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. 

As we head toward the midterms in this last month of October, it’s time to reflect on who are the leadership of what we would call the Democratic socialist-Islamist new basis or alliance with or absorption of the Democratic Party. 

We’ve talked about one element. These are upscale people with college degrees, 85% white, in blue states, blue cities especially, who feel that their social science degrees, public policy degrees, psych degrees, should earn them a salary in which they could buy a home in New York or a condo in Los Angeles or have a family in San Francisco.  

And they rub shoulders with very wealthy people, financiers, insurance, CEOs, and they feel they’re in that same echelon, and yet they can’t, given their student debt and the decisions they made to major in those fields and then expect to be highly marketable. That anger, that discouragement, has fueled a rejection of the whole capitalist system. 

But they also have a second group, and I call that the Islamicist element. What’s funny about these people are most are first- or second-generation immigrants. They came over here from failed states. They were welcomed by the Left, and upon arrival they have a whole list of complaints against the United States, and yet they had never been discriminated against, oppressed by the United States. If anything, they came here for our security, prosperity, and freedom that was lacking in their own country. 

Let’s just take a look at two or three of these people as emblematic of this new direction of the Democratic Party. Zohran Mamdani gave a Fourth of July address on our 250th birthday. He had just reiterated, as he did last week, that he would arrest, he thought, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, any time he came into the United States to visit the U.N., which is impossible because he’s given federal immunity. But it was a good bombastic campaign trope. 

But in this speech, he said that the United States was victimized. As he said, Mamdani said, there was terror in the streets. We were controlled by monopolies. It was an unfair society run by elites. So he had a whole writ of complaints. 

But Mamdani is a dual citizen, both of Uganda, where he was born, and of the United States, where he was naturalized. Does he ever have any self-awareness of that? Because Uganda has been ruled by Yoweri Museveni, a president who has been in power for 40 years. He’s a dictator. Did the Mamdani family ever object to that? Does he object to it now? 

Imagine, he has complaints, half of his citizenship, he has complaints about the oldest democracy in the world. But the other half of his citizenship, his mom… 

Well, you’re gonna say he doesn’t go back there. Yeah. Yes, he does. He was married in Uganda just a few months ago, and he was married at the family estate with a beautiful view in Kampala of Lake Victoria. He’s a very wealthy guy. His parents, his mother is a distinguished filmmaker. His dad’s an endowed professor at Columbia University. 

So when he says all of these things about genocide and apartheid and settler colonialism, why doesn’t he look at his half citizenship and say, I fought for egalitarianism in my native Uganda, and I said to my Indian community, you’re 1%, and you’re settler colonialist, and you control 60%. We’ve got to spread the wealth. Just like he said in New York, we’re gonna go after richer, whiter neighborhoods. 

Why didn’t he say that our Indian community lives in self-appointed enclaves that are segregated? They’re not segregated de jure, but they are de facto. Why doesn’t he say, let’s move out and integrate and assimilate to the indigenous people? 

Does he ever say the Indian community in Uganda was a British imperial project to keep the indigenous population in check? 

My point, he has a whole list of characteristics about his adopted country, but he says nothing using the same standards about his native country. 

So is it a settler colonial country that you allege Israel is? Is it an apartheid country you allege Israel is? Think about it. 

He’s not the only one. 

Hasan Piker was born for a moment in the United States by Turkish parents and went right back to Turkey where he was raised. His family is very, very wealthy. He’s a multimillionaire. He bought a $3 million home. That’s a theme with this group of Islamicists, and he drives a $200,000 Porsche. 

He has said that, I’m quoting literally, I hate the United States. And he said that we deserve, quote, 9/11. But you would think that, and he won’t really tell us whether he is a dual citizen or not. But under Turkish law, under the jus sanguinis, that if you’re born anywhere to Turkish parents on both sides, that you are a Turkish citizen, at least a dual citizen. 

Does he ever criticize Turkey in the way that he criticizes us? Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s become almost a dictatorship. Has he spoken out against it? I don’t think so, because his parents have, what, sizable investments and corporate activity and profit-making in Turkey. 

Has he ever said this: My country, my parents’ country, my grandfather’s country went into Cyprus and attacked it and planted a settler colonial movement to join the Turkish population and then appropriated 40% of the richest part of Cyprus in 1974, and then colonized it with additional colonialists from Turkey, and no other country in the world, not China, not Russia, not North Korea, not Iran, recognized that colonial project. 

Can he have one word about that? Can he say, I object to the Americans’ history, and that’s why I hate the United States. But to be fair, I must say that when I go back to Turkey, I’m going to tell them that they have done a lot of bad things, such as the Armenian genocide in which 1 million Armenians were killed, mostly civilians, by the new Turkish army. 

And I’ll have to add as well that in 1923, during the Turkish-Greek War, the Turks surrounded the ancient city of Smyrna, now called Izmir, and burned it and everybody in it, incinerated it. And people say maybe 15,000, some say 50,000, some even say 100,000 Greeks were incinerated. 

The American ambassador to Greece has a wonderful or tragic view. He watched it happen from a boat  and picked up people who swam. 

Can he ever say something about Turkey in the same vein that he does about his adopted country? 

And then we come, I’ll give you one more example. Ilhan Omar. She said that this country is trashy and it’s, quote, the worst country, the worst of all countries in the world. She said that. She’s a representative in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Do we ever hear her say, I came from Somalia that was war-torn, ravaged, a complete failed state because a dictator for 10 years named Siad Barre had murdered 200,000 people of the Isaaq tribe who wanted to break away and get away from his dictatorship and form an enclave called Somaliland versus Somalia. 

Does she ever say that? 

Better yet, does she say, and I have another disclosure to make. My father was a well-known colonel in that army of aggression, and there have been accusations that he participated in the type of tactics that led to this genocide. 

Or she could have said, many of us who came from Somalia came when Siad Barre’s regime fell, not during the war, not during the genocide, when it fell, because we were afraid that we had ties to that genocidal regime, so we fled to America because if we had stayed in Somalia, there would have been retaliations from the people that we committed genocide upon. 

In other words, she could say, I can’t really criticize my adopted country as trashy or the worst in the world because it saved my life coming here because my family was involved in committing a genocide of the type that I accuse Israel of committing. 

What am I trying to say? 

I’m trying to say that this socialist, Islamacist group has a whole list of complaints about this country that we’re supposed to listen to and a whole list of complaints about the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, that we’re supposed to listen to.  

But many of these fiercest critics are dual citizens, and when they’re in their other country, they say nothing about its sins, and there are plenty, from settler colonialism to genocide to apartheid to war crimes. But they do blast the democracies for those very sins. 

What’s the whole point? 

We don’t have to listen to this anymore. Anytime Mamdani, anytime Abdul El-Sayed, anytime Ilhan Omar, anytime Hassan Piker starts listing a list of grievances about their country, our first- or second-generation, we just say, look in the mirror and then talk to us. 

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

The thing about gambling is that you convince yourself that the truism “The House always wins” doesn’t apply to you. This is what gets gamblers in trouble. This is why the house always wins.

That is until the house starts losing.

Virginia has tied an awful lot of its future tax collections to gambling and marijuana sales.

On the latter, there are states like Colorado that have been selling marijuana for more than a decade and have always fallen short of the promised tax collections, which have been on the decline since COVID-19. The costs of treatment and law enforcement have continued to go up.

Will Virginia suffer the same fate? History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

Such may be the case with casinos. Las Vegas is having big problems with tourism. August saw a 4.3% decline in visitors from August 2025, and 136,700 fewer visitors than in July. A Tuesday report from Harry Reid International Airport showed airport passenger counts dropped by 9% compared with August 2025. Let’s not even talk about Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Here in Danville, though, city leaders are already sweating as the owner of their brand-new casino, Caesars Entertainment, has already been sold to Fertitta Entertainment.

The tale of the tape is the $11.9 billion in debt Caesars is carrying as part of the $17.6 billion all-cash transaction.

That’s a lot of times that the house lost.

City Manager Ken Larking told Cardinal News that there will be no impact from the change of ownership regarding the city’s agreement with Caesars. “I’ve been told that all the leadership at Caesars that I work with will remain the same.” The same ones that were part of losing $11.9 billion? Comforting.

The caution here and from Colorado is that the promised tax largess that the voters believed would be coming when they approved these dens of inequity doesn’t materialize, while the cost of maintaining them and helping those who can’t handle their addictions keeps going up.

The people we elect tell us that additional sales taxes levied by our local governments should be sufficient to fix our schools. Cigarette taxes should pay for healthcare. Gaming taxes will pay for what, schools? The Virginia Lottery already tells us it takes care of that, partially. Police? Lowering the gas tax?

In a previous column, we detailed how much more money Virginia has this year than last year (14% more) and how the billions ($40 billion) of dollars that Virginia has in its budget are way more than when the state used to take care of maintenance at the schools. So the question remains, where did the money go?

If you are running a casino, the explanation is the cost of entertainment, the cost of insurance, the downturn in tourism, discount hotel apps, and that’s in a place known for tourism and big shows and glitz like Las Vegas.

If you work your way through the Las Vegas scene, you realize that there are ostensibly two companies that own most of the Strip: Caesars and MGM. So again, the question is, how do they lose money?

Analysts say that some of it is attributable to taking for granted that the gamblers will always be there. Ironically, very much like a state government looks at taxpayers.

Take a short walk down the Strip in another, much closer, location, Atlantic City, New Jersey, and you’ll see what was warned about at the beginning of Virginia’s fixation with gaming would quickly be our future.

What goes into the Danville Caesars when Caesars leaves? I’m sure it will be a casino of some sort, or maybe a skills-game parlor. Even if the Sadler family buys it, you know that the tax collections that the city and state had counted on (read: “already spent”) won’t be realized.

What about the money that’s promised through all the smartphone-based gambling apps? Just last month Delegate Tom Garrett (VA-56) told us that, “the patron said, we already have cell phone gambling in Virginia. We’re just looking to tax and regulate it. Well, you know, we’ve already got human trafficking in Virginia. We’ve already got rape, murder, and firearm robbery here in Virginia. Should we tax and regulate those too?”

Garrett added that one member explained his support for the plan by saying, “I’ve voted for skill games, so I have to vote for this” to which the Goochland Republican responded, “Really? Is there a skill game on your bedside table? Is there a skill game in your pocket?”

It doesn’t say anything good about a community that counts on its citizens to do things that damage their ability to live and prosper, cause families to be broken up and businesses to close, in order to collect tax revenue. One could call it almost counterintuitive since it causes more people to need government services.

But then again, the empire created by the original Caesar managed to hang around for quite a while. But I don’t think it was great for most of the citizens. Just the ones with friends in the Senate.

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

The political experts at the Cook Political Report rate the race in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district as the closest in the state. It’s the only race listed as a “toss-up,” while each of the other 10 races is rated as either leaning toward or solid for one of the parties.

The district covers most of Tidewater, including the 19 military bases in Hampton Roads. The contest pits incumbent Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans against former Rep. Elaine Luria, the Democrat who won the seat in 2018 and lost it to Kiggans in 2022. Also in the race are Matt Baker and Bishop Staten, a pair of independent candidates who could pick off votes in a close contest.

Both women are Navy veterans, which is fitting for a district with approximately 100,000 active-duty military personnel and more than 220,000 veterans. The district has traditionally leaned Republican, although 53% of voters went for Democrat Abigail Spanberger in last year’s election.

Neither campaign responded to questions this week from the Daily Signal. Last month, Kiggans positioned herself as a problem solver during an interview with Norfolk television station WAVY. “I’m proud to have been ranked among the most bipartisan members of Congress. I don’t think people care whether a good idea comes from a Republican or a Democrat. They want us to bring people together, solve problems, keep our families safe, and make their lives a little easier.”

Luria told the same station that she would focus on local issues. “I want to make sure we have a representative who does what’s best for Hampton Roads, not just what’s best for her and for Donald Trump. And I want to make sure Washington ends the culture of corruption that allows politicians to use their offices for personal gain and profit off of their positions of power.”

Because the race is so tight, it is drawing in money from both sides. President Donald Trump’s PAC recently vowed to spend more than $800,000 on television ads in the district, part of the $138 million the president said he will spend to support Republicans nationwide this year.

The president also hosted a virtual town hall with Kiggans, Rep. John McGuire and Rep. Rob Wittman last month. “Jen Kiggans is a patriot who voted to ban insider trading by members of Congress, which I would totally support,” Trump said during that call. “But a radical left Democrat opponent, Elaine Luria, said she’s not gonna vote for that, and she’s part of the Pelosi corruption scandal that’s going on in Congress.” The president has also promised to campaign in 35 battleground districts, but it isn’t clear whether he will visit any of these three districts represented by Republicans.

The PAC spending would be Trump’s first investment in the commonwealth, and it is separate from the three ads that the Trump administration is already running, often during football games, and calls “public service announcements.” Those are being funded by a $20 million contract that the Department of Homeland Security signed with an advertising agency last month.

Money is flowing in to support Luria as well. This week, Democratic Majority for Israel PAC announced it will spend nearly $1 million on digital ads targeting Kiggans. “Elaine Luria has a proven record of putting her district first, standing up for our servicemembers and veterans, and being a strong voice for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” DMFI PAC President Brian Romick said. “We’re all-in to send Elaine Luria back to Congress.”

“We estimate that $15.77 million has been spent on this race over the last two years,” the group Quiver Quantitative wrote. “Democrats have outspent Republicans by $2.09 million over that time period, per our estimates.” Quiver, like Cook, calls the race a toss-up.

Other high-profile politicians may soon make campaign stops in the 2nd District. House Speaker Mike Johnson included Virginia on a list of 22 states he plans to visit before Nov. 3. “From coast to coast, I am leaving it all on the field to defend our House majority because the stakes have never been higher,” he told Axios. His complete travel schedule hasn’t been announced. Johnson made an earlier appearance in August alongside Kiggans in Virginia Beach.

No debates are scheduled between the candidates.

The new school year is well underway, but federal officials are looking ahead to next year’s school calendar and a new federal school choice option. This week, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released proposed and temporary guidance on the program to help state officials and families prepare.

As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill signed by the White House in July 2025, lawmakers included a federal tax-credit program for K-12 students that will take effect next year. The federal initiative is modeled after state education choice opportunities that make individuals and/or corporations eligible for tax credits on donations made to private school scholarship organizations.

The organizations then use the contributions to award K-12 private school scholarships to eligible students. Arizona lawmakers adopted the first such program in 1997, and policymakers in states across the country have approved similar provisions.

The federal tax credit only applies to individual, not corporate, tax filers and is capped at $1,700 per individual ($3,400 for married couples filing jointly). A unique—and troubling—provision in the federal program is that scholarship organizations can raise money for public schools.

Parents and taxpayers should wonder why this provision was included in a law modeled after private school choice laws. Today, the average per student spending in traditional schools has climbed to more than $20,000 per child even as reading and math scores in most grades have been on a steady decline since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, state private education choice options result in a cost savings to taxpayers.

Treasury officials are responsible for establishing rules for the new federal program, and this week’s announcement contains a proposed set of long-term regulations and a temporary set of rules under which to operate next year.

Under the law, students are eligible for scholarships if their household income is no more than 300% of the median gross income in their area. This broad eligibility provision will open the scholarships to more than 90% of K-12 students in the 30 states where lawmakers have agreed to participate.

The new guidance specifies that household income measures would not include indicators of net worth such as imputed return on home equity.

The rules also say that state lawmakers cannot add restrictions to participating scholarship organizations on top of the existing federal law. These rules should protect private organizations from regulatory creep that could otherwise hamper operations.

Treasury officials included more details on audits and financial transparency measures for scholarship organizations. These safeguards for taxpayers are welcome because the potential fundraising campaigns will be sizeable and run alongside public school spending formulas.

Traditional public school financing is notoriously complex and is composed of a dizzying array of funding streams, some related to decades-old court orders in some states that attempt to equalize spending levels across school districts. Public education spending formulas are already opaque and inefficient, which means any new funding sources deserve careful oversight.

Treasury personnel should review the new public school activity carefully. Fraudulent spending by public school employees is widespread, and the nature of audits only allows officials to capture misspending after it occurs. As a result, public school fraud can take place for years before being resolved.

Individuals in Minnesota defrauded taxpayers of $250 million in spending meant for meals for low-income students over the course of three years (2019-2021) before officials caught on to the scheme. Stories such as this are far too common across public schools, involving state, local, and federal taxpayer resources.

Treasury’s new rules for the federal tax credit are welcome and demonstrate attention to detail on issues such as student eligibility and scholarship organization operations, as well as financial transparency. But taxpayers should ask why public school administrators will have yet another way to raise money, when research finds higher levels of school spending does not lead to student success.

Treasury must consider rules for the law as written, which for now includes public school participation. U.S. Department of Education staff are in the process of closing their agency and downsizing federal education responsibilities overall to empower parents and state and local policymakers. So as Treasury and Education officials look ahead to the next school year and the years to follow, they should urge federal lawmakers to consider that access to still more spending is the wrong federal policy for assigned public schools.

Last week, President Donald Trump hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C. While the meeting featured considerable pageantry, including a state dinner and displays of American history, the real meat of the summit came from its deliverables. The summit appears to have met expectations, safeguarding American interests and offering no concessions on important U.S. interests.

According to the White House fact sheet released after the summit, the U.S. and China announced multiple outcomes covering trade, artificial intelligence, and future interactions. Economic examples include tariff reductions on up to $60 billion in nonsensitive goods, such as home goods and agricultural commodities, and a Chinese commitment to purchase 10 million metric tons of U.S. coal in both 2027 and 2028.

Both countries also agreed to establish the U.S.-China Super Intelligence Dialogue to maintain an open line of communication on the development and potential risks of AI. A notable outcome, announced before the summit, was an extension of the trade truce from November 2026 to January 2027, which keeps the current pause on higher tariffs and rare earth controls in place.

The two leaders also announced intentions to meet twice more this year. President Trump is set to visit China for the November 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, while Xi Jinping will return to the United States in December 2026 for the G20 summit in Florida. The leaders also discussed Iran, Russia, North Korea, and arms control. And in a diplomatic gesture, Xi Jinping announced that two pandas would be sent to the Atlanta Zoo.

At the same time, the White House fact sheet made clear that the U.S. is closely tracking Chinese implementation of its prior commitments. For example, the fact sheet details ongoing cooperation on countering fentanyl flows to the United States, an area in which Washington continues to press Beijing to take stronger action. The White House also noted that the two countries continue to address concerns about China’s weaponization of rare earth supply chains.

All told, Americans can view the summit as a maintenance check on the U.S.-China relationship, rather than a meeting that fundamentally changed the course of bilateral relations. In other words, the summit was high on pageantry but low on substance, producing no breakthroughs on the tough issues that define the relationship.

This outcome, however, was expected. The summit’s deliverables reflect the ongoing U.S.-China rivalry, in which diplomatic interactions can only mask so much of the deep mistrust between the two countries. For example, the trade truce’s extension of only two months, far short of China’s requested two-year extension, shows that the U.S. is not satisfied with China’s follow-through on its commitments and seeks to maintain pressure on Beijing to uphold its end of the deal.

In practice, this means that U.S.-China relations will continue to operate with a steady floor that allows for ongoing communication and reduced risk of escalation or conflict. At the same time, the relationship is constrained by a low and firm ceiling under which major disputes over trade, Taiwan, and technology cannot be easily resolved—if at all.

From this angle, the Trump administration correctly stood firm against Xi Jinping’s request that the U.S. align itself more closely with China’s position on Taiwan, and it also correctly kept export controls off the negotiating table.

With the leaders set to meet again in just two months, there will be more opportunities for the U.S. and China to address their ongoing disputes. If the Trump administration continues to safeguard American leverage and strategic advantages while holding China accountable for fulfilling its past commitments, it can be confident that its China policy is truly putting America first.

In its final vote ahead of the November elections, the Senate confirmed Keith Sonderling as secretary of labor in a late-night party-line vote. The Senate is set to take six weeks off to campaign, not returning to Washington until after the election.

Twelve senators missed Wednesday’s 11 p.m. vote. Six Republicans and six Democrats were absent, leaving the vote at 47-41.

Sonderling, former deputy secretary and a key policy officer in the department, has served as acting secretary since Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned earlier this year following an internal investigation alleging inappropriate conduct. Sonderling was not associated with the investigation or allegations.

“Throughout his career, Keith has proven his dedication to delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country, and I know he will do an incredible job in his new role,” President Donald Trump wrote in a June Truth Social post nominating Sonderling for secretary of labor.

Under Sonderling’s leadership, the Department of Labor has focused on providing workforce training and apprenticeships and deregulating labor and employment rules. The day of Sonderling’s confirmation, the department announced $43 million in grants to seven states to invest in training programs for shipbuilding, advanced manufacturing, and nuclear energy.

The Upper Chamber Set to Return in Six Weeks

Regardless of what happens in the midterms, the 119th Congress will return for the lame-duck period until Jan. 3, with a full plate getting even fuller. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has told reporters there are a number of items the Senate could address, and needs to accomplish, during the lame-duck period.

The Senate Appropriations Committee is still stalled on necessary fiscal year 2027 government spending legislation and the National Defense Authorization Act. Thune has also discussed the farm bill and a vote on new bipartisan permitting reform legislation.

There are nearly 700 House-passed bills awaiting a vote in the Senate, all of which could be taken up during this period. The first Senate vote is scheduled for Nov. 9.

The Trump administration’s proposed changes to the 2030 U.S. census, to cease counting illegal immigrants, could boost congressional seats and electoral votes for battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin at the expense of large states such as California and Texas, research suggests.

A 2024 study projected immigration trends under the Biden administration for the 2030 census, said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies. Those projections would be altered by President Donald Trump’s existing crackdown on illegal immigration and could be reversed entirely under the census proposal.

“This census proposal could flip the dynamic,” Camarota told the Daily Signal. “Midwestern states would not lose as much, nor would Texas or California, which have large immigrant populations, both legal and illegal, gain as much.”

The current census model apportions congressional districts to states based on total population rather than total citizens. But the administration published a regulation in the Federal Register last month, now open for public comment, that would no longer count illegal aliens or legal residents with a status lower than a green card. The new rule would also eliminate questions on the form about race and sexual preference.

The study shows that under the existing model of counting illegal immigrants, the 2030 census would result in California, Texas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida gaining congressional seats and electoral votes. Meanwhile, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, with a lower illegal immigrant population, would lose a seat in Congress. That would be reversed under the Trump plan, Camarota said.

There are about 24 million noncitizens in the country, of which 13 million are illegal aliens and 3.6 million are temporary workers or another legal status that falls short of being a legal permanent resident. So the new rule could mean counting about 16 million fewer people, Camarota said.

Only citizens can legally vote in any congressional district, which are divided based on total population. Camarota notes it’s easier to win a congressional seat with a smaller voting pool than a district with a large one.

“It seems on its face, this would undermine the intent of one-man, one-vote,” Camarota said.

The report points to the 33rd Congressional District of Texas that has one-third noncitizens and 262,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the 21st district, where 6% are not citizens. California’s 40th Congressional District is one-third noncitizen, or about 233,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the state’s 4th district, where just 4% are noncitizens. New York’s 14th district is almost one-third noncitizens with 172,000 fewer voting-age citizens than the state’s 27th district, where 1% are noncitizens.

“Illegal immigrants should not be counted in the census at all. It’s about congressional apportionment, and Congress is here to serve the citizens,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow for national security policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Signal.

Gonzalez contends striking the racial and sexual preference boxes from the census could strike a potential “fatal blow” to the Left’s balkanization of the country.

“The census has been the Left’s building block for identity politics,” he said.

Notably, Gonzalez added, a future Democrat president possibly taking office in 2029 likely couldn’t reverse it in time for the 2030 census.

“There may not be enough time for a future administration to add this back. They would have 11 months. They might have to wait to 2040 to reverse this,” Gonzalez said.

Not all Democrats have been subtle about a potential advantage from counting illegal immigrants. At an October 2021 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., said, “I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes, and those members could clearly fit here.”

The Center for Immigration Studies’ 2024 study extrapolated from 2020 census data and compared the immigrant count to what the count would have been without immigrants.

As a result of the immigrant population from the 2020 census, California and New York benefited the most, respectively with eight and three extra House seats, according to the Center for Immigration Studies report. Florida has two additional seats, while Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Texas have one additional seat because of immigrants.

Immigration caused other states to lose a House member, which included battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. The rest were red states of Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and West Virginia. Ohio had two fewer seats than it otherwise would have.

When looking only at the illegal immigrant count, it would distribute another seven seats in 2030. Without factoring in a proposed new census model or the Trump administration crackdown on illegal immigrants, the CIS study shows that Texas and California would each have two additional seats in 2030 from illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Florida would each have one additional seat.

The losers would be the states of Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin, which would have one fewer seat due to illegal immigrants being included in the 2030 census.

Counting legal and illegal immigrants, the numbers are even larger.

California would have nine more House seats in 2030 than it would have had without immigrants. Immigrants in 2030 would cause New Jersey and Florida to have three more seats under the previous trends. Massachusetts, New York, and Texas would get two more seats than they otherwise would have had without counting immigrants. Georgia would get one extra House seat.

Under the previous 2030 projection that did not factor in a new census proposal, a new census policy, or a crackdown on illegal immigration, Wisconsin and Ohio would have two fewer seats. States that would lose one seat are Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript 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.

Victor Davis Hanson: So, I was one-quarter Irish and one-quarter Welsh and one-half Swedish and—  

Jack Fowler: I think that’s 100% there.  

Hanson: Yeah. But I know I have Mongol blood in there somewhere.  

Fowler: Sorry. Well, let’s do a 23andMe test someday. My great-grandfather was the grand marshal of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade, so that kind of makes me Irish royalty. 

But I have no tolerance for Irish antisemitism, and we’ve got it by the boatload.  

Hanson: Brendan O’Neill, did you see him, his little video? Brendan O’Neill. You know, he writes for Spiked.  

Fowler: Yeah. I have him in my newsletter this week.  

Hanson: Yeah, it was really good. He said he, he was good. 

And then, the other British, you know, our friend that was on the cruises.  

Fowler: What? Douglas Murray?  

Hanson: Yes. Douglas wrote or did a very good interview about Ireland, and it was full of passion. And he was really angry about it, given their moralistic lectures to everybody about—  

Fowler: And their history …  

Hanson: And their history as an oppressed people. 

And I was really shocked by it. And they wouldn’t even shake the hands of the Israeli athletes after a soccer match. And it’s gonna hurt the—wearing armbands. It’s gonna hurt the Israeli economy. It’s in a wartime footing to begin with, and then if all these countries boycott it in various ways.

If you say you’re boycotting products that were produced by settlement, many industries—it doesn’t really … They’re just gonna boycott anything Israeli. And what I don’t understand is they—there’s a lot of new videos coming out on October 7th.  

So, there’s 1,200 people that went in there that were killed and slaughtered by 5,000 Hamas, but there was also 2,000 civilians that came onward. There were people to rape, people to kill, people to mutilate. 

They had planned it. The 20,000 workers were in on it. Many of them, they were giving surveillance to Hamas. They were hiding weapons in advance. And they committed atrocities. And then nobody … The Irish don’t, the Spanish don’t, the Germans don’t. They don’t. The American Left doesn’t. They never say, “What would you do?” 

All they say is, “Well, this was earned,” or, “This was inevitable.” But there hadn’t been a Jewish person or an Israeli person in Gaza since 2006. But the U.N. had poured in $20-plus billion, most of it from Americans and Europeans. And remember the greenhouses, Jack, where that American philanthropist gave $50 million worth of very lucrative high-tech greenhouses to ship winter vegetables to a very—in a very profitable fashion? 

And what did they do as soon as they got it? They looted it, destroyed it. They’d rather have nothing than have Jewish fingerprints on it. And then they had an election, as they always in one election, one time. And they’re—and so, for the next, what, 18 years, they had their country. It was autonomous. They were short, of course, fuel, power, water. 

I don’t know, 10%, 20% of those necessities were provided by the hated Israelis, and they left them alone. In fact, they kind of favored them. And the wall is very impressive. I’ve seen it in Israel. It’s not a wall of iron at all, the Gaza wall. 20,000 day laborers getting three times the wage, so when somebody does that to you, then what do you do? 

They never tell us. I guess they mean kind of put your little hands up like a little puppy and say, “Please, please, UN, I confess to all my sins. Will you give me absolution because I deserved this massacre?” Would that have worked?  

And then remember, everybody, that the architect of this mini-genocide was Mr. Yahya Sinwar. He’s the one you saw hiding from that drone that took him out. But what you don’t see is nearly 20 years ago, he was a terrorist murderer who was in an Israeli prison for murder, and he got dizzy, Jack. He had a headache, and he had a cancer—a non-cancerous but would’ve been fatal meningioma brain tumor. 

And so, according to Nicholas Kristof, who says the Israelis use dogs and then they defy the laws of biology and zoology and make them perform stunts never been seen before to rape, excuse me, rape Palestinian prisoners. They did something even worse, Jack. They took Mr. Sinwar in and they stripped him of his clothes and they put a humiliating gown on him. 

Then they put him in a sterile white room, almost like a prison, and then they operated, and they cut open his head. Can you imagine that? And they removed—Yes, they did remove the brain tumor, and yes, it did save his life, but it was so traumatic to have Jews do that to you. And he therefore was angry at them, so he organized October 7th. 

Isn’t that a terrible thing to do, is to take a Hamas torturer and operate and take his brain tumor and save his life?  

Fowler: Yes. It’s a high point of gratitude, from what we’ve seen. You know, there’s something about the Irish, if I may speak broadly. A few maybe disconnected points, Victor. 

I mean, we know the Irish immigrants, here in the Civil War, they were some of the bravest soldiers.

Hanson: Yes, they were. 

Fowler: And after the Civil War, you know, when [Gen. George] Custer was wiped out, most of the names killed with him were, were Irish. 

Hanson: The 7th Cavalry was mostly an Irish cavalry.  

Fowler: Yeah, the “Gary Owen,” which used to be the theme song of our show. But there’s a great sense of victimhood. We talk about victimhood all the time, and the Irish have it … The Irish. A lot of Irish live and dwell and thrill to victimhood status. They have right to be PO’d at England, what England did to Ireland in the 1700s and 1800s. 

But it’s very deeply instilled in many Irish and Irish Americans.  

And also, Victor, two other things. The Irish left is, is really left. One of their patron saints is Che Guevara, for example. Also, the IRA trained with the Palestinians. So, there’s this, there’s a significant connection between the— 

Hanson: That was in the Tom Clancy novel, remember? 

Fowler: Yeah, yeah.  

Hanson: Yeah.  

Fowler: Well …  

Hanson: And remember that the Irish prime minister in World War. Eamon de—  

Fowler: Valera?  

Hanson: Yes. In World War II, not only knew of submarines from the Germans that were off the Irish coast, but he had been warned by Winston Churchill, “If you allow them to land, even though you’re a neutral country, we’re going to consider you a belligerent.” 

Fowler: Uh-huh.  

Hanson: “And you better have an air force to stop what we’re going to do to you.” So, they had to threaten them. And of course, when Hitler died, he sent condolences to the Nazi Party.  

Fowler: I think he went in person.  

Hanson: Yeah, I think he did.  

Fowler: He went to the German embassy to sign the condolence book. 

Hanson: He did. He did. 

He did. So they were pro-Nazi, and we have the Spanish prime minister who was very—probably the most anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish leader in Europe. And we know the history of [Francisco] Franco, who would have joined the Nazis except the price that he demanded from Hitler, a joint invasion by land and sea of Gibraltar to get it, and most of French Vichy Morocco. 

Hitler said it was an eight-hour argument, and I’d rather have my tooth pulled than deal with Franco again. And then we have, of course, the present-day Italians that are very anti-Israel, and we know what [Benito] Mussolini—I think [Benjamin] Netanyahu mentioned that in his speech. So it’s very strange for these people to lecture on morality. 

Fowler: Yeah.  

Hanson: I did a debate, Jack. It was one of—I’ve had three occasions on Piers Morgan recently. One was with a fanatic professor from the Middle East who was, I thought, just spouted lies. The second one was from a Chinese communist who was parading around as a disinterested professor in Australia who told us that Mao Zedong did not commit any mass murderers. 

I got so angry. It was right after—not too far off my operation, but the first one, my heart rate went up. I have my Apple Watch, 135. The second one was only 125, and then yesterday I did, or maybe it was Monday, I debated a democratic socialist professor who gave me the standard Marxist exegesis that United States was hopeless, its economy was destroyed, socialists were taking over, Europe was going to be socialist. 

And then every time I tried to politely keep calm and said, “Could I just say something? Lowest poverty rate in history last month. Highest per capita family income at $87,000 in history. Your socialist communist China is $10 trillion smaller than our economy despite four times the population. Your socialist EU with 100 million more people is also $10 trillion smaller than our economy. 

And third quarter Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta revised 5% growth they think, economic growth. Record numbers of orders for computers, heavy durable goods, et cetera. Record foreign investment. Unemployment 4.1. 140,000—  

Fowler: Just something the other day, Victor, about this, maybe you mentioned the steel factory, yes, in Iowa. Monster investment, $15 billion. 

Hanson: So, I was trying to tell him, and what was the socialist … Everybody should, I think, pay attention to this because it shows you what will happen if they take control. The first thing he said is they do three things, and this fits Saeed too. First, it’s ad hominem. 

“What do you do? You’re ignorant. You don’t have any credentials.” OK. I’m a … Second thing, they’re arrogant. “I’m a Ph.D., and I have a university position. I’m an economist.” Second thing.  

Third, they’re vulgar. “You have your head up Trump’s blank blank.” And Piers was just watching us, and I said to him, I said, “Is this serious? Is this a joke? What is going on here?” I couldn’t say a word without him interrupting, and I’m not gonna go on that show. I try to just— 

Fowler:  Were you asking Piers that live while this—?  

Hanson: Yes, while he was yelling and screaming while I was—he screamed for five minutes, and then it was my turn, and halfway through, he interrupted and he said, “You’re just making up all this data.” 

And I said, “You can find it. It’s out there. It’s in the public domain. You don’t believe we had 140,000 jobs? You don’t think the poverty … “

“You’re lying. It’s all doctored. They … Your GDP is all wrong.”  

Wow. And then he started, you know, “You have no credentials. You’re not educated. I’m a professor.” 

“Get, get … You have your head up blank blank,” very vulgar. Yeah. And Piers, that’s what he does. He invites people on. It’s kind of like a politicized version of Jerry Springer, you know what I mean?  

Fowler: Yeah, yeah. 

Hanson: And he never tells you, he never tells your … Megan’s a wonderful person that books for me, and he never tells her what I’m going to do. 

He said he was going to … This was the first time after the book was published, so I thought we were gonna discuss the book. But it had nothing to do with the book. He just mentioned it one time, and then it was lucha libre, and he got …  

So, when you go on there, I’m not an extremist, but he thinks that if you get a Chinese communist apologist or an American professor living in the UAE who hates Israel, or you get a commie socialist person who will scream and yell, then I’m supposed to what? 

Refute? You can’t talk to them because they’re complete ideologues. No. So it’s not… You think you go on there for the benefit of our listeners and us who are on the conservative side to try to get out in the public domain that these people are completely bogus, erroneous. But because it’s bloodsport for these TV shows— 

I don’t want them to be on any one side. I would just like them to say, “Please do not interrupt the other speaker. Please no ad hominem attacks. Please get your facts straight about your own credentials versus the other person’s.” 

Fowler: If the guy’s being a jerk, turn off his microphone. 

Hanson: Yeah. 

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

I, along with more than 1,000 other Hispanic Americans, had the opportunity to champion the place that gave us freedom, opportunity, and a fair shot at the American dream alongside President Donald Trump on Wednesday.

The event, which commemorated the historic achievements of the Hispanic American community in the United States and praised our hard work, perseverance, wisdom, and dedication to preserving America as the greatest country to ever exist, highlighted our shift from what was once a loyal Democrat voting bloc to one that arguably carried the president and Republicans across the finish line in key states in 2024.

The president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited our experience fleeing socialism, communism, and left-wing politics, mixed with our strong belief in the Christian faith, the American dream, and the nuclear family, to explain why Hispanics cannot trust the Democratic Party.

“We love it [America] so much because we know what life is like in other countries,” Rubio stated. “We know how special this country is; it’s the place that gave us freedom, opportunity. It’s the place that gave our parents, our grandparents, and many of you the chance to do the most important thing any of us ever wants, and that is to leave our children better off than ourselves. We are proud to be Americans.”

Rubio couldn’t have said it better. As someone who left the horrors of communism myself and grew up believing that the socialist nightmare should never be repeated, nothing made me pledge allegiance to the Republican Party faster than seeing hormonal and confused upper-middle-class Americans who have never experienced anything other than capitalism themselves parade the communist dictator I fled as a child, Hugo Chávez.

Hispanic communications operative Vianca Rodriguez, who was present at the event, agreed and told the Daily Signal that Hispanics are “tired of being pandered to and balkanized, as if our heritage chains us to perpetual victimhood or dictates what we must believe politically.”

Rodriguez, who is from Puerto Rico and proudly worked on the 2024 Trump campaign, added that during the event, the White House rightfully championed Hispanics for “proudly” wanting to “continue to build America through blue-collar work and entrepreneurship while increasingly leading across government, business, media, corporate America, and countless other sectors.”

“We can preserve the culture that shaped us without allowing it to define our limits: We are Americans first, and our heritage is part of our story, not a ceiling on our potential,” she continued. “We are victors, not victims.”

The Republican National Committee’s Hispanic Outreach and Communications Director Jaime Florez, who was also at the event, told the Daily Signal that the Republican Party has a long history of working hand in hand with the Hispanic community and “delivering on the promises they make to us.”

Florez debunked a myth that Democrats and the legacy media love to push: that Hispanic Americans care only about immigration.

Trump touted policies such as the Working Families Tax Cuts, tax deductions, and the elimination of federal regulations, which have led to a historically larger American workforce and the triumph of Hispanic American communities.

On the topic of immigration, Trump emphasized how his strong border enforcement has made life safer for Hispanic American communities, which are no longer at the mercy of drug gangs and other serious criminal offenders.

Since he took office for the second time, crime is down 9.3%, murder has decreased by 18.1%, property crime has fallen by 12.4%, and fentanyl deaths have declined by 22% across the country.

The Supreme Court announced Thursday it will consider a case on the detention of illegal immigrants, as well as a case touching on religious liberty.

In the case of Rhoney v. Barbosa da Cunha, justices will decide whether federal law requires the detention of illegal aliens pending their removal proceedings.

The Trump administration targets illegal immigrants for removal even if they have lived in the United States for several years. The question has led to a circuit split, as two U.S. appeals courts sided with the administration in allowing detention without bond, while nine other appeals courts determined immigrants must have bond hearings, CBS News reported.

Previously, immigrants who lived in the United States for several years were eligible for a bond hearing on the basis that they were not a flight risk. In 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement altered the detention rules.

The court announced it would also hear the case of Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist, Inc. v. Frederic.

The question in the case is whether a local land-use regulation that prohibits a religious institution from building a religious structure on its own property constitutes a “substantial burden” on religious exercise under the substantial burden provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, on which lower courts have been divided since Congress passed the law in 2000.

Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist seek to build a shrine and surrounding plaza, walking path, and retaining wall on their grounds in Park Hills, Kentucky.

The church applied to the city for a permit in March 2021, since the neighborhood is zoned for single-family and two-family residential use, according to SCOTUSblog.

The Park Hills Board of Adjustment approved the permit, but residents who live near the church, Joel and Elizabeth Frederic, challenged that decision in state court. They asserted it would increase traffic on the road.

The church asserted that, if the board had denied the permit, the decision would violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The law prohibits government officials from imposing or implementing rules for land use that substantially interfere with religious practice absent a compelling reason.

Government officials are also prohibited from treating religious individuals or organizations less favorably than nonreligious individuals or organizations.

The case worked its way up to the Kentucky Supreme Court, which held that the local board exceeded its authority in approving the permit and that enforcing the zoning laws would not violate the federal religious protection law.

Justices are meeting this week in conference to decide what cases they will hear. The calendar is set for October, November, and December.

With midterms a little over a month away, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has issued a warning to election officials across the state about a topic that some say can interfere with elections.

Election betting is on the rise, not only in the Peach State, but in other states throughout the nation as well.

The Rise of Kalshi and Polymarket

Zac Peskowitz, a professor of political science at Emory University, told the Daily Signal that while there used to be “small-scale markets where you could bet on elections,” now there are bigger betting platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, and “they’ve been able to take this [on] at a much bigger scale.”

According to Peskowitz, because betting markets “offer event contracts on lots of non-political events,” this has led to a rise in popularity. “They’ve been able to offer those contracts in states where [gambling such as] sports gambling is illegal,” he said.

Mike Hassinger, public information coordinator for Raffensperger, also told the Daily Signal in an email that there has been a “recent increase in popularity of [these] so-called prediction markets.”

The Role of Ethical Integrity in Elections

Hassinger also asserted that, by giving his warning, “Secretary Raffensperger wanted to point out that election workers and officials need to hold themselves to the highest standards of professionalism and objectivity to maintain public trust in the integrity of Georgia’s election process.”

Some have noted concerns from election administrators who say that finances could play a role in stirring up distrust of elections if U.S. citizens believe they have the power to alter the outcome of an election.

Betting sites like Polymarket and Kalshi let individuals buy and sell contracts related to potential outcomes of upcoming events. Even though these platforms have been surging, John Tures, a professor of political science at LaGrange College, told the Daily Signal that “betting on outcomes is nothing new.”

“Never has it been so organized, accessible, and part of media discussions as we see now,” Tures said.

According to Tures, these platforms that allow betting on elections “can lead to an unrealistic assessment of the election.” One such example of this is the U.S. Senate race between Sen. Jon Ossoff and Rep. Mike Collins.

While Ossoff is “trending at 95% in Polymarket,” and this can lead people to “think he has a 95% [chance] of winning,” ultimately, “he doesn’t,” Tures said.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the Israel Democracy Institute, there are other concerns that arise with these betting platforms. Specifically, one concern centers around the notion that these platforms can hold the same level of authority as polls, while not being regulated and managed like polls.

Others have voiced concerns over the ethics of betting on elections, particularly when it comes to election officials. Mark Davis, president of Data Productions Inc., told the Daily Signal that “no election official should ever be placing wagers on elections they’re conducting. If nothing else that is an obvious conflict of interest.”

Peskowitz says that while he doesn’t think that “election betting markets themselves … pose a direct threat to the integrity of elections,” there are other areas for concern. This could look like a candidate not doing well in a race “compared to having a high probability of winning in a betting market.”

“There’s also the issue of supporters potentially trying to manipulate a prediction market by putting a lot of money on their preferred candidate,” Peskowitz said.

While experts may have different opinions on betting markets, Tures says that “these numbers, polls or betting … are having an impact on elections, as decisions are made before a vote is cast.”

“The numbers become a self-fulfilling prophecy. … Credibility matters everywhere, but it’s far more critical in politics where the winner could make significant policy decisions affecting so many lives,” Tures concluded.

Affordability, immigration, and, of course, plenty of Trump.

Here are the biggest moments from Wednesday night’s California gubernatorial debate.

No. 1: ‘Trump, Trump, Trump’

When asked about how he’d address affordability in the most expensive state in the country, Republican Steve Hilton brought up his plan to eliminate state income taxes on the first $150,000 Californians make and pledged to bring gas down to $3 a gallon.

Democrat Xavier Becerra pushed back, repeatedly tying Hilton’s proposals to President Donald Trump, calling them “Trump tax cuts.”

But Hilton fired back, accusing Becerra of using Trump to deflect from California’s problems.

“You’ve got no solutions whatsoever. So all you’ve got is to talk about federal politics. All you ever say is Trump, Trump, Trump.”

No. 2: Low Blows on Immigration and Becerra’s Troubled History

On the subject of immigration, former Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra described a strong dislike of federal policies affecting California, specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations.

“Steve thinks it’s perfect to let ICE mercenaries come on into California, and he welcomes it even though our state laws require that ICE follow federal immigration law.”

Taking it a step further, and more personally, Becerra brought Hilton’s own immigrant background into the exchange.

This opened the door for Hilton to hit back, citing Becerra’s troubled past as HHS secretary, where he faced scrutiny for overseeing a system that left more than 319,000 children unaccounted for.

“I cannot believe you’re standing there trying to make these arguments. When you were HHS secretary, you sent thousands of children directly into the clutches of child sex and labor traffickers.”

No. 3: Becerra’s Colleague Calls Him Not-So-Nice Names

And just when you thought the debate couldn’t get more interesting, Hilton suggested that despite being a career politician, Becerra might not be as qualified as he touts, bringing up what Becerra’s former Biden administration adviser, Susan Rice, reportedly called him.

“She described you as an ‘idiot.’ She called you ‘b——-.’”

The Ratepayer Protection Act, meant to protect consumers from costs of data centers, failed to reach the necessary 60 votes in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, despite near-unanimous support in the House. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who faces a special election in November.

The bill came close in a 57-43 vote, with Democrat Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, and Jon Ossoff, also of Georgia, voting in the bill’s favor.

While speaking on the Senate floor, Husted highlighted the technology that data centers provide and concerns about costs. “As our reliance on this technology grows, so does the demand for data centers across the country,” he said. “We have to make sure that the growth of these data centers does not mean higher electric bills for working families, for senior citizens or for small businesses.”

Husted’s bill had also failed on Sept. 17 when Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., objected to unanimous consent and offered his own legislation. That unanimous consent request was blocked by Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, as he pointed out that the Ratepayer Protection Act had already passed the House.

On Sept. 16, Husted’s bill had passed 417-3 in the House and enjoyed not only Democrat votes, but also Democrat co-sponsorship.

From the Senate floor, Husted pointed out that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., as well as Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and “every single member of the House Democratic leadership … all supported the bill in the House.”

Husted focused on the significance of such support.

“You can’t get any broader support than that, folks, from Washington, D.C., in this day and age,” Husted insisted. “The Ratepayer Protection Act is such a no-brainer that the most conservative and the most liberal representatives all agreed it was good policy,” he said from the Senate floor. “They all agree … it’s ready to go. All we have to do is take yes for an answer!”

“The Ratepayer Protection Act represents the most meaningful bipartisan step Congress can take to protect the American people from paying higher prices for electricity,” Husted later said. “It demonstrates that in Washington it’s still possible to work in a bipartisan way to address the problems most pressing to the American people, and I am proud to have led this effort in the United States Senate,” he added.

Toward the end of his remarks, Husted pointed out that he “would like for everybody in this chamber to take credit for lowering electricity prices and holding data centers accountable,” but also had a warning for Democrats that if they “block this bill, they will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do not care about affordability and that they will not do anything to take action to help.”

Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were singing a much different tune, which did not go unnoticed by Husted.

In addition to his posts on X, Husted spoke to Newsmax, offering Democrats tanked the bill “because they don’t want us to be successful in addressing the affordability issue.”

Although he reminded that Jeffries and most other Democrats voted for the bill in the House, Husted also lamented that “Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate want to stop us from getting the relief to the American ratepayer.”

“This just shows they’re not serious about the issue of affordability. We’re fighting for American consumers, and they’re blocking laws that literally could lower electric bills in this country,” he added.

Critics say they’re concerned the bill is voluntary, but the impact of denying Husted such a win months before his special election cannot be denied.

Husted faces former Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is seeking a comeback after losing to Moreno in 2024. Brown has sought to make Husted the “face of data centers” in ads.

Following the vote, Punchbowl News’ Laura Weiss reported on Husted’s remarks about a “Chuck Schumer play.”

“Now they own it. The Democrats are obstructionists on lowering electricity prices for American consumers,” Husted said.

The White House would have signed Husted’s bill, according to a Statement of Administration Policy, as touted by Husted’s office. The White House had also released a pledge calling on data centers to pay their own utility and infrastructure costs, which Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had signed, along with 22 other Republican governors in July. That same month, Husted introduced his bill.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to decide an issue that could be one of the most watched of the coming court term.

In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit lifted the injunction against a Louisiana law requiring a Ten Commandments display in public school classrooms. In April, the same court upheld a similar Ten Commandments law in Texas, holding that lower courts are no longer bound by the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham.

Opponents of placing the Ten Commandments in classrooms often invoke Stone as if it represents the end of the discussion. But it shouldn’t be. Stone was bad precedent the day it was decided, and the doctrine it rests on no longer exists.

Stone was what is called a summary reversal. The result was a short, unsigned opinion joined by five justices, with four objecting. Justice William Rehnquist noted that what the majority brushed past in rejecting the state’s secular purpose for posting the Ten Commandments in Kentucky schools was that they have had “a significant impact on the development of secular legal codes of the Western World.”

Rehnquist recognized that the Ten Commandments are a foundational moral, literary, and historical text. Their influence on Western legal traditions is widely acknowledged. The Commandments form the basis of much of our modern legal system.

Displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms is nothing more than a recognition of their historical and cultural importance. Documents and history are not banned in this country because they are religious or have religious content. No school would ban the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” because it is religious.

In fact, a complete education must include instruction on the religious and historical foundations of our country. Without that, students cannot understand the founding of our nation or its system of laws.

When the court decided Stone, it relied primarily on a legal test developed in a 1970s-era case, Lemon v. Kurtzman. But today Lemonis gone. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court said plainly that it “long ago abandoned Lemon and its endorsement test offshoot.” Instead, citing Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Court reminded us that the Establishment Clause must be interpreted with “reference to historical practices and understandings.”

Consequently, any interpretation of the establishment clause must consider Kennedy’s reliance on historical practices and understandings, which clearly supports the role of the Ten Commandments in the American education system.

“The New England Primer,” a catechetical reader saturated with Scripture (including the Ten Commandments), was the basic schoolbook of the founding generation and stayed in print into the 19th century. No serious person could believe that early Americans thought the establishment clause obliged public schools to strike “The New England Primer” from curricula.

Some argue that the 14th Amendment changed the paradigm by applying the establishment clause to the states. Despite that, religious instruction in public schools remained prominent even following the 14th Amendment’s ratification.

At the close of the Civil War, Pennsylvania built a system of soldiers’ orphan schools—state-funded institutions educating the children of men killed in the Union Army, which included “[d]aily religio[u]s exercises,” regular church attendance, Bible classes, and Sunday school. To that end, the prescribed course of study kept the “moral and religious training” of the orphans “constantly in view.”

If the generation that wrote and ratified the 14th Amendment understood it to drive Scripture out of government schools, no one told the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The strongest argument offered by those who seek to censor the Ten Commandments is that such censorship keeps the government from telling kids the Ten Commandments are important enough for display. That argument ignores the fact that active censorship sends a hostile message, not a neutral one. School groups touring Washington, D.C., see the same commandments inscribed in the very building in which the Supreme Court meets.

If the Supreme Court takes one of this year’s Ten Commandments cases, the honest course is to tell the truth—Stone did not survive its foundation’s destruction—and decide the question based on the history and tradition that America’s schools never prohibited religious lessons or imagery.

Choosing the path of censorship defies legal reasoning and denies history.

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

The office of Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano told the Daily Signal that it “produced an additional 2,800 pages of documents on Friday” in response to a subpoena from Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. Those records had been demanded by Sept. 25.

In a Sept. 16 letter, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the committee chairman, accused Descano of downplaying the number of cases in which his office “considered immigration consequences” when deciding whether and how to prosecute suspects.

Laura Birnbaum, Descano’s chief of staff, noted the most recent turnover of documents, and shared an earlier statement from his office with the Daily Signal:

“We are disappointed by the Committee’s needless escalation of this matter, part of a partisan siege on Fairfax County residents and their values that does nothing to improve public safety,” her statement said.

“For the last eight months, the Office has engaged in good faith with the House Judiciary Committee’s inquiries, providing over 1,000 pages of documents as well as testimony from Commonwealth’s Attorney Descano, who appeared voluntarily to answer the Committee’s questions. We will continue to respond to legitimate inquiries from the Committee. Despite this political sideshow, our office remains focused on keeping Fairfax County one of the safest large communities in the country.”

Descano testified before the committee on May 14. “Fairfax County is one of the safest large communities in the country,” he told lawmakers that day. “My office does not provide sanctuary or safe harbor to undocumented immigrants. In fact, we routinely prosecute immigrants who commit crimes and we will continue to do so.”

However, the lawmakers’ letter claimed that Descano hasn’t been completely forthcoming. “Although you have provided your office’s written policies, limited immigration-related communications, and certain court documents, you have failed to produce all documents and communications referring or relating to the office’s prosecution policies of non-U.S. citizens,” the Sept. 16 letter said.

“Steve Descano’s policies have not made Fairfax County more safe. Instead, they have needlessly allowed crime to proliferate and created more victims,” Heritage Foundation legal analyst Zack Smith told the Daily Signal. “If Descano’s office treated individuals differently based on their national origin, that’s a violation of federal civil rights laws, and those responsible should be held accountable.”

There have been nine homicides in Fairfax County so far this year. Half of the suspects charged in those cases were in the U.S. illegally.

Descano is in his second term as commonwealth’s attorney. He was elected as a Democrat in 2019 after winning 61% of the vote against Independent candidate Jonathan Fahey. He ran unopposed in 2023 and rang up 77% of the vote against only write-in candidates.

The House Judiciary Committee did not respond to phone calls and an email from the Daily Signal, so it is unclear whether Descano’s latest cache of documents was sufficient to fulfill its subpoena or what the next phase of the investigation might be.

He is currently raising money for a potential 2027 reelection bid.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include comment from Zack Smith of The Heritage Foundation.

President Donald Trump told the Daily Signal he had “hopefully fruitful” discussions with Chinese leader Xi Jinping about political prisoners in China, including American Min Zin and Jimmy Lai.

When asked by the Daily Signal if he discussed the release of political prisoners, Trump said, “I did.”

“We talked, and I think we had some very, very important discussions,” he said. “Hopefully fruitful discussions.”

Trump met with Xi Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C.

In June, Min Zin, an American husband and father of one, was arrested after landing in China for an academic conference. His wife, Sylvia, told the Daily Signal before the summit that she was hopeful Trump would secure her husband’s freedom.

“President Trump is the only one who can do it,” she said, “and we are praying and counting on him to bring my husband home.”

Jimmy Lai, a businessman and newspaper publisher jailed for publishing criticisms of Beijing, was first arrested in 2021.

Following a two-year trial and five-year detention, in 2025, China convicted him of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and publish seditious material.

Trump said he raised Lai’s imprisonment with Xi during the May state visit. After that visit, Trump was able to secure the release of Pastor Ezra Jin.

Legal migration from Muslim-majority countries has dropped significantly since President Donald Trump took office, and officials concerned about the spread of Islam in the United States told the Daily Signal that they welcome the news.

The newly reported decline comes after the president promised on the campaign trail to protect Americans from possible harm from loosely vetted Islamic radicals, who often rely on taxpayer-funded welfare when relocating to the United States.

Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith championed the president’s crackdown on mass migration from these nations, which include Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan.

“[The United States has] every right to scrutinize immigration from countries where governing systems and legal traditions conflict sharply with our constitutional order,” Beckwith told the Daily Signal.

“Sharia-based systems can impose rules concerning religion, speech, family law, and individual liberty that differ fundamentally from protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” he continued, calling it a “great move” that will protect America from the “Islamic strategy of domination through immigration overload known as Da’wah.”

Beckwith said America should instead deploy immigration tactics that place “America’s security and constitutional principles first.”

“We should know who is entering our country, conduct rigorous vetting, and ensure that those admitted are prepared to live peacefully under American law, not replace it with a competing system of government,” he said. “Protecting religious freedom includes protecting Muslims’ right to worship freely, while also insisting that the Constitution and American law remain supreme.”

In Congress, the two co-founders of the congressional Sharia-Free America Caucus told the Daily Signal that by limiting this legal migration, the president is putting a stop to what they described as “national suicide.”

“Our broken immigration system led the U.S. to import well over 2 million aliens from Muslim-majority countries after 9/11. That can only be described as national suicide,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told the Daily Signal.

Roy welcomed the news about recently declining migration, adding that Americans once again have a presidential administration that prioritizes the flow of harmful immigration, both legal and illegal.

“I am glad to see that the Trump administration appears to have reduced this abusive ‘legal’ immigration while stopping most of the illegal flow at our southern border,” Roy continued. “This must continue, along with mass deportations, and importantly, codification of these reforms, which I have led through multiple pieces of legislation.”

His colleague, Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, echoed his claim, thanking Trump for realizing that the United States is a country “worth defending” from any immigrant who is “hostile to our country, our people, and our values.”

Conservatives are pushing back against the Left’s effort to discipline lawyers for the clients they represent, in what is being called “barfare,” with threats of disbarment or other actions.

During a conference Wednesday near Capitol Hill on the topic, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., praised the effort to fight back.

“We need smart people who have been through the fire to lead and show the people on the other side of this they are going to try to intimidate you and show them that the only way out is through,” Schmitt said when asked during a question-and-answer session about the Oversight Project’s new law firm.

Schmitt noted that his “coming of age” was as Missouri attorney general, defending the state in litigation over the Biden administration’s COVID-19 rules and censorship.

“It turned out that there actually weren’t that many attorneys general at the time who understood the stakes and were willing to fight back with everything and suffer the consequences,” Schmitt said. He added, “We have to play offense.”

Later at the event, former assistant U.S. Attorney General Jeff Clark spoke.

Clark is being targeted for advocating for President Donald Trump during the disputed 2020 election outcome, but he noted there have been many more targets.

“This lawfare and barfare effort is about creating a one-party system. It is about totally destroying our competitive system, government, and our entire republic,” Clark, now the Oversight Project vice president of litigation, said at a conference Wednesday near Capitol Hill titled, “Barfare: Stopping Bar Discipline as Political Warfare.”

“That’s what’s at stake. If you do not defeat this barfare effort and the lawfare effort more broadly, then the United States is going to be taken over entirely.”

The Oversight Project, a watchdog group, launched a law firm specifically aimed at defending targets of lawfare, whether through weaponized government agencies, through politicized litigation, or by threatening to revoke law licenses.

“There’s a lot more that can be done, and we intend to hire lawyers more interested in public service who are interested in fighting for the cause,” Clark said.

He added, “If you cede all that territory to the Left, then when these politicized warfare cases get filed, there are no conservatives on these boards, and we have to fight back. We have to provide alternatives and remedies to that, and that’s what we’re going to do in the new Oversight Project law firm.”

The law firm expands the Oversight Project’s existing legal staff and combines it with its investigative team.

The group notes that the Left has long had the infrastructure to successfully turn political differences into legal disputes. The group says it will be a “public defender for the right.”

Other speakers noted the group of liberal nonprofits, many with overlapping staff and funders, that worked directly with federal and state prosecutors to launch a barrage of criminal and civil complaints.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the third-highest-ranking official at the Justice Department, noted state bar actions seem to target only one side.

“What if 600 days ago Kamala Harris became president? The same Biden DOJ would be allowed to keep doing what they were doing,” Woodward said during morning remarks at the event.

“State bars across the United States only investigate Republicans. Do you mean to tell me there were no controversies from the Merrick Garland Justice Department?” Woodward asked rhetorically.

Beyond what side is targeted, Woodward noted a larger principle: opposition to the targeting of lawyers for representing the “wrong” clients.

“Lawyers have to be free to represent unpopular cases,” Woodward said.

“John Adams represented the redcoats after the Boston Massacre. Our Constitution was founded on the belief of advocacy. Abraham Lincoln represented controversial clients as a lawyer.”

Ed Ashman survived the Vietnam War. He returned home and spent decades serving Orange County students as a teacher. One day, as he was walking in his own neighborhood, he was struck and killed by a 14-year-old boy riding an illegal electric motorcycle while doing a wheelie.

The boy’s mother had been warned multiple times by law enforcement about the illegal vehicle. She is now facing charges of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. This tragic death was entirely preventable.

This is not an isolated story from my hometown in Southern California. Just a month after Ashman’s death, a teenager in Garden Grove died after losing control of an e-motorcycle while riding at about 35 miles per hour. This September, a 14-year-old was killed after running a red traffic signal.

We are seeing different circumstances with the same outcome. Children operating powerful vehicles without proper supervision or training are paying with their lives.

These are not freak accidents but a repeated pattern. Orange County is a prime example of what happens when technology moves faster than parents, communities, and local institutions adapt. These vehicles are becoming more accessible to younger riders, while many adults still underestimate the risks.

Although I no longer live in Orange County, my family and many of my closest friends still do. They regularly describe teenagers weaving through intersections, ignoring traffic signals, and treating neighborhood streets as racetracks. People in my hometown worry that a preventable accident could change their lives forever.

The issue has become impossible to ignore. Residents can see it on neighborhood streets every day, and the data now confirms what they have been experiencing.

At Children’s Hospital of Orange County, pediatric e-bike injuries rose from seven cases in 2019 to 116 in 2024, with children ages 14 to 16 accounting for most of those injuries. According to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, injuries involving e-bikes and e-motorcycles have risen by 430% over four years in Southern California, and more than 100 deaths nationwide have now been linked to these vehicles.

Even more alarming, California’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System found that children aged 11 to 14 accounted for nearly 61.7% of e-motorcycle crashes, despite state law prohibiting anyone under 16 from operating them.

The problem is overwhelmingly concentrated among young riders who are not legally permitted to ride these vehicles in the first place. This is not a primary failure of regulation, as the state of California already has age restrictions, traffic laws, and operational requirements. The responsibility ultimately lies with the parents who chose to ignore them.

Adults give these vehicles to their kids, treating them as toys rather than machines capable of causing irreversible harm. They demand maturity, judgment, and training, yet many riders are years away from possessing those qualities.

When something goes wrong, people look first to schools, regulators, or lawmakers for a solution. Yet the primary responsibility has always belonged to parents.

The growing e-bike and e-motorcycle crisis exposes something larger: a breakdown in parental responsibility. Too many adults are willing to outsource supervision and discipline while expecting schools, police officers, and prosecutors to clean up the consequences.

Communities across the country are grappling with the reality that powerful and dangerous technology is being placed in the hands of young children. E-bikes may be the current example, but the underlying issue is much broader. Too many parents have come to treat supervision as optional while expecting institutions to absorb the problem when things go wrong.

No reasonable parent would hand a middle schooler the keys to a pickup truck and send him onto public roads unsupervised. Yet many are willing to give children e-motorcycles capable of reaching dangerous speeds, only to act surprised when tragedy follows. Technology may have changed, but parental responsibility has not.

The answer is not a new federal mandate from Washington, D.C., but rather ensuring that local law enforcement has the resources needed to enforce the laws already on the books. Parents who knowingly purchase illegal vehicles, ignore warning labels, or modify bikes to exceed legal speeds should be held accountable when their negligence causes harm.

Not all the challenges facing Orange County are the same as those in other communities, which is why states and local governments should retain the flexibility to develop solutions that fit their needs.

Orange County officials have begun to act on this issue. Earlier this year, the District Attorney’s Office launched a RIDE SAFELY unit dedicated to prosecuting people who knowingly hand their kids illegal, modified, or age-inappropriate vehicles. Parents are finally being held accountable, but the fact that this is required in the first place shows that many parents have been negligent of their duties.

Ed Ashman survived a war only to lose his life on a quiet street in his neighborhood. He deserved better than becoming a case study.

Orange County is showing the first steps to what accountability looks like. The question is whether other communities will learn from its example before similar accidents unfold in their own backyards.

E-bikes and e-motorcycles did not create the problem; they have exposed it. When parents hand powerful vehicles to children without accountability, tragedy should not surprise us. If we fail to address that reality, Orange County’s story will not remain isolated. It will become America’s.

One of the biggest government attacks on free press occurred under a presidential administration and the legacy media have collectively shrugged.

Why?

Because it was carried out by a Democrat administration and not President Donald Trump. It’s that simple.

On Tuesday, former special counsel Jack Smith—who served under former President Joe Biden—testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the tapping of communications by Republican senators as part of his investigation into the 2020 election.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in his opening statement at the hearing that not only did Smith target Republican senators, but that he also improperly seized journalists’ communications too.

“What I can say today is that Smith also obtained communications from members of the media, to include: ’60 Minutes,’ Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, LA Times, Mark Levin Show, Media Research Center, NBC, NPR, NY Magazine, Reuters, The Federalist, The Washington Post, Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal,” Grassley said.

That’s quite a list. And if these allegations are true, it’s an absolutely shameful example of mass media surveillance.

Some of those who were allegedly targeted were understandably infuriated by the revelation.

Mollie Hemingway, the editor-in-chief at The Federalist, wrote on X that she was “sickened” when she learned that Smith had seized her “journalistic communications.” She vowed that “no amount of censorship or spying will prevent [The Federalist] from continuing our fearless investigative journalism.”

Talk radio host Mark Levin, another target of Smith’s media shakedown, called it a “clear and massive 1st amendment breach by a federal prosecutor.”

This is a major scandal and should be treated as such. But you wouldn’t think that given the media coverage—really, the lack thereof—immediately following the hearing

You should expect the media to rally around the aggrieved and condemn this brazen attack on their profession and seeming violation of the First Amendment. It’s not like they’ve hesitated to criticize a presidential administration on these grounds before.

After all, we’ve just gone through an extensive media cycle in which most legacy press outlets blasted Trump for his decision to ban several outlets from the White House.

Just do a quick internet search on Trump’s “attack on the free press” and you will find an almost endless string of articles about how the president is practically ending the First Amendment in America by limiting CNN, Politico, and MS NOW’s access.

One can certainly question whether that was a prudent move by the administration. I tend to believe the president comes off pretty well in his exchanges with the hostile press and he should let that continue.

But restricting access to privileged White House news coverage is a far cry from unleashing a quasi-legal executive branch special counsel to outright seize the communications of journalists.

One would think that champions of free speech and free press would at least be similarly outraged by the allegations against Smith.

Nope. Instead, what we get is practically crickets, even from outlets that were allegedly targeted by government surveillance. Sure, there was some coverage of the Smith hearing in general, but the attack on the media was virtually ignored on the day it broke and received only minimal coverage the day after.

NewsBusters editor Curtis Houck noted that “CBS and NBC ignored the Jack Smith hearing on their Tuesday night newscasts.” And while they eventually covered the hearing on Wednesday they mostly “buried the substance” of it to cover the exchange between Smith and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.

John Solomon, founder of Just the News, wrote on X that after days of rage at CNN getting bounced from the White House, “The legacy media mostly yawned at Sen. Grassley’s revelations that Smith gathered information on news outlets.”

He gave a rundown of some top news headlines, which glided over the real scandal.

This is all quite reminiscent of what happened during the years of President Barack Obama. Obama was hardly a friend to the free press. His Justice Department secretly obtained telephone records belonging to The Associated Press, and his administration occasionally weaponized the government against journalists. The legacy media rarely uttered a peep about it other than a few sheepish declarations that this was kind of bad.

But they loved Obama just as they’ve hated Trump. And so, these assaults on the First Amendment were whisked away and quickly forgotten, even as Obama has reemerged as some kind of responsible champion of media independence.

Please. What a load of nonsense.

It appears that the legacy media will let this scandal pass by too with scarcely any interest in uncovering the depths of it or even scraping the surface.

It’s egregious, but not surprising.