Hamas simply sought to create a multiparty democracy, held regular elections, created a bill of rights, and adopted a Western economy, it would have garnered hundreds of billions of dollars more in foreign investment. And its privileged seaside location could have made it the next tourist hub like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, or Oman.

Instead, the nihilist Hamas preferred to make Gaza an impoverished, violent, and pariah terrorist enclave, to rip off its own people, and to expose Gazan civilians to death on a regular basis to save its fighters’ skins and further its fanatical cause.

Hamas was never dedicated to bettering the daily lives of its own population, developing Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline or putting its enormous foreign aid to productive use. Instead, it had only a single homicidal agenda: to kill as many Jews as possible and to destroy the state of Israel.

Hating Israel while championing Hamas and its thousands of terrorist killers is a referendum not on Israel and its supporters, but a window into the mind of a sick, sick West–and an even sicker Middle East.

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.

Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico is facing criticism from a local newspaper in Abilene after attempting to keep a campaign event hidden from reporters.

The post James Talarico Shuts Out Local News at Campaign Event appeared first on Breitbart.